Although you could build a website from scratch, you’ve made the choice to purchase an existing one. Or, you are an investor looking to “flip” a website after enhancing its value. Either way, you now have to find a website to buy.

Your initial step should be to figure out what you want a website to do. You may want it for the mailing list, or perhaps as an income flow from “piggy-back” links, or to hold as a niche, a catchy domain, or site for future development then resale. Your search can now begin since you know what you are looking for.

One place to look is on the Internet as there are companies that deal with the listing and selling of websites. Here is not where you find bargains.However, they are not without value to the buyer looking for specific attributes or results.

Search engines can also prove useful.The initial handful that comes up in a search first will be the “crme de la crme” – the best managed sites that would be quite costly to purchase if available at all. It is possible this is what you need, but it is more likely that you will need to scroll down and page forward a bit. As you go deeper you will locate the bargains that may be just what you need.Scanning a few of those best managed sites is still a good idea to provide insight into what you will need to compete with later with your enhancements.

A prime element of purchasing real estate is location – with a website it is research. Buying a website can be a long-term investment, and as such requires as much due diligence as you would for any long-term investment such as real estate.

Do careful research on any site you are considering. Spend some time on the site reviewing it, reading any forums and discussions, and reviewing the history. Better to move on to another site if you see something that won’t work for you than to realize it after spending money.

There is a fair amount of risk when buying a website but by using your head and taking your time, you can minimize the risk.

Find out more on how to buy websites for sale and how to sell websites, check out the Flippa Blog.

Finance (Barron's Business Review Series)Books in Barron's "Business Review Series" are intended mainly for classroom use. They make excellent supplements to main texts when included in college-level business courses. In adult education and business brush-up programs they can serve as main textbooks. All titles in this series include review questions with answers. This expanded, updated text explains plotting and understanding economic graphs, market equilibrium and the nature of the price system, macroeconomics, microeconomics, and the dynamics of international trade.

Who can forget the dot com boom and bust at the turn of the millennium. Big companies were paying ridiculous amounts of money for speculative virtual businesses. Like the gold rush of yesteryear, investors jumped on the bandwagon – some made a killing while most lost their shirts.

The market had a massive realization however, and now it progresses at a more sedentary and realistic pace. Sites don’t attract the hysterical investments of yesteryear. That being said, many smaller websites have become undervalued assets. Given the cooling off virtual property prices, there are now ample opportunities for investment in websites. Buying and selling websites, or website flipping, is now becoming regarded as a legitimate investment strategy.

Similar to real world property, virtual property can increase in value over a period of time without the need to do anything but maintenance. If you add value to the virtual property however, you are able to re-sell or flip the website for a gain.

The steps involved in a successful flip include:

1. Discover a website you want to invest in.

2. Negotiate and complete the sale.

3. Add value to the site.

4. Find a buyer and sell for a profit.

Now, I can’t tell you how to add value to your web site – obviously the value you add will depend on the site, your skills and capabilities, the market, and so on.

Keep in mind when buying and selling a website, all your time and expenses involved in the purchase a subsequent website upgrades. Tracking your profits and losses when flipping websites is important to find out if you are indeed making money flipping websites.

At the end of the trade, if you’ve only made $10 per hour for your work then there may be better ways to spend your time than flipping websites. The more you can streamline the process of improving a website, the more money in your pocket.

Interested in learning more about website flipping. Visit the Flippa marketplace where you can find out more about website trading and how to make money flipping websites.

Reputation Building Website Disclosure & The Case of Intellectual Capital (Studies in Managerial and Financial Accounting)This study investigated the following aspects of the 100 most entrepreneurial firms more widely known as the fastest growing firms in Australia. Firstly, the study analysed the association between intellectual capital disclosure types (narrative, visual, and numerical) on company-sponsored websites, using content analysis, and the corporate growth aspect of reputation of these firms over a three-year period from 2005 to 2007. Secondly, the study investigated the perceptions of directors about the value relevance of intellectual capital resource items in enhancing corporate reputation. Thirdly, the study identified motivations behind the extent of intellectual capital resource items disclosure on company-sponsored websites when the director perception survey was inconsistent with such disclosures.