I’ve been interested in business flipping since this past few years – that is, all things related to buying and selling of businesses.
This time, I’m planning to buy a website or blog – preferably a blog – to start my journey as web property investor.
Why buying a website or blog?
To me, all related to the Internet is going to be big (actually, it is already big!). Yaro Starak of Entrepreneurs-Journey.com is really influential in making me re-thinking about my business journey – web property IS hot and IS booming – unlike the real estate market that is already been saturated, web property business is in rapid growth.
How rapid is the growth?
Very, very fast! Typical to anything related to the Internet, website and blog’s value is rising rapidly.
I follow the website and blog flipping marketplaces at Sitepoint.com and Digitalpoint.com to see what and how more experienced people wheels and deals.
All I can say is that websites and blogs price tag is rising steadily – I used to see blogs priced as 3-4 times the monthly cash flow. Now, there are blogs sold at prices way, way over tenfold of their monthly cash flow. I’ve seen price tags ranged from a few hundreds dollar to tens of thousands of dollar. It’s getting hot in here!
What kind of websites or blogs am I looking for?
First of all, I prioritise on buying a blog. I look for blogs with strong traffic and, above all, strong readership. I look for high comment to post ratio, which indicates the strength of visitors involvement in the blog.
I always having interest in blogs that have niche topic. If it’s not possible, then I look for how-to-make-money-online kind of blogs.
I, of course, am buying my way into online money making – I look for blogs that actually make some money regularly. Not a particular amount, but I’d like to see blogs that make money from other source of revenues than PPC ads from Google Adsense and the likes.
I actually prefer blogs that make money from advertisers that pay for a certain period of time (i.e. monthly or quarterly) in exchange of displaying their banner ads on site.
I look to buy a blog which price tag is less than 10 times of the blog’s revenue, with three digits to low four digits price tag.
Will I sell my purchased websites and blogs in the future?
I will eventually flip them if, and only if, I have other projects that need a lot of my resources. As long as my portfolio performs well, I’ll hold to it as long as I can.
What caution should be taken prior buying and selling websites and blogs?
I do the following:
- Check buyer/seller’s background
- Check buyer/seller’s previous activities in the marketplace
- Check and validate what others say about the buyer/seller
- If you want to make sure about a thing or two, ask as much question as you can to the buyer/seller – being a noob is better that regret later!
- Don’t forget to check the price tag! Is it overvalued? If it’s undervalued, investigate the sites/blogs – undervalued sites/blogs are not always a good thing!
- Ask for term of payments you comfortable with, and negotiate on it
- Whenever possible, signing a contract or an agreement ALWAYS a good business practice
Well, I still haven’t buy any sites/blogs, but I’ve bid on some, and pretty close in sealing some deals. I’ll keep you posted on this.
Ivan Widjaya
Web property newbie
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