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I have decided to sell my website that ranks fifth for “<snip>” third for “<snip>” and is on the second page for “<snip>”.
No illegal stuff are used and everything is 100% legitimate. It has been ranked this well for over three months now, and from this point it can only go up.
I will work more on it until I get it one position higher for each keyword.
The reason I am selling it is because I figured out that someone could have much better use of it than me. I am affiliated with <supplier>. They are paying me only $20 for each $1000 in sales which is nothing far from pathetic. I am making decent money but somebody could make hundreds of times more if they had ways of doing it. If someone had a computer store they could literally make thousands of dollars each month by having this website.
I see many websites advertising on Adwords for these keywords, and pay over $3 to be in the first three.
Around 90% traffic comes from Google for these keywords so it is highly targeted.
I have also listed it on several PR7 links, and it’s not advertising, those are permanent PR7 links that I paid for, so PR will be 6 for sure on the next update (now is 5).
It also has empty pages with high PR that are pre made to add more links after link exchange. So it is ready to go.
I have tried to figure out how much my website is worth and have browsed many sites. But all I find are these worthless websites ranking nowhere with no PR selling for thousands of dollars. They are supposedly all making all this money but are nowhere to be found on search engines.
I’m totally lost.
So I need people that know this stuff to tell me how much my website is worth.
I don’t want all this highly targeted traffic to be wasted simply because I cannot properly use it.
Or can somebody recommend on where I can get professional oppinion?
Thank you!
[edited by: Woz at 5:41 am (utc) on June 28, 2004]
[edit reason] No Specifics please, see TOS#13 [/edit]
Couple things: first, decide what YOU want out of it. Try to compile the hours you've spent on it into a reasonable facsimile of a total. Then come up with a decent hourly rate for the sort of work you've done. Multiply the two to get a base figure.
Factor into the equation how many years you've owned/run the site. Then subtract the amount you've actually made from the site over those years. Next you'd maybe want to add a percentage for inflation/upward valuation. Then look at the dollar figure - if it's not as much as you thought you might get, just jump the bottom line up enough to cover your base premise. If it's more, be happy.
Then you put the word out. And be prepared to bargain. No doubt someone will offer you less than you want. You need to counter with an acceptable figure (to YOU), on the high side. They may counter-offer. You want to "land" on the most reasonable figure you came up with for the actual value of the property to YOU.
So if your property is worth (to you) $500K US, you'd maybe want to advertise at $1M; if a buyer offers you $250K, you would counter with $975K, and heesh might counter with $375K etc etc ad infinitum ad nauseam. You want to "land on" $500K....
It's a crap shoot....
Why would anybody care how much time I have spent on my website if they cannot make profit of it.
It's true, they won't care. I think you need to work out exactly what kind of person you think will be able to profit from it, and market it directly to that audience. As for the price, what would you pay for it if you were able to utilise it to it's maximum?
When it comes down to it you are selling a product/business and it is how you present & market it that will make all the difference. If you are not in a hurry to sell then you could test the market i.e. start high, listen to the likes and objections of interested buyers etc... This is where knwoing your bottom line is adventageous.
You could also identify a number of computer businesses that would benefit from the site and approach them.
However as a prospective buyer my first questions would include:
- What are the projected earnings for the next x years?
- How much time is needed to manage the site (depending on skill level, could be read as: how much would I have to pay a developer each month)?
- Why are you really selling it - why can't you 'properly' use it?
~ Sleepy
If I had spent 500 hours originating, building and "improving" a site which might have value to a possible "master widgeter" and could not continue to utilize the site myself, I would want to add to the amount I expected to realize from that site an amount of money shown as a total of, say (just as a postulate), $50/hour x 500 hours, or $25k for the time I had spent in originating and "improving" the site.
This is analogous to a development contractor putting in the offsites for his 100 acres five years before he breaks ground on the first home - but he still factors into each plotted home a percentage of the $3M those offsites cost him to begin with.... and to continue that analogy, he also factors in percentages of his overhead, licensing, plans and copies thereof, engineering, machinery, and equipment as percentages added to the cost of each home in his development. As well, he will have to average the totals of any mineral and water leases; state, county, and municipality licensing and fees; governmental charges for all sorts of health, epa, endangered species, hazmat, ground water, and soils tests and approvals; vacations of previous lessors' rights; and last but not least the appraisers - yes, beforehand.
All of the above equates to various things one needs to consider before attempting to sell a website which may have value to a brand-owner, or to anyone else really. Self-appraisal is a bad idea generally. But y'know, I'm not sure there's an appraiser out there for web property.
What happens if you put "website appraiser" into google?
Type this:
appraise website
Okay. I did. There seem to be some quality links on the right sidebar of the first page. Did you look into any of them?
Of course, you do generally have to PAY for appraisals....
You need to think of your site as a profit source. If someone came up to you and said, "I promise to give you $10 a month for the next 10 years, what are you willing to pay me for that promise right now?" you would pay based on a few basic concepts: 1) how legitimate is this promise, 2) what risks do you see down the road, 3) how much is $10 per month worth 5 years from now or 10 years from now (we expect its going to be worth less than today's dollars.) You are going to pay for this promise at some amount that is equal to (or less than, if you are a good negotiator) what this promise is worth in today's dollars, given future risks and ups and downs.
Your site is no different. A buyer buys based on what it is going to make him. You have a site that is primed for a turn-around. A change of suppliers will improve your profitability. Your visitors are coming, but is that traffic stream risky? What happens if Google drops you to page 20, are you done? There are risks and rewards on your site.
You need to figure out what a 'reasonable and fair' monthly profit $ would be with this site in its current state. Then you need to figure the profit $ if someone 'did it right with a different supplier.' A plot of real estate can easily sell for 8 times its annual profits. A website is more risky than real estate, so generally its multiplier could be from 1 year of earnings or less or more, it just depends on the site. Yahoo and Ebay are valued at way more than 1 year of profits, same for Amazon. Why? Because their future potential is huge.
I would suggest looking at it from this angle rather than figuring how much your site is worth based on time/effort, etc. A website is just a promise of X income, maybe more, maybe less, depending on how good the buyer is at managing it. Things like advertising income or affiliate income are going to be perceived as more risky than profits derived from services or niche product sales, etc.
Rather than sell it for a small amount, why not take the extra time and find a way to make money with it yourself? I don't know your market since we can't post details, but feel free to 'sticky me' and I will see what I can suggest.
Good luck,
Matt
