Website flipping
Link: http://www.passionintopaychecks.com/website-investing-1-year-update/
This article gives a one-year update to 20-year-old Josh Shogren’s initial investment of $6,000 for a website. At the time of purchase, the website was currently generating revenue of $500 a month. With the use of “increased traffic, continuous ad optimization, and adding new sources of revenue”, the website is grossing an average of $947.22 in the last six months after Shogren’s purchase. Taking a look at each aspect that led to this growth, Shogren focused growing the number of visitors to the site by focusing on social media platform Pinterest and Facebook. Shogren used Pinterest by becoming an “expert” in his field. He would post quality pictures of the content he was offering on his site every day, along with “repining” other content (i.e. display other people’s good content on his Pinterest board). With Facebook, he took a less organic route and spread his website by using focused paid ads. On his actual website, he worked on positioning and adding ads in more effective places, methods that are described in his previous articles. Finally, he dabbled in creating his own online store on his website and selling the product that his website is centered on. All of this led to the website’s successful increase in revenue and visitors.
Shorgen’s one-year investment shows the application of the knowledge, we learned in our Web Search and Information Cascade unit. Shogren was able to increase his page rank by having his site linked in other places (one post a day on Pinterest would equal one link a day). The way he bought Facebook ads was probably similar to buying ad words on Google. In a previous article, Shorgen talked about researching what niche to get into. Without specifying, he told his readers that this was a specific niche. Therefore, the number of popular websites (i.e. competition) in this area will be fewer by definition. Shogren was effectively able to leverage himself into a good position and now by the rich-get-rich process, his site will continue to rise to popularity.