There are so many great website buying opportunities on the market at the moment. So, today I had a chat with Holly O’Conner from Flippa about one website in particular that is making a nice regular income, with very little input from the current owner.
Holly takes us through the website specifics on why this might make a good purchase for someone looking to buy a passive website, and also gives some great tips on what to look for when purchasing a website on Flippa.
Liz Raad: Welcome to today’s Website Showcase, and today we’re looking at a website that’s making over $30,000 a year, and this is a really interesting one. So Holly, what have you got for us today?
Holly: Hi Liz, today we’re going to take a look at a home interior content site called “Home Epiphany”.
And this is four years old, it’s based in the U.S, it’s just come up for sale on Flippa, and has a huge amount of opportunity. I think it’s a great site for anyone looking to buy an advertising or content business.
Liz: Okay, so we’ll go through a few of the details of it and have a look. So, you can see their location in the United States, and the annual revenue’s about $33,000. That comes out at about $2,700 a month. So how is that actually making that money?
Holly: So, how it’s making the money is through advertising. So, if you go on and you click through to the website, you’ll see that throughout the site there’s various blog articles all around homewares. So, things like, “The best throw to have for winter”. “The best floor lamp of 2018”, etc. Each article that you click into has got ads throughout and the site is generated through these.
Passive Website Selling On Flippa…
So, what’s interesting about this business is the seller says on the listing that he hasn’t done anything with the site since I think, January or June of 2018, which means that it’s literally just running on autopilot. It’s making money without him actually doing anything at the moment
Liz: That’s what we like!
Holly: Which is what we all want to hear. So, you can see throughout the site it’s got ads on it and there’s already quite a lot of older content on there because obviously the site is four years old. And a lot of that is still relevant because it’s things like, “A celebrity’s home”, “Celebrity bathrooms”, “Top mirrors for your hallway”, etc. that are still relevant, even though they’re older materials.
Liz: Yes, so that’s what we love to see. Content that is evergreen, so it’s going to be lasting. So, even a few years from now this content is still going to be relevant.
And that’s another thing we’re always looking for in a website, is that the income is going to continue and that the content is going to remain relevant. So that’s a big thumbs up.
Website Makes Money From Advertising and Affiliate Program
And in terms of the actual seller – this site makes money out of advertising, and also makes money out of the Amazon Affiliate program, is that right?
Holly: Yes, so on the listing if you scroll down, there’s different types of attachments that are down at the bottom which you can then click into to see. You’ve got “Amazon one” and “Amazon two”. This would generally mean that it’s highly likely that it’s through affiliate, therefore there was previous affiliates revenue. And if not, then it’s obviously something you can easily add it to or expand on. Especially if you were talking about topics such as, “Top floor lamps to have”, and showing various pictures of them, the visitor would click through to Amazon and then the owner takes a cut (affiliate commission) from that.
Liz: That’s the wonderful thing about Amazon. If you don’t know about Amazon Monetization and their Affiliate program – basically if someone clicks on a product listed on this website, and goes through to Amazon, on most products it’s cookied for twenty-four hours.
So, whatever they buy on Amazon for the next twenty-four hours (even if it’s not the actual product that was on here) you get paid a commission. So, that is a really nice, automated income.
Website Seller Profile…
And so, what’s your thoughts on the actual seller of this website?
Holly: So, Justin who’s selling this business, and it’s four years old. He has had seven previous transactions on Flippa and he has a seller rating of 100% positive feedback. So, an awesome guy, and really good to deal with. He will just make the whole process of inquiring about the business (if you’re interested in buying it) just really easy to deal with.
Liz: Yes and that’s always what we like to hear. And it is certainly great to hear that he’s got that 100% rating. So, fantastic! Anything else that you’d like to point out about this listing that caught your eye?
Website Assets – Major Social Media Presence
Holly: Well, one thing that is really interesting is that it’s got a huge social network following. On the listing it mentions that it’s got 420,000 followers on Facebook, which is huge. It’s almost half a million. So, this is a combination of likes, and then it also has a large Facebook community group of 20,000 members, and it also has followers on Pinterest.
So, it’s garnering this huge amount of interest through social media that’s already there. And, as we know, it’s becoming increasingly more difficult to gain real followers on social media accounts as we move forward. So, buying something that already has this traction and already has this audience – this is a market of engaged people that are interested. It’s a no-brainer.
Liz: Yes, fantastic. So if anyone wants to find out more about that listing, where should they go?
Holly: Yes, so the link for this website is: https://flippa.com/10132249-home-epiphany. You can go on Flippa to look and either contact the seller, or speak to him via the Flippa listing. Or you can e-mail support at Flippa and an account manager will reach out.
With this website business – it’s a good listing, well laid out, all the information that you’ll need is there. But again, any questions or queries outside, you can either contact the seller directly, or you can reach out to support at Flippa.
Liz: Excellent, and a reasonable asking price, too.
And if you would like to learn how to buy websites including how to do due diligence, valuation and renovations on websites like this, learn more about our website buy and renovate courses here.
