Over the last few years the business of buying and selling websites for profit has grown enormously. Indeed there are now numerous people working full-time on all angles of the process; there are people deliberately building websites to sell on to investors, there are full-time site buyers and there are even brokers acting as “real estate agents” between the two opposing sides.
Clearly, there is money being made – and lots of it. Having sold numerous websites myself for up to five figures each, I learned the hard way exactly what website investors are looking for and how to maximize the results you generate from such a transaction.
Fortunately you don’t have to go though all that, because I’m here to give you the answers. Here are in my opinion the top 8 rules to follow when attempting to sell your own website…
What Website Buyers Want
If you want to sell your website for the very best price possible it’s a smart idea to turn the problem around and consider what people actually buying websites as investments are looking for. The more boxes you can tick here, the more interest there will be in your site and – as a result – the higher the price you’ll get for your beloved site.
Website Stability
Anyone who markets their website using SEO will know how disastrous many of Google’s updates were last year. Many formerly popular, high-traffic websites were decimated when Google changed their algorithm and visitor numbers to many of these sites crashed overnight.
Clearly, anyone that had just bought a website based on it’s search engine rankings was in for a nasty surprise as all those visitors dried up together with the dream of recouping their investment.
“Stability” in an important concept when it comes to buying and selling websites; in essence a smart investor is going to be looking for a stable, predictable website that stands the very best chance of continuing on in a similar fashion and bringing in income with minimal additional effort.
There are two different concepts to consider here. Firstly, how stable is your traffic source? Sites that derive most of their traffic from the search engines may be less stable than those that get their traffic from referrals, through links from other websites, from paid traffic or from affiliates.
Even more so, sites that rely on top rankings for just one or two primary keywords are arguably far more of a risk than sites that have diversified their search engine rankings and draw visitors from thousands of long-tail keywords. The reason is simply that if the site drops out of the top ten results for a single keyword it will have far less effect on the overall traffic levels if it’s one of many top results than if it is the only real result.
The second factor worth considering when selling a website is really how long you’ve been getting these results. A website that has just exploded to the top of the search engines for a specific phrase may drop out just as easily. Contrast this to a site that has been around for years and can demonstrate consistent long-term traffic levels despite changes to the search engine algorithms and it’s likely to be seen as a far safer investment – and hence garner a higher asking price.
Domain Authority
Building links is easy. Building authority links is far harder. Yet it seems that Google is moving ever closer to an “authority model” where these high quality, “hard to get” links are worth ever more.
Before listing your website for sale use on of the various backlink tools like A HREFS to examine your link profile. Are most of your links on low quality directories and junk blog networks?
Or in contrast do you have links from authority sites in your niche? If you have genuine links from high PR sites such as the Yahoo Directory, DMOZ and suchlike then ensure you profile these to demonstrate
Revenue Figures
Whilst all the factors mentioned in this article will be considered by experienced website buyers and used to make a decision as to the value of a site, the biggest factor that will affect the selling price is how much money the site is already generating.
If you’re keen to sell your website for the maximum possible amount of money it’s therefore important to try and maximize the revenue you’re generating. For example consider spending some time split testing your landing pages, advertising sources, ad layout, upsells and so on to try and push your revenue as high as possible without sacrificing on the visitor experience.
Furthermore, rather like the traffic situation, consistent revenue can be seen as a positive sign when contrasted to a site that may see it’s revenue rising and falling rapidly over time. Consistent revenue levels allow potential website buyers to make a fair guesstimate as to how long it’ll take them to recoup their investment and the higher the revenue and the more predictable it is, the more attractive your site will be.
Monetization Strategy
Whilst the amount of revenue being generated is an important consideration, almost as important is how you generate this money. For example ecommerce sites that use dropshippers to fulfill orders or websites monetized with Google Adsense are typically very strong sellers because these websites require minimal time and effort from the buyer in order to maintain these income levels.
In contrast, websites which provide a service such as SEO or phone unlocking may not generate as much interest because buyers will need to be consistently working on the site in order to actually get a return on their investment.
Remember that experienced, professional website buyers will normally own a whole portfolio of sites and so those that require too much time or effort to run will likely be ignored in preference for easier wins.
Website Potential
In my opinion too many website sellers like to emphasize the “potential” of their website. They talk about the market size or ways you could make more money from the site. The fact is that in general these are empty comments.
If you’re selling a website then try implementing as many of these strategies yourself before selling it. In this way you’ll increase revenues *and* reduce the risk for your buyer and this can translate into a higher sales price.
Share Your Analytics
You wouldn’t buy a business based purely on the word of the seller as clearly it’s in their best interests to show only the benefits of their business.
Having the ability to provide access to your analytics – either by granting direct access to interested buyers or alternatively by providing videos or screenshots of your analytics – enable potential buyers to gain a deeper understanding of your website.
They’ll feel more confident about the traffic numbers you’re quoting and will be able to dig a little deeper into the sources of this traffic such as referring sites and keyword rankings.
Remember that the greater the time covered by these analytics, the more valuable and useful the information will be. A site that has shown a gradual but consistent growth in traffic numbers over months or even years will be worth far more to investors than a site launched last week that just got lucky with a big initial launch.
Alongside these analyticsw reports you may want to consider running some ranking reports with tools such as SEOMoz or Majestic SEO in order to show keywords that you’re ranking highly for.
Revenue Proof
Just as proving your traffic details is an essential part of the sales process, so too is proof of your revenue claims. Screenshots of your merchant account, autoresponder, advertising and affiliate accounts and even bank deposits can all be used as powerful trust-builders to help back up your revenue claims.
The Right Channel
Flippa may be the most popular place for website buyers and seller to meet but it’s not the only place. Numerous other marketplaces exist so it’s worth taking some time to examine all the various options available to you in order to maximize the potential sales price of your website.
For example for high value sites offering significant traffic and/or revenue on a recurring basis it may be wise to actually use a broker who will maintain a database of proven website investors.
While you will give up a small percentage of the overall sales price to the broker, their experience in the industry and contacts with existing buyers can be worth their weight in gold when selling your site for as much money as possible.
Richard Adams writes about online business creation and quitting the rat race at his blog.
