The business of selling websites on Flippa.com is booming. For a long time, deals such as this were made in a more risky format such as on E-bay, and on other webmaster forums like Digital Point and Warrior Forums. Along comes Flippa with a more secure way of selling websites, and suddenly we have a new breed of web masters who have realized that they can do something with pre-built websites, and of course, this sets off a chain reaction, allowing anyone and everyone to create a website for the purpose of making profit.

Here at Melbourne SEO Services we’re always testing things out and I can tell you from my experience that there are a few ways to increase the probability of a sale being made. As an example, my first website sale resulted in a no show, so I sat back and thought everything over. What did I do wrong, and how could I do it better? After a little more testing and a few more successful sales here is what I came up with…

Use The Right Selling Language

If you haven’t had any direct sales experience, this can be a tricky one to get your head around at first, however, it only becomes easier by the day. In effect, when selling a website on Flippa, you want to pen out some information for that site, much in a similar way than you do when creating sales copy. Open ended questions work wonders, and inspire thought. Phrases such as “imagine what you could do with a 6 year old domain that has a PageRank of 1”, and so on and so forth.

Another vital point is to reduce clutter and potential draw backs. The easiest way to express this is by giving an example of two selling phrases:

“This website ranks extremely well in Google on page one, and ranks 3rd from the top.”

“This website ranks on page one of Google for its main keyword, and receives 1500 unique views per month from that keyword alone!”

If you examine the first sentence, it emphasizes a positive initially, however some people can be turned off by the fact that it ranks third from the top for its main keyword. In the second example, we give two positives, whilst still highlighting that it ranks on page one. Sometimes by giving a negative such as, “it ranks third” can leave a bad taste in the buyers mouth, and will leave them with no desire to read further into the sales piece to see what kind of traffic the site actually receives.

Create An Informative Video

Some people don’t like to read a 700 word sales pitch, some people would rather let a video roll. Whilst videos are easy to create, using the right series of words can be a difficult task in itself. For this part, I will give you an example of a sales video that I recently did for David Jenyns selling one of his domains:

In this video, you will notice that just about everything about this site is covered. It is a no garbage approach to a website sale, giving the information that buyers search for, in a direct manner. However, there are a few things that I did in a certain order here that in a lot of cases will almost always increase buyer interest.

You may notice that much in the same way as the sale piece, I have worded the pitch in a positive light. For example, after showing the global monthly search volume for the sites main keyword, I take the buyer into the traffic stats, then proceed to demonstrate how much traffic this site is actually receiving for free. This is quickly followed by a calculation of how much it would cost to purchase that kind of traffic from Adwords. In this light, it is all about following potential negatives with a very big positive, in this example, the site is only receiving a small portion of the total searches per months, however, the cost of the traffic that it actually receives would be over the $10,000 mark.

Another great example is when talking about the potential of the site, and how it can possibly be used by a new owner, when talking about how it could be used to create a Clickbank product, I immediately lead the viewer into what is included with the sale. In this case, I talked about the e-books and the research package that is included. By going through these details in this order specifically demonstrates that the buyer can literally purchase the site, create a Clickbank product out of the free books that come with this site, and as the Clickbank community is very active in promoting all products on that site, it would be extremely easy to monetize that site. Another very large bonus for the potential buyer!

Use Your Mailing List

If you have built up a strong mailing list over time, or even have a following on Twitter or any other social media outlet, always let them in in the deal. Especially if you are in the internet marketing game, or a recognized expert in SEO, your personality and skill set will always leave an imprint on this site. For example, David Jenyns being a well known and respected SEO expert, any site that he mentions to his followers will automatically have that personality attached to it. His followers will know that this site has had his method of SEO performed on it, and from the trust earned through his mailing list and social media dealings, he will automatically become a trusted seller.

Another method that has worked very well for me is to simply use Google and find other related competing websites. Find about ten competing websites both above and below yours, and send them a courtesy e-mail. A website that is ranked lower than yours may very well be happy to purchase a website that is ranked higher.

Lets not forget that when you are selling a website on Flippa, only those who visit the site will be able to find that website for sale. You never know who may be interested in your list if you don’t ask.

Throw In A Sweetener

In any form of internet marketing, offering something for free is always the way to go. In fact, in my old line of work (floor sales), it is a common belief that when you are at that moment of deciding to purchase a product (especially high ticket items), that you are as close to being clinically insane as possible, with your ability to make rational decisions being somewhat limited. This is evident in just about any store or supermarket that you visit, think about why there is such thing as impulse items, and why we (most of the time) have such a hard time saying no to purchasing that can of Red Bull that is conveniently sitting at the checkout as we are about to check out from the supermarket.

So, in this case, imagine what the impact would be if you threw something in for free. For example, at this sale on Flippa, David throws in a copy of The SEO Method for free. It is a basic reversal of the mentality behind the impulse item. If you leave a buyer happy at the checkout, they will always be more than willing to purchase again. In this case, not only is David tempting the potential buyer with something that is free, this is also a tool that will help the buyer in building backlinks, video marketing, and performing basic SEO to their newly purchased website.

To conclude this piece (its a long one, I know!), I will admit that there is a bit of science behind effective selling in absolutely any format, and this especially applies to websites that you are selling on Flippa, or anywhere else for that matter. However, a few basics is all that is needed to boost the possibility of selling a website. And I can promise that if you even so much as send the listing to your mailing list, your chances of selling that website will increase quite some.

There’s just a few of the basics when running a successful flippa auction. We also made another post you might find helpful titled “Website Selling Best Practice Video” and/or you can click here to see one of our recent auctions and copy that!