Blogging United

Hey all, I found the time to start the posting of the Website Flipping Methods! The first will be on Image hosts. As this method is pretty well known, I won’t go into a lot of detail, but I will go into enough so even newbies will understate it! This method involves image arbitration which is getting a thumbnail from your image host, then posting it on loads of forums with a link back to your site. Now there is more to the method so for those of you that don’t know it, I recommend you to read on.

Step 1: Domain
This step is crucial; getting a good name can be the difference between someone remembering your site and coming back or completely forgetting it. I recommend you get a domain with image in front or behind it, you can also use “pic”, “picture” or “img” in the domain name. This is not a thing you must do, but it is suggested as it relates to what the site is about. This tends to help in a person’s remembering as well, if they thought, “image host” they would generally think of the above words.

You can buy a .com .net .info whatever you like. The .info is cheaper but sometimes hard to remember as most look for a .com first of all. If you want to go for a .com I do recommend you to do so, it is much better then a .info and only costs about five dollars more! You can register the domain at Godaddy, Name.com and other registers. One thing I would also recommend if you are having trouble finding a domain name would be use a expired domain finder. This will allow you to put a word you want the domain to have in it and search for all available, there are a lot on Google. Register the domain you like and on to the next step we go!

Step 2: Hosting
Hosting is very easy to get, I would say look for one with 50GB+ bandwidth and some decent disk space. I currently pay under $2 a month for mine – check it out at Fused Hosting – there support is absolutely stunning! I also recommend Milofi, from my time with them so far they seem to be quite good. The replies are quick and the owner is on msn most of the time. Although they’re Okay, packages are cheaper I would say they are just as good. Anyway, just choose the host you like best and change nameservers
through your domain panel, (at the domain register) to the nameservers the host gives you.
Example:
NS1.FUSEDHOSTING.NET
NS2.FUSEDHOSTING.NET
If you don’t want to go with a smaller hosting company, you can always try out Hostgator or Godaddy hosting. I have yet to try them but I have heard mixed reviews about the two. If you are having trouble deciding, just try to look around for reviews or chat with the owners, etc.

Step 3: Setting The Site Up
This is a very easy step, pretty much the same as the proxy setting up step, except you need to change a little info to match your MySQL. If you are unsure on how to do this, I will give a quick guide now. First login to cpanel and scroll down until you see “MySQL Databases”, click that. You will see something along the lines of “Create New Database” then a box underneath. You put what you want the database to be called in that box, perhaps “Imagehost”. Click “create database” when you are done.

You then scroll down to “add new user”, simply put a username in and a password. Click “create user” and follow all the prompts. Last step is “Add User To Database” you pretty much select your database name and your username that you put in a second ago. Once you have done so, click “add”. Now this will take you to a page of preferences, chose to accept them all. Before you save what you have done, look at the top where is says “Manage User Privileges” under it shows your username and database but with your main domain in the front. You will need to copy that into a notepad file and keep it open.

If you are unsure with anything I have said about the MySQL database, refer to the video below.

Alright so one you have your database information in a notepad file, you will need to Download Mihalism, it is a pretty basic image hosting script, but it is free and probably the best one out there! Once you have all the files download, get into the .config file with notepad. Here you will just take the information you had in the other notepad file and fill in what is needed. Only fill in the, database, username and password sections.

You will now need to download a FTP client, I would highly recommend Filezilla it is fast and gets the job done, it is also free. You login with the ftp details your host gave you and get into your directory folder. Upload all files from the Image Hosting script and your done. Just check your site to make sure it is all up and working properly. If you uploaded everything fine you will most likely have an install page depending on what version you downloaded. Simply follow the instructions and enter the information needed and it will be setup fine.

Once you are in, you will need to login to your admin page with the details you gave in the installation. Edit the main bits of the site in the admin panel, this will include but is not limited to, the websites name, extra links you want to put in, max file size, etc.

Step 4: Ads
Okay we need to disguise the ads in a way that the viewer can still see them but they look as if they are part of the site. To edit the current ads out, just open up the footer and header files in the mihalism main page file and edit them to show the ads where you want them. I recommend putting two adsense banners and one adbrite banner on the main page. That way you have a CPC and CPM program running on there. Depending on what version of the script you downloaded, you may also need to edit the viewer file. Making the ads look like the site is very easy to do, just make the text the same colour as text on your page and you will see it looks like it is “meant” to be there. Just keep switching ad colours, the format, size, etc until you think it is good enough. Good ad placement can make or break a site!

Step 5: Get Traffic
This is the part you need to do right and if you do, you will get huge traffic. Basically all you do is search Google, Bollywood, Hollywood, Celeb sites for pics and upload them to YOUR image host. I recommend something like forum.phun.org if you to keep up with all the latest celeb gossip and post
pictures. You then go to the following sites, signup and make a thread that is appealing.
www.celebs.co.uk
www.whatboyswant.com
www.xboard.us
www.masalaboard.com
forum.santabanta.com

Once you have posted 5 threads on each with 5 thumbnail images you are done. This should take around 30 minutes to 1 hour a day and can be done in spare time. This can even be done in spare time when you have nothing else to do. You will get a load of traffic and hopefully if you have disguised ads well enough some good revenue.

Step 6: Selling
Once you are done with your image host and have become bored or need money you can sell it off. Try to provide as much information as possible and answer any questions needed, this can include, revenue stats, traffic stats and whatever else you want to show. The more you show and the more the buyer feels secure in making a bid on it. For a site getting 1000UV+ a day and some decent revenue you could be looking at $150+. I myself sold a site getting 500UV a day for $100 which was pretty good.

End Notes
If you like working on your image host, you are not being forced to sell. If you can get your image host getting some very good traffic a day you could be looking at a lot better profit in the
profit. If you make a huge image host and get alexa to under 100k you could probably sell it for a fair bit more and if you further develop even more. Who knows? Your image host could eventually get to the size of Photobucket or Imageshack! 8). Good luck with the method, the possibilities are endless. I look forward to some comments from people successful with this!