First Interview – Yolanda From FlippaChick Answers Questions On How To Make Money Online

This post is a cooked-up random thought by yours truly — I was driving with my 16 y/o daughter, in the middle of a great conversation, when it hit me: I should do interviews! I have come across some really amazing minds on the internet, and I realize that my little wee brain isn’t really the sharpest stick in the toothpick box. I’m no guru, I’m an experimental slugger with mouths to feed and ideas to hash out.

In hopes of giving you all a greater context of what’s out there, and different personas and folks who’ve been at this longer and more successfully, I want to introduce you to people that have inspired me, caught my business eye, and who seem to really know the down-and-dirty of making that elusive paycheck online. I am so happy I ran into Yolanda, a.k.a. “Flippa Chick,” in several blogs and a certain forum.

I decided to ask her for an interview because she simply knows what she’s doing, and she’s doing a number of things I haven’t even tried just yet. She’s a real go-getter, way over qualified to appear on this blog, and I’m happy to introduce you to her. Without further ado, here’s my first stab at an interview. Hopefully she’ll be back with more tips, and stay tuned as I try to scrape up more great interviews…like the rest of my blogroll, hopefully!

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1. How long have you been online making money, and what are your favorite monetization methods?

Wow, that’s really tough, because I actually made my first dollar online when I was a teenager and during my first year of college, I actually made a fortune with high yield investments online – but’s another story for another day.

However, as far as making money online full-time, it has been over 16 months since I said goodbye to my classroom full of 2nd & 3rd graders and hello to freelance writing and web designing. I’ve been into web design since I was in junior high, but it wasn’t until 16 months ago that I picked it back up again and intended to make a living from it.

As for my favorite monetization methods, without a doubt, it would be:

1. CPA (Cost-per-action) Marketing

2. Affiliate marketing via Amazon & CJ

3. Learning the ropes and making money with eBay Partner Network

(…and it’s in that order)

2. Do you make all of your income online at this point? If so, can we see your tax records and SSN?…scratch that, just the first question…

Yes, I make 100% of my income online and I will gladly pass over those records if we can do an even trade with me receiving your entire network of passive income websites, affiliate logins, and full-rights to your domain in exchange. That sounds pretty fair don’t you think?

[Editor's note: No.]

3. Having perused your blog, Flippa Chick [Paid In Passive] , you know your business very well! As someone who’s pretty new at this, can I ask you to give us your process for that most basic of online entrepreneurship: keyword selection? I’m assuming you must use software to do that with — so, what’s your favorite? How do you select kw’s, and does it matter if you’re building an AdSense-site or CPA site when you choose kw’s? Do you try to rank for low-compete terms or the hard-to-compete terms?

You know, that’s a rather tricky question because I actually have finally perfected a method for keyword research that has taken quite a while to accomplish and I’m yearning to test it out on a few domains that I registered as a result of my research.

….but to answer your question without giving everything away, I will say that I certainly need to update my eBook because I’ve actually done away with using Micro Niche Finder and now I rely solely on Google (yes the search engine), Google Trends, the Google AdWords keyword tool and Search-based Tool, Amazon.com, Traffic Travis, and most importantly, my gut instinct.

However, for the sake of keyword research when it comes to looking for products to promote, I typically following one of two methods which include:

1) If I’m looking to build a product-based website, which is all I’ve been doing for the past few months, then there are certain criteria that I type into Google in order to search through the millions of products on Amazon. For example, typing in “site:amazon.com” into Google will ensure that only Amazon.com is being searched. So then from there, let’s say I’m trying to search for only “bestselling garden items.” My search would look something like: “bestsellers in garden”+site:amazon.com. From there I would add on additional criteria such as specific categories, a price range, and using other query to narrow my search, etc.

I don’t necessarily rely solely on Amazon, but they are a major factor in me performing initial product research. If a product is *HOT* and I can get a better commission via a merchant on CJ or Share-a-Sale, then I go for it.

…but that’s just one way of doing things. Initially, you need to know what’s selling outside of the bestseller list, and that’s where I use Google Product Search and Epinions.com and run some popular brands through Traffic Travis. Typically I run a few general phrases, and what I end up with is a list of over 700 keywords, which ultimately result in 10-20 or so keywords that meet my specific criteria for exact match monthly searches, CPC, “allintitle,” “inurl” and plain first page of SERPs competition.

…It’s a rather complex system to describe, but the gist of it is:

1) Girl finds hot product.

2) Girl runs hot product through Google Adwords keyword tool.

3) Girl only goes after select criteria for keywords.

4) Girl runs keywords again through Google Adwords keyword tool to see if she missed any stragglers.

5) Girl chooses the best keywords and runs them through Google Trends (depending on the niche) or Google’s Search-based tool.

6) Girl analyzes competition against specific criteria such as “allintitle” competition and ability to rank on the first page of SERPs by using Market Samurai or just a plain ‘ole Google search.

7) Girl builds a niche website and only monetizes with the income stream that will give her the most loot for the hard work she’s put in.

4. Judging from the name of your blog, do you flip sites for money, or do you know Kung-Fu? Are you a gold-medal-winning Olympic gymnast? Alright, seriously: could you define what “flipping” a site means for those new to it? What’s the most amount that you’ve seen a flipped site sell for (that you personally have sold)? And: what tips would you have for those new to that revenue stream? Mistakes to avoid? Do you have an ebook you’d recommend ?

While I wish I knew Kung-Fu, I only flip websites.

Website flipping in short refers to an individual building up a website for resell or selling their current “virtual real estate.” Additionally, it also refers to an individual who buys websites that are “undervalued” and adds value with the intent to resell it at a higher price once it is established (e.g. raking in some dough or traffic – or both).

When you “flip websites,” you can either build your website for the long-term to allow it to mature and while reaping the monetary benefits, or in my case, you can build a website with the intentions of establishing a website in a profitable niche and selling it for an immediate return for your hard work and investment. In this case, the “demand” for the niche, the content, design, and “potential for success” are its greatest selling points since it doesn’t have any earning as of yet. In other words, those are what are referred to as “startup” websites, and are what I almost exclusively list for sale – at least for 80% of the websites I “flip.”

5. About how long do you spend on building a site to flip?

Oh wow…this number varies greatly and is dependent upon so many factors. On average, I would say it takes me 5 hours from start to finish to build a website, however, that’s if I outsource the content creation aspect.

For a better breakdown of what goes into building a website to flip, I highly suggest you read my article: It Takes Money to Make Money: Common Site Flipping Lies & How to Overcome Them. Here I break down what steps contribute to the time I spend building a website.

6. What would you recommend for someone who has a site that isn’t producing an income – would you recommend he or she flip/sell that, like someone would a real estate investment gone awry?

If you have a website that isn’t producing an income, then my first suggestion wouldn’t be to sell unless you had: (1) a large amount of organic traffic/monthly page views, (2) a killer domain name that Donald Trump is knocking on your door for, or (3) an established domain with age (the more the better) and page rank.

I website that’s lacking those criteria above and brings in no income really isn’t going to sell. Instead, it would be better if the owner kept the domain and added some value to it. Get some money and traffic coming in, then think about flipping it – or better yet, add it to your own portfolio of websites that brings in a decent amount of passive income.

7. If it’s not too embarrassing, are there mistakes you’ve made that you wish those beginning to make money online would avoid?

Wow…this one really made me think. Can I come back to you on this one?

…okay I’m back.

I would have to say that some of the mistakes I made in the beginning of my MMO career were:

• Following the blind
• Undervaluing my work product to compete against someone willing to work for pennies on the dime – not dollars!
• Reading way too much and never taking any action.
• Jumping all over the place from gimmick #1, to method #1, to method #145 – you get the picture.
• Giving up too early on some projects and not testing/tracking my results.
• Not putting my own “spin” on things!

8. What are your favorite money-making tools, and do you promise always to buy yours from me? Please? My kids are starving… :(

Well, it goes without saying that I have an affinity for all of Alexandr Krulik’s products, so using Magic Article Submitter and Magic Article Re-Writer are an absolute must and I use them on a daily basis! [Editor's note: Agreed! See sidebar top and bottom...]

Additionally, some of my favorite tools include:

…while [I use] “paid tools,” I’d have to say my favorite tool for keyword research would have to be Google Adwords and not just the keyword tool, but actually running a campaign which allows you to test keywords to see how much traffic a keyword is able to bring in via the impressions your campaign receives. It doesn’t get much better than that!

9. What CMS (Content Management System) platform do you recommend the most for building websites, esp. for newbies?

Well this greatly depends on whether you’re building a website for passive income that you plan to hold on to, or if you’re building a website to flip.

If you’re building micro niche websites, then I highly suggest that EVERY newbie learn HTML! I love WordPress just as much as the next person, but WordPress has its time and place. For larger websites, ones that you plan to develop into more than just 15-20 pages, but more like 50+ pages, then certainly go for WordPress. However, if you’re putting up a website with fewer than 10 pages, become friends with HTML and you’ll thank your page loading time, bandwidth, and time saved from updating hundreds of blogs & plugins for it.

If, however, you are looking to flip a website, for “newbies,” I would definitely recommend building a website on WordPress. There are many attractive themes that you can customize to help you sell your site and the range of plugins helps too.

10. Regarding WordPress, what themes would you recommend to make $$ if you don’t sell — there are so many to choose from! — and do you recommend another type of theme if you *do sell or flip* your site?

I have no preference for themes per se. You see, I flip websites on custom designs I’ve made, premium themes I’ve obtained a developer’s license for, and even free themes.

I believe as long as you abide by the rights extended to you for that theme (e.g. resell rights and footer credit/link requirements), and you customize the heck out of it, then you really don’t have much to worry about because a buyer isn’t going to just up and tell you: “You know, while your website is making $900 per month in passive income and receives 6,300 pageviews per month, I’m allergic to free WordPress themes…”

11. If you use WP, do you have fave plugins?

To be quite honest and for brevity’s sake, I’ve actually compiled a list of my favorite plugins in this post: 10 of the Best Plugins for Site Flippers.

…but I can say, I cannot build a [WordPress] website without plugins like StatPress, WP SpamFree, and All-in-One SEO.

12. Who would you say influenced you the most in your business online? The ‘net is full of “gurus” and such, who are your heroes?

Without a doubt, the two most influential people in my online marketing and freelance writing career are: Yuwanda Black, owner of Inkwell Editorial and Glen Allsopp from Viper Chill and author of Cloud Living.

Let me first start off by saying that I don’t follow “gurus” because “gurus” have always turned out to steer me in the wrong direction. I remember my first Clickbank purchase from a “guru”. It was an eBook by a popular IM’er that still posts on a forum I frequently visit. Inside of the pricy $97+ eBook was nothing but printed out pages combined into a PDF document. I was LIVID! The eBook was compiled from other web pages and provided no direction, insight – NOTHING! From then on I vowed to never get sucked into another eBook again…or so I thought.

You see, the second time around, I was anxious to get my freelance writing business off the ground and so I decided to purchase an eBook from a well-known freelance writer. I’ll refrain from mentioning gender or the name of ‘their’ eBook, but I will say, the sales letter for the product drew me in like a moth to the flame – and boy did I get burned! Like the eBook by that so-called “guru” mentioned above, this freelance writer’s eBook was no different except instead of printed out pages combined into a PDF document, it was ‘their’ blog posts and few other “insights” that I already knew.

From then on, my motto has always been to learn things through trial and error. And if I can’t find it, go to YouTube! (That’s actually how I taught myself CSS – but that’s another story.)

After those two horrible purchases, I came across a wealth of information by Yuwanda Black. If you’re looking to make money than pennies writing, this woman knows her stuff! In fact, that’s how I first got a taste of this thing they call “SEO” writing. Prior to her website and newsletters, I had no idea what writing for search engines meant, but after spending a week devouring hundreds of pages on her website, newsletter and re-printed articles devoted to making a living through freelance writing, I took that knowledge with me and did quite well, landing tons of high paying clients after I learned to put my “spin” on it.

While I no longer freelance write for full-time income, I can say without a doubt that her guidance both though website and through personal emails was invaluable!

When it comes to Glen Allsopp, or “DJ” as I remember him, I’ve been a long-time reader of his blogs (even back when he was blogging at HQHow which now redirects to ViperChill). In fact, you might even catch my name and face on one of his testimonials for “Cloud Living” because after reading some of his posts and putting things into action, I did actually make well over a few hundred dollars within a few days from one website — who woulda thought?!?.

…it was then that the fire was lit under me and I began testing, devouring content, and building.

Since then, I continue to read his blog (Viper Chill) which gets delivered straight to my inbox because he’s a “no fluff” blogger – and with posts over 2,000 words filled with quality, results-proven content – he’s proven that he knows his stuff and is able to deliver.

In the end, I think it’s important for new comers to Internet Marketing to be able to weed through the barrels of regurgitated mess that many MMO gurus push. If you can find one system that works, and one blog that “tells it like it is – no fluff included” then you’re well ahead of the thousands of people being steered in the wrong direction.

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Wow. That was an education. I don’t think Yolanda’s much of an average genius…she’s the real-deal.

Thank you, Yolanda, for your insight, time, ethics, your website Flippa Chick [Paid In Passive] and your eBook (available at her site)…she, my dear readers, is one to follow! [Insert standing ovation. Confetti and balloons drop, band plays something...catchy and appropriate.]