I’ve been following Burt’s idea of “Blog Flipping” (see here and here) with interest, as I think the idea “has legs,” as it were.

Blogs are big business nowadays, with more and more people jumping on the bandwagon, including many looking to get into the “pro” blogging arena. I’m guessing many potential newcomers find it daunting to come and compete in a world of blogs which are already packed full of content. Wouldn’t it be great if you could buy a “starter” blog which already has a healthy amount of content already in the archives?

The idea of making a website just to sell it is nothing new - The Sitepoint Marketplace? is full of such sites, and has been for years. Also witness all the “Web 2.0″ sites out to get bought over before they go broke ;-)

If I were to go about the “Blog Flipping” route, this is how I would do it (some of these steps I’ve already done, so I’m well on my way!):

1. Register a domain at Namecheap (because it’s very easy to transfer domains between NC users - just get the buyer to signup)
2. Grab myself some cheap hosting at Dreamhost - Their “One Click Install” system makes setting up Wordpress a 5 minute job, plus it pre-installs about 100 WP themes for you, making it easy to have each of your blogs unique.
3. Signup to Article Underground (review) to get the content for the blogs. At over 400 articles a month, there should be more than enough to fill a couple of sites at a time!
4. Pre-post a steady stream of articles to each blog, timed to fill the site steadily over a period of time. Burt suggests 3 months, which I’d probably agree with. You don’t want to jump the gun, or you’ll have no pagerank or visitors to attract buyers.
5. Advertise + Profit!