Ask Laura About Buying Sites on eBay
A Reader Buys Ebay Websites - Ask Laura (May 2006)
Dear Laura,
Good Morning! I’ve been reading through www.smartzville.com, and keep running into new ideas on new pages. And I’ve found out that I’ve made what may be a definate beginners mistake. Without doing enough research, and going on what I thought was a really good idea (since I loved it), I went out and plopped down $45 for a domain name and hosting account. Then I went back and started reading the sites of people like yourself, Brooks Owen (big in mail order), Jim Edwards, Michael Campbell, Joe Garris, and such and went “oh crap, bad move”.
So, after a day of “oh well”, I read some more, and I found a really good idea. And honestly this idea was so simple and so much of a zebra in a herd of milking cows that I just wondered why I didn’t think about it before. What’s the idea? Simple, find an already running site, grab it, and do a little remodling to make it better.
After doing more research on words and searches (like I should have done first), going on eBay was like going into a supermarket looking for just the right brand. Mind you, there are alot of junk sites, half baked ideas, and domains that you would never think of trying, on eBay. But, after two days and about four hours each day, I found two good brands. And what’s really sad, is I only paid about $48 for both, hosting and all. All set up, and one even comes with a product in hand.
The one with the product is …url removed…, and is not all the way transfered and up yet. It comes with a credit repair guide for $14.95 that you can download. The other site, …url removed…, is a site designed for downloadable scripts, ebooks, tools, and software. This site is up and running, but has no product yet. Both sites come with blog, newsletters, chat rooms, and multiple subdomains. Both sites can have individual sales letters within their own subdomains and the purchase button going to a Paypal account. Both sites can also have affiliate links and banner ads so I can get more income off the main pages.
Anyhow, I was thinking of putting some of your items on the second site, as well as content from Jim Edwards and some others. Eventually I will put my own ebooks (when they get written) up as well. I’m trying not to spend too much more since I’ve already gone $100 into this without one sale yet (and half of that was a misstep). And sadly, all I need is $900 a month to replace my current income. Do you know of any other good programs or affiliates to look into? Is there a way to research to find more? Are there any more costs that I need to be aware of?
Well, thanks for the help.
William
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Dear William:
By the way, it’s great to hear from you again!
My friend to be honest, I liked your first idea. It was original. I’m not sure where you’re going with it, but I envision it to be personable, interesting and has the potential to grow quite a following. Please don’t give up on it just yet - a lot of times a first inspiration (especially when you started with a love for it) is one of the best ideas ever!
And don’t bemoan spending $50 for start up. A few years ago we all had to pay $45 year just to register our domain names! And hosting used to be out of this world. I once worked for my hosting - exchanging hours in lieu of a hosting fee each month!
Now I can’t say much about your new credit site, because all I can see is a parked page, but I urge you to not buy any more sites off ebay without dropping me a line first. For instance some of those existing sites may be blacklisted, been used for spam in the past, and/or are cookie cutter sites. There are ways of checking first, before you bid.
A download site and a credit repair site may seem perfect at first blush, but it may be some work gaining the traffic and clientelle to make them lucrative. There’s just so much competition and only so many things to write about much less originality to set yourself apart.
For instance look at this http://www.digitalshelf .net/ and this http://www.lmphotonics .com/dlstore/index.php and this http://wizzworldwide .net/ and this http://eworldcenter .net/downloadstore and http://wubs-hub.tripod .com/ and http://www.marketandpromote .com
All copycats of the site you bought. There are many more. As I suspect, the same is true with credit repair.
I am not trying to burst your bubble, I’m just making sure you don’t buy more sites on ebay, and that you know that you must rewrite every bit of text on those new sites or you’ll never get any search engine traffic.
Google in particular does not like duplicate content or cookie cutter sites.
The only other expense I could alert you to is an autoresponder account for website subscriptions (once you start getting traffic you’ll want to start getting that traffic to subscribe so you can continue to keep them updated and promote products that will help them).
Drop me back a note if you want to talk more about any of this.
Laura
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Back and forth our conversation went. Eventually William decided (on his own) to rewrite the content on the cookie cutter sites he bought on ebay and continue on with his original idea - which was really quite good and I hope one day I can link to it to show you. He’s an original person with an original idea, just like you are, and that is where the potential to make money online lies!
William did write back again shortly after and said this:
“…and now the stupid news. The person who sold me the credit repair site still has yet to send me a copy of the site so that I can make changes. I cannot change the contact info nor the paypal info pages. I don’t even know what the downloadable product looks like due to I can’t seem to find it, but it’s for sale for $19.95. I should have seen this coming I guess. I’m sure this would make a good lesson for your readers. Thanks again, William”
Friends the big lesson of this story is be careful of what you buy on ebay websites. Although there are some smokin’ deals and some good sites available for just the right person to take to the next level, there are also some real duds, just selling a dream. Remember too that some of the auction sellers are as brilliant at copywriting as my good friend Joe Vitale! The only difference is that Joe serves up value with integrity to his customers…
Laura Childs
www.makemoneywithyourideas.com
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Parts of this correspondence have been edited to protect the identity of the email author. I will not publish last names, urls or email addresses (unless given express permission by the owner). Each letter has been stored on my private files however to supply to the authorites if need be. I urge you to follow a similar practice whenever you you publish, sell, or reference another online.
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