Episode 28Apr 30, 2022· 23:34
Brandy Tanner Talks Blog Flipping and Freelancing
About this episode
In today's episode, I'm chatting with Brandy Tanner, aka Brandy Ellen about blog flipping and freelancing.
Helpful Links:
How Being a Podcast Guest Can Build Your Brand & Business
101 Ideas to Make Money From Home
10 ways to make money as a blogger if your blog isn’t paying the bills
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Full transcript
00:00
Welcome to the blogger's show.
00:25
Well, Brandi, welcome to the show.
00:26
I'm so excited to have you here.
00:27
Can you tell us a little bit about your blog?
00:31
So my blog is Brandi Ellen writes and it's where I use my skills I've had since I was
00:37
a preteen to make a living from home.
00:41
I talk a lot about positive lifestyle topics and working from home topics to help other
00:47
moms succeed while raising kids from home.
00:51
Why did you start a blog though?
00:52
What made you want a website versus just doing writing for other people?
00:58
Which is funny because that's what I do now.
01:03
I've always liked my writing.
01:05
I guess originally I started because I was in direct sales.
01:09
I had a completely different brand.
01:10
It was Happily Blended and I utilized that to promote direct sales from about 2008 or
01:16
2006 actually.
01:18
And then I switched to realize that people liked my positive mindset and what I had to
01:23
say so I decided to just start sharing my thoughts.
01:28
That's awesome.
01:29
So you said you write for other people.
01:30
Tell us a little bit about that.
01:33
I started writing for other bloggers behind the scenes as a ghostwriter to help save them
01:37
time and then I branched out from there because of the good old search engines.
01:44
Brand started finding me as a ghostwriter and now I just write for companies predominantly
01:48
that's what I live off of is the income from brands while also selling ebooks to help other
01:53
bloggers kind of get to where I am now.
01:57
What would you say that your niche is?
02:00
My niche for writing, work at home, positive lifestyle probably.
02:09
So you do that for your own website but what do you write for other bloggers?
02:13
What do you write for them?
02:14
The same thing.
02:16
I have a client that has me writing about CBD products because that's what they sell.
02:20
I have life coaches that have me write about essential oils and those sort of things so
02:25
I literally write about all sorts of topics.
02:28
What's the craziest topic you've ever written about?
02:31
Probably testosterone boosters.
02:34
I love it.
02:35
Mine was the challenge.
02:36
I can imagine my craziest ghost writing client was a foot fungus doctor.
02:41
You got me to eat I think.
02:44
Yeah and the worst part was he asked if I would submit images with the articles.
02:50
Now let me tell you, you haven't lived until you've gone through 200 photos of foot fungus.
02:55
Yeah, no one wants to look at the search engine, the search results of someone who writes.
03:02
Yeah, in fact I've gotten to where I've started using incognito mode.
03:08
Otherwise, I mean I get targeted for the weirdest ads because of what you're searching for.
03:14
Relatable.
03:15
Yeah.
03:16
So now you and I were talking before we actually set up this interview that one of the things
03:21
you're doing now to make money online is you're writing websites and then selling the websites.
03:27
Is that right?
03:28
Yes, yes.
03:29
Blog flipping I call it.
03:31
How does that work?
03:32
Tell me about that.
03:34
So basically, so I got into it because my first blog happilyblended.com, I sold it and
03:40
I didn't list it for sale.
03:43
Someone just came to me and said, hey, I want to buy it.
03:45
I was in need of money at the time.
03:46
I kind of had outgrown that brand.
03:50
And then all of a sudden I got the light bulb moment a few years ago probably when I went
03:54
through a situation and I was like, you know, I want another revenue stream that's a little
03:58
more consistent, a little more bang at once for money.
04:03
And I love using writing to make money.
04:05
That's my passion.
04:07
So I just decided, well, we'll test it out.
04:09
I started a parentinfluence.com I think was the first site I flipped, I built and then
04:16
flipped and that was a parenting blog and my kids are, oh my gosh, 19, 15 and 13.
04:22
So I just spewed everything out in there and wrote about all the parenting stuff, did some
04:28
SEO research and put it up on Flippa and I think it sold for like $2,000.
04:32
So I was like, okay, again, I always try to test the stream.
04:37
I invest a little bit, test it, if it works, whatever that income is, and I just replicate
04:42
the process.
04:43
And that's sort of what I did was I decided I wanted another stream of income.
04:47
I was successful with the first one.
04:50
So then I decided to make a plan to do it.
04:52
And now I've just, again, just duplicate it and keep doing it.
04:56
So you said the website is called Flippa?
04:59
Yeah, I usually use Flippa.com to sell my websites.
05:04
They used to have a lower end fee where you could sell for $7, but they've changed their
05:09
structure this year to, you have to pay $29 to list your website.
05:14
So that makes me, in a way it's good because it makes me put more effort behind the scenes
05:19
and building the site.
05:20
With a $7 fee, you're not losing as much.
05:23
But yes, Flippa.com is a really great place.
05:25
They do take, I think, 10% of your sale if you're around the price range that I'm selling
05:31
at.
05:32
Wow.
05:33
So how do you come up with the ideas for which websites you're going to create and then sell?
05:40
Keyword research and passion.
05:43
Knowledgeable topics as well, like things that I actually know about.
05:47
That's pretty wild.
05:48
So if someone wanted to, I don't know, start, let's say a racket ball website, what would
05:53
you tell them to do?
05:55
I would probably have them research, first off, domain availability.
06:00
Well I guess you would start with keyword research.
06:02
So I would use an Uber Suggest.
06:05
That's a free one.
06:06
Right now I'm using WriterZen and SEO Surfer for my keyword stuff.
06:11
But Uber Suggest is where I started because it's free.
06:15
You could also look at Google Trends and kind of see where that topic is being looked at
06:21
in countries.
06:22
Gosh, I've spent so long since I've used that.
06:24
But Google Trends is also a good tool to utilize.
06:27
And from there I would take the keywords that you think you want to focus on and go to Go
06:32
Daddy or your provider that sells domains and put in some of the keywords and see if
06:38
you can't get some available domains.
06:41
You don't want words that are hard to spell, like boutique, that people mess up all the
06:44
time.
06:46
And then get your domain and get started.
06:50
Now I'm curious, if you're going to create a website that you intend to sell, how much
06:53
content do you need to put on the website?
06:56
That actually varies.
06:58
It depends on how much you want to sell this for.
07:00
So I'm trying to think.
07:02
I think Parent Influence sold for...
07:04
I meant to print this out.
07:06
Parent Influence I think sold for about $2,000 or $2,200, $2,500 and only had about, I think,
07:12
200 or 300 blog posts.
07:13
Wow, that's a lot though.
07:15
I guess I look different.
07:18
And then I sold some for $500 that probably had 25 to 50 blog posts.
07:23
So again, it depends on the range.
07:26
I know on my website, I did actually list out the information of how many blog posts
07:33
per site.
07:34
And I wish I had printed that information to tell you exactly, but it depends how much,
07:40
how popular the niches plays a key role.
07:42
Like my blog, big.net, I probably only got 500 for it.
07:46
Had I put a little more time into it with more content, I probably could have gotten
07:49
more money.
07:50
So it's more like filling out the industry and seeing how much you want to make and how
07:54
much time you want to invest in it.
07:56
I try to flip mine within six months.
07:58
So that's what I was going to ask you is how long does it take you once you've written
08:01
the content to get it up for sale?
08:04
So walk me through the process.
08:05
Like if you're creating all this content, how long does it take you to write these blog
08:09
posts?
08:10
How long are the blog posts?
08:11
That kind of stuff.
08:12
Trade secrets.
08:13
Okay.
08:14
No, it depends.
08:16
I'm a really fast writer.
08:17
As I am a talker, I'm trying to slow the talking down.
08:21
So since I'm a really fast writer, sometimes I do hire my oldest to write for me.
08:27
She moved out, so I'm letting her kind of get some income under my belt.
08:33
I don't know how long it takes because I write so fast.
08:38
Typically, I'll be writing right up to the point it sells just so that the new person
08:44
has it.
08:45
Because I love writing so much, it doesn't feel like work for me.
08:48
So I guess somebody else might want to take six months and have a one or two blog posts
08:52
a day.
08:54
You could hire someone to do that.
08:55
But if you're doing it on your own, then you might take like a year if you're not a really
08:59
fast or really good writer.
09:01
Now once it's actually up on the website for sale, how long does it typically take for
09:05
a website to move?
09:07
That depends.
09:08
I have not seen anything consistent.
09:10
Parenting and blogging, really fast.
09:12
It seems to go really fast.
09:13
Obviously, if you're making some sort of affiliate revenue, it'll sell faster.
09:19
Most of my sites were not making any money.
09:21
So they were not revenue earners.
09:24
People were clearly just buying them.
09:25
I actually still write for parent influence for the company that bought it.
09:29
So a lot of them are just buying it to have more content under their portfolio and under
09:35
their belt, more domains for what they do to make their money and advertising.
09:40
Why would someone want to purchase a bunch of domains, do you think?
09:46
I believe some of it is for linking back to their products.
09:48
Some of the clients I write for, I know they have multiple domains.
09:51
And then let's say they're selling essential oils.
09:55
So they'll own a bunch of domains that have content that points back to that essential
09:58
oil shop.
09:59
And it's just domain authority.
10:01
Building domain authority is a lot of the reason.
10:03
One of the things that you said was that the websites that you put up for sale were not
10:08
actually earning any money yet.
10:10
Were they driving any traffic?
10:12
Minimal traffic.
10:13
So parent influence, again, that's the one that sold the most.
10:18
Well, Happily Blended back in 2015 sold the most, but since I actually started focusing
10:22
on this and that was less than a thousand a month visitors, I think it was small.
10:30
It was a small traffic source for all of them.
10:32
That's amazing.
10:33
So basically anybody could come up with an idea and if they're willing to put in the
10:36
elbow grease as it were, they could start actually making money selling their websites.
10:42
They can't.
10:43
And some patients, you know, because if it's not making money, it will take a little longer
10:46
to sell.
10:47
I have been able to flip them relatively quickly.
10:51
It could be because I've sold a couple on Flipa.
10:52
I have a little, people are starting to see me and recognize me and follow me.
10:56
I'm not sure why.
10:59
So yeah, it definitely does take a lot of patience and just stay focused and be committed
11:02
for me.
11:03
I know I'll make money with it.
11:04
I just know it's flip of the only place that you promote the fact that these are for sale.
11:11
It is right now.
11:12
There's other Facebook groups you could go into.
11:15
You could actually, if let's say somebody is already an established blogger and they
11:18
want to sell their current blog, they need money or they're just not feeling it because
11:23
that's relatable these days, not wanting to be in the blogging environment.
11:26
It's changed a lot since 2008.
11:30
They could just kind of ask in their blogger groups.
11:33
Sometimes other bloggers will buy from you or if you've been doing sponsored posts directly
11:37
with people, that's who bought my first one was a guy who used to have me write sponsored
11:42
posts for him and he just bought my site completely out.
11:46
So I would say it doesn't hurt to ask your contacts too before paying a Flipa fee.
11:50
Ask your contacts and see if anyone's interested.
11:52
They might be.
11:53
So what goes into the sales process?
11:55
I mean, do you just hand over the domain and the login information?
11:58
How does it work?
12:01
That's a good question because it's a trust thing, you know, because you're working virtually.
12:05
And even if you have a contract with them, some of them I've had, when you go through
12:09
Flipa, it's a little more protected.
12:10
A lot of times they can pay with PayPal or escrow.
12:14
Escrow protects you a little more.
12:15
They hold, escrow will hold the money so that you have to do different steps and each person
12:20
confirms that you did them.
12:23
Now a direct sale is a little trickier.
12:26
When I do that, I usually do it in steps.
12:28
For example, they'll pay a partial payment, I'll release this part.
12:33
Then they make another payment and I'll release the next part.
12:36
And I don't always have socials.
12:37
If I have socials, those are kind of the last one to go with the last payment.
12:41
Oh, really?
12:42
Because sometimes you do have social media that you let go too.
12:44
Sometimes, yes.
12:46
I've kind of stopped building social just because it's kind of a pain.
12:52
And time consuming.
12:53
It's very, yes.
12:55
That's amazing.
12:56
I mean, this sounds like such a neat idea and I'm sure that a lot of people that are
12:59
going to be listening to this are going to get excited by it.
13:01
But what I have found is that most of the people that whenever they hear ideas like
13:05
this, only 1% of the people that are listening are even going to do anything like this.
13:09
So do you think there's a lot of competition for what you're doing?
13:13
See, in my circle, there really isn't.
13:16
I know of one other person who actually does this and I think they do this full time.
13:22
So this is just another revenue stream of mine.
13:24
I probably have six or seven revenue streams.
13:27
They all funnel back down to me writing.
13:31
So I don't think it's highly competitive in my circle, but there is obviously a lot of
13:36
websites listed on Flipus.
13:38
So it is something people do.
13:40
As far as how saturated it is, we all have different connections.
13:43
So it may not be as saturated in your market.
13:48
So they may, I would look at your community and see if you see anyone doing that.
13:52
And if you don't, then you could be the person that starts it.
13:55
Because I kind of was that person in my group of connections.
14:00
From your experience, is there anything special you can do on Flipa to stand out and get your
14:04
websites to move faster?
14:06
I didn't try anything, but there is, you can boost the listing for a little extra money.
14:12
I have not done that.
14:14
If I had a website that was a little probably more traffic and making more money, then yes,
14:19
I probably would have paid Flipa to have it a little higher up in their totem pole there
14:24
in their algorithm.
14:26
You also on Flipa can pay to have it confidential so that if you don't want anyone to know what
14:30
your website is you're selling, they have to sign an NDA, a non-disclosure agreement,
14:35
to even see what your site is.
14:37
So there is protections there for people who may be concerned about putting their website
14:40
out there for the public to see.
14:42
You can actually pay to have an NDA signed through Flipa before you show the public that
14:47
you're trying to sell.
14:48
I think that's really smart and I'm actually on the website right now and I see there's
14:52
one website going for $1.5 million.
14:55
Yeah, it's confidential.
14:58
Yep.
14:59
That's amazing.
15:01
So I'm curious whenever you're deciding, okay, I'm going to create this website and I'm going
15:06
to get it ready to sell, do you create a brand new GoDaddy account or do you do it with one
15:13
that you already have?
15:14
How does that work?
15:15
So I have the domains in my same GoDaddy account and I just transfer the domain to someone
15:20
else.
15:21
Is that a difficult thing to do?
15:22
Nope, it's just a few buttons.
15:24
If they have a GoDaddy account, it's a few buttons.
15:27
It's really simple.
15:28
That's why I usually require the buyer to have, if you have Name Sheep or a different
15:34
domain provider, I typically require them to have that same account because it's free
15:39
to create an account.
15:40
That's amazing.
15:41
And it's just a few clicks.
15:43
That's awesome.
15:44
What about hosting, like do you do it with WordPress?
15:46
Do you do it with Wix?
15:47
How do you do it?
15:48
So all of my sites run on self-hosted WordPress.
15:50
I have a huge SiteGround account and I just upgraded this year, but I guess it's worth
15:57
it.
15:58
It's my first year paying a lot for hosting.
16:00
So I pay an annual fee there and I just transfer, you can transfer to any hosting.
16:05
That's a little more difficult.
16:07
My technical background with building websites and stuff comes into play there.
16:11
So I can usually help the buyer do that.
16:14
Now you don't have to have that knowledge.
16:17
A lot of times the buyer will already know and they will help you.
16:20
That's what happened with my first blog I sold.
16:22
I actually had to have the buyer walk me through the process of transferring the databases
16:26
and so transferring the physical website gets a little bit more technical.
16:31
And I would say that you're not alone.
16:33
They're like, you don't have to stress about that part because the buyer will help you.
16:37
And if the buyer won't help you, a lot of times the hosting company will kind of, they
16:40
have a way to move it over themselves.
16:42
Okay.
16:43
So like if, if for some reason you did have a high traffic website, it's not like you're
16:46
going to suddenly just lose all that traffic.
16:49
Right, right.
16:50
That's amazing.
16:51
So what would you say to someone that needs an extra revenue stream and wants to do this?
16:55
What would you tell them is their very first step?
16:59
The very first step to start flipping websites is probably to just do, like I said earlier,
17:03
the keyword research, make sure it's a topic you're passionate and knowledgeable about
17:07
because then your passion will come behind that and people will really, you'll get the
17:11
traffic up because people want to hear what you have to say.
17:14
And it'll also encourage you.
17:15
So now I write about stuff I'm not as passionate about, but I started off with the passionate
17:20
stuff because it really does sell your passion and your writing cells.
17:25
To start with a topic you're, you're knowledgeable and passionate about.
17:28
How many websites do you have in the hopper right now?
17:31
One, two, three.
17:35
I think I have four or five, two of which I'm keeping.
17:37
I'm actually building one as a, as a residual passive income.
17:41
So two out of the five I'm keeping.
17:43
So I'm kind of working on three to flip.
17:45
Wow.
17:46
So how does that, how does that look like?
17:47
What does it look like to have multiple websites that you're trying to turn into passive income?
17:52
What do you do for those?
17:53
Right now I'm in a position where I started outsourcing writing for those ones.
17:57
So again, I really believe in investing back in your business, but I've never done it.
18:02
I've always had little, little kids I had to raise.
18:04
Now my kids are older.
18:05
So it looks like juggling a lot of hats and I just got a puppy.
18:10
So I'm like, Hey, why not bring a puppy into the sea?
18:15
Puppy's napping right now.
18:16
But so it looks like a really busy day.
18:19
I do hire writers and I think that if anyone out there has teenagers or even my oldest
18:24
started writing for me when she was eight.
18:26
So if you have kids that are good at writing or passionate about writing, you could get
18:29
them under your belt and it's a tax write off as well.
18:32
So, but what is your monetization strategy look like?
18:36
Like how do all these websites make money?
18:39
So right now not all the websites are making money.
18:41
Brandy Ellen.com makes money through my exclusive content shop where I just have prewritten
18:45
content ready to go.
18:47
And then I have a PLR website where I have PLR content packages and those just sell more
18:52
than once and over and over.
18:55
So that's really where what's keeping me financially afloat is my freelance writing clients right
19:00
now.
19:01
Now, I definitely advise having that like a secondary kind of stream of revenue.
19:07
So the, so the building of the websites is kind of like the secondary, just something
19:10
you do whenever you have free time.
19:12
And it sounds like you hardly have any, but you, you get excited and right.
19:15
No, I, yeah, I have a, um, I use a sauna and I have time blocks.
19:20
So I really block out my time to stay on schedule and organized.
19:23
Now you mentioned PLR.
19:24
I know what that means, but for anybody who's listening, who doesn't know what it means,
19:27
can you tell us a little bit about it?
19:28
Um, it's private license, right?
19:30
So basically it's content that you can buy and then you typically would rewrite it if
19:35
you want to put it live on a website because it is duplicated content.
19:39
It will not pass copy scape, but a lot of my clients use it in their newsletters or
19:43
their internal marketing campaigns.
19:46
They'll chop it up into little bits to use as marketing, or I do have some images for
19:50
social media.
19:51
They'll use those.
19:52
So PLR is basically content that's sold more than once over and over.
19:56
And you just save it does actually save time, I promise, and you rewrite it to go live or
20:02
you use it in your newsletters.
20:03
A lot of my clients will use it in their internal lists.
20:05
Yes.
20:06
I've, uh, I've been researching and talking about PLR a lot in the last couple of years.
20:11
And I, I actually wrote an article for, for go daddy about PLR.
20:15
So we'll definitely leave that in the show notes.
20:16
Um, I think it's a fascinating idea because, you know, one of the biggest problems with,
20:20
uh, with ghost writers is we write a piece of content and then we get paid once and then
20:25
that's it, but the client can take that piece of content and maybe they'll sell a product
20:29
or whatever.
20:30
And so they're making the money multiple times.
20:32
But with PLR, what's awesome about it is because you can sell it multiple times.
20:36
I'm not getting paid just once.
20:37
I get multiple times.
20:39
And I think that's one of the reasons I've been kind of dabbling into it and, um, and
20:43
looking into it because it's, it, it lets me still keep writing.
20:48
And it also helps those clients who are like, I really want to hire you, but I really can't
20:51
afford you.
20:52
Yes, exactly.
20:53
Well, because you give it, it's such a significant discount.
20:57
So where can people find you online to learn more about you and what you do?
21:00
I'm mostly Brandy Ellen everywhere.
21:02
So I'm brandyellen.com.
21:04
That's my main site and Brandy Ellen on Twitter and my Instagram is Brandy Ellen writes and
21:12
my Facebook is Brandy Ellen blog, I think.
21:17
Okay.
21:18
Well, hopefully, hopefully you can get some traffic to the brand new website from this.
21:24
And is there anything that I didn't ask you about that you kind of want to make sure we
21:27
say here on this show?
21:30
Not really.
21:31
I just wish everyone success.
21:32
Like if you have questions, I'm always answering questions.
21:34
I really am one of those people who doesn't mind spending an hour a week answering people's
21:38
questions.
21:39
So I do answer them if anyone wants to ask me in the future, an email or whatever.
21:44
I think this is a fascinating revenue idea.
21:46
And I hope that anybody listening to this that is interested in writing considers it
21:49
because I think it's a genius idea to, you know, if you're one of those people like me,
21:54
who definitely has the shiny object syndrome where you constantly you're coming up with
21:57
ideas, it's like, why not take those ideas and turn it into something that you can possibly
22:02
sell?
22:03
And it almost sounds like what you're building is a digital real estate empire.
22:06
So to speak, my mission is really to help others live a better life.
22:11
But at the end of the day, I'm 40 years old, I'm not getting younger.
22:14
I don't want my kids to have something I can hand down to them if they want it, if they
22:18
want to sell it, I don't care.
22:19
My mission is to have something I can hand down to them.
22:22
Well, that's awesome.
22:23
And I think that I think our listeners that are listening to this are going to get some
22:28
really good insights out of this episode because I mean, this is genius.
22:31
Like I'm I've taken a lot of notes personally.
22:34
And I just I think it's such a great idea.
22:36
So blog your friends if you're considering, you know, starting a website and you want
22:41
to see if it can make money.
22:42
I mean, we'll leave all kinds of show notes, excuse me, all kinds of websites in the show
22:46
notes that you can check them out and possibly do this for yourself.
22:51
And Brandi, I just want to say thank you so much for sharing all of this with us because
22:54
this just I love it.
22:57
Thanks for having me.
22:58
It was fun.
22:59
Well, well, you friends until next time.
23:01
May your page views be high and your bounce rate below.
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