The new blog is EcoFuss.com, a Green Eco Friendly News, environmental issues blog. Green everything is already booming and will continue to do so, so getting in the niche now seems to be a smart move long term for the next three years or so. But for the important part, the numbers:

• PageRank4
• 9 months old
• 10,000 visitors/month
• Adsense revenues of $50-60/month
• Private ad was $50/month
• Price: $700

The blog had a little rough history after changing owners not too long ago, and it has definitely been very under monetized, with a lot of that due to lack of effort and asking too much for prices.

My plan

I immediately implemented a new design with a professional logo while transferring all the accounts over to myself. For content, I’m having a hard time deciding which direction to take the blog – a more offbeat satirical/entertaining commentary or a more newsy type informative. I may try a mix of the two since I’ll be writing the content initially for a couple months and then take it from there. As for green niches, I’ll stay general and cover everything environmental – energy, travel, business, tech, and policy with a little conservation, living tips, and animal stuff.

Monetization Plan

• I’m relying on Adsense as the backbone now. It’s doing fine, but I hate having all my eggs in one basket
• Text Links – I hate text links as well since I don’t want Google to hate me. However, I may sell them to recoup my investment sooner.
• Affiliate ads – I’m really struggling finding good affiliates within the eco friendly / green niche, but I’m still looking. I’m hoping to find an affiliate that could come up with at least $25/month in revenues.
• Private Ads – The barrier between me doing okay and really well hinges on private ads. The site used to have a private button ad for $50/month, but I didn’t bank on that revenue when I purchased it since it smelled a bit fishy. But if I can land a couple small private advertisements and reviews, I’ll be doing great.

Conclusion

I have a lot of work yet, but hopefully July concludes well so I’ll be a little less anxious about my investment. I’m getting a little weary of the potential of the site after seeing that all the industry leaders right now are nonprofit blogs. I expected the green niche not to be as profit driven and commercial as the travel niche, but not to the extent that I’m finding it to be when searching for advertisers… it’s kind of scary.

But I’m looking forward to developing this site in a new niche for me and give you the opportunity to follow this new venture of mine if you feel like it. Questions or comments appreciated, and you can always contact me through the site if you want to work together at all.

The fact is that the web creates virtually unlimited possibilities and rewards those who have good ideas and work hard to implement them. So if you’re struggling to find a summer job, or just don’t like the idea of an 8-5 job all summer, why not work for yourself? Why not put the infrastructure in place for a job that allows you to go down to the beach any day of the week?

Here’s what you need to do. First take a gut check. Are you self-motivated? Or do you need people watching over your shoulder to get things done? If you’re self-motivated, then you’re off to a good start.

The next step is to ask what you want out of your summer job. What’s your time horizon for seeing profit? If you’d like some quick cash, then follow Ben’s strategies for buying, building and flipping websites. If you think you’d like to see your summer job turn into a full time job after college, in other words, if you’re really determined to be self-employed, then map out a three year plan. Determine what you’re going to do to get to a certain place three years later.

The next step is to ask yourself what you do well. Not everyone is a blog designer like Ben. You might have fabulous ideas, but not have the skill set to implement them. This is where you have to start networking with people. Some skills you can easily learn (like how to setup a new blog, how to backup a blog database, etc.). But some skills are hard to come buy (a great eye for blog design). If you meet the right people you might be able to barter for services. Or, you may need to be ready to shell out some cash. Running auctions at SitePoint for logo and design services can be some of the best money spent.

But site design isn’t the only profitable skill on the web. Let’s say you’re an expert at classical guitar and have this brilliant idea for teaching people how to learn classical guitar. Start a blog on classical guitar, but only give teaser information. Don’t give your best stuff away. Instead, work behind the scenes developing an e-book or even an e-video series. As you build a readership with your blog, start charging for the e-book or videos, and maybe even offer webcam lessons!

Or, let’s say you’ve grown up with dogs your whole life and plan to become a veterinarian. If you have access to lots of dogs, it would be an awesome idea to develop a site with video of dog training and various breeds of dogs. Everyone and their grandmother has a dog in the US. If you execute properly you could have a hugely popular site.

The bottom line is this: when choosing a summer job you’re making a critical career decision. There are virtues and benefits to both types of summer job. But if you have a true passion and a true entrepreneurial spirit, then why slave through your summer working for someone else on poorly defined tasks, when you can have total creative control and set a precise path to become your own boss down the road.

We’ve talked a lot on this blog about buying and selling blogs. Usually I point you to SitePoint. But SitePoint has gotten overloaded with crappy sites. It’s rare for a gem to come by, and who’s got time to weed through all the junk.

I don’t want to keep tooting my own horn over at Performancing, but right now there are some really excellent deals on blogs for sale over there. If you’ve been waiting to get started in the blog market, now’s the time to get started. My good friend Mark is streamlining his operations and in doing so is unloading some PR 5 and PR 4 blogs. That gives you the opportunity to come in and ride on the coattails of someone who’s been immensely successful on the web. Riding on the success of others is how I got to where I am. So I can’t do anything but suggest that you consider getting in the game too.

Here’s a fact. If you’re looking for good blogs to buy, as of today, the best place to look is the Blogs for Sale forum over at Performancing. No junk. No turnkey sites. Real blogs for sale. Check it out.

In my view, this is the single most important factor in determining the value of a site. Even in a low paying niche, if you’ve got the traffic, you can make a killing. Take this site for example: http://dogbreedinfo.com/ – with over 2.5 million unique visits per month, they generate mucho money (something like $600/day in AdSense revenue alone).

At a very deep level, daily unique visitors gives you a sense of the value of your site in the eyes of your potential customers. Contrast this with various factors such as Google PageRank which give very little indication of the value of your site in the eyes of potential customers, but rather reflects (poorly in my view) the value of your site in the eyes of other websites.

2. Average Daily Profit

Forget gross revenue. Who wants a website that generate $2000 in revenue but spends $2100 in advertising and maintenance expense. Revenue is very seductive, and it is normally what gets listed on sites like SitePoint. But before you buy a site, make sure you know both the expenses and the revenue…and their difference.

The reason I don’t put Daily Profit above unique visitors is that daily profit is a variable that almost always relies heavily on unique visitors. Plus, Daily Profit is a variable that depends to a large degree on the manager of a site. If a website is currently being undermonetized, but has great unique visitor stats, then you’ve got a great opportunity to jump in and maximize profits.

3. Quality of Content

If the website is informational, then ask yourself how original the information is. Is the information considered authoritive or does it at least have the potential of becoming authoritive? So much of the content on the web is junk, so when you find that rare gem of a site with genuinely useful and unique content, it might be worth paying a premium, even if various other factors are lacking.

One thing to consider, however, is whether the content ages quickly or not. If a site produces qualityvideo tutorials on topics in fast moving niches like SEO, the critical question to ask is whether the content is timeless, or whether it will be irrelevant in 2-3 years. Not all content needs to be timeless. If you’re up for the challenge of producing a steady stream of relevant content, go for it, but just make sure you know what you’re getting into.

4. Backlinks from other sites

In my view, backlinks and their associated metrics (i.e. PageRank) tend to be way overvalued on the web. Now, you can take advantage of this fact and try to sell sites on these metrics alone. But in the end, PageRank should not be the only reason you buy a site. I’ve seen shoddy five page sites with PR6 sell on SitePoint for $2000. The fact of the matter is that most of these sites have been artificially pumped up and then sold off. Beware of this strategy.

One way to identify whether you’re being conned or not is to go to www.live.com and do a “link:www.domain.com” search. The reason I prefer Live.com at the moment is that it lists backlinks by domain, so you can get a good picture of the total number of domains (as opposed to pages) linking to a site. Why does this matter? Because diversity in backlinks means you probably won’t lose your PageRank if one or two sites pull their links.

In the end, backlinks matter, but in my view they only matter at a domain level. The best tools on the web for checking a site’s backlink value are Live.com, Yahoo SiteExplorer and SEOMoz PageStrength.

5. Visual aesthetics / Site Layout & Design

Content is king, or so they say. But what most people on the web ignore is a great site design. As we all know from the sale of cars, humans often judge a product by how it looks and how easy it is to use. Find a beautiful but functional site, and you’re half-way there. Personally, I think paying for a nice site design these days is way undervalued. The reason? Well, site design is quantitative and it doesn’t result in profits all on its own. But a good design will help you keep your customers, and that, as they say, is priceless.

6. What the Niche, dude?!

The topic of your site has consequences. Are you passionate about the topic? Will the topic keep you focused and consistently dedicated to the site? Does the niche have an audience? Has the niche been proven to be profitable in the past? Is the niche oversaturated or undersaturated? How easy will it be to develop product or content for the niche? How easy will it be to acquire customers and/or readers in the niche? These are all questions that determine the value of a site not only from a objective standpoint, but also the value relative to you as the owner. Which brings up a key point – value is in the eye of the beholder – if you like losing money, then hey, there’s lots of sites out there with lots of value! Of course no one likes losing money! So if you want to make money, make sure you have a sense of how you want to make it, and how you want to spend your time doing so.

7. The Intangibles

Things that are priceless these days include:

Age of domain – The older the better.

Quality of domain – Memorable and/or short but keyword rich domains are best. In general, stick with .com

Age of content – Again, the older the better in cases of timeless content

Strong Search Phrases – how much of the traffic is coming through targeted search phrase? You’re not taking advantage of the global market place, if the global marketplace can’t find you.