How do you feel about your website?
Proud?
Scared?
Protective?
Meh?
Whatever you feel, do you ever think that it’s something that can one day net you $20 million dollars.
Probably not, right?
I’m guessing you’re trying to monetize it with various degrees of success, hoping to one day earn enough money from it to live a comfortable life, but not much more.
That was Michael Arrington’s plan as well when he started TechCrunch 10 years ago – just a blog that’s going to pay the bills while talking about technology and emerging trends. Little did he know that his site will eventually be bought by AOL for $30 million.
Huffington Post was destined for greatness as well. Do you think that Arianna Huffington set out to create a business that will eventually earn her $315 million when it sold? Of course she didn’t – who could even envision something like that.
But still, those things happened and those two people are now millionaires.
Who says your site isn’t destined for such heights as well?
Why is Selling Websites a Great Way to Make Money Online?
Good websites tend to sell for 20 times as much as they earn from their activities monthly. That can be a lot of money, depending on how much traffic you are getting and how you’re monetizing your site.
Selling your website can be a good move because:
You can earn a lot in one fell swoop
You will get the time to pursue your other projects
You never know when you’re niche will go under – bird in the hand, and all that
Ways to Make Money with Selling and Brokering Sites
The first thing you need to understand is that sites are property – a piece of Internet real estate that has its value. That value might be minuscule now but the neighborhood could suddenly get a facelift and become popular and bang! – you’re in the money!
There are two ways to make money by selling websites:
Building websites from scratch, populating them with content, and building up traffic
Buying websites giving them a makeover, earning from them, and selling them at profit
Both ways are going to require a bit of luck, a bit of knowledge, and a lot of patience.
Who Can Make Money Selling Websites
Everyone who has some internet business knowledge can get into this business. You need to have some understanding of Internet trends so you don’t end up blindly clutching at straws.
That’s the deal – you can’t really go into this business if you’re not willing to learn about it and become really good at doing business analysis.
Your site can accidentally take off and become a huge success but that happens once in a blue moon. If it happens to you count yourself one lucky bastard. More likely, you will be putting some hours into getting familiarized with the trends and the ins and outs of the industry, working on traffic, monetization, and everything else before you can cash in your site.
Where to Start
Selling your own website is different than buying and flipping another site so let’s look at both scenarios.
Selling your own site:
STEP 1 – Choose a topic that you enjoy and know a lot about – it will make things easier
STEP 2 – Make sure that you choose a profitable niche as well, otherwise this all is useless
STEP 3 – Work on your site – add relevant and unique content regularly
STEP 4 – Build up an audience
STEP 5 – Start monetizing your site with ads, affiliate marketing, or in any other way
STEP 6 – Put your site up for sale – website brokers, website marketplaces, and forum marketplaces are a good place to list your site
Buying, monetizing, then selling a site:
STEP 1 – Make a list of reputable sites and brokers who sell websites
STEP 2 – Keep an eye for ‘evergreen’ sites – sites in popular niches that can be reasonably expected to grow – clothing, sports, insurance, lifestyle, etc.
STEP 3 – When you find a site that matches your criteria ask the right questions – traffic, proof of revenue, trustworthiness of the seller
STEP 4– Consult with an expert in the industry or niche the site is focused on
STEP 5 – Don’t overpay – offer 70% of the asking price then negotiate. Never go above 24X monthly multiple of the profit unless you see a real opportunity
STEP 6 – Work to monetize the site further – implement your ideas, automate the processes, hire quality help for SEO, marketing, and sales or do everything yourself to cut costs
STEP 7 – Sell when ready – don let traffic hit zero. When that happens, value follows soon after. Sell the site when you can make a tidy profit to invest into your next project
STEP 8 – Repeat steps 1 through 8
Recommended Resources
1. Website Brokerage Sites
Since you probably own a site yourself, try to find out how much someone would pay for it – it never hurts to know and you might be surprised! This can give you a boost you need to work on it some more and then filp it.
Also, if you’re good at sniffing out potential opportunities, take a poke around website brokerage sites – your million might be waiting right there!