Selling Websites

Knee-deep in Stats: Past Sales Teach You How to Sell Your Website

I recently gained access to Flippa’s archive of sales data (thanks a million to the guys at Flippa), and I’ve been having a blast pouring through the stats. I’m going to share what I learn in a regular segment called “Knee-deep in Stats,” where we’ll look at the trends and historic data that reveal how to get top-dollar for our website sales.

For the love of God, Put Analytics on Your Website!

Travis wrote a post some time ago entitled, “Hey Knuckle Dragger, Install Google Analytics Before You Sell Your Website!” so it’s not like this assertion is breaking new ground, but I think you’ll be surprised by the data.

I took a look at all sites sold since January 1 of this year with a claimed monthly net profit of at least $25 and at least 100 unique visitors per month (to weed out the startup sites that would otherwise skew the data). Here’s what I found.

27 October, 2010 Posted by:
Eppie Vojt Filed under: Featured,Selling Websites Comments (9)

My Watchlist: Some Interesting Auctions on Flippa

This is a guest post by James Frost who has over four years experience flipping websites. Among the many web properties he owns is Financial Services Review, a leading finance article directory. If you have a finance-related site to promote, consider submitting a unique article to Financial Services Review.

As an active website flipper, I constantly troll the auction listings on Flippa not just to find something to buy, but also to educate myself about different market niches. Studying the Flippa listings is like being able to look under the hood of a business and see how it all works – without even placing a bid!

Amidst the endless worthless auctions of autoblogs and zero revenue websites, there are always a few listings that I find interesting. Not necessarily because I think they are a great buy, but because they are different in some way. Here are a few auctions currently going on that you may want to check out:

23 September, 2010 Posted by:
Travis Van Slooten Filed under: Selling Websites Comments (5)

The Two Types of Websites That Sell The Best On Flippa Are…

I was wondering what types of websites sell the best on Flippa so I thought I would do a little research and find out. I had a pretty good idea which ones were selling well but I wanted some data to back up my hunch. It turns out I was right on the money.

According to Flippa’s clearance rate data going back to April 18th of this year, autoblogs and AdSense sites outsold all other types of websites. For those of you not familiar with what the clearance rate is, it is simply the percentage of sites sold. In the spring, these two types of websites had clearance rates of 75% and 73% respectively – well over Flippa’s overall average clearance rate of 56% at the time. Take a look at the graph:

18 September, 2010 Posted by:
Travis Van Slooten Filed under: Selling Websites Comments (8)

The First Bite Is With The Eye

The first bite is with the eye This is a guest post from Kevin Muldoon of WordPress Mods.

If you have kept an eye on website flipping over the last several years you will have noticed one thing – looks are important. Sites with good designs tend to sell for much more than those which use plain generic templates.

As a seller, it’s your job to make sure your site has a high quality professional design. In many respects, selling websites is no different to selling cars or houses i.e. you need to make your product ‘buyable’. It can sometimes make the difference between selling the site and not selling the site.

16 September, 2010 Posted by:
Kevin Muldoon Filed under: Selling Websites Comments (2)

What The Domaining Diva Has To Say About Website Flipping

Domaining Diva It’s been a while since I’ve done an interview so I’m glad I finally have one to post! This interview was with one of the “original” website flippers. She was flipping websites before website flipping was cool. She has been flipping sites going back to the Sitepoint days!

Her name is Suzanne Bucciarel and no, that picture is not of her. You’ll learn more about that picture in a minute. I learned about Suzanne from the Warrior Forum. Whenever there is a question about buying and selling websites on the forum, you’ll always see Suzanne with a helpful reply. She has a lot of experience with website flipping.

She continues to flip websites today but her focus now is on selling established websites (i.e. websites that have traffic and revenue) and creating high-quality, niche blog packages that she sells on her website that she started over a year ago, NicheBloggingTreasure.com. Here is the interview I had with her just a few days ago…

02 September, 2010 Posted by:
Travis Van Slooten Filed under: Selling Websites Comments (6)

What Is My Website Worth?

If I had a dime for every email I get with that question I would be rich…lol. O.K., I’m exaggerating a little but I do get asked this question a lot. It’s the first question that comes to mind for Internet Marketers who are looking to sell their first websites. Fortunately, the answer isn’t nearly as complex as you might think.

Before I discovered the Internet Marketing world I was in residential real estate. There is a saying in real estate: A home is worth what a buyer is willing to pay. That’s the answer to the question – your website is worth what a buyer is willing to pay!

The real question then is, what can I expect a buyer to pay for my website? Now we’re getting to the meat of the matter. There are websites that will give you estimated valuations of domains and there is even a website that will give you an estimated value of your website (not just the domain as most websites do). You can also hire a website broker to evaluate your website. These are great options, but how good are they and do you really need them?

27 August, 2010 Posted by:
Travis Van Slooten Filed under: Selling Websites Comments (16)

Now A White Hat Strategy To Get More Bids On Your Flippa Auctions

Yesterday I made a post outlining a gray hat strategy for getting lots of bids on your Flippa auctions. If you follow that strategy, you’ll be able to get your auctions on the Most Active page on Flippa.

Getting on the Most Active page is important because that is where most of the buyers are. Today I’m going to show you a white hat strategy to get even more bids – and money – for your Flippa auctions. This is a white hat strategy because unlike the gray hat strategy, it is completely above board and doesn’t have any controversy with it.

19 August, 2010 Posted by:
Travis Van Slooten Filed under: Selling Websites Comments (8)

A Gray Hat Strategy To Get Lots of Bids On Your Flippa Auctions

Flippa.com continues to be the largest and most popular public marketplace for people to buy and sell websites. As a seller there, your goal is to not only sell your site but to get as much money as you can for it.

The best way to do that is to get your site on the Most Actives page on Flippa. This is where the majority of the buyers are looking. The only way to get on that page is to get a lot of bids on your auction as the auctions with the most bids get bumped into this “jackpot” page automatically.

So how do you go about getting a lot of bids? For starters, an established website with growing or consistent traffic and revenue will always fetch a lot of bids. Still, though, that sometimes isn’t enough to attract a lot of bids. Today I’m going to show you a gray hat strategy on how to get lots of bids on your Flippa auctions. It’s “gray hat” because some people object to it because they say it’s gaming the system. After learning the strategy, you can make up your own mind.

18 August, 2010 Posted by:
Travis Van Slooten Filed under: Selling Websites Comments (11)

When Can I Buy And Sell Adult Websites?

Adult Websites For Sale With the popularity of website flipping and an online porn industry worth billions of dollars, you would think it would be easy to find places to buy and sell adult websites.

Unfortunately for webmasters of adult websites, it’s not that easy at all. And despite how lucrative the porn industry may be, flipping adult websites isn’t nearly as lucrative. In fact, it isn’t that lucrative at all these days.

For a number of reasons, adult websites aren’t easy to sell and they don’t command the kind of multiples non-adult websites enjoy. There are always exceptions, but for the most part, there isn’t a lot of demand for these types of websites so they just don’t sell that well.

15 August, 2010 Posted by:
Travis Van Slooten Filed under: Selling Websites Comments (12)

When Is The Best Time To Buy And Sell Seasonal Websites?

I got an email from one of my loyal newsletter subscribers that wanted to sell a seasonal website – specifically a Halloween costumes website. He wanted to know when would be the best time to sell it. I thought it was a great question so I thought I would write a post about it.

Seasonal websites can be tricky because it’s all about timing. The key to successful buying or selling of these websites is to know the cycles of the seasons. Once you know the cycles, you can time the buying or selling of these websites perfectly.

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