Skip to: content, navigation

Reserve Not Reached

The bidding on this auction did not reach the seller's reserve price.

Bid History

Site Access Verified? No

The seller has not yet verified that they have access to the site for sale. More info.

Telephone Verified? No

We do not have a verified phone number linked to the seller's account. More info.

Feedback Profile? 0%

The seller has 0% positive feedback. More info.

Seller Profile

Username:
washingtonrain (0%)
Location:
Private Message:
Message me

FairsandFestivals.net Established Membership Website for sale Established April 2007

forums, 1800 in paid members area, 15k autoresponder subscribers, facebook group

  • URL: http://www.fairsandfestivals.net/
  • Established: Mon, 02 Apr 2007 14:00:00 GMT
  • Uniques/Month: 16,000
  • Page views/month: 30,000
  • Monthly Revenue (USD): 4,000
  • Google Pagerank: 4
  • Listed: Mon, 05 May 2008 18:15:19 GMT

Description:

My consulting business has taken off an I have just to much going on to give the site the TLC it needs to maintain a healthy income. I just don't have the energy or motivation to stay on top of this site consistently.

I created this site over a year ago, first used paypal for payment processing then went to clickbank back in September. When I was really motivated and worked on writing articles, adding tips/tricks and products to the opt in mail list (i'd get a nice little boost of income for each product I'd promote) I was averaging about $3k/month profit. I am now hovering around $1k/month.

Here are details on the site, please let me know what more I can send:

  • Aweber autoresponder - 15,867 double opt in subscribers, I have about 8 autoresponder emails that generate additional income. you can add so many more to this!
  • Forums - Forums on the site are picking up nicely and  once there are enough posts you an add google adwords into it.
  • Facebook group - facebook group (attached) is a nice way to market and stay connected.
  • Visitor stats - attached.. you can get up to 50k uniques if you max out your google adwords campaign.
  • Alexa Rank - 479,266
  • Google PR Rank - 4

Costs monthly:

  • Programmer on demand - $100/month for anythign that comes up that I can't fix. he's a php/mysql programmer. and is there for backup, if you are a programmer you can eliminate this cost and make improvements to the site very easily!
  • Google Adwords - $1000, I currently spend only $1000 on adwords, I used to spend nearly $3500 a month and that generated $3000 in Net profit, but you have to monitor your stats and make adjustmest often., I haven't had the time to do that in a while so i only spend $1k/month for autopilot. :) jsut on weekdays
  • Data Researcher/event miner - I have a team that sources approx 1300 events a month for $900/month. this i what populates the database.

Ideas for future growth:

  • Do a full new look and feel for the site and "clean" it up bit making it easier to navigate.
  • Add a ton more autoresponder emails with products to sell so you continue to have a 2nd stream of income.
  • Add some video/audio files of interviews with festival vendors to the members area.
  • get some ebooks written to compliment the different vendor types on the site as incentive to sign up for membership
  • add a blog off of the site to increase SEO

SEO done on the site:

  • I had a team that I hired for 8 months to do SEO and they did a fantastic job, I am happy to pass along this information to the winning bidder. the improved my natural organic search results dramatically and on the days I am not advertising with google (I only advertise on weekdays) i am still averaging approx $50-$70/day in revenue.. so traffic is coming in nicely with link partners and organic search results.. the latest SEO report is attached. I just stopped using them as i am  

Support for new owner:

  • I will offer 30 days of support to help the new owner get up and running.
  • I will also send over all the contacts and data and google adwords list to get started. and let you know what my recommendations are.
  • share with you more ideas and feedback from users on what to add/improve to the site.

Required work on the site.. should be no more than 3-5 hours a week, to get to the $3k/month profit.

  • Answer emails approx 10-15 per day, with customer questions, or difficulty with login etc.
  • Review your Adwords campaign and consistenly make adjustments.
  • Writing new articles (or hiring it out)
  • adding information to your autoresponder. if you want to!
  • adding links to site or working on link exchange.
  • adding content to site to keep it updated.

Wasn't sure what to put for the revenue, but I attached the clickbank revenue since i started using them in September, I also used paypal before then.

Revenue Details:

if you dont do anything to the site and just mainain what i am doing currently you will hover around $1k NET profit.. if you do what I was doing when I was giving the site TLC and maximizing hte Google adwords campaigns (approx $3500 spending vs. the $1000 a month now) you can get up to $3000 in Net PROFIT a month. (I did that back in September, october and november last year then started my consulting biz and got way to busy to give the site the tlc..)

Revenue sources

Paid membership revenue through CLICKBANK: membership software is amember. members pay for 6 months, or 12 months, this is NOT recurring so if you set it up recurring you coudl make a ton more!

Google Adsense: approx $200-$300/month

autoresponder - Approx $400-$600/month with pushing products to opt in list.. this can be improved dramatically by adding more emails!

Traffic Details:

Natural organic searches.

google adwords

links from other sites.

Attachments

Questions to the Seller

  1. Posted date:
    Mon, 05 May 2008 19:18:10 GMT
    Actions:
    Comment ID:
    #1

    Please forgive me if I'm missing something obvious. What are members paying for exactly? I used your forums and viewed some event listings for free.

    Posted by:
    mustard76 (0%)
    Private Message:
    Message me
  2. Posted date:
    Mon, 05 May 2008 23:08:37 GMT
    Actions:
    Comment ID:
    #2

    HI,

    the members pay for full access to the event calendar, they can search the basic listings for free, and if they want detailed litings with contact information, booth costs, attendance numbers, etc. they have to pay to access that. it's similar to sites like Festivalnet.com and craftmasternews.com the target audience is event vendors that sell at shows (think your local festival, all the great food vendors and craft vendors need to find their events somewhere)

    Posted by:
    washingtonrain (0%) (seller)
    Private Message:
    Message me
  3. Posted date:
    Tue, 06 May 2008 00:45:33 GMT
    Actions:
    Comment ID:
    #3

    how do you find out about all the festivals and update it to the site? How much time per week does it take to run the site?

    Posted by:
    nghs22 (0%)
    Private Message:
    Message me
  4. Posted date:
    Tue, 06 May 2008 02:30:00 GMT
    Actions:
    Comment ID:
    #4

    HI, I have a team that I hired (included in costs on the listing) that sources all the events. I will share with the winner how that is done. the only thing you need to do is to upload the events. I spend about 30 mins a week on the site right now, but to maximize revenue I woudl say 3-5 hours, making improvements on a regular basis, writing more autoresponder emails, researchign products to promote etc... at 3-5 hours a week and consistency, you shoudl easily get to $3k a month, i was doing that back in Septebmer/october/november before I started my new business and just lost focus and consistency.

    Posted by:
    washingtonrain (0%) (seller)
    Private Message:
    Message me
  5. Posted date:
    Tue, 06 May 2008 10:25:55 GMT
    Actions:
    Comment ID:
    #5

    How much more SPAM is on the site?

    http://www.fairsandfestivals.net/index.php/search/map/oh for example.

    Posted by:
    rich_uk (60%)
    Location:
    Westcountry
    Private Message:
    Message me
  6. Posted date:
    Tue, 06 May 2008 15:33:58 GMT
    Actions:
    Comment ID:
    #6

    NOt sure what you mean as spam on the site? these are all event listings? I didn't see what you were referring to? something that the new owner may want to do is to review events more and spend a bit more time editing events that come in... but not sure what you mean by spam?

    Posted by:
    washingtonrain (0%) (seller)
    Private Message:
    Message me
  7. Posted date:
    Tue, 06 May 2008 17:09:08 GMT
    Actions:
    Comment ID:
    #7

    Do you have any affiliates now?

    Posted by:
    sitefind (0%)
    Private Message:
    Message me
  8. Posted date:
    Tue, 06 May 2008 17:39:16 GMT
    Actions:
    Comment ID:
    #8

    Through clickbank there are about 6 affiliates that sell and then through clixgalore there are several sales through them as well :) I haven't done any promotions targeting affiliates, so that is definitely an angle worth working on.

    Posted by:
    washingtonrain (0%) (seller)
    Private Message:
    Message me
  9. Posted date:
    Tue, 06 May 2008 18:43:49 GMT
    Actions:
    Comment ID:
    #9

    ""Data Researcher/event miner - I have a team that sources approx 1300 events a month for $900/month. this i what populates the database.""

    How reliable is this team in getting 1300 events per month? Have you tried doing this yourself eliminating that cost or is it way too time consuming?

    Posted by:
    dropship (60%)
    Private Message:
    Message me
  10. Posted date:
    Tue, 06 May 2008 20:05:29 GMT
    Actions:
    Comment ID:
    #10

    I've used them since August and they are GREAT and reliable and consistent.. I get 350 new events each monday from them. You coudl try to do it yourself to save money, but I never looked at doing that as I have a full time day job ;) but if you did do that, it would save you the $900/month :)

    Posted by:
    washingtonrain (0%) (seller)
    Private Message:
    Message me
  11. Posted date:
    Tue, 06 May 2008 23:12:59 GMT
    Actions:
    Comment ID:
    #11

    Hi,
    I think I know that rich_uk is talking about with regards to spam.
    In fact it's not spam but some kind of character encoding issue with some of the events that have been posted. In some cases a question mark is being displayed on either side of any alphanumeric character. Perhaps this is not showing up on all browsers but I see it in Firefox.
    So an event such as this -

    Over 300 corvettes will converge in Roscoe Village at this event hosted by the Classic Glass Corvette Club. Stroll through the streets of Roscoe Village to the tunes of 50s and 60s music as you admire your favorite car and talk to its proud owner.

    Is being displayed as -
    O�v�e�r� �3�0�0� �c�o�r�v�e�t�t�e�s� �w�i�l�l� �c�o�n�v�e�r�g�e� �i�n� �R�o�s�c�o�e� �V�i�l�l�a�g�e� �a�t� �t�h�i�s� �e�v�e�n�t� �h�o�s�t�e�d� �b�y� �t�h�e� �C�l�a�s�s�i�c� �G�l�a�s�s� �C�o�r�v�e�t�t�e� �C�l�u�b�.� �S�t�r�o�l�l� �t�h�r�o�u�g�h� �t�h�e� �s�t�r�e�e�t�s� �o�f� �R�o�s�c�o�e� �V�i�l�l�a�g�e� �t�o� �t�h�e� �t�u�n�e�s� �o�f� �5�0� s� �a�n�d� �6�0� s� �m�u�s�i�c� �a�s� �y�o�u� �a�d�m�i�r�e� �y�o�u�r� �f�a�v�o�r�i�t�e� �c�a�r� �a�n�d� �t�a�l�k� �t�o� �i�t�s� �p�r�o�u�d� �o�w�n�e�r�.�

    Hope this helps.

    Posted by:
    catweasel (100%)
    Location:
    Goldfields, VIC, Australia
    Private Message:
    Message me
  12. Posted date:
    Wed, 07 May 2008 00:48:52 GMT
    Actions:
    Comment ID:
    #12

    Yikes! ok let me check with my programmer as to what is going on..I cant duplicate this and haven't had complaints on it. (I use IE7). it sounds like a browser issue. I"ll get this fixed asap! thanks for letting me know!

    Posted by:
    washingtonrain (0%) (seller)
    Private Message:
    Message me
  13. Posted date:
    Thu, 08 May 2008 15:19:50 GMT
    Actions:
    Comment ID:
    #13

    The randome characters that are happening only in the firefox browser, are being fixed now by my programmer. it's sporadict so it's not every event, but it's being fixed. thank you again Catweasel for the details on that!

    Posted by:
    washingtonrain (0%) (seller)
    Private Message:
    Message me
  14. Posted date:
    Fri, 09 May 2008 02:10:23 GMT
    Actions:
    Comment ID:
    #14

    Sure no probs. My guess is some folks are drafting their events in a rich text editor and then using copy/paste to enter it into the website. This could result in invisible characters creeping into the content, which FireFox displays as a question mark.

    Posted by:
    catweasel (100%)
    Location:
    Goldfields, VIC, Australia
    Private Message:
    Message me
  15. Posted date:
    Wed, 14 May 2008 23:05:48 GMT
    Actions:
    Comment ID:
    #15

    Do you have a breakdown of subscribers? Like how many are free because they're event planners?

    Posted by:
    Beauboy (60%)
    Private Message:
    Message me
  16. Posted date:
    Wed, 14 May 2008 23:26:57 GMT
    Actions:
    Comment ID:
    #16

    Sure..
    1824 Total members. 360 are event planners and have free accounts & 1464 are paid members.

    Posted by:
    washingtonrain (0%) (seller)
    Private Message:
    Message me

Ask the Seller

To post a comment on this contest, please log in with your SitePoint username and password. If you don't have an account yet, you can create a new account for free.