Menu
In early 2011 I purchased a website in the weight loss sector for $2,600.00. It’s great domain name, rich in keywords, simple and EMD – exact match domain – for a keyword getting some 8,100 searches per month with medium competition and a fairly decent CPC – cost per click on the Adsense network and lots of weight loss CPA – cost per action – offers.
When I purchased it, I was in the IM field for less than 6 months and still kinda green. The site was a simple 6 page website in HTML. I took the liberty of putting it on WordPress, changing out the design and adding content. Over the next 9 months I made the investment back and until the end of the 12 months made nearly $3,000 on it which covered the site, the new content, the hosting and there was still profit in there. The original multiple was 20 months when purchased, so I was well ahead of that.
Some of what I did was to build some links the wrong way, but that’s that way it was done back then. Of course the site got hit some 16 months after the purchase by the first black and white zoo released by Google. Again, I deserved it, it was not the right way to do it even if everyone was doing it. Remember I was still green, a newbie.
After the site got penalized I kind of let it slip in favor of other website I was building – clean websites with no link building at all, just good, useful content. That’s my modus operandi now.
The income dropped to only about a buck or so a day, but it stayed there at about $45 per month since then. I know it’s not much, but remember it was only a total of $2,600 plus $400 investment which was 100% returned already so anything from it now is pure profit and it’s risk free since I got my money back so no opportunity cost here as well.
My point here is that despite getting killed by the zoo, left barely alive, the site is still alive and breathing and making a 18% annualized return on the initial investment two years later now.
In addition it’s still a good domain name with value. With the current income I can easily sell it for $900.00. But I can put in the time 20-30 hours or so and turn this website around into a $100.00 site per day.
Where am I going with this?
That $2,600 could have been $26,000 or $260,000 or even $2,600,000 for that matter. The 18% return, risk free, on $2,600 is coffee money, but on the $260,000 site it starts to look really good.
This is why I’m finding investing in websites very appealing.
So what’s the total annualized return after 3 years of ownership? 65% and that’s with screwing things up.
Transforming A Vintage Apartment Into An Airbnb Condo
Rebuilding A Site Devoured By Bad Choices