It's Time for Some Speculation – Political Trends Should Drive Short-Term Profits
Author: Jim | Filed under: Blog Flipping
Here’s a quick update from a pair of blogs I have recently begun developing in the hopes of turning a quick profit. I am definitely a strong believer in using traffic trends to your favor. As such, one of the most popular topics in today’s headlines (and search results) is the 2008 United States Presidential race.
I don’t want to start debating about which candidate will lead this country to a brighter tomorrow, I just want to make you rich. So let’s take a look at the most recent speculative “gamble” I made by registering two solid domain names McCainsBlog.com and BaracksBlog.com in the hopes of turning them around for some quick profits on a minimal amount of total work. 
The Story
I am fed up with hearing about how people are making money by flipping domain names day by day (slow as this is), so I decided to give it a go myself. But after purchasing the domain names, I thought to myself hey… why not try making a custom design and loading them with a few articles to boot? After all, if I can pump out a quick custom job in a few hours… I can increase my profit margins tenfold in the long run. Initially, I wanted to hold both of these until after the election, banking on the one winning blog at the end of it all. However, I am a greedy man and I think that I am just going to go ahead and do this as more of a short-term move. This way, I have the room to rinse-and-repeat if things work out well.
The Downside Risk
When you think about speculation, the first thing that should come to mind is risk. Risk is the downside potential that you take on when you try to unlock higher upside (profits). With a quick domain flip, the risk is only about $8 per website… but with a full-blown website, it is a bit more. Let’s tally things up so you can see just what I’m dealing with.
I got the design for free from a hot tip that my buddy Nick Throlson gave. And after seeing it in action at Barack Obama’s Blog, it was hard to look away. Unfortunately for me, Republicans aren’t the web design type… so I had to whip up my own quick McCain theme to fit the bill. This theme is called the “Probama” theme and it was originally made by the folks at Category 4. It fortunately came with the Photoshop .psd editing master file… so switching out a picture of John McCain was easy!
Domain names set me back $12, and I already had a web hosting account. Even if I didn’t, I probably just would have used a free hosting account to save money… so let’s mark that as a zero risk fee. I haven’t done this yet, but I anticipate buying some articles for around $90 total. Finally, SitePoint listing fees will bring my total up $20 ($10 each site) to a grand total downside risk of $122 and about three hours of my time. Let’s see if I can get a decent sell price and get a nice net return on my investment, eh?
BaracksBlog.com: I anticipate that this will be the higher selling blog, but as I am not sure I wanted to buy both domain names. Why? Well fans of Barack Obama will be more likely to be web-savvy than supporters of McCain. It’s just a fact of life. I am planning on gathering some good articles for this website about things like his energy policy, alternative energy plan, healthcare policy, his wife, his running mate (Biden) and his background. With content that is targeted and heavily searched, it shouldn’t be too hard to get things looking professional and well researched.
McCainsBlog.com: Admitting that John McCain will drive less traffic, I feel like a lot of this risk is balanced with the betting sounding domain names that I got with John McCain. As people refer to Barack Obama as “Obama” and John McCain as “McCain,” I got the short end of the stick with my BaracksBlog.com. For content, I am going to focus on the war on terror, energy policy, gas taxes, stock market/economic conditions, his background and his health. Again, this stuff is heavily searched and should pull in some good visitors well into the future.
Again, I am not a professional and do not claim to be. I do not intend on spending any large amount of time building up these websites, and am strictly going to be doing the bare minimum on both. Regardless, I think that this is an interesting speculative project… and I feel that the upside is too great to ignore! 
-Jimvesting
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Good luck with these web flips. I just recently bought about 20 domains in the hope to flip them for some quick cash. I don’t exactly know what I was thinking buying so many (I am on a tight budget) but I had an enthusiastic moment.
If they don’t sell then each and every one of them I can quickly turn into a website in about 5-10 hours each (that’s with me writing the articles) and then I can sell them and make a handsom little profit.
Anyway I win….hopefully I will win big
So good luck and let us know how you go.
I think you should have gone for something with the keyword ‘obama’ in it because it will be searched for so much. At least barack will have less competition
Great-looking sites Jim! I think you’ll be able to pull in some real $$$ from those two blogs.
Lucass last blog post..Market What’s Marketable!
I agree, making sites like this when the trends hit will turn a profit!
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Jim, i can’t believe that domains were still available!
Nice grab hehe. and the wordpress theme used on them is awesome. .
I am tired of hearing about website flipping, this can potentially make me want to do that to…lol
Hugo Santoss last blog post..Chicago Realtors
Wow. Great domains. There is no doubt that each of these is worth a minimum of $100 so even if that is all you get, you are essentially getting your money back plus about $25 an hour for your time. I am sure you can get more for them based on the domain names though. Nice finds!
Learn To Sell Porns last blog post..Friday Freebie Porn
Wow. Quick grab jim.
Even if you dont get to sell them, when one of them becomes the president, one of your domain will worth a fortune.
Desmond – DesmondBlog.coms last blog post..SEO Experts Wear Hats – Grey-Hat SEO Techniques
Maybe Barrack himself will want to buy the blog. It doesn’t matter though, those two blogs will sell for a lot of $.
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You should have no problem with either of these I believe with some decent content and a little luck you will actually turn quite the profit on these pair.
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I think you will sell these site easily and get a nice price to boot. I’m sure you wil put excellent content on there and make it worth it.
Bruno Augers last blog post..Customer Support: Knowing, Educating and Selling
Wow, really interesting. Keep us updated on both and definitely what they sell for. If this does well, I’ll definitely do it for future news events.
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I did the same thing with michael phelps and the olympics with some success. i turned olympicgoldrecord.com into the number 1 result for olympic gold record and phelps 8 for 8 and some others inside of 3 weeks.
Alex Beckers last blog post..Michael Phelps Poster
Great project you got going… I cant wait to see your results… might motivate me to do the same!
Opportunism at its best. Clever move on those two sites, Jim. Looking forward to how it turns out for you. It kinda inspires me to do the same when the opportunity strikes.
Yan
Might also sell my obama blog soon getting good traffic just from SEO just gotta get the right price lol!
best time to sell these would be a few days before results are announced amongst all the hype
Wicked idea Jim, can’t wait to see how this pans out
Moneybitess last blog post..Tips To Manage Your Time As A Full Time Web Entrepreneur
Those are awesome domains – any TM infringements?
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I love it Jim! Good stuff and great breakdown of your thought process. You’re on the money, and even with the obama one, I still think it’s a good name and the content will draw the traffic anyway! I’m watching this one man, as it should be very good! Great job.
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Can anyone registure any name they want? Is there no rules about using someone’s name or likeness? I am just not up on these things. Cool idea though.
you can get sued by companies for using names similar to corporations.
matt´s last blog ..
make original content with a good template
matt´s last blog ..
sorry i meant premium (purchase template) stand out from the crowd.
Woh, you did a “big work” for those two blogs with investissments and all.
So have you succeed to sell them?
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