We Built & Sold A Website For Over $690,000 in Under 2 Years. Ask Us Anything!

[stackcash]

Would you mind elaborating a little bit more on what your IFTTT / automation network looked like? Which properties you used (or how many in total) and how much inter-sharing you did on average? IFTTT SEO looks cool, but I'm not too interested in buying anything.

LOL. So basically you don't want to spend money and want me to spell it out for you? Sorry... I value my time too!

It's real easy man. You're just setting up branded social properties and hooking them into IFTTT. Then, you interlink all social properties with all the other social properties. Kinda like the old link wheels we used to do... but not.

This is a good article on the topic: http://diggitymarketing.com/trust-tiering-stacking-da-to-increase-site-trust/

And...there's plenty more on Google.

 

[Nat]

LOL. So basically you don't want to spend money and want me to spell it out for you? Sorry... I value my time too!

Fuckkk sorry for sounding like a jackass, I gotta stop posting at 4am when I'm half asleep.

The course itself looked WSOish and I figured the essence of it could probably be summed up in a few sentences. Unless it was some deep next level shit which is mostly what I was curious about. I set up a small IFTTT net out of intuition a few months ago for indexing and thought I might tinker with it a bit.

So you aren't creating multiple IFTTT accounts with multiple non-branded accounts that are auto interlinking the branded layer?
Are you throwing in some RSS feeds posts of big name sites?

 

[stackcash]

Fuckkk sorry for sounding like a jackass, I gotta stop posting at 4am when I'm half asleep.

The course itself looked WSOish and I figured the essence of it could probably be summed up in a few sentences. Unless it was some deep next level shit which is mostly what I was curious about. I set up a small IFTTT net out of intuition a few months ago for indexing and thought I might tinker with it a bit.

So you aren't creating multiple IFTTT accounts with multiple non-branded accounts that are auto interlinking the branded layer?
Are you throwing in some RSS feeds posts of big name sites?

Hah. No problem man. I get it.

One of the members here is actually one of the creators of the course - @hvazquez07

The course itself is definitely not a WSO. There's upwards of 100 videos and they update it monthly.

They do teach you how to make several, tiered / interlinking networks that support your branded network. All we ever did was a single branded network. Probably about 50 properties or so, all interlinked with each other. Then, we syndicated all our content to them using IFTTT.

 

[Samwise89]

Has this sale made the roll out of the next sites any faster or easier? Has it accelerated existing sites?

What do you think the tipping point is on a sale of one site is where you could next roll out 2 sites in the same time range or even faster? At what point does the money take over and move you into the new problem of being able to scale fast enough?

 

[stackcash]

Has this sale made the roll out of the next sites any faster or easier? Has it accelerated existing sites?

What do you think the tipping point is on a sale of one site is where you could next roll out 2 sites in the same time range or even faster? At what point does the money take over and move you into the new problem of being able to scale fast enough?

Sorry. Just saw this.

It's accelerated the other sites in regards to being able to add more content and links faster, yes. I'm not sure how else the sale of one site could accelerate another, unrelated site.

If you're doing proper research when going into a new site, you'll know exactly how much content and links you'll need to rank on the first pages....so I suppose the tipping point would be when you get enough money from a sale to purchase the amount of content / links from vendors.

 

[Nat]

@stackcash so if your site's top daily visitors was around 300 -- when you guys were doing keyword research, the search terms you were fishing out were... ~50-300 searches per month?

 

[stackcash]

@stackcash so if your site's top daily visitors was around 300 -- when you guys were doing keyword research, the search terms you were fishing out were... ~50-300 searches per month?

Nope. We ranked for big terms. You need to remember that search volume is only an estimate. I've rarely ever received the exact traffic level I've expected based on search volume numbers. It's either wildly lower or wildly higher than expected.

I'm looking at the site now and it's ranking #3 for the brand name of one of the things we promoted...and search volume for that is over 100k. We definitely didn't rank anywhere near there when we sold, and it appears the new buyers have only added 5-10 links per month since.

It's also ranking top 5 for at least 10 new keywords that has over 1500 search volume. At least 3 of them have over 7500.

This site is still growing. I bet the new owners are sitting on a nice premium compared to what they paid.

 

[animalstyle]

so seeing that last post and how with low effort, the site is growing so well, why did you guys choose to sell when you did?

 

[stackcash]

so seeing that last post and how with low effort, the site is growing so well, why did you guys choose to sell when you did?

That's been answered a few times here and in the case study already. We had planned to sell after only a year and ended up selling after two years. It was the plan all along.

 

[Golan]

Hi Vin, thank you very much for the profound course and this AMA, and congrats!

My question is... You mention there that buyers would want to see your Bank statements. How do you show there only an info that concerns this particular site? Or does this mean one should register new separate company / legal entity for each big project like this, to make the whole sale process easier?

 

[stackcash]

Hi Vin, thank you very much for the profound course and this AMA, and congrats!

My question is... You mention there that buyers would want to see your Bank statements. How do you show there only an info that concerns this particular site? Or does this mean one should register new separate company / legal entity for each big project like this, to make the whole sale process easier?

This was an annoying problem for me to deal with. The optimal way to go about it would be to have a separate legal entity with it's own P&L statement for the website.

I had a bunch of websites under one entity, so I ended up having to redact basically everything on my bank statement other than my address and the line items they needed. So...I had to go through 12 months of statements and black out basically the entire page of each statement. Let me tell ya...that was fun!

 

[stackcash]

Update:

It's been 6 months since we sold the property and the site is still going strong for the new buyers.

Just under 75% of the keywords I'm tracking for the site are in the top 10 spots, respectively. The new buyers have done (very) minimal content updates and link building since they've purchased the site. Some keywords have pulled back from the top 3 spots, but nothing has left the top 10.

The site survived both Penguin 4.0 and Fred. It jumped around a little bit, but mostly settled back in to the same rankings.

All in all. This stuff still works.

 

[Rosca]

I have a question about the website design aspect of your site.

Did you hire a professional designer to do the work or handled it solo? And when it came to the design, how did you tailor it to fit the needs of the market you were targeting?

 

[stackcash]

I have a question about the website design aspect of your site.

Did you hire a professional designer to do the work or handled it solo? And when it came to the design, how did you tailor it to fit the needs of the market you were targeting?

I'm a firm believer that the sites currently ranking top 3 for a given keyword are there for good reason. So, we used those sites as inspiration for our design. Mainly for color scheme, homepage layout, and sidebar layouts.

We had a graphic designer create a PSD design of the site, and then we sent it to a coder to take the PSD design and turn it into a functional wordpress theme.

 

[dooogen]

I'm curious what you can tell us about the person(s) who bought the site. Were they already in the SEO/PPC/affiliate world? Just a rich dude looking for a web property? Curious about the kind of person who is wealthy enough + confident enough to throw $450k+ at a 2 year old website.

Thanks!

 

[stackcash]

I'm curious what you can tell us about the person(s) who bought the site. Were they already in the SEO/PPC/affiliate world? Just a rich dude looking for a web property? Curious about the kind of person who is wealthy enough + confident enough to throw $450k+ at a 2 year old website.

Thanks!

Thanks for the question @dooogen

We're not at liberty to reveal any information about the buyers, but I can tell you that they purchase these types of websites as an investment vehicle.

It's not so much about being confident at all... we went through a pretty rigorous due diligence period where the future buyer took their time analyzing every last metric that they could think of at the time. No one was throwing money around - this was a carefully calculated decision on their part.

From what I understand, at the 6-figure sales level, most of the buyers are people that own large portfolios of revenue-generating websites, competitors that want to acquire your business, or investors who are diversifying their portfolio.

 

[doublethinker]

Isn't there a conflict of interest? How are your clients assured that the content you create for them is prioritized if their website might be in a niche that you have a business in?

 

[stackcash]

Isn't there a conflict of interest? How are your clients assured that the content you create for them is prioritized if their website might be in a niche that you have a business in?

No. There is no conflict of interest. The majority of our clients aren't even niche site builders.

Regardless, we require all clients to submit a briefing for their projects that explains every requirement that they have for the content. If we don't meet those requirements the client gets a refund or a rewrite. So, clients are assured to get exactly what they want.

Additionally, I don't personally write the content. Our editors and team of writers are the ones carrying out the tasks....and they have zero idea what niches I am in.

 

[doublethinker]

No. There is no conflict of interest. The majority of our clients aren't even niche site builders.

Regardless, we require all clients to submit a briefing for their projects that explains every requirement that they have for the content. If we don't meet those requirements the client gets a refund or a rewrite. So, clients are assured to get exactly what they want.

Additionally, I don't personally write the content. Our editors and team of writers are the ones carrying out the tasks....and they have zero idea what niches I am in.

I hope you don't take this as an offense against your business. If anything, you are my first choice for a content partner.

1. Majority of your clients not being builders does not dispel conflict. You are promoting your services in a niche building forum. Has no one asked you about this since you are also in the business of building your own sites or is everyone fine and dandy save for me that doublethinks too much?

2. It's good to know and very reassuring that you stand behind the quality of your work.

3. Editors and writers do not have a vested interest in outperforming one article over the other. They serve your agenda whether as a proxy for a client or for your own.

What I mean to say is that you are potentially the conflict of interest here, since you are building your own sites and promoting your writing services to builders here at the same time, you would be privy to what they are doing. Even if I didn't reveal my site, I would be easy to trace since I use your content.

And even if you serve every client equally and earnestly, without malicious intent, conflict of interest can still passively happen, or maybe even in the future.

I wouldn't expect you or anybody in a similar position to disclose the niches you compete or sign some anti-compete, this is not Suits and I'm not so naive. Auditors have independent auditors to check themselves but even then books are still being cooked.

But I was hoping for more then just refuting conflict of interest. If some measures are in place, do let us know, I'm sure many builders would be more comfortable working with you, know this, including myself.

 

[stackcash]

I hope you don't take this as an offense against your business. If anything, you are my first choice for a content partner.

1. Majority of your clients not being builders does not dispel conflict. You are promoting your services in a niche building forum. Has no one asked you about this since you are also in the business of building your own sites or is everyone fine and dandy save for me that doublethinks too much?

2. It's good to know and very reassuring that you stand behind the quality of your work.

3. Editors and writers do not have a vested interest in outperforming one article over the other. They serve your agenda whether as a proxy for a client or for your own.

What I mean to say is that you are potentially the conflict of interest here, since you are building your own sites and promoting your writing services to builders here at the same time, you would be privy to what they are doing. Even if I didn't reveal my site, I would be easy to trace since I use your content.

And even if you serve every client equally and earnestly, without malicious intent, conflict of interest can still passively happen, or maybe even in the future.

I wouldn't expect you or anybody in a similar position to disclose the niches you compete or sign some anti-compete, this is not Suits and I'm not so naive. Auditors have independent auditors to check themselves but even then books are still being cooked.

But I was hoping for more then just refuting conflict of interest. If some measures are in place, do let us know, I'm sure many builders would be more comfortable working with you, know this, including myself.

No offense taken. I understand where you're coming from. In the future, please post these types of questions on our service thread, as this thread is for answering case study questions exclusively.

1. Never have been asked this in 6 years of doing business, honestly.
2. Thanks!
3. I see your point, but our staff is as far removed from SEO arbitrage as possible.

The point you're attempting to make isn't unique to content creation. Anyone that runs a fulfillment service, whether it's an SEO agency, link building service, content creation service, or otherwise... will see their clients' niches and will have the opportunity to enter those niches if they so please. It's something that's simply inherent to the industry; if you need to outsource - you will be exposing your niche.

I would suggest that, if you're paranoid about your niche being stolen, you hire and train your own team from the ground up. You'll still be exposed, but probably less-so than if you were to hire an agency for your outsourced needs.

We have, in fact, signed 1-year non-disclosures and non-competes in the past for certain niches. They were for six-figure contracts and we complied to comfort the client. They were also happy to pay a significant premium to hold us out of that niche for the year.

Other than that - our clients simply trust us. I've never really thought of this being a potential issue, but I think that the level of repeat business and positive feedback that we receive year-after-year kinda dispels any concern. I didn't spend half a decade building a company only to risk it all by participating in some shady business.

And, on a personal note.... it's not very difficult to find profitable niches. Niches are nearly infinite. I have 6 sites that are ranking and banking right now and have no interest in going into new niches. I'm just going to be scaling the existing properties like a wild man for the next few years!

 

[doublethinker]

The point you're attempting to make isn't unique to content creation. Anyone that runs a fulfillment service, whether it's an SEO agency, link building service, content creation service, or otherwise... will see their clients' niches and will have the opportunity to enter those niches if they so please. It's something that's simply inherent to the industry; if you need to outsource - you will be exposing your niche.

I would suggest that, if you're paranoid about your niche being stolen, you hire and train your own team from the ground up. You'll still be exposed, but probably less-so than if you were to hire an agency for your outsourced needs.

I completely agree, and it's also inherent in almost any business. But the players remain the same, the client has to raise the same concerns every time to understand the type of risk because they vary for every partner.

Down the line, everyone ought to be planning their own factory of sorts. It's just more effective and efficient to after a certain threshold. The only good exception I know of is Apple, who only until recently started owning its own factory in U.S for very, very limited products (iMac Pro). But until then, we play our roles as clients and agents.

Other than that - our clients simply trust us. I've never really thought of this being a potential issue, but I think that the level of repeat business and positive feedback that we receive year-after-year kinda dispels any concern. I didn't spend half a decade building a company only to risk it all by participating in some shady business.

That is probably true, and the reason I have you pegged as my first choice and it's because of the personality you've cultivated here that speaks of those attributes without you explicitly saying it. I just wanted absolute clarity.

Thanks for the amazing response.

 

[Ryuzaki]

This is like hiring a maid to vacuum your carpet but refusing to let her in the front door.

Service providers are too busy to copy everyone that passes in front of their face, and barely anyone is doing something so unique and special to make a provider drop their entire, already successful business to copy you in a race to the bottom while you have a head start. Once you get paranoid it can extend to everything until you don't feel you can use a rank tracker, accept a guest post, do outreach, hire anyone in-person or online, talk to your buddies about business, etc. And If exclusivity is the only thing you have going for you, then it's already game over.

Fear is the mind-killer.

 

[Calamari]

I can't say I have not had the same thought as you @doublethinker but if you don't want to deal with finding good writers on your own, stackcash is as plug and play as it gets.

I have a short list of people I trust to outsource to for the same reasons you mention. @stackcash is on that list.