As a regular on this forum, I am putting together some suggestions on selling your site and how to make it seem like a good thing. The original posting by Jim is pretty helpful. But it is a locked thread, so I thought I would add my own experience here.

First, and foremost: think like a buyer.

If you are buying a site, what would you want to know? What would you need to know if the site you are looking at is for sale? Of course: content (what content do you have?), traffic (how much? what kind?), links (where? how many?), monetization included (if any? how much? what kind?), what else is INCLUDED in the sale. What is excluded, if anything.

Examples, make sure that the site you are selling has the rights to transfer photographs, esp. royalty free photos may not be transferable (it depends).

Also, if you are using specific accounts with the sale, such as a merchant’s account, advertising account (adwords), etc.

Second, is it a viable niche?

I do think sellers need to go a little further than just these basics, to make a successful sale you need to show that you have a viable niche. Why? Because you want to make the case that your site has a lot of interest in its niche, if you are to be able to sell the domain.

share with us, your potential buyers, exactly what value your site has to your audience, or an audience, at any rate. It’s easy for us to check out the niche values (remember your brainstormit tools, …) to determine whether a niche is winnable or not (AG day #2).

Third, answer your email/contacts.

So many threads feature the same problem: contacts that are never answered; emails that go missing. People frustrated because they want to contact you but can’t reach you.

Using email: set up a filter (in Google) to stop email going to the wrong place. Use a keyword from your original ad to help your filter work properly.

Using contact forms: check the forms database to make sure your replies are all received. I think that not all contacts made via SBI contact forms get through for whatever reason. So check your DB.

Fourth, site valuation

No, it’s not a science. Unfortunately. But nor is it a mystical art either. It may not be objectively possible to value what your site is worth. Be aware that, when you sell your site, buyers may have price points in mind, such as multiples of monthly earnings, traffic levels, amount of content, domain name valuation, etc..

You should really try to explain to your possible purchasers why you think your site is not just worth the asking price, but actually represents a good deal for them: suggestions – you could say you’ve developed a target mailing list, you’ve got a great domain name, you’ve got a unique E-Book, great list of keywords in the BrainstormIt Tool, … .whatever.
Also, there is no theoretical maximum to the price a site is worth. BUT there is an actual minimum price: the value of a site subscription * (x months)/12 where x = the number of full months to site renewal date. This minimum price is also affected by the pricing of the full subscriptions (typically $299 pa).

Don’t make your buyer work TOO hard!

Remember the harder you make your buyer work to buy the site, the less likely you will be able to sell the site because they may find it not worth it or too difficult to pursue. Worse, by the time you do get in touch with them to answer their question, they’ve already purchased another site.
Over the past few months, I’ve participated on the "Have you heard forums…" and regretted not purchasing TWO sites in particular during that time because I didn’t understand what I was looking at or was too late to see the posts… these sales can go F-A-S-T.

But more often I’ve noted sites that were being sold here that didn’t include basic information, or didn’t follow guidelines, or were blatantly copied, or were blank sites (on two occasions), or that didn’t include decent contact information, or were selling SBI accounts (and weren’t permitted to)… or didn’t answer questions quickly (or at all)…

On some occasions, I’ve tried to help by asking pertinent questions from the OP to explain what they thought they were selling, etc, this being a discussion forum and all that… Unfortunately, when I ask or point out these flaws one by one, I seem to get called out on asking them. Whatever. In at least one or two cases, where I’ve seen a wonderful site for sale, I’ve actually written to ask the person to reconsider selling what was a great money making and fulfilling site.

I hope this post helps people to sell their sites more effectively, that buyers will get better disclosure upfront, and that people won’t have to repeatedly ask for the basics.

Caveat emptor, Caveat venditor.

I’ve been pretty busy the past few weeks building a new site for my online business. It’s called Great Coffee Beans, and though it’s still early days, I’ve quite progressed along the track of building this site.

Why is it different? Well, it’s different because it’s my first site to focus on the SBI site building ideas, so it’s going to be a fully featured site with approx. 100 pages about Coffee Beans and making Great Coffee.

I haven’t set traffic or financial targets because it’s too early to really see what will happen.

The whole SBI process has been quite an opener in terms of the required keyword research and detailed article writing. I’ve also taken the unusual step of buying a lot of photographs and touching them up for the site. I’m hoping to mix my own photos in with the commercial ones.

There’s really not much else to say about the site, but I am working hard on refining the Look and feel of the site by adding lots more images to the site. I’ve still to revise two more articles, then I’ll be adding upto 35 more articles over the coming weeks to finalize stage one.

Traffic levels are still low, as I redesign and rewrite the site… but I’m hoping that traffic reaches 300 unique visitors within about three months. Do check it out and let me know what you think of the site!

One recent forum, I came across this sad letter. Why? Read the letter first to find out the problem:

I have worked hard and have done pretty well in my site I believe, traffic is building to around 150 visitors per day. … But I am currently deeply involved in a book writing project for (way off my wedding site subject). It will take most of my time and thoughts, and I honestly don’t have the motivation or focus for wedding writing at this point. If my site was earning me a good living, I may reconsider, though it would still need updating often.

I am not sure how far off I am from truly monetizing. Sometimes I think I need to just add a few things to potentially earn more. I’ve had some earnings with Adsense, but nothing high enough for my bank account to see. I’m not sure how much extra work is involved to truly see income come in, but right now all I’m doing is paying out — with the added time and effort of my other important project I’m doing.

Any advice out there? Any thoughts on who or how to sell my site to, if I do and how to figure in the price of it?

Thanks, D.

Ok. Now time for my reply.

Just one question: what happens when the book is done? Will you regret selling your site or not?

I took a quick look at your site (sorry no URL!), and I’m seriously impressed by the design, the organization and time you took to create the site. And with your traffic levels, it should be relatively easy to add a few products (think: Amazon, Clickbank books, Advertising links, …) to pay for your site, at least.

Since you have such traffic levels in your niche, it seems best to pause the content creation, look at increasing income (should be achievable!) and let the site run on auto-pilot for a while. I would make a lot of suggestions about creating money streams for your site:

• sell e-books (yours or others)
• sell advertising (not just Adsense – a lousy pittance, imho)
• sell affiliate products like shoes, dresses, etc. for the bride and groom… just a couple of affiliate companies will be a good place to start.

In fact, it’s perfect: it will take a couple of weeks or a month to know what sells and what doesn’t. So every month, just check the stats; tweak, add or drop the stuff you need to. And forget about it, till next month.

If after 3 months, you still haven’t sold any additional items, then reconsider (but I’m guessing you’ll find it enough to warrant simple tweaking).

It would, IMHO, be a real shame to come so far with your site, and fall at the final hurdle… just because something else comes up that needs your attention.

Many SBI-ers report the same problem: and run their site on auto-pilot for 3-6 months without any serious impact. In fact, it improved their search engine rankings just having the extra time.

So I would suggest: reconsider before someone else makes an offer, and you find yourself without all your hard work, and a few dollars in the bank only.

Kenneth

My additional thoughts: too often, we start something with a lot of gusto, but just as we are nearing the finishing line, we fall down in the middle of the track. And we get up, our pride injured and walk off the track (or are carried off to save our ego). But in building a website like this, there is no finishing line order. Picking yourself up, and completing this race will simply mean that you have achieved something considerable. So, go ahead … monetize the site. See what you can do on that front. Then let it rest.

What would you do in this situation?

I was discussing buying a site tips on one of the SiteBuildIt boards, when I came across this posting "Should You Buy an Established Website?" by Zac Johnson. It’s a good read, and he provides some good tips. Go here to read it, but do come back!

Over the years I’ve had my fair share of web site purchases. Some were good, and some were bad. Search any website forum or auction site and you are sure to find a handful of web sites that wet your appetite. Buying an established web site is a great way to expand your business outside of continually adding more ad campaigns, and can continue to generate revenue over a long period of time. Before you place that bid and jump into buying an established website, you should ask yourself a few questions. Just because it looks like a good deal, it might not be right for you.

While most of the rest of the discussion on the website is fairly mundane, I did think of a few comments that I would like to share with you about somethings that seem to be overlooked. So here goes:

If someone claims that "I cannot offer income statements, nor any guarantees of income", the only way that you can make sense of the value of the site is by assuming that the site makes no income, all.

Now, the siteowner may protest this, but then the siteowner would have to make clear what revenue the site actually generated, in doing so. A siteowner can’t simultaneously or reasonably claim a site has income but refuse to reveal how much. (Well, s/he can… but… it makes no difference).

The only way as a potential purchaser is to assume that, in the absence of any information to the contrary (assertions do not count), the site generates no revenue at all.

Then ask yourself: is the site actually worth the $3,900 it is being sold for.

Check the stats; check the google Index; check the traffic; check … and then assess for yourself, is the site worth what is being asked, in terms of what is being sold or included in the site.

Then ask yourself: do you have the knowledge or skill or relationships to build the site into a viable business that can generate reliable income?

Once you’ve done all that, then it’s time to set a price. Of course, … you may decide the site is only worth $390 or $39,000… but realize that what you are buying is the potential for you to build upon the current work.

BTW, don’t forget to check the site’s keywords in BrainstormIt, especially the primary ones on the main page. You’ll get a good idea about the actual viability of the niche. One thing I’ve noted in the sites on sale is that often the keyword selection is weak… so do your research! For those of you with SBI membership, you can login to the fuller discussion here.

In late August, I was suckered into buying one of those great 2-for-1 deals at SiteBuildIt, and since then I feel like I’ve been spinning my wheels a lot. Why? I will be absolutely frank: the course is tough because it asks you to do tough things, really tough. blogging on this blog or on my other Blogs is easy by comparison – I know what I’m doing, I know what to write (most of the time).

I’m working on this post over the next few hours, but I’m publishing it now so you can stop in and see how the article’s going.

It’s tough: Tough Questions

For the first time since I started running my websites, I’ve actually been much more focused on finding and examining keywords with the BrainstormIt Tools that SBI provides: this helps tremendously in selecting a niche that has potential for you, eliminating some of the failures that are inherent by pursuing niches that are overly popular or seriously underperforming.

The tools also provide help with selecting ways to narrow down, and expand your niche by building out the keywords properly. So for my niche, I’ve now got a potentially good niche with several hundred related keywords.

The toughest questions were the ones that took the longest to solve, and ones which were awfully similar to those posed by a writing course I took years ago, that asked me to examine my experience, talents and interests to determine where I could start. That was the hardest part, and despite my blogging interests I decided not to follow that niche at this time due to overwhelming demand.

The BluePrint

SBI makes a huge fuss about choosing your site concept keywords and then building out what they call a blueprint, based on choosing essential keywords and using the higher demand keywords with lower existing values to drive traffic. So it took me nearly three attempts to come up with a set of blueprints that are halfway reasonable. Of course, I still wonder if I’m biting off more than I can reasonably chew.

Why do I like SBI?

1. It’s slow, it’s methodical and thorough.. There is also an overabundance of materials that make initial problems by overwhelming those who (like me) tend not to put enough time into the program. But, once you gain familiarity  with the materials, you should just follow their simple Action Guide. Take a look at how SBI recommends putting the site together. The videos are pretty good, though many references are made to tools and results only available within the program.

2. It should make the daily grind of producing content less of a drain. In fact, that’s the one reason I hate blogging because of the pressure to write SOMETHING, ANYTHING, just words. There are a lot of other issues with blogging that I hadn’t realized until I read some of Ken Evoy’s words. He actually quotes Google: "Blogs usually have high Bounce Rates no matter what since normal visitor behavior is to read the newest post and then leave."

Why do I not like SBI?

Because you can’t just start writing, it takes time to work through the program, and so quick results are almost impossible. In fact, quick results are positively discouraged in favour of the tortoise approach.

Overall, I think Steve summed it up best in saying: "So structured and methodical (looks like a lot of tough content writing – I guess you are going for a big authority site with this though)." And that’s an approach that will need me to focus much more on developing both a writing style and meaningful content … that’s going to mean ‘research’.

So, it’s a hard slog; but as a result, I’m not able to post as much on InvestorBlogger (my apologies) though I will drop back on a weekly basis to update you on my challenge, including statistics… and whatever else I have time for. So if you want to stay uptodate with posts on InvestorBlogger, the best way is to subscribe to our site however you like, and you’ll get fresh content as and when it becomes available (even by email!)

Disclaimer: I’ve been using SBI for about three months on and off, am an active affiliate for their program, and highly recommend it if you are interested in developing a self-sustainable business.

6 Fool-Proof Steps to Make More Money With Your WebsiteDosh Dosh

Every website has a bunch of web pages which get more search traffic than others. These pages are constantly visited daily by new visitors, people who have never seen the site in question before. I call these ‘money pages’ because they are a reliable source of immediate and future income.But they’re not just ‘money’ because they bring in revenue: they are one of the easiest ways to grow your audience without much work. If you learn how to optimize these money pages (its not hard to do), you’ll really improve your website in so many ways. More revenue, more members, more influence and authority. Doesn’t that sound good? from Dosh Dosh | Internet Marketing & Social Media

This is a great article that introduces some very unique ideas on how to improve your income from your site. So, if you’re looking to do this, check out the article.