Basic Points That Buyers Look For in Purchasing a Site
Written by admin on September 26, 2008 – -Since site flipping seems like the hot trend around the blogosphere, and also the fact that I mentioned I would discuss it a little bit here, I figured I’d post a few basic points on what potential buyers want when purchasing a site.
I already talked to some of you guys via e-mail and wrote about details based on the information you supplied me with but I’ll go over some basics just incase you’re planning on building a site to try to sell it in the near future, or if you have a site you’ve been working on for a long time and are considering selling.
Monthly Revenue : This has to be the most important point that buyers look for because they’re basically putting an investment on the site knowing it’s potential of making more money.
In addition, there are some people who have a tough time monetizing a site to make it work. Anyone can get traffic to a site but not everyone can turn that traffic into money, including some buyers.
A lot of people ask for proof of revenue for the last 3 month, sometimes longer and sometimes shorter. If you have an Adsense site, you can always show daily proofs and convince them that way as well.
Most buyers would pay between 6-12 times the monthly revenue, sometimes more and sometimes less. On average, I think the going rate is on a 10 month basis but it all depends on the potential of the site and selling point.
Traffic - Particularly Search Engine Traffic and Indexing of Site : We all know most, if not all, of the visitors who click on PPC ads come from search engines and buyers know this as well. Anyone can submit to social bookmarking sites and get thousands of visitors but they won’t help you make money!
Also, organic traffic means less work for the buyers. If you have 3,000+ people coming in from search engines, that means your site is pretty well-indexed and you rank on some popular keywords.
Of course, if you’re getting lots of organic traffic then that means you’re probably well-indexed in search engines already. But essentially, if you’re very well-indexed, you have a lot of backlinks to your site which is a good thing!
Oh, and pagerank can always help your selling point too!
Most people would like proofs of traffic for the last three months and the sources. Say you have a lot of referring traffic, they want to know where it comes from and that’s a deciding point for some.
For example, if a bunch come from blog commenting, that would require the owner to do a lot of extra work to maintain that traffic and I can tell you, that’s a LOT of extra work they probably aren’t too keen of.
RSS Feed Subscribers : If you’re selling a blog and not just a regular site then readers play an important part in what buyers look for. We all know it’s hard getting daily readers especially those who subscribe via RSS Feeds, but if it’s already done for the buyer then that’s even better.
People say different things about how much RSS Feed subscribers are worth but one subscriber is probably equivalent to $0.50-$1.00. Of course, the RSS Feeds may not come into play for some buyers and it’s a thought to consider.
Easy to maintain : Like I said, when buyers purchase a site, it’s an investment for the long run. They see potential in the site to make their spendings back over a course of a given period. Of course, if the site takes way too much time to manage then it’s almost not worth investing in, through the eyes of the buyer.
If a buyer purchases a site but needs to maintain it, update, etc for hours each day, more than likely they will pass on it.
Unless it’s a blog then they would consider it with various factors. (Blogs should be updated at least a few times a week)
Well, those are my basic points that buyers look for in purchasing a site. I know there are more but I just wanted to cover just a few one of the main points that you guys can focus on.
Posted in Site Flipping |
By Pangeran on Sep 27, 2008 | Reply
One question always in my mind.
Let’s say I have this site with the domain A.com.
From the beginning, I was already planned to develop this to become a blog and sell it.
And I have around 10Gb of web hosting space with unlimited addon domain.
Hence,
Should I just add it in my existing 10Gb hosting?
Or,
Buy him another separate hosting?
And if I have a website that I created before, in that 10Gb hosting, how could I sell them without affecting my hosting?
Should I move them into new hosting with my own costs or should the buyer pay the costs?
And last before another questions come in my mind later…
Any formal procedure to transfer ownership?
And yeah, how to accept payment?
I have this case regarding of using paypal.
I deliver a service, for practical example, selling a website.
And the buyer willing to transfer all the amount paid using paypal.
After the transfer ownership is done, he claim a charge back on the sum of money that he has already transfered before.
Nah… I have come to this problems where I cannot offer any proof to paypal that I am the victim.
How to avoid this?
By Admin on Sep 27, 2008 | Reply
Pangeran - I thought you had ONE question
If you’re a dedicated site flipper then more than likely you should buy hosting strictly for that use. Personally, I don’t flip HUGE sites so I just use my own but then again, I have some good space on my hosting.
But you have to think if it’s worth it to you or not. If you’re unable to sell a site then you’re just spending money on extra hosting for basically no reason, you know?
“And if I have a website that I created before, in that 10Gb hosting, how could I sell them without affecting my hosting?”
I’m not 100% sure if I understand this question.
As for transferring, it depends, I guess. But the basic is you receive payment, e-mail all the required files and then transfer the domain to the new owner.
Well, I use Paypal for anything under $1,000 we’ll say (depending on how I feel about the buyer). Because its fast and if its a couple hundred dollars, more than likely they won’t scam because they would aim for higher sites for more money.
If you don’t trust Paypal when selling a site then you can always use Escrow.com but you have to go through an entire process which is a lot safer for both the buyer and seller. Though, if you’re selling a site for say $100, more than likely the buyer wouldn’t want to go through that extra hassle.
By Pangeran on Sep 27, 2008 | Reply
From your answer, it seems okay to host the website that we want to sell in an addon domain account.
The important is the domain transfer.
The website files, then can be transfered to the new owner hosting.
Now then, how actually you do with your own? Do you put these sites you want to sell on addon domain account?
By johnallan on Sep 29, 2008 | Reply
Offcourse.But we have to check the present rate outside.Here there is a lot of difference between sites is on onpage optimisation.It is one of the important factor to increase traffic for your site.Many of the people making site to earn money.
By Armen Shirvanian on Oct 21, 2008 | Reply
It appears as though most factors of a site are able to be converted into a monetary value. It may be beneficial for a buyer to get a jump-start on their concept by taking a site that is already going and continuing from it, as long as it matches their future production plans.