This week’s deals features a two-site package from Empire Flippers in the pet niche, and 2 sites listed on Flippa in the pest and gardening niches. An aged domain in the book niche from Odys marketplace is also reviewed.
For domains, we share findings on 4 aged SEO domains and 6 branded domains live at GoDaddy auctions.
Let’s get into each deal!
Aged Domain: NovelRocket.com
Summary
Niche: Books (Romance Novels)
Source: Odys Global (see listing here)
Age: 2011 (11 Years)
Listed Price: $3,570
AHREFS
Backlinks: Goodreads, Slash Film, University of Pennsylvania, Wheaton College, Kansas City Public Library, Wikipedia, and many more.
Site History
This site was previously a multi-author blog founded by a best-selling and award-winning author of novels. It focused on helping aspiring authors to write and publish novels. The founder also created Novel.Academy, which offers multiple courses to help people become published authors.
This site covered topics like advice on writing novels and interviews with published authors.
This domain also has a memorable name that does a good job of describing what the site is about.
Here’s what the site looked like:
Growth Blueprint
This site can be relaunched as a content site answering popular questions about romance novels, a very popular genre of books. There were 47 million romance book sales in the 12 months ending in March 2021. It is the second most popular fiction genre behind “general fiction”.
Listicles could work well and generate good traffic (e.g., “11 Best Romance Novels About Y”). One topic that generates a lot of traffic for some AdThrive sites is the order of books in a series (e.g., how to read the X books in order).
The site previously helped writers get their novels published so you could also publish how-to guides and tutorials about how to write and self-publish a romance novel.
Here’s what I would do:
- Recreate the home page to look similar to the previous version which was a standard blog displaying the latest posts.
- Publish original content on a similar topic for any URLs with high authority links (or 301 redirect these URLs to a relevant page).
- Create navigation links to the main topic categories including “romantic novels” and “novel writing”.
- Publish listicles like “best romance novels about X” and also articles on low competition topics in the niche.
- Publish tutorials and guides on how to write and publish romance novels.
Monetization could include a combination of display ads and Amazon affiliate links to books featured in listicles.
A potentially lucrative monetization source is affiliate offers for courses on writing and self-publishing novels. One example is Authority Pub Academy which offers commissions of up to $398 per affiliate sale.
The previous site had many author interviews. You could charge authors a fee to be interviewed to help them promote a new release.
2-Year Old Pet Site Making $6,124/mo on Empire Flippers
Summary
Niche: Pet
Source: Empire Flippers (see listing)
Profit: $5,995/mo from Mediavine display advertising (98%) and Amazon Affiliate (2%)
Asking Price: $263,796 at a 44X multiple using a 12-month average
AHREFS
Growth Blueprint
Highlights
- 2 sites provide additional safety and diversification – Site #1 brings in ~85% of revenue while Site #2 brings in ~15%
- Site #1 – traffic goes to a diverse set of pages – top 3 pages make up 12% of site’s traffic
- Site #2 – top 3 pages make up 38% of site’s traffic – very normal for a site that size
- Brandable domains allow both sites to be expanded into this large pet niche
- Site #1 has decent EAT
- 1200 combined content pages to optimize & prune
- 90% of content written by seller
Setbacks
- Site #2’s EAT is weak and should be improved
- Site #2’s traffic decreased due to the May Google Update
Easy Wins
- Collect emails to increase traffic and better diversify traffic sources
- Remove old pages that get 0 traffic to improve crawlability
Takeaway
This 2-site content business in the pet niche is certainly one to consider – especially for someone looking for a medium-long term hold. This is because the sites don’t have any big quick wins, but are well positioned to see big growth in as short as 1 year.
We’ve identified 2 quick wins. The first is to collect emails on both sites. As they both make the majority of their income through display advertising collecting emails won’t make a huge difference in revenue for a while, but can serve to add a traffic source and build up a moat around the business. The second is to prune content, which is to remove old pages that get no traffic, which can improve the crawlability of the site and lead to higher rankings and traffic for the remaining pages.
One thing we like about the two sites is the amount of content they have with about 1200 combined articles. Site #1 has about 900 and site #2 has about 300. The number of articles not only gives the 2 sites great topical relevance but will give the new owner a tremendous opportunity to make improvements – website pruning, optimizing content, increasing interlinking, and more.
We don’t see any real risks with Site #1, but with Site #2 there are a few. First, is that Site #2’s EAT should be improved as the sites could be in a YMYL niche – fortunately, this can be done in just a few hours. The second risk is that Site #2 was affected by the May 2022 Google algorithm update. This is a minor risk and could be an indication that the site could be sensitive to future algorithm updates.
Flippa Site: Unicaplants.com
Summary
Niche: Gardening
Source: Flippa (see listing here)
Revenue: $217/mo from Ezoic, Etsy, and E-book sales
AHREFS
Due Diligence Dashboard
Growth Blueprint
Highlights
- Brandable domain in an evergreen niche
- Diversified traffic to top pages (all less than 15%)
- 3 different income sources
- Content written by original owner/seller, images are all uniquely taken
- Established and real social profiles
Setbacks
- Slight decline in traffic
- Niche is seasonal with warmer month peaks
Easy Wins
- Insert Amazon affiliate links to guides
- Insert call-to-action product boxes and comparison tables pointing to Amazon
- Increase page speed by cleaning up theme & plugins, adding a CDN, and using a fast server host
Takeaway
This gardening content website is one to consider by all types of operators – from first-time investors to the more experienced. The business has primarily focused on content generation to cover a large number of topics as opposed to focusing on link building.
There are a number of instant wins. First, a new operator will want to start putting in Amazon affiliate links in articles that get guides. These guides already mention products so it is easy to add Amazon affiliate links. Experienced operators can make more clear CTAs to products to drive even more revenue.
Another quick win is to increase the speed of the site. The site is extremely slow which hurts user metrics and has likely led to a decline in rankings over time. Fixing up the speed (better hosting, implementing Cloudflare CDN, adding caching, decreasing # of Ads) can increase rankings and lead to more revenue in both the short and long term.
After these instant wins continuing a content-heavy approach and investing in backlinks could help the site really grow. A great way to better monetize these visitors is to start collecting emails to set up a funnel to sell the included e-book.
The site certainly has potential, but it’s not perfect. There has been some decline in traffic, but we believe this can be reversed if a new operator can publish content and fix the site speed issues. Some of the traffic declines is also due to seasonality.
🚀 Other Sites For Sale
Here are a few sites that are listed on Flippa. I have not done a detailed analysis on these. Do your own due diligence!
- GetRidOfAllThings.com: 3-year-old pest niche site making $448/mo on average from Mediavine. Current traffic levels would not qualify the site to be accepted into Mediavine for a new owner. Do your due diligence.
🚀 4 SEO Domains & 6 Brandable Domains
My team and I sifted through the marketplaces and found 4 aged SEO domains with quality backlinks and 6 branded domains that are live at auction.
4 SEO Domains
Four SEO domains this week currently bidding from $45 to $1,025 at the time of writing.
- BaseballRace.com: Started in 2005, the site allowed you to watch any pennant race since 1901 as an animated race. It has a DR of 26 and ranks for 4,155 keywords in the top 100 positions. Backlinks from Wikipedia, Salon, ChicagoTribune and ESPN.com.
- TechSalsa.com: A tech info site started in 2008. It has a DR of 12 and ranks for 1,285 KWs with backlinks from Themeforest, Slashdot and MacRumors.com.
- KidsRelaxation.com: Started in late 2008, it was a site that provided advice and resources on how to help kids relax. It has a DR of 34, ranking for 940 KWs with authority backlinks from WashingtonPost, HuffPost and Medium.com.
- RenewableEnergyAccess.com: A green energy information and jobs site starting in 2005 with a DR of 45. Not ranking for any keywords but has backlinks from Wikipedia, NBCNews, Wired and CA.gov.
6 Brandable Domains
Six brandable domain names this week, bidding from $155 to $3,251 at the time of writing.
Additional Resources
If you are interested in any of the deals this week, go through the specific platforms and contact the sellers. Make sure to perform detailed research and due diligence when acquiring any domains or websites.
Here are resources you should read up on:
