Goal: Make as much money as possible. How much? I have no idea… just as much as possible. That’s all I know for now.

Why am I sharing this with you when I don’t even know what I’m doing?

Because this could be a fun little experiment and you could join in the fun, if you wanted to 🙂 All you have to do is sign up using the form below and I’ll send you monthly updates on how this whole blog flipping thing is going. Starting from setting up the blog, launching it, monetizing it, to finally selling it.

If you want to know a bit more about this project/experiment before signing up, then keep reading!

So, what is blog flipping?

The idea is that you either purchase a beat-up blog for cheap or start a brand new blog, with the intention of selling it for a profit. I have been reading a lot about it recently—one of those topics that suddenly become trendy, I suppose. In any case, I wanted to give it a try.

Here’s the most common blog-flipping scenario I keep reading about:

You buy a cheap blog, ideally under $500, from a site like Flippa, for example. Then you upgrade it. Make it prettier, add more content, optimize it for search engines so the site starts getting traffic.

Some bloggers do only that and sell it right away for a little bit of profit. Others spend more time and effort and actually monetize the site before selling. A site that makes money obviously sells for even more of a profit.

The other scenario is that you set up a site from scratch and then sell it. The underlying theory is the same: Create a website, make it pretty, add content, then sell. Or, for a higher profit, gain traffic and monetize it before selling.

How I plan on flipping a blog

I considered buying a blog from a site like Flippa and then fixing it up. But honestly, I enjoy the process of doing things from scratch, so I decided to do just that—build a blog from scratch, monetize it, and then sell it.

Here’s a tentative plan of action:

• Buy a domain and hosting
• Set up WordPress and design the site
• Add content
• Monetize
• Sell in 6-8 months.

Buy a domain and hosting

As you know, I recommend all new bloggers buy their domain from NameCheap and get their hosting (for self-hosted WordPress blogs) from SiteGround.

But, for this project, I needed the overhead to be as low as possible. In short, I decided to go for the cheapest hosting possible.

I have had awful experiences with Bluehost, GoDaddy, JustHost, and a few others, so I decided to try one I’ve never used before. And since NameCheap has its own hosting platform, I decided to give it a try. The fact that I could get a domain and 2-year hosting combo package for under 50-bucks definitely helped with the decision.

So, this sucked! LOL.

Don’t get me wrong, I love NameCheap for my domains. They have free domain privacy, which means third-party spam companies do not start sending me marketing emails as soon as I register a domain from them. But their hosting? Now that’s a whole different story. I guess you get what you pay for, huh!

Had it not been a site I was building with the intention of selling, I would be hella frustrated by this point. I had to contact support a few times already for a simple SSL integration, which, with SiteGround, happens automatically. Ugh!

Word of caution, folks. If you’re looking for a great hosting company for your main blog (not the one you’re planning on selling in a short few months) then please do yourself a favor—sign up for SiteGround hosting.

Set up WordPress and design the site

Once I got the SSL situation worked out, I was able to set up WordPress easily with a couple of clicks. Then I added a few plugins:

• Antispam Bee for comment moderation.
• Wordfence Security to protect against common attacks.
• Insert Headers and Footers by WPBeginner. I know I’ll need to add some third-party scripts from Google Analytics, Pinterest, etc., and this plugin will make that easy.
• Smush for image optimization. (I use Optimole for The Side Blogger, but its’ a paid plugin and I didn’t want to spend any money on plugins for the new blog.)
• Yoast SEO
• WP Fastest Cache to speed up site and enhance performance. (I use WP Rocket for The Side Blogger. But that too is a paid plugin.)
• Maintenance plugin by Webfactory Ltd. It’s showing a generic maintenance page now until I’m ready to launch the blog.

I’ll most likely add more plugins down the road as needed. But these are some of the essential plugins for any blogger setting up WordPress for the first time.

Now, initially, I had planned to design the blog with the same setup I have for The Side Blogger—Astra theme with Elementor pro. Since I already have an Elementor pro subscription, this would have meant no additional expenses.

However, designing a site from scratch is time-consuming, and time itself is money. So, I decided to purchase a pre-made WordPress template instead.

Back in my freelancer days, I used to recommend my clients get ready-made themes from Restored 316 or StudioPress, but I came across a Genesis child theme on Creative Market that I loved, so I purchased that instead. And then instantly regretted it.

The theme is beautiful but comes with zero documentation :/ So yeah, I have to figure out what’s what and it’s probably going to take some time. So much for wanting to save time by purchasing a template, huh!

Should have stuck to Restored 316 🙁 Oh well…

But it’s really pretty though…

At least, the theme was on the cheap side—only $49.

Blog content

That’s what I’m working on right now. Since I will need a lot of content in a short period of time, I considered two options:

• Pay someone to write them, or,
• Do it myself

Yeah, I’ll be doing it myself. Because despite how happy I am with the money I make from this blog, I don’t make enough to outsource some hundred or so blog posts.

But, I do have a Writesonic AI Writing Assistant subscription, so I plan on making use of it as much as possible.

Now, as far as the blog niche is concerned, I’ve decided to make it a review blog. I’ll review products that one can buy off of Amazon. Why? Because…

Monetization

That’s right. I plan to monetize the blog with Amazon Associate.

This was a calculated decision. One of the purposes of this blog-flipping experiment is to try doing just that—flip a blog for a profit. But the other purpose is to figure out how much money I can possibly make with the Amazon Associate program.

I have had an Amazon Associate account for a while, but I hardly do anything with it. With this new blog, I plan to test the potential of this program.

And that’s where I’m at. So, as I was saying earlier, I plan to document the whole thing via emails to only those who sign up using this form. Even if you’re already on my email list, you won’t be getting these updates unless you specifically sign up via the form below,

Any questions or comments so far? Let me know in the comments 🙂

Oh, and also, investment so far?

Domain & Hosting ($47) + WordPress theme ($49) = $96 ← This covers domain for one year, hosting for two years, and theme for life. Not too shabby, eh?