Last Updated on September 13, 2024
If you’ve been working the past several years to build something great, don’t be too quick to get rid of it. You’ve worked hard to build your website into what it is today, so take things slowly when selling it. You want to get its true worth. Rushing the sale won’t do you any justice. Don’t be afraid to wait. Sell only when the asking price is reasonable.
Time, Labor, and Love.
Prior to selling, you should have a good idea of how much labor you’ve put into your website and know how much money earned from it. Ensure that you’re making enough money to make up for the fact that you’re not going to have an opportunity to make more from it in the future. Remember that once you’ve sold your website, you’re going to have a hard time knowing that someone else is making more profit than you did in the past, so don’t let it go for too little.
When buying or selling a home, there is a specific process people execute. First, you need a good reason to be selling, since no one wants an old run down house or website. Think about why you’re selling the website. Are you selling it because you need money for another project? Have you lost your love for the website? Explain why you’re selling the website. Be honest about it. There is no need to lie.
Next, you need to find a way to let people know that you’re trying to sell your website. This part is a lot like selling a house. You can find several companies or brokers who specialize is selling online properties. This will come in handy. While most companies take a hefty commission on every sale, some offer a lower percentage or a set price. Find the agency that will work for you.
Personally, I would go with a commission. Why? Because they’re going to bust their butts to make sure you get the highest offer possible.
Lastly, ensure that you’re not jumping into the first deal that comes your way. If some company is extremely interested in your website, they will outbid the last guy.
While you might have a buyer who is willing to purchase your website for more than someone else, you need to ask them what they plan to do with your website. You put sweat, blood, and tears into your website, it’s kind of like selling your own child. Be sure that some spammer won’t turn it into an erectile dysfunction drug selling website. If you don’t really care about the fate of your websites, then let the highest bidder win!
What Should I Sell it for?
The average price of a high-traffic website, that’s not making any money, is about ten thousand dollars. In this, you should understand that your site might not have the traffic level needed to get that much, or you might be able to sell your site for a lot more than that, depending on how much traffic you’re getting.
To properly determine the worth of your site, there are several steps that you can take. The first is to determine your traffic. The more page views you have, the better. But pageviews aren’t the most important thing. Time on site, bounce rate, and the average visit duration are also important.
I would personally hate to buy a website that has millions of pageviews with the average visit duration being less than 30 seconds. Buyers want to see high engagement and return rate.
If you’re not getting much traffic, but a lot of revenue, see to it that you’re selling on that fact. Be sure to have proper documentation showing how your sales are looking and what your traffic levels are. Most buyers will ask you to share everything from your bank account statement to your Google Analytics report. Buyers don’t like to be scammed or lied to.
If your website is selling for more than 100k, then be ready to meet the buyer in person.
If you’re looking to make the most money possible, stay away from using abbreviations in your name. For instance, don’t use the letter ‘u’ to mean ‘you’ in your domain, serious clients want mature sites. Keeping that in mind, the shorter that your domain name is, the better. Many one-word domain names end up selling for millions in comparison to websites with very long names.
As a very basic rule, take the revenue that your site is making annually and multiply that by three. This will be the fairest asking price when you’re ready to sell your website. You might disagree with that rule. Some buyers only buy 10x, 18x, 20x, 25x, etc. what the site makes a month.
Let’s say your website makes $1000 a month. Multiply that amount by 18. Your selling price should be somewhere around 18k. Once again you’ll receive various offer, but the multiple rule is highly debatable.
When you’re ready to sell your website, you don’t have to make things complicated. The process is easier than what most people make it out to be. You main goal is to obviously make as much money as possible while still being fair to your potential buyers. No one in this situation wants to get ripped off.