Today’s Authority Business Blueprints features sites from Flippa in the video games niche, Motion Invest in the auto niche, and an aged domain from ODYS Global in the electric vehicle niche.
For branded domains, we share data on 10 domains live at auction. We also share the AHREFs metrics for each domain.
Let’s get into the growth blueprints!
Blueprint #1: FaradayMotion.com
Domain Summary
Type: Aged Domain
Niche: Electric Vehicles, 3D Printing
Source: ODYS.Global (see listing here)
Age: 7 years old
Listed Price: $3,730
AHREFS
Backlinks: Links from Business Insider, Makezine, Crunch Base, 3D Printing Industry, Product Hunt, and many more.
Site History
This used to be an e-commerce brand that produced 3D Printable personal electric vehicles (PEVs). They went out of business.
Growth Blueprint
This aged domain is interesting as it’s the intersection of electric vehicles and 3D printing. For the sake of keeping with the topic, I would recommend building a site covering electric vehicles, both personal ones you can buy off the shelf (e.g., EV bikes, EV cars) to those you create yourself.
Here’s what I would do:
- The primiarly EVs they discussed were e-bikes. Thus, cover information and commercial content first on e-bikes. This includes how to buy one, where to buy one, how to create one, etc.
- Then, venture into other EVs like cars with informational content
- Sporadically, I would add in commercial buying guides (e.g., best EVs)
The easiest way to monetize would be via display advertisements and then affiliate marketing. For affiliate marketing, the price point of EVs is high and thus the commission payouts would be worthy. You can check for EV e-commerce brands on ShareASale and Commission Junction. If none, it would be good to strike up a private partnership with custom affiliate commissions.
Blueprint #2: TheGrumpyMechanic.com
Website Summary
Type: Existing Content Site
Niche: Cars
Source: Motion Invest
Revenue: $1,645/mo average over last 6-months from Amazon Associates and Ezoic
AHREFS
Due Diligence Dashboard
Growth Blueprint
Highlights
- Traffic is overall trending upwards over last 12-months of operations
- Excellent mix of informational content vs commercial
- Traffic is diversified across top pages (largest is 9% which is lower than recommended 15% limit)
Setbacks
- No high-quality backlinks (a few niche relevant ones that are low DR)
- Downtrend in traffic from August peak compared to last 30 days (down 17%)
Easy Wins
- Comparison tables on buying guide articles are too “bloated” (reduce to 3 products, remove pricing, change CTA button colors to orange/red)
- Add FAQs-based content to existing articles
- Improve website design (font sizes too small to read, homepage needs to be improved)
- Add related posts to end of articles to increase internal linking
- Recommend affiliate products within informational content
- Potentially upgrade to Ezoic Premium for a boost in EPMVs
Takeaway
The automotive niche has an excellent mix of information and commercial intent keywords, and excellent sub-niches for hobbyists to target specific content towards.
This specific site was started in September 2018 and was purchased by the current owner in March 2021. Since then, the site has seen excellent growth month over month. The site has 232 articles, which are primarily informational articles.
A few easy wins exist which include improving the website design leading to higher conversion rates, improving the comparison tables, and potentially upgrading to Ezoic premium.
Blueprint #3: Skins4Minecraft.com
Website Summary
Type: Existing Content Site
Niche: Video Games
Source: Flippa (see listing here)
Revenue: Unmonetized
AHREFS
Due Diligence Dashboard
Growth Blueprint
Highlights
- Significantly undermonetized site (uses CPMStar network but seller has no idea of earnings)
- Hobby niche with die-hard fans
- Low bounce rate at ~40%
- Traffic diversified across top pages
- Handful of backlinks from niche relevant forums
Setbacks
- Declining traffic month-over-month
- Minecraft skin copyright issues (seller stated they were “created by fans”; more due diligence needed)
- Built on a custom PHP site; not Wordpress
- A few low-quality blog comment backlinks that should be removed
Easy Wins
- Monetized with a high-paying display ad network like MediaVine, and if rejected, then Ezoic
- Add content related to Minecraft (tutorials, guides); currently no content exists
- Add display ads/offers for Minecraft servers (high paying affiliates)
Takeaway
The primary reason for me to cover this site in the weekly blueprint is because it is not monetized and has significant traffic. This site meets the “easy win” criteria. However, this is a distressed asset so it will take more effort.
The site does have some red flags that need further research, such as copyright, and the declining traffic.
In my opinion, the declining traffic is not because the site was penalized, but more because the site has not been updated. The seller has neglected the site. No content exists. No new skins have been added. Furthermore, the on-page SEO of the site is weak.
This could be a good acquisition if done at the right price.
🚀 10 Brandable Domains at Auction
My team and I sifted through the marketplaces and found 10 branded domains that are live at auction.
The top pick for a site build-out is Cognit.com. Cognit was a partnership between IBM Watson and startups in North Africa and the Middle East. A great name for the AI niche and some decent SEO backlinks. A quick US trademark search doesn’t turn up any active mark but definitely something to look out for.
No standout SEO pick for this week. Ideally, we look for a combination of high Domain Rating (DR) and a large number of Referring Domains (RDs). We had one promising SEO domain on the list, MoneySteam.com, with an active auction but after some background checking it still belongs to an active website and has an active US trademark.
Please watch out for situations like this with trademarks. Check out this guide where we wrote a guide on domain trademark research in collaboration with a trademark lawyer, Roman Vayner.
Here is the full list of branded domains:
| Link | End | Domain Rating | Ref. Domains | |
| Landt.com | GoDaddy | Oct 27 | 0 | 0 |
| Cognit.com | GoDaddy | Oct 27 | 9 | 31 |
| PickCoin.com | GoDaddy | Oct 28 | 10 | 1 |
| Spheric.com | GoDaddy | Oct 30 | 0.2 | 5 |
| FundFactory.com | GoDaddy | Oct 31 | 0 | 1 |
| Botler.com | GoDaddy | Oct 31 | 0 | 0 |
| LendNow.com | GoDaddy | Oct 31 | 0.1 | 5 |
| FoxBee.com | GoDaddy | Nov 1 | 8 | 37 |
| Sulli.com | GoDaddy | Nov 2 | 4.5 | 57 |
| OmniCloud.com | GoDaddy | Nov 2 | 0.8 | 8 |
🚀 The Website Flip Deals
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Wrap Up
These blueprints lay out the high-level strategies to accelerate your ROI after the acquisition. Of course, the real effort is putting all of this into practice.
For more resources, make sure to read the following guides:
