Input Needed on Selling a Site! Help!

[brada7x]

Hey everyone,

Ok, so I've been thinking about selling one of my sites to get some pocket cash to invest in other things but I've never sold a website in my life so I need a bit of input here.

Here's the deal..

1. The site get's an average of $2,450 a month (calculated over the 7 months its been up)
2. The site currently averages 82-100 unique visits a day.
3. It's ranked on page 1 of Google for a great keyword that has slightly over 500k competing pages in quotes.
4. It has great potential for expansion.

How much would I be able to sell a site like this for exactly? Just a ballpark figure would be great as I have no clue as to what the value of the site could be. Just considering the info presented above, what would you estimate it to be able to sell for?

Thanks for any and all input.

Brad

[bluffspot]

Typically if a site has verifiable traffic and sales it works much cleaner for the seller. Hard to guess especially without knowing the niche - but often it can be as high as 6 to 9 months of transactions. All depends on what you have been getting. You might just want to let this soak for a few more months and then bring it up again -

Escrow: If for example, you find a buyer its also always best to use an escrow service for the funds - especially if you dont know who you are dealing with.

[ripped]

Hey everyone,

Ok, so I've been thinking about selling one of my sites to get some pocket cash to invest in other things but I've never sold a website in my life so I need a bit of input here.

Here's the deal..

1. The site get's an average of $2,450 a month (calculated over the 7 months its been up)
2. The site currently averages 82-100 unique visits a day.
3. It's ranked on page 1 of Google for a great keyword that has slightly over 500k competing pages in quotes.
4. It has great potential for expansion.

How much would I be able to sell a site like this for exactly? Just a ballpark figure would be great as I have no clue as to what the value of the site could be. Just considering the info presented above, what would you estimate it to be able to sell for?

Thanks for any and all input.

Brad

I think you could get a nice buck for it.

We're talking about 10-12x the monthly earnings, meaning you could probably get around 25.000-30.000 for it.

[Ashley]

Yeah I would say you should get 20+ really

[Ganceann]

I would list at $30k but with room for movement ($25k would be acceptable etc).

As Bluffspot mentioned, you should use Escrow for added protection. Also, if this is your main source of income, it is likely better keeping hold of this for now - especially if the income can increase with minimal effort. You never want to sell your main money making site unless other sites can comfortably cover running costs + living costs for you + your network of sites.

The other sites should also show potential to increase income in future and at worst, provide a relatively stable income without extra effort needed to generate it. If they are mainly automated, then can they easily scale up and provide more income?

[rhinoz]

Ok, here's a few things to consider when selling a site or a domain.
First, sure its good that you have some serious income for the site BUT what you are not taking into consideration is the domain name itself. Which can add another $1-$100,000 ontop of the price. The length of time the domain has been making this sort of money is also very important. If the site has been going for 6 months, ask 12-18 months revenue. If its been going a year, then ask for 18-24 months revenue, if its been 2 years, ask for 48 months revenue. Is the traffic natural? what maintenace is needed to maintain that traffic? Costs of advertising, cost of hosting. Is the domain name a premium one where a premium renewal fee is warranted. What extension is it? Are you the original owner and the most important question, if you are making that amount of money, why are you selling it when that money can be used to finance any future project. These are questions that will be asked by a buyer....

Having brokered domains in the past from anywhere from $x,xxx to $xxx,xxx , the above questions need to be answered before a determinate dollar figure can be assesed.

Hope that helps

~R

[jimmybloggs91]

Plus when you list have the BIN higher than what you expect (so like $50k or something) and have the starting price at lower than you would take (10k) and have a hidden reserve of like 25-30.

This way your auction will get action from people trying to get a bargain which will get it out there and you might hit the jackpot and have a rich fool stumble and bang out the BIN

Not sure if this was common knowledge or not its just what I see all of the frequent sellers on flippa do

[rhinoz]

Personally, I would try to sell it to an end user first, someone/company in the same niche, even if its a broad niche, doing it this way can easily double what you'd get from a reseller or someone from Flippa etc , doesn't hurt to try.

Here's an example. I had a site that wasn't even for sale. The site made about $4 a month but was developed. The domain name itself wasn't even that great. I paid $7.95 for the name as it wasn't even reg'd. I spent 2 hours developing it, maybe another hour with bookmarks, added some quick affiliate product. 6 months later still at $4 a month, I sold the domain and site for $800. What it boils down to is the sales pitch. Pitch it wrong and you couldn't give away gold bullion bars...pitch it right and you could sell ice to an Eskimo !!

Another thing to take into consideration is "How much are my competitors paying for my keyworded domain", Just selling the domain name itself to a company can actually save the company 1000's, if not 100's of 1000's each year in ad expenditure. So before putting the name on the market, find that info out as well

Bottom line is get as much info about your site as you can, stats, sales yada yada yada. Then do research on possible end users, their niche, who their targets are etc

Just my 2.75393744 cents

P.S, if you need a hand writing an "end user" email, feel free to drop me a line

[brada7x]

Thanks for all the great info guys.

Like I said, I know nothing about selling domains/websites or anything of the sort. You guys have laid out some great tips here.

I wasn't expecting to be able to sell the site for as much as you guys are saying so that's pretty freakin' nice. That'd make for one hell of a payday

The site itself isn't the prettiest thing in the world but it brings in traffic and sales consistently and has been since 7 months ago. I haven't even done much with it in a few months actually. And I need some cash to pay off a few things at the moment so I'll probably list this baby soon.

As far as an Escrow service goes, who would you guys recommend using? I'll probably list the site on Flippa but I don't have a clue as to what Escrow even is (excuse my blissful ignorance) so I wouldn't know where to start.

Thanks again for the input.

Brad

[rhinoz]

One thing you might want to do is if you are going to list the site with flippa, look at a number of the sites listed, look at the format, the wording etc, then list accordingly with your own info, own stats.

As for Escrow, you can use escrow.com . What that it is a 3rd party payment handler and it protects you the seller plus the buyer for a small fee. You can split the fee 50/50 with the buyer as well.

Personally, I'd still like to see if the site can be flipped to an enduser, chances are you'll get way more $$$ as 99.9% of flippa users are resellers or domain portfolio holders and as you know, retail (end users) pricing is always higher.

[brada7x]

Hmm. I'll have to get in contact with some of the guys in the niche. I've noticed some sites that seem to be fairly large that might want to buy the site out to use for their own efforts. If I can squeeze more cash out of it that way, I'll give that a shot first.

[rhinoz]

No probs, do all the research first before contacting them. You only get 1 chance to make a good impression.

Good luck with your sale

[brada7x]

Just so I'm clear on all that I need to be telling potential buyers, what is all the information I should tell them in order to give them the best impression of the site?

[brada7x]

Forgot to mention the site has a small list with it - 133 on Aweber. It's a sub-niche and wasn't much for building emails but it's making consistent sales through the site itself.

[Ganceann]

Just so I'm clear on all that I need to be telling potential buyers, what is all the information I should tell them in order to give them the best impression of the site?

There is an endless list of possible information as it depends on the niche, the competitors, the overall competition and various other factors. Speak with Rhinoz on msn as he has experience with that side of site selling (and might even know someone in the niche willing to buy it).

I do not think it is possible to give any specific advice for you in this thread - just general tips about listing/selling sites on flippa.com or other auction based websites. To get the best price you need to laser target your competition and potential buyers.

[NCMedia]

Here have a peak at the biggest thing I ever flipped, made the auction very detailed and you'll probably be able to pull quite a bit from it. Ash pulled from this for his recent sale and modeled a bit after it (might not translate as you're not selling forex but still good info to look at).

Biggest Flip >>

**Give them way more info than you can

**Don't be shy to ask for more - most that will happen is they will say no.

**Don't be shy to jump on the phone ASAP and get a GOTOmeeting account asap so you can do walkthroughs of your site for them in a live environment to show stats/$ accounts/bank/traffic/cb/whatever they ask for.

**Minimize your "I'll have to get that for you after this call" and leave little room for anyone to say no or that they need more info.

**Prepare a check and balance sheet and your financials month to month of income vs. expenses

Take time to make sure you prepare your pitch for your sale just like you would be if you were hired to write copy for the amount of money you're asking for - which you are - you're hiring yourself or you're outsourcing (I woudn't). WRITE YOUR COPY LIKE THE GOLD IT IS just waiting to be picked up when the right buyer reads it.

**Lastly: don't be afraid if brokers contact you right away, however do not become exclusive to them - ever.

Best.

[brada7x]

That was an insanely detailed listing. Great stuff. That gave me a really good idea as to what I need to let potential buyers know.

Can't wait 'till I can say I have a site that pulls in over $50k a month. I think I'd consider myself accomplished by then lol.

[stewmath]

Ask around on dnforum.com, ive been a member on there for years and i have seen alot of domainers on there pay high xxx,xxx for money making websites, especially if the traffic is organic because thats what they like on there.

Also theres alot of brokers and end users around on there

[brada7x]

^^ Gonna take a shot at making a thread in the developed websites section there. Flippa is being annoying for some reason and they don't seem to care to answer support emails. Very professional of them

[stewmath]

^^ Gonna take a shot at making a thread in the developed websites section there. Flippa is being annoying for some reason and they don't seem to care to answer support emails. Very professional of them

how you get on with that? did you see any interest?

[brada7x]

how you get on with that? did you see any interest?

About 450 views so far. No bites unfortunately.

[stewmath]

get some screenshots on there for proof mate. And also drop a pm to some of the exclusive members.

Also i know a member on that site who snaps up domains who ive sold to before and hes a pretty cool guy.

Drop me a pm ill give you his username

[Ganceann]

About 450 views so far. No bites unfortunately.

You could provide a link to the listing... not able to find it.

[brada7x]

Sorry about that...

The listing is HERE.

[SirKhan]

In my experience it's pretty useless to try marketplaces other than Flippa. You'll have the most exposure there, none others will give you that not even combined. Yes, they suck sometimes but you really don't have a choice. :-( Put it up there and you'll get some serious prospects.

[brada7x]

In my experience it's pretty useless to try marketplaces other than Flippa. You'll have the most exposure there, none others will give you that not even combined. Yes, they suck sometimes but you really don't have a choice. :-( Put it up there and you'll get some serious prospects.

For some reason they keep declining my payment. And it's not because there isn't money in the account of anything like that. And I've tried emailing them several times to no avail. They don't seem to want to reply to support.

[SirKhan]

That's odd, never happened to me before. They also reply in 24 hrs all the time. Maybe I'm just lucky.
I think they have direct credit card acceptance + PayPal too. Did you try both?
Don't think I'm forcing Flippa or anything, just trying to help sell your site based on my experience.

[brada7x]

I'm not taking it as forcing Flippa.

But yea I've tried both. Neither are working for me. And it's been 3 days since I sent the first support email and I haven't had a response. It's been assigned to an employee and everything since day 1, still nothing.

[Ganceann]

Sorry about that...

The listing is HERE.

Thats why I didn't find it, I thought you had listed it on flippa

I also checked the flippa fees and can't see how or why many of the sites ever get listed (the seller is paying more in fees than they would get for just giving the site away) - obviously there are also many sites where it does make sense.

[brada7x]

Yeah I'm still trying to get it listed on Flippa. The fees would be well worth it for me if I could get 10-12 months worth of income for it. I'm hoping they will respond to support emails at some point.

Not sure how else I'm going to get this thing sold, lol.

[brada7x]

Does anyone happen to know if Flippa has a customer support phone number or contact number of any sort?

I've sent them quite a few support emails over the past few days with no response and it's becoming obvious that Flippa is the only place I'm going to be able to sell this site. But I can't make the listing due to a problem when paying and I can't seem to get them to respond to support emails.

Any input is appreciated.

Thanks.

[jacky8]

If you got a consistent income in a solid niche, you should hope for at least 12x.

But as your site is in the P2P niche which sells but is not something a lot of people will like, you should be happy with 6x the earnings. The maximum you should hope for is 8x. Its all because of your niche. I'm not saying its bad though.

[brada7x]

FINALLY got the site up on Flippa. They were apparently having network problems but payment went through.

The official listing is here --> Flippa Auction Listing

[brada7x]

Update - The listing has been deleted by an admin for whatever reason. I'm sick of trying with Flippa. It's getting a bit ridiculous. Not sure why it was removed. Sent a support email to find out. Doubt I'll see a response anytime soon.

Very frustrated.

[SirKhan]

Lol that's just weird man. :-/

[stewmath]

Update - The listing has been deleted by an admin for whatever reason. I'm sick of trying with Flippa. It's getting a bit ridiculous. Not sure why it was removed. Sent a support email to find out. Doubt I'll see a response anytime soon.

Very frustrated.

did you not hear back off domainer8 mate?

he said something to be about the traffic might be dieing down, if you can clarify if the traffic is steady etc then i can pass it on

[brada7x]

I hadn't heard a thing from him.

The traffic is still steady. The average per day is sitting at 99 as of today.

And the sales are still rolling in from the affiliate products as well. 3 today so far. And keep in mind they pay out $29.25 commission per sale.

[stewmath]

ok mate, ill let him know