Selling a website is a pretty exciting prospect if you’ve never done it before, whilst old hands at the game may know all the tricks and trials of selling websites, people selling a website for the first time may feel a little anxious at the prospect.
Its likely, if you looking to sell your website, that you have been running it for some time and are now looking to move on. People have many reasons for owning a website, some make a living from selling many websites every month, others start a site as a hobby which then goes on to be a success with many loyal users, others start a website as a business with an aim of growing the business over time and with a view to exiting via a sale at a later date.
Whatever your reason for selling, the same principles apply, you need to know your market, who you should try and sell to and how you should go about it.
In this article we hope to explain to you what to expect from the process, right from the idea to sell, through to selling and after sales.
First things first…
For this article we are going to assume that this is the first website you have sold, so we will explain everything with this in mind, if your an experienced website seller then you may find some things of interest but most of the information here will already be known to you.
For the first time seller, there is a lot to consider and a lot to take in, so we will break it down into the various elements that make up the whole process, from start to finish.
Where to sell your website
Daft question eh..? Yes, we are a marketplace for selling websites, and we of course hope you will place your website for sale with us, but we are not the only option, so here we will give you some information on the different venues and methods available for you to sell your website.
Firstly, you may not need to advertise your website publicly at all. If your website deals with a specific topic and is a leader in its niche then approaching another website that may be interested in purchasing your website may be a way forward.
Many website owners would relish the chance to buy out one of their larger competitors and you may find you can strike a deal this way and gain a higher price than you otherwise might if you advertise the site generally.
If you don’t think going straight to a website owner is the best thing for you then the next step is to get the website advertised. As well as ourselves, there are several other options open to you. The infamous eBay is an obvious choice that springs to mind for many people who are selling their first website, but in most cases this is not the best place for you to sell as the price you will get will often be lower than the price you will get when you advertise it directly to webmasters and internet entrepreneurs via specialist venues.
Other options include flippa.com, buysellwebsite.com, websitebroker.com and sedo.com among others. Like ourselves these websites offer advertising of websites directly to buyers who are interested in buying quality, well established and revenue generating websites. They generally offer a similar service and who you choose to sell your website with is mostly a matter of personal choice.
Getting the best price
How much you sell your website for will depend on many factors, and coming up with a realistic asking price can be a tricky task, some of the factors that will determine the price you can ask for and also the price you will get are:
- Revenue
For webmasters or internet entrepreneurs this is probably the biggest factor in how they will value your website. Many have formulas they use for working out how much they should pay for a website, a common one being 10-12 times the monthly profit the website makes. These formulas are useful for getting a rough idea of what your website maybe worth, but revenue is considered, along with other factors, to be very important when determining the value of a website. - Traffic
Much like a store in the high-street or shopping mall, the more traffic a website gets, the higher the potential for deriving revenue from it. Professional buyers will look at traffic levels of a website to see firstly what kind of revenue they may make from it, and secondly to see the websites progress over time, has the website gained or lost visitors over the last few months or years, and if so what was the reason. They will also like to know the sources of the traffic to your website, generally websites that get their traffic from search engines or quality backlinks rather than paid advertising are more desirable. - Potential
Websites that are popular but not living up to their potential financially are hot property. Even if your website is not making much revenue, if it has a ton of traffic, good content and great search engine rankings for popular search terms, then you will still get a good price due to the potential. Obviously your websites niche will determine its ultimate potential revenue, but generally sites with good levels of traffic can always make money and therefore will command a premium when being sold. - Backlinks
Another factor buyers will look at is backlinks to the site you are selling, who is linking to your website and from where. A website with lots of backlinks from quality sources will be worth more. The reason being that backlinks are a large factor in where a websites pages rank in search engines, if two different sites have similar content of a similar quality, but one of these websites has lots of backlinks from respected websites then this website will always do better in search engine rankings, and consequently have a higher potential revenue, and therefore a higher price when you sell it.
Armed with the factors above that buyers will be looking for you can put together your advertisement wording. A well written advertisement promoting all the good things about the site you have to sell, along with supporting figures about revenue and traffic, will ensure you get the best possible price for your website. Browse the websites listed for sale in our marketplace to get some ideas on how to put your advertisement together and what to include, try to make your description informative and detailed, if you are expecting a buyer to part with hundreds or thousands of dollars to buy your website then you will need to go the effort of making sure you give them all the information they need.
Note that buyers will usually want to see proof of a websites traffic and revenue before buying, this is normal and should be expected. This proof will normally be in the form of screenshots of PayPal accounts for revenue (or another payment method depending on your website and how it generates its revenue) and of visitor statistics for traffic etc.
Selling price
Once you have a description ready, and have selected a venue for you to post your advertisement to, you will need to come up with an asking price. This dosent mean you actually need to ask for this price in your advertisement, it just means thinking about what price you are willing to accept.
Try to bear in mind the length of time it will take the buyer to recoup their investment based on the sites revenue, if your price means the buyer will need to run the site for 3 or 4 years before they make back their investment then its likely you wont make a sale (the web moves fast and a website with good revenue right now could quickly see that revenue disappear in 12 months time), so be realistic with your price expectation.
Most website selling venues will give you the option to run an auction, with a starting and reserve price, along with the option to have a BIN (Buy It Now) price. Auctions are probably the best way to go as you can let the market decide the value of your site and you may well end up getting more than you hoped, and by setting a reserve you can be sure you wont have to sell your website for less than you are happy with.
If you do choose to advertise your site with just a BIN price then you risk either not selling it at all because the price is too high, or selling it for less than you could have done if you had run it as an auction. Guessing the right value for your website is near impossible and in most cases, running an auction with a minimum starting bid and a reserve price is probably the best way to actually achieve a sale, and at a price you are happy with.
The auction
You should now have everything you need to place your website for sale, so pop along to your chosen venue and place your ad.
If you advertised your website with a BIN option then you may find it gets snapped up very quickly, in which case you can skip straight to the next section. Usually however you will have your website listed as an auction, allowing people to make bids up to the point when the auction ends. Auctions can last anything from one day up to thirty days, but probably the optimum time frame for an auction is seven to ten days, this normally gives enough time for everybody who’s interested to make a bid (and some outbidding of other bidders too), while not lasting so long that people lose interest in the auction and may go back on their bid when the auction finally does end (not allowed but it does happen).
During the course of your auction you will get genuine questions about the website, and quite possibly some people hurling abuse about your website, or the price you are asking for it. Answer legitimate questions honestly and openly, give the buyer as much information as you can in your responses, ignore anyone trying to trash your sale, don’t respond to them, simply delete their comments if you can, or if not just leave them alone, other more serious buyers will see past these type of negative comments and know the value of your site.
Completing the transaction
Eventually your auction to sell your website will come to an end and you hopefully got a great price. The next step is to get the payment from the buyer and transfer the website to their control.
Getting payment will depend on your circumstances and the price you sold the website for. For websites less than a few thousand dollars you can use PayPal to take the payment, for higher sums other methods of payment may be preferable, such as an escrow service or a direct wire transfer.
As for transferring the website to the buyer, you will need to transfer the domain name, all website files and also a copy of the database if the website uses one. Transferring the domain is done through your registrar, and its usually easiest if you get the buyer to setup an account at the same registrar, this usually makes transferring the domain a much simpler task.
As for the website content and database, you can either take a copy yourself, zip it up, and email it to the buyer (or let them download it) or give them access to your hosting account and let them get the files and database from there.
You should be cautious about transferring the domain or giving the buyer access to your website content or database until you are happy they are genuine. Its a sad fact that there are plenty of scammers out there who are ready to rip you off at the first opportunity, so you need to be careful. Even if they have paid you for the website, this does not mean you are safe, with PayPal for example it is easy for them to reverse a transaction, or if they paid by credit card, claim the transaction was unauthorized and then you have lost your website and your money! Escrow services (usually escrow.com) or direct wire transfers (or even cash if the buyer is local) are usually safer ways of accepting payment, particularly when the sum is high.
After the sale
Once the transaction is complete your involvement with your website may not be over just yet as the new owner may need a period of hand-holding during which they can come to you for instruction on using the site or information on how you ran it while you owned it. The amount of time you will need to give over to this part of the sale will depend on the type of website you are selling, straight forward content websites will require almost no time from you after you sell, whereas complex database driven websites with in-depth administration areas and user options may require several hours or more of your time to help the new owner come to grips with their purchase. Other things they may ask from you are instructions on how you promoted the site, what advertising you did and any plans you had for the future, so be prepared to answer these types of after sales questions as well.
Finally…
So… you sold your first website… feels good dosent it! Now, if you have the bug, you might want to get cracking on that second website in readiness for another successful sale sometime in the future!
Good Luck!
