Recently, I’ve been getting a few e-mails asking me how much people’s site is worth due to the interest of site flipping. Honestly, there are so many variables to take into account that it’s going to be different for every site. But I’ll go over the generic things so people get the jest of what to focus on to potentially help increase the value of your site.
Is your site unique?
This definitely separates the men from the boys, the people who blend in the crowd and those that stick out like a sore thumb. But the uniqueness of your site can definitely raise the value amount of your blog or site. Essentially, if you are one of the first to create a unique site, everyone will follow in your footsteps.
Just look at John Chow and all the MMO followers.
And that leads to my example… not too many people want a make money online blog because it’s highly saturated and you’ll just get lost in the shuffle with the hundreds and thousands of other MMO blogs. I marketed DatMoney.com just to see the selling potential and the response I got was the fact that some were just turned off by the MMO niche in general.
Of course, if your site makes $x,xxx or more monthly consistently then you should have no problem. Which leads right on to my next point…
How much revenue does your site make monthly?
This is one of the most important points because a lot, if not all, buyers want a site that is already bringing in income. The hardest part for people is the monetizing side of a site, which is why people invest thousands on a site to have all that done for them already.
The going rate usually is your monthly income multiplied by 10 times (10 months) but that is just the average. There are people who buy at a lesser value while I have seen some people pay as much as 24 times a monthly rate, but that site must have a lot of potential.
And that leads to my next point (don’t worry, I won’t keep doing this connection)
If you need help on how to monetize your site , you can read this post .
Does your site have potential to grow?
In site flipping, if there is no potential then why would buyers even look at your site? Think of it as an investment. They spend thousands on your site with the intent of making their money back plus additional profits.
But just like any investment, it’s a hit or miss. Sometimes you’ll make tons of profit from the site. Sometimes you’ll just break even over time. Or sometimes you just end up spending money and losing it on what you thought was a ‘potentially’ good investment.
Domain name
Believe it or not, but if you have a catchy domain name that’s extremely brand able then your value shoots all the way up even if your site is crap. If you have a domain name that is getting traffic or is extremely unique then it doesn’t matter how crappy your site is, buyers would just use the domain name for their own use.
Who knows, maybe they will just domain flip it and make a profit just off of that.
Organic traffic (search engine traffic)
We all know visitors from search engines are the ones who actually help you make money online. And of course, buyers know that as well so the more search engine traffic you get, the better.
I had a discussion with another blogger sometime ago and a potential buyer pulled out at the last minute due to the fact that a majority of their traffic came from “referring sites.” That means that site relied on other sites to get them traffic (social bookmarking sites, Entrecard, advertising, etc) which isn’t a good look for buyers.
The reason is because that means more work for the buyer and they want things as automated and easy as it can get.
Also, popular keywords will help boost your site’s value as well. I mean, if you rank first for the keyword term “make money online” more than likely you’re getting thousands of unique visitors from search engines alone. That alone is a selling point that would help pull in extra value to your site.
Pagerank and backlinks
Everyone thinks Google Pagerank is such a mystery but it’s really not. Though, there are some people who live by it and usually buyers are the same exact way. Pagerank updates only once every three or four months so it’s not often that number will change. The higher the PR the more you can add that to your selling point.
As for backlinks to your site, this ties in with Pagerank but more importantly, it means your site is indexed in search engines. If your site is fairly new but you’re trying to sell it then you might want to get it indexed as much as you can.
Don’t worry, you can get your site indexed in Google in less than 24 hours!
RSS Feed Subscribers and readership loyalty
RSS feed subscribers are tricky because a lot of buyers feel if they switch owners, those readers will not follow and simply unsubscribe. That may be true for some but if the new owner knows what they’re talking about or if they keep the content interesting enough, I bet they can drastically increase that amount.
For instance, the new John Cow.
But everyone says RSS Feed subscribers are worth X amount but that died off due to the fact that a lot of people inflated their feed count with fake numbers. But when it comes to site flipping, you shouldn’t lie about anything because it’ll just come back to haunt you in more ways than one.
Unique theme
If you have a unique theme that you paid $xxx amount for, you can include that into your total asking price. For instance, take a look at our hot theme on ListLunatic.com , I’ve had so many compliments on it. Unfortunately, I can’t take credit for it. I think Forest Parks did all of that.
I’m sure I’m missing some points and if I am, feel free to leave a comment and I’ll add it on this post and give you a backlink to your site.
But when it comes down to it, you have to sell all your strong points of your site no matter what it is. It’s the same thing for anything, trying to get advertisers, sponsors, etc, you need all your strong selling points.
I hope this helped!
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If your totally transparent about your site on every aspect, i’m sure you can get a good price for it. I see a lot of big sites with 30000 RSS subscribers and I think are those real.
Bruno Augers last blog post..Sunday Link Love
I love this article because I just had a conversation with a colleague yesterday about site flipping…it’s true the MMO niche is saturated, however, I’ve found a niche within a niche if you will and have seen my revenues jump in the last 30 days. Thanks for the heads up though.
TeasasTipss last blog post..10 Ways To Boost Your Twitter Followers
Yeah you are so right. The MMO arena is just flooded and everyone is trying to so hard to make a stand. I would agree that RSS Subscribers and Search Engine listing plays a big role in valuating your blog. At least thats what advertisers are looking at.
Make Money Bloggings last blog post..Search Engine Copywriting For SEO Without Losing Readability
you can always check a sites real feed counter with feedcompare.com
Andrei Buius last blog post..Writing from the heart
i know about this one. Its good to know how much value of your website. So far, not many people know about this one. Thanks for sharing too.
Interesting ideas Jay..
I think that a site is worth whatever somebody is willing to pay for it - No More, No Less.
(no offers, no sale)
Brad Blogging.com - Personal Blog Tips And Blog Helps last blog post..9 Jquery Slideshow Applications You CANNOT Miss
This is a great post. Most people view the worth of a site by how much revenue it brings in. The fact of the matter is, a site’s value can also be assessed by RSS subscribers or themes. It’s important to try to include all of these elements when attempting to build a site.
Value truly is in the eye or wallet of the beholder. However, you have touched on many of the tangible aspects that drive value.
In real life, offline, I am a real estate appraiser. I can tell exactly what drives real estate values, but this virtual real estate is difficult to assess.
I had to add anything to your list, I would say what are comparable sites selling for. See, that is the appraiser in me talking, but it is a real question.
If you found comparable sales of websites that were similar to yours in subscribers, revenue, and niche, you would have a very good indicator of value for that site.
The problem of course is that it is not set up like real estate where the local MLS or Multiple Listing Service has the majority of sales. You could search Sitepoint or Digital Point, but still many sales are made privately.
Good stuff, man, I like the way you think. I was just trying to think out of the box and add some value to your post.
Hope I did!
Peace to the bloggers!
Freddies last blog post..Goal Setting Sunday: Week 7
I agree with everything you say here. All these factors come into play when you try to put a value on a site.
It takes a lot of hard work to make your site worth anything.
Andys last blog post..What Do You Want?
I can vouch if your domain sucks, you probably won’t get much
I still can’t believe why I purchased the name “bloggin-ads”…lol
-Mike
Excellent post! Answered a lot of my questions…except one which no one seems to be able to answer…..
I have a domain. No site, No traffic, No links or PR….just a domain name
It’s an awesome name though and PERFECT for someone smart in it’s particular field….yes, short and keyworded.
it may have a PR1 right now, I’m not sure. There is currently a blog with very little content that will be taken off…..is there a market for JUST a real sweet domain?
Seriously, someone smart in this particular industry (direct sales) could do any number of things with it.
Advice?
Dennis Edells last blog post..Guest Post: DaBlogger Tells His Experiences with Social Bookmarking
Bruno - I don’t doubt those 30,000 subscribers are fake, I’m just saying there are some people that inflate their feeds for the purpose of making themselves look better.
Teasa - I’ve been meaning to e-mail you regarding a comment about making money from something you mentioned earlier. I just keep forgetting. I’ll try to hit you up on Yahoo messenger if I see you on.
Make Money Blogging - Of course, because advertisers know visitors click on ads from search engines, other bloggers probably won’t click on those ads.
Andrei - There are a few sites where you can check but those aren’t always accurate. I think another one is blogprefume.com
Rajapayloadz - Nobody knows about your site or mine?
Brad - That is very true but you need a selling point for anything. For instance, you’re not going to get many advertisers if you don’t mention your stats, are you?
Rebecca - That is very true and people also overlook the domain name sometimes. But most people just focus on the revenue even if the site is crap.
Freddie - You always add value man. But a comment on comparing to other sites with similar stats… it’s hard to say because it’s a bidding war and when it comes down to it, you have to sell your blog and write a good explanation on WHY people should buy the site. It’s just like if you use Adwords, the better and more catchy ads are the ones that get clicked on.
Andy - Ahhh the new DB visits, so I wanted to say thank you. Of course, for some people it requires less work. I’m not saying I’m one of them
lol
Mike - LOL! The domain wasn’t all that but yet, you managed to get that domain to PR5 so that’s pretty damn good. And it’s not like you didn’t get a decent amount when you sold it.
Dennis - So you have a domain name that you want to sell? Well, there are plenty of places where you could sell a domain name… DP, Sitepoint, etc. And then there are sites like Sedo.com that are specifically for stuff like that. You can even get it listed on a domain registrar site like Godaddy and have people bid for it.
Hope that helps?
Jay
I now the where, I just don’t know the how. Most of those around me can’t get more then the $10 they paid for it.
Dennis Edells last blog post..Guest Post: DaBlogger Tells His Experiences with Social Bookmarking
This brings to light the numerous aspects that exist in defining how a site compares with other sites. If one site has many of these characteristics, but is lacking in an important one such as by having a generic theme that is easily recognized, then fixing that issue will benefit the site much more than slightly tweaking another aspect.
Yeah all it takes is uniqueness.
Make Money Bloggings last blog post..Should I Change My Blog Theme?
Uniqueness is important, however, if the site is making money without being unique then that would definitely count for something.
It is impossible to rank these in order of importance. The fact is it depends on the skills and interests of the individuals.
John
Must say, I can’t think of any other key areas that you haven’t already stated. What do you find as primary selling point though? Although I do not personally seeing it as any big relevance, but I sell most of mine based on GPR… but in a way, that works out well for me as I can achieve GPR 5 with any site quicker than Mary Poppins and pick her nose.
Wow, how much weight does domain name has in it? I guess it’s important for branding and relevance. But I would have thought domain name wasn’t that important, it was the content that was the king.
Great articles. How do you calculate how much a site is worth? Can you set the price on monthly multiples of how much it generates?