Don’t make this newbie mistake…

So I talked with a friend who was hoping to live the internet marketing dream, but instead found himself the owner of 20 websites that make no money. Does this sound like a familiar story?

He told me what he had done, and the mistakes were obvious to both of us. First, he started new websites when he could have used Prosperly principles to find and buy ones that would have saved him the years of ramp up time to start getting real traffic. Second, instead of spending his time and money as a beginner on a couple of sites, he bought 20!

Now I’m not saying that having and running 20 websites is impossible. I’m just saying that you should start with a couple, fix them and automate them, and once they are profitable then buy a couple of more. It would have been better for him to have focused his time and money on developing a couple of performing websites versus 20 do-nothing websites.

Think of it this way, if you were flipping real estate would you rather buy a couple of TLC-need properties and put your time, money, and work into building assets that you could rent or sell? Or buy 20 vacant lots and construct a shell of a property that would be way too much to manage?

I always tell those who ask, especially beginners, that it is better to simplify than to go with the shotgun approach to see what sticks. I understand that since you don’t know what will make money the temptation is to do a ton of websites and hope one does become successful.

In the beginning there is too much of a learning curve. Since there are 4 stages (Buy, Fix, Run, Sell) of the website flipping process you should only be acquiring new websites when you have moved the websites into the Run stage.

This means they are out of the Buy stage and Fix stage. Try to have only 1 or 2 in Buy and Fix stages at all times.

Keep this in mind when you are looking for a site. Don’t become the owner of vast digital wasteland. Build slowly and grow your internet empire the right way.

Adam White is a 20+ year entrepreneur having built and sold 18 internet businesses. He currently runs JustReachOut and SquidVision, a new type of landing page optimization software for SaaS companies, and does SaaS and SEO consulting at Prosperly.com. He lives in Tennessee with his wife and kids and in between SaaS businesses he writes and directs feature films.

7 comments On Don’t make this newbie mistake…

  • I agree that buying a website can greatly speed up the process. New sites take so much more time to get going now, especially with the new Google updates.

  • This is a really informative and helpful post. The internet has been doing me wonders for years now, financially speaking. I am very much happy that I was introduced to this whole new paradigm and that I was still able to use my knowledge on marketing that I have acquired from my years at the university. Now, I am into affiliate marketing and almost all I know about affiliate marketing, I learned here: [url omitted].

  • i know i can learn form you thanks

  • Yes I did the same thing when I decided to take the risk that comes with IM. I only got to 7 sites before I realized what I was doing and dumped them so I could focus on just 2. that’s when I finally got some results for my efforts. good article, reminded me of some other mistakes I made along the way to putting money in my pocket.

    thank You.

  • Richard Hartman

    Whom should one use to upload an e-book and require the purchaser to pay with a credit card before downloading it? Very basic, I know, but I can’t find this anywhere!

    The e-book is entitled “Help!” and contains information gathered from personal experience as a stroke survivor. I am on a mission to get this into as many stroke victims’ hands as possible; that’s why it’s only $5.99. There are about 800,000 strokes a year, so there are many to reach.

  • Richard, I would use e-junkie.com The payment will be processed through paypal but they will deliver the ebook automatically for you.

    You might want to test out the price of the book. You may end up selling more at a higher price.

  • what’s important we need to firstly focus to build a stable internet business income. if we have one website that can build $1000 constantly every month, the next step is much easier with outsourcing, the main thing that we need to build a proven effective money making system, then duplicate it by outsourcing. so your work is just heavy mass thinking…

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