The Website Sellout: How to Cash in on Your Online Investment

There are different kinds of websites on the Internet. For example, online stores that help business owners sell goods, business card sites that provide information about the company, encouraging customers to call and attend appropriate offline markets, cafes, beauty studios, and so on.

The popularity of the site among users and its attractiveness to advertisers, as a rule, is the result of invested effort, time, and money to promote and promote the resource.

A site with accumulated age, weight, and traffic, which brings passive income to the owner is a business object, which can be bought or sold. The market willing to sell the finished site is a little different from the process of buying and selling the usual offline business. If you are thinking about “How do I sell my website business?”, this article is for you.

How to sell a website business? Tip #1

Security

Why do you need to keep information about the sale of the business a secret? There are several points here. If you own an online store and you have suppliers who ship goods with deferred payment, when they find out about your intention to sell the business, they will demand an upfront payment to reduce their own risks. The information site can simply be copied, seriously reducing income. And in general, it is undesirable for any business to have employees find out about its sale early. It will cause unnecessary conversations and excitement. Which will not only lead to a decline in productivity, but also to layoffs.

If you plan to sell the website, said WebSiteClosers, there should be a confidentiality clause in the service agreement. Carefully review it and ask for changes, if you need them.

Do not give the website address to a potential buyer without an upfront payment or a confidentiality agreement (NDA).

Tip #2

Business valuation

Let’s look at what metrics form the basis of a business valuation. By improving them, you will increase the value of the project:

• Profitability. The buyer is interested in how quickly the business will pay off and how profitable it is.
• Risks. These include an increase in payback time, loss of investment, changes in demand, etc. To prove reliability, the history of the business will help. The longer it exists, the fewer the risks from the investor’s point of view.
• Prospects. The buyer always looks at the project from in perspective. It is important to him that the business has points of growth. Therefore indicate in advance all possible ways of development. It must be concrete and doable in the near future.
• Autonomy. The less time it takes to keep the business running, the more valuable it is. Investors are looking for projects that will generate good profits with a time commitment of 2-3 hours per week. Think about how to offload yourself as much as possible and delegate responsibilities to your subordinates as much as possible.

What else to do to increase the price:

• Optimize traffic. Everything is important – the sources, volume, and actions on the site, i.e. how many conversions of the attracted audience. This data can be found through web analytics, such as Google Analytics.
• Systematization of client base. An established customer base adds value. If you use CRM, it is not difficult to make a structured list of customers.
• Income and traffic indicators for the past year. It’s better if you can provide reports for a longer period. The information will prove the stability of the business. All data is supported by documentation – bank statements and screenshots from web analytics.
• Sell at the peak. If the business is seasonal, put it up for sale when profits are rising.

Tip #3

Where i can sell website

There are two options:

• Use the services of a business broker
• Search by yourself.

In the first case, just find a competent specialist, and he will do everything for you. In the second case, you will have to spend more time and effort. Look at your business from a buyer’s perspective: what is its main value? If you have fulfilled the first point of this article, it will be easier. It is clear that for a high-yield stand-alone business, a buyer will be found quickly. But what if the benefit is not obvious?

Suppose the project has a good customer base or traffic. In this case, the business is sure to attract interest from your competitors. Consider not only online companies, but also offline ones. It may be profitable for a local store to buy an online project on a related topic from which new customers will come. Compile a base of potential customers based on the strengths of the business and contact them by mail or phone. Prepare a commercial proposal in advance, outlining the main benefits of the project.

You can also post the project on third-party resources:

1. Empire Flippers
2. Motion Invest
3. Flippa

How can I sell the website: conclusion

The process of buying and selling websites is a widespread phenomenon, and the number of such offers is growing along with the development of the Internet. The basis of a successful transaction is a competitive analysis of the resource, an assessment of its value, and the choice of an appropriate site.

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