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I remember my first website sale. I made $13,000 Australian dollars selling a website that I had built from scratch myself. That sale was a big windfall for me and a moment I won’t forget because it was the first time I saw the real potential of online property investment.

Since that sale I’ve gone on to sell more than $150,000 USD in websites. Some of the sites I built myself, investing my own time and sometimes money, while others I have purchased and then sold for a profit at a later date.

I’ve never lost money on a website investment, although I have bought some sites that were not big money spinners - I got out with pretty much the same as I went in with. When profits are made though, the worst I have done is double my money.

Long Term Investing?

On the Internet you might call what I do long term investing since most of the sites I bought were sold no earlier than 18 months time. The websites I built myself take as long as five years to reach the point of sale, although I could have sold earlier for less or held on longer for more.

The best return on investment from a flip (a site bought and later sold) was 1,000% - 10 times the money I put in. It took a little over two years to do that. Another trade was a set of sites I purchased 18 months prior that brought in a little over double my initial investment.

In the offline world, returns like that in 18 and 24 months would be considered exceptional and certainly not standard. If a share portfolio or investment in physical property returns 20% a year you are doing well.

The world of the web is different. Everything is changing fast, yet with so many websites and so many people online, the size and potential of the market is tremendous. There are bargains out there all the time and as long as you don’t screw up what you purchase, simply allowing a site to grow organically can result in significant profits, if you are prepared to wait.

Flipping Part Time

I’ve never focused all my energy on buying and selling websites, which is why I haven’t done that many trades. Most of the time I work on whatever my main business projects are at the time, but I keep my eyes on some of the website trading forums to see if bargains come up.

When a site matches my criteria, I act fast with an offer, do some basic due diligence and if all things go well, make a deal. I miss out on more sites than I purchase because other people out-bid me, the site sells before I find it or due diligence convinces me to pass on a particular site.

As a result of buying websites purely as a side project, I’ve focused on a certain type of website and made sure I have people working with me who can help with the activities I don’t have the time to do. You definitely need to be careful if you want website flipping to be a part time job, it can quickly suck all your time, especially if you choose the wrong type of site.

Criteria for Part Time Website Flipping

Here’s some advice from what I have learned in the previous years flipping websites part time.

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I arrived in Vancouver last week and thankfully with my nose, ears and throat functioning as they should, I could enjoy all the delights that Vancouver offered - and wow, did it deliver!

Balancing rocks at the beach on Stanley Park

Vancouver is an amazing city and by far my favorite destination on this trip so far. As I demonstrated in a recent video, I rented an inner city apartment on coal harbor, complete with Internet, cable TV, full sized kitchen, great views and close access to everything I could want from Vancouver.

Organic Food Paradise

I’m not the kind of guy to spend money on many frivolous things. I don’t drink and I’m not really into clothes or cars or gadgets (I’ve had the same laptop for over three years now - a good old trusty Asus), however there are two areas I will spend good money on with no regret - food and shelter…err, accommodation.

In Australia I shop organic as much as I can. New organic shops open up regularly in Brisbane, but nothing compares to the full blown grocery store called Capers in Vancouver - devoted entirely to organic produce.

Okay, these aren’t organic but they look tasty

I spent the early part of my first day in Vancouver walking around Capers with wide eyes, shopping for food. This turned out to be the beginning of a trend and I have to say with no hesitation - Vancouver is the best city for good healthy and tasty food I’ve ever been to.

Maybe it’s because of where I was staying (in the West End of Vancouver - strangely enough my favorite suburb in Brisbane is West End too), but I had a lot of trouble finding many overweight people, quite the contrast to Brisbane. Vancouver, the land of healthy eating and healthy living it seems!

One guilty pleasure for me is chocolate and again, Vancouver spoiled me for choice. Australia just doesn’t do dessert the way North America does, which is a good and bad thing.

My favorite place for chocolate in Vancouver is a boutique shop called Mink, where I am presently sitting typing this article (Vancouver has to be one of the best cities for Wi-Fi net access - even laundromats have it!). I just finished consuming a rich dark chocolate Fondue, with cake and fruit pieces. They also have the most amazing rich dark drinking chocolate here that frankly, is better than sex - honestly!

Nature’s Glory

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StomperNet is reopening for members at the end of this month. As they always do, they announced the news by releasing a series of free videos.

If you have never seen a StomperNet video then you are missing out. The video work from Andy Jenkins is definitely the best you will see, at least for free, about Internet marketing. However, it’s not the presentation that makes these worth watching, it’s the content.

StomperNet has so much talent working for them that they always uncover strategies that no one else talks about, at least not in free content.

You can watch the latest one here -

Going Natural 3.0 Video - Part 1

The topic this time is Pay Per Click Marketing with Dan Thies, who offers advice that isn’t your typical PPC tactics. He goes through the whole process in the video and if you do any PPC marketing you want to pay attention to this.

Keywords With Commercial Intent

The part in the video about researching the commercial intent of keywords I found really fascinating and I had no idea there were research tools available for this.

Commercial intent is what all business owners want - to find people who have the intent to buy. Obviously if you are in business you want to sell, and while there’s a ton of traffic searching for your goods and services every day, a good chunk of that traffic doesn’t buy.

Finding the phrases that people type into search engines that result in a sale is absolutely gold since you then know the keywords that lead to the buyers, not the browsers.

There’s a lot more to it of course and I recommend you go watch the StomperNet video for more on this. Here’s the link again -

Going Natural 3.0 Video - Part 1

More Videos From StomperNet

There’s a few more videos to come from the StomperNet team, so make sure you enter your name and email address if you want notification when the next videos are released. The opt-in form is on the video page.

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If you are in or around Vancouver this Tuesday night I’m going to have a little informal gathering while I’m in town.

I haven’t cemented a location yet but it will be somewhere close to or in the city as that is where I am staying.

If you can make it around 7pm on Tuesday and want to meet me and some of the other EJ readers from Vancouver, please email supportATblogmastermind.com with the subject line “vancouver meetup” and I’ll email you the final details.

I hope to see you there!

How Much Rent Did I Pay For My Apartment In Vancouver?

A couple of people asked in my previous posts on traveling business how much I was paying to rent the apartments I stay in.

To give you an idea, I recorded a short video of inside the apartment I am renting presently in Vancouver. I recorded it using my standard Sony snapshot camera, which is not designed for video, so it blurs a bit briefly, but you get a good look inside my temporary home. If you watch to the end I tell you how much the apartment costs to rent.

The apartment was located through VRBO.com.

This second video is a bit silly. I was out exploring downtown Vancouver today and walked through Canada place down on the harbor. If you haven’t been to Vancouver before you wouldn’t know about the giant Seagulls they have here - they’re huge!

I shot this very short video of a seagull eating what I think might be Australia’s favorite spread (not my favorite though - too salty).

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I’m writing this from the apartment I’m renting in Vancouver this week. It’s a bit chilly here, but that’s okay, because I’m writing about Hawaii now and it was wonderfully warm there.

The throat infection/head cold I had in Fiji finally left mid-way through the week in Hawaii so I was able to venture out and do some proper tourist things and even get into the ocean for a swim.

Hawaii I like better than Fiji simply because it’s more built up and there’s more happening. I also like that it’s part of the USA so you get the ridiculous amount of choice when it comes to food. I stayed right near a grocery store and had a kitchenette in my apartment in Waikiki, so I was able to cook food at home and not eat out every single meal.

Hawaiian Luau

Those who follow my Twitter Feed know that I went to a Luau, which is a Hawaiian feast-party. On Twitter I called it a “Lua” initially, which unfortunately means potty, so it’s not a mistake you want to make.

I’ve been to a proper Luau once before, in Maui when I was a teenager traveling with family and I remembered it being authentic and a great experience. This time, the luau was fun, but it felt very much commercialized and less authentic.

One of the main reasons this Luau felt more like theme show was the voice over guy who narrated and sung on the stage - he sounded like he was from a television game-show like the price is right. If you watch this video I took of the unveiling of the traditional steam cooked pig, you can hear the voice over guy and you will see what I mean…

The actual show was entertaining and the food was passable (especially if you love 5 different kinds of meat) but this is definitely not the luau to go to if you want a truly authentic experience.

Aquarium and Bus Tour

I popped into the aquarium for a visit one afternoon, which was a cool experience. They have some truly amazing things under the sea - some of the animals look like aliens.

Some sea-aliens at the Hawaii Aquarium

I took a half day bus tour as well, which was extra exciting when our bus broke down in the middle of a two lane tunnel up a mountain. Ironically there were great views just at the entrance and exit of the tunnel, but we were stuck on the inside of the tunnel looking at concrete.

When we did finally emerge from the tunnel after a replacement bus was driven to us, we made it up the mountain to a lookout, which is right in the middle of a wind tunnel. The wind was mighty strong and can very quickly turn a good hair day into a bad one. Here’s a shot of my hair…

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