How to Make Money Buying and Selling Websites

When hunting for a website to buy, one of the first and most important factors to consider is the niche of the website.

Choosing a website based around a currently trending topic or fad may seem like a good idea at the time, but what about in six months when you’re ready to sell the website? Everybody will have moved on and your investment is likely to have lost value.

The key thing, therefore, is to choose a niche that’s evergreen. An evergreen niche is a topic that will always be popular and won’t be impacted by trends. It will be popular in the long term.

If you’re stuck for what niche to go for then some examples of evergreen niches include:

• Health and fitness
• Sports
• Hobbies
• Money and finance
• Wellbeing and beauty
• Fashion
• Ecommerce
• Education
• Entertainment
• Food and recipes
• Pets and animals

Once you’ve decided that buying and selling websites for profit is the right investment for you, you need to actually find one to buy.

It’s not quite as simple as taking your chosen domain to the counter or adding a website you’ve randomly found to an online shopping cart.

Instead, there are multiple ways you can find and buy a website including:

Website marketplaces

Website marketplaces are exactly what they sound like – online marketplaces full of websites for you to browse and buy. WebsiteBroker, Flippa, and BizBuySell are all key marketplaces.

Website brokers

Just like a property broker, a website broker’s job is to connect those looking to buy a website with those who have one to sell.

Direct from the owner

If you’ve found a website that you like the look of and are interested in buying, you can also go directly to the owner. A quick Google search will provide you with the site owner and their contact information should be easy to find on their website.

Although they may not be initially interested in selling, you may have an offer they simply can’t refuse.

We know we keep making the comparison, but buying a website really is a lot like buying a house.

Before you make a purchase you need to accurately value the website in order to ensure you aren’t paying over the odds.

Things to consider when valuing a website include:

• How much revenue the website currently generates via things such as advert space, affiliate links, and guest blogging.
• Is the revenue consistent or is it seasonal? Does it spike at certain times of the year only to take a hit later on?
• Is the revenue passive, such as ad space, or does it require more upkeep such as the management of guest blogging spots?
• How much maintenance is needed for the website? Make sure to consider not just the appearance and user experience of the website but also the back end and backlink profile.
• Can the website be improved and is this something you can do? This can include everything from content and design to widening revenue streams and improving the user experience.

Unfortunately, not everything online is as it seems and there are some websites that will cause you more of a headache than they’re worth. Before you invest your time and money it’s crucial that you undertake your due diligence.

Speak to the seller to get more understanding of the website and make sure you look carefully at income and traffic reports. We’ve listed the four key things to consider before making an offer:

• Find out why the seller is selling the website. Check that it hasn’t recently received a Google penalty or experienced a steady decrease in visitor numbers.
• Find your own proof of revenue and traffic through tools such as Google Analytics. Don’t just rely on the seller’s own reports.
• If you’re using a marketplace or broker check the trustworthiness of the seller through things such as profile feedback and ratings.
• Always check the backlink profile. Make sure the links haven’t been built using link farms or other “black-hat” SEO tactics.

Once it’s finally time to make an offer on a website, you’ll want to combine everything you’ve learnt in this article with the selling price set for your chosen site.

If the seller has set a price, it’s always a good idea to make an initial offer that hits around 70%-80% of this. You don’t want to go in too low and cause offense but similarly, you want to give yourself some wiggle room for bartering a price.

If there is no price set or you’re approaching the owner of a website directly then use the tips we’ve laid out to estimate a value for the website. You should go in slightly under this valuation for your initial offer.

Improving the website you’ve purchased is essential if you want to make a profit. After all, if you don’t make any changes to it, how can you expect it to sell for more than the price you paid for it?

You want to boost the monthly profit potential of your website as much as possible, as well as taking steps to improve the user experience and optimize performance.

The following things are all digital marketing tactics that you can apply to your website to improve its performance before you sell it on:

• Improve the quality and amount of content on the website.
• Optimize the website for SEO. If your website ranks for key terms it will be worth more to a prospective buyer.
• Build a quality backlink profile made up of relevant and high-value links.
• Boost the monthly income of your website through advert space and affiliate link programs.
• Set up social media accounts for the website and use these to share content and direct traffic.
• Use email marketing to nurture relationships with your audience through a subscriber list.

Now you’ve bought your website and spent time improving it, it’s time to start thinking about selling it. What steps do you need to take to sell a website? We’ve listed them all below for you.

Valuation

The first step is to establish how much your website is now worth following the improvements you have implemented.

The process of valuing your website for sale is similar to the one you undertook when buying it. In order to make sure you’re arriving at the most accurate and realistic price, think about:

• Traffic numbers and any increase you’ve established since you bought the website.
• How much monthly revenue the website brings in and how consistent this is.
• How well your website ranks and performs for target keywords.
• The quality of the backlink profile you’ve built.
• The number of revenue streams the website has and how reliable these are.
• How much maintenance the website requires to run at its current performance level.
• The size of your social media following and email subscriber list.

Just like when making an offer to purchase a website, you don’t want your end figure to be too low or too high. Don’t short-change yourself – but at the same time, you don’t want to set an asking price that’s too high and will never be met.

Finding a Buyer

Your website is all ready to sell. You’ve improved it, valued it and now you want to sell it. Well, there’s no point sitting around and hoping a website buyer is going to read your mind. It’s time to actively find yourself a buyer.

You have two options when it comes to finding a buyer for your website, using a website marketplace or a website broker.

On a website marketplace, you’ll list your website and buyers will come to you with their offer whilst website brokers will connect you with their wide network of buyers who may be interested in your website.

Remember you’ll have to pay a fee to any broker you use so take this into account when making your choice.

Negotiating a Sale

Negotiating your sale is arguably one of the most important parts of the whole process. Once you’ve found your buyer and agreed on a price that you’re both happy with, you’ll be ready to complete the sale.

If you opt to use a website broker they’ll handle the legal aspects of the negotiations for you but if not, we recommend consulting a lawyer to ensure the process is all above board and legally binding.

Make use of an escrow service if you aren’t selling through a marketplace to ensure that you don’t fall victim to scammers. This is also a great way of instilling trust in your buyer that you’re legitimate.

Transferring the Website

If you use a broker they’ll handle this step for you. If you’re going it alone, however, then you need to ensure that all technical aspects of the website are handed over to the new owner.

You’ll need to contact your domain provider, website builder, and hosting server in order to transfer everything over correctly. Don’t forget to transfer any related assets that the new owner will need to upkeep the website too.