Internet Marketing

Building a Killer Member Site

by justin

Around two weeks ago, after over a year of blood sweat and coding, we finally launched Internet Tycoon, a community, an online learning resource and a set of tools for people with an interest in buying, selling and growing websites, apps and software.

This post is about the nuts and bolts of building a community, what tools we used and what marketing insights we discovered from our split tests.Even if you never intend to build a member site this should still be a useful resource on building an information based web business in general.

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Lessons in Fast Growth for Internet Businesses

by justin

If you had to start from scratch, what would you do if you wanted to be as profitable as possible in the shortest time?

I’ve always been fascinated by how some companies manage to grow so quickly with the same or sometimes less resources than we all probably have available to us. The idea behind this article is to take a look at some of the fastest growing companies that sold, see what they had in common, and show practically how we could replicate that success.

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$56K in 4 months from renovating Ecommerce sites

by justin

About three weeks ago I got an email from a friend in Holland about a seller on Flippa who was making in excess of $160K per year (pro rata), from what was a fairly simple, but under the radar strategy of buying average, often mediocre ecommerce sites from specific places, applying the same simple formula, then selling them less than six months later for up to 12x what they paid often without any significant increase in revenue or traffic.

If you’ve been finding it more difficult to find good undervalued sites at auctions with so many more people now bidding, hopefully this post will give you a little inspiration.

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And the Winner is…

by justin

Reasons for people selling their sites just get weirder and weirder.

The following are the strangest reasons for a seller selling their site, mostly taken from Flippa, Digital Point and a few unnamed Blackhat forums.

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Growing and Selling Forums – An Interview with Tyler Cruz

by justin

Forums and Community sites rarely make the list of top website sales, simply because they tend to be so difficult to get right. This is an interview with Tyler Cruz, owner of Merendi Networks Inc, which operate a portfolio of approximately 15 community driven sites.

As someone who has successfully bought, sold and grew forums systematically over the last few years, this interview has a special focus on community driven sites and contains some juicy pointers and insights for making them work.

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Achieving Quantum Growth, trading up and knowing when to sell

by justin

Have you noticed that some people seem to hit ‘gold’ far quicker off the starting block than others, irrelevant of their business, market or even personal situation?

This article looks at a practical way we can speed up the process of accumulating wealth in what we do. The idea is simple and based on the theory of leverage. A site that earns $1,000 per day, doesn’t require 1,000x more work than one that generates $1 per day, so our focus should be to maximize our time investment by putting it into a project that gives us the highest return, and we can get this project through ‘trading up’.

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20 hacks to increase the value of your online website properties

by justin

This is a guide listing 20 practical things you should be doing to increase the long and short term value of the website(s) you own. Every item in this list can be outsourced, tracked and provides a direct return on investment.

Some of these techniques focus on increasing traffic, whilst others focus on improving conversion or adding revenue sources but ultimately, all will result in more cash, whilst you own the site and when you come to sell it.

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Flippin Rubbish, Ed Dale and Guru Responsibility

by justin

Rubbish - Apparently it too will sell on Flippa

I came a post today from “the Challenge 2010″ which if I’ve read it correctly, advocates selling junk sites that you know are a complete non starter on Flippa. Is this wrong, or am I just being over-sensitive?

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Building a new Marketplace – Part 2 of 4 – Marketing and Critical Mass

by justin

In part two of this series, I discuss the strategy behind marketing a new marketplace and aiming to acheive critical mass.

I also profile the six different customer types of people who typically buy and sell websites online, and explain the numbers that show 90% of Flippa’s revenue comes from just 20% of its listings.

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Building a new Marketplace – Part 1 of 4

by justin

This series covers in some depth exactly what it would take to build a rival ‘Websites for Sale’ marketplace similar to Flippa or Website Broker and address the strategy beyond simply building and promoting the site.

I know the majority reading this blog have no intention of ever competing with Flippa, but I hope it’s interesting reading for you, and gives a good round up of using strategy to compete in a crowded segment.

In part one, we look at the main two models and the policies you would need to adopt to ensure smooth operation.

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Ideas worth Borrowing 15th June 2010

by justin

Occasionally a concept or site comes up that we think is worth looking into as it can provide valuable ideas for your next site. We examine the idea behind the site and show you how you could profit with something similar. This week I’ll look online marketplaces and casecompete.com.

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Using Facebook to add value to your next Website Sale

by cherilyn

It is no secret that Facebook is a must-have component to your social media strategy but also a great way to easily add value to a new project that you intend to sell. Facebook allows you to find, reach and communicate with new and existing visitors to your site, regardless of the niche you’re in.

All this equates to value and when selling your website, value = $s! In our first post in this social media mini series, we’ll take you through the basics behind creating a presence and engaging with your visitors.

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Google’s Gift to Affiliate Marketers and Site Traders

by admin

Earlier this year we were fortunate enough to preview Google’s forthcoming Pay Per Click lead capture initiative. In practice, it’s an IM’s dream – In reality, we were more than a little disappointed…

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