The following is a guest post from Glen Allsopp from ViperChill.

I’ve been involved in buying and selling websites to the value of over $200,000 in the last few months on Flippa. I spend most of my time looking for “gems” to buy on the various online marketplaces and then spend the rest of my time trying to increase their revenue.

Finding websites for sale on Flippa

My other online time is spent blogging at ViperChill, where I write about internet marketing. Because I spent so much of my time buying sites on Flippa, I often write about my experiences and recommendations on the blog.

Surprisingly to me, every time I do this, I receive emails and comments from people saying that they feel totally overwhelmed by the service and simply “don’t know what to do.”

I decided to write this article for those people who are interested in buying a website but simply don’t know how to navigate Flippa or are looking for some concrete advice on what to look out for.

Have a Clear Focus on What It Is That You Want

If you open up the Flippa homepage on any day of the week you’ll find a variety of different websites. Clickbank-ready products, content sites, forums, blogs and physical product stores are just some of the site types you’ll find available for purchase. If you’ve just landed on the site and didn’t know there was so much variation between what’s out there, I can understand how you would feel overwhelmed.

And, as good as I think Flippa and the team that operate it are, there’s plenty of listings to be found where the listing information is just too good to be true. If you’re an inexperienced buyer, you could mistakenly think that there are some outstanding deals to be had without getting more information about what is for sale.

If you go to the site with a clear focus on what you want to buy, you’re less likely to be distracted by what is out there and less likely to be sucked in by the deals which make you feel extremely lucky to have found them.

I like to click on ‘buy websites’ as the first thing I do on the site and then site a price range in the search box to the left. I’m only interested in sites making at least $1,000 per month so I make sure I enter that into the relevant search of the form.

Browsing past listings which don’t meet this figure is simply a waste of time for me.

Have an idea of what you’re looking for – whether it’s site type or income range – and then narrow down your choices with the fields on the left.

Be Prepared to Ask the Right Questions

As stated, some listings appear far too good to be true. Because of this, it can be hard to see which ones are legitimate and which you shouldn’t waste your time on. I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t have a perfect success record with Flippa, having purchased a site or two which ended up being quite different to what I thought I had purchased.

In no order, here are some of the most common questions I ask sellers. Make sure you read the entire listing first to see that they haven’t been answered already:

  • Why are you selling the site?
  • How much time do you spend on it?
  • What is that time spent doing?
  • Will you sign a non-compete agreement?
  • Can you add me as an account on your Google Analytics? (where applicable)
  • Are you the original site owner?
  • Can I see income proof for the past X months?
  • Will you offer support for X weeks if I buy the site?

Of course you can tweak these to suit a specific deal or add to them if there’s other things you need to know about a site you wish to purchase.

Take Your Time

If I’m totally honest, the deals which didn’t work out very well for me were the ones which I rushed to close. Sites that I didn’t want to let slip into someone else’s hands – so I purchased quickly – sometimes did me more harm than good. Although you may also be anxious about losing a site to another buyer, it’s still worth taking the time to check everything you can thoroughly.

Surprisingly or not, there are great websites that pop up every single week if you do miss a site because you were careful not to get scammed and took your time while another member snapped it up.

In my opinion, it’s much better to regret missing out on a website then purchasing one. Especially if you’re spending a substantial amount of money.

Things to Watch Out For

Last but not least, I think an important thing for anyone who is looking to buy sites on Flippa can do is be aware of the things they should watch out for. If I had this list when I first started becoming active on Flippa – and sites like it – I would have saved myself a lot of time and money.

The first, and perhaps most obvious point I have to say here is that if a deal seems too good to be true then it probably is. Sites making a great amount of money for a long period of time rarely sell for less than 12 months revenue; especially if the owner is not putting much effort into it.

Ask yourself why someone would sell the site in this case rather than just sit on it and collect the money.

The second thing I recommend you look out for are the product / eBook sites that regularly appear in the listings. Their first few months’ finances tend to look great and the BIN price is sometimes less than a year’s estimated income. In this case, you mustn’t forget that these product sites have huge launches behind them so the first few months are always the most profitable.

Finally, something I quickly learned was to account for the money you’re going to need to spend to replace the work of the site owner, if you aren’t going to be doing things yourself. Expenses can look very low, which makes the site price look great, if the owner is doing all of the work involved.

Calculate how much that will cost you to outsource – if that’s what you want to do – before you work out whether you’re making a good buy or not. Besides that, enjoy the process and the journey of making money from the internet.

I hope this post helps you get the most out of one of my favorite websites and encourages those who are reluctant to try it out, see the site in a new light and give the service a go.

Glen Allsopp is a blogger who writes about viral marketing. If you build blogs you may enjoy his guide to wordpress seo.