Featured Listings

  • Website Vaulation Tools

    • Posted By: Mubashar
    • In: Advice
    • On: June 7th, 2008

    If you’re looking to sell a website, just how much can you expect to get for it? Or if you’re buying, how can you make sure you’re not paying too much.

    These tools can help you figure out just how much your website is worth:

    • WebSiteBroker : Website Valuation Tool
      http://www.websitebroker.com/valuation.php

      The Website Valuation Calculator can help with the process of determining the value of an existing website. The calculator will base it’s calculations on the information you provide it. Good, accurate information will naturally produce better results.

    • CyberWyre
      http://www.cwire.org/website-value-calculator/

      Provides estimates based only on criteria available to the domain name; It does not provide a value of the company behind the website

    As the disclaimers on the tools make clear, these valuation don’t really mean much, but they can give you a rough ballpark of the value.

    These articles provide some valuable tips on website valuation techniques:

  • Domain Name Background Check

    • Posted By: Mubashar
    • In: Advice
    • On: June 6th, 2008

    Useful post over at Search Engine Journal by Ann Smarty, covering some simple checks you can run on a domain name before buying to avoid potential problems.

    Read: Run a Domain Name Background Check Before Buying

  • 9 Lessons From Real Estate That Can Be Applied to Selling Websites

    • Posted By: steven
    • In: Advice
    • On: June 5th, 2008

    Home For SaleHome improvement and real estate investment shows are very popular on TV these days. I often enjoy watching the experts show every day people how they can make small changes to their home that will have a huge impact on the value of their home.

    Selling a website is like selling real estate in many ways. If you’re preparing to sell a website you may want to consider some of the lessons that can be learned from real estate experts.

    Curb Appeal Counts

    One of the most important factors in selling a house is creating an immediate reaction from the potential buyer. A house that has curb appeal will create a strong first impression from the street that will draw the potential buyer inside.

    Selling a website can also be much easier if the potential buyer has a positive first impression based upon the appearance of your website. You’ll need to take into consideration the curb appeal factor of your website. With real estate and with websites, curb appeal will rarely seal the deal, but it can have a huge impact on the potential buyer’s mentality throughout the process.

    Houses need to use curb appeal to stand out from others in the neighborhood that are for sale. Websites can benefit by doing the same thing.

    Be Prepared to Negotiate

    Selling a website is much like selling a house in that you will most likely need to negotiate with potential buyers. You may be fortunate enough to get your full asking price, but typically you’ll get some offers that you’ll have to consider. It’s a good idea to anticipate this and have in mind what you will be willing to accept and what you will not be willing to accept. If you get an offer that seems too low, don’t be afraid to make a counter offer somewhere between your asking price and the original offer.

    Think About the Buyer’s Interests, Not Your Own

    If you are doing some remodeling on a house in effort to get it ready to sell, you’ll typically want to keep things conservative, such as painting with neutral colors rather than something bright. Because everyone has different taste in what they like in a house, you need to keep your decisions suited to common opinions and avoid extremes. At this time you need to forget about the style that you would like for your own house, and think about what the potential buyer is most likely to appreciate.

    The same concept can be applied to selling a website. As the owner of the site you may have strong feelings about a particular aspect of the site, but the buyer’s opinion is more important. Try to take your own feelings out of the equation as much as possible to focus on what the buyer wants to see.

    Spend Wisely

    Real estate investing involves spending money to make money. You may invest in a remodeled kitchen or bathroom that can drastically improve the overall value of the home. On the other hand, you could also pour a lot of money into upgrades that are unlikely to bring a solid return on the investment.

    When you are preparing to sell your website you may want to consider what types of expenses could improve the value of your site. If you site is old and looks out-of-date, you may be able to get a good ROI by getting the site redesigned before selling. Before you invest much money into preparing for the sale, take some time to consider how it will affect the final selling price and determine if the expense is justified.

    DIY at Your Own Risk

    Many real estate investors make the mistake of having an overly aggressive Do-It-Yourself approach in attempt to save some money. Have you ever seen a TV show where the investor tries to do plumbing or electrical work without much knowledge in those areas? Sometimes they wind up doing more harm than good, and then they have to hire a professional anyway.

    If you’re trying to prepare your website for a sale, be sure that anything you take on yourself is something that you can do effectively. If you think your site needs a redesign before being put up for sale, don’t attempt to design the site yourself if it is not one of your strengths.

    Find the Right Agent

    When it comes to buying and selling houses, a quality real estate agent is critical. Most website owners sell their site themselves, but where you list the sale of the site can have a similar impact. There are a number of different places where you can list a website to be sold (Most-Listed, SitePoint Marketplace, BuySellWebsite, Website Broker).

    In addition to finding the right place to sell your site, there is also the option to use a broker, which is more common for high-priced sales. Of course, much like with real estate, you could always try the for-sale-by-owner route and see if you can make the sale by contacting people you know or those that may be interested rather than posting the sale somewhere like SitePoint.

    There is no right or wrong approach to selling your website. You’ll simply need to look at the pros and cons of your different options and base your decision accordingly.

    Staging Counts

    Furnished houses tend to sell much better than empty houses. Some real estate investors will even bring in furniture simply to stage the house even though no one will be living there. The staging helps potential buyers to see the house as a true home. Without the staging it can seem impersonal and they may have a harder time picturing themselves living in the house.

    Make an attempt to put the potential buyer of your website in ownership mentally. Show them the potential of your site and get them to feel like they are already there.

    Know Their Buying Triggers

    Most home buyers tend to buy on emotion. Something about a particular house causes them to fall in love, and they just don’t want to live anywhere else.

    Website buyers are less likely to buy on emotion and more likely to buy for financial or business reasons. Knowing what triggers the buying decision, give them what they want to see. If you think the buyer will be triggered by business factors, don’t focus on how long it took you to build the site or how much your visitors like the design. Rather, focus on numbers and the details of how much the site makes for its owner.

    Location, Location, Location

    We’ve all heard the three most important factors for determining the value of real estate. Unfortunately, there’s really nothing you can do to improve the location of real estate that you currently own.

    With websites location is still a critical factor, but it’s much different than with real estate. The website’s location is determined by factors like its domain name and the inbound links to the site. If your site has a strong, valuable domain name, it’s essentially the same thing as having a great location for real estate.

    Fortunately, with websites there are some things you can do to improve the location. Links are like roads that lead visitors to your website. If you can build quality and quantity of inbound links coming to your site, it’s essentially the same as building a new road that leads directly to a piece of real estate. Getting links from large, respected sites can have the same impact as building a major road that drops people off right at your store.

    What’s Your Opinion?

    What similarities do you see in selling a website and selling real estate?

  • Proof That Website Flipping Is Legit

    • Posted By: Mubashar
    • In: Advice
    • On: February 28th, 2008

    I came across this video recently that I thought was very interesting.


    Online Videos by Veoh.com

    If you had a doubt that website flipping was a real money making opportunity this should change your mind.

  • Comparing Six Ways to Identify Top Blogs in Any Niche

    • Posted By: Mubashar
    • In: Advice
    • On: February 15th, 2008

    ReadWriteWeb discusses some different methods for identifying top niche blogs. The information could be valuable if you’re thinking about buying into a niche sector.

  • Best places to buy and sell part of your online empire

    • Posted By: Mubashar
    • In: Advice
    • On: February 6th, 2008

    If you are looking to buy or sell websites and domains for your online empire, knowing the right places to conduct your transaction is key. Whether you are an experienced online entrepreneur or just getting started this article will tell you how and where you can buy or sell websites and domain names.

    First of all you need to know that there are two main types of places where you can buy and sell web properties and services: Forums and Marketplaces.

    Forums

    Forums are a great place to buy and sell web properties because there is an active community that is interested in everything related to websites. You can usually list your property for free and get exposure to a lot of interested buyers or find great deals on properties for sale. Unfortunately the old adage you get what you pay for still rings true. Although you don’t have to pay a dime for listing or buying a property there are also a lot of shady characters, promises made and bad deals.

    Before buying or selling anything do your homework and deal with reputable members. Forums usually have a member rating system that can be used to tell whether or not someone is trustworthy.

    V7n

    v7n
    http://www.v7n.com/

    A strong webmaster forum that has a more experienced group of webmasters and has a tighter community. V7n was started by webmasters frustrated by the available forums. This forum has an active marketplace but you will usually only see activity on higher end web properties.

    Cost:

    • Free

    Digital Point

    digitalpoint
    http://forums.digitalpoint.com/

    A very active webmaster forum that has a mix of newbies and experienced webmasters. DP is sometimes criticized for how many newbies are on the forum but it is still the most active and sells the most web properties of any forum.

    Cost:

    • Free

    Namepros

    namepros
    http://www.namepros.com/

    A domain names only forum and is very active. Some of the most respected domainers participate regularly. There is a very active marketplace for domain names and some big deals have been done here. However, don’t expect to sell crappy domains here as members of this forum will simply laugh you out of the building.

    Cost:

    • Free

    DNforum

    dnforum
    http://www.dnforum.com/

    Another domain name only forum that is respected in the Domaining world. However, this domain does charge a $60 fee in order to participate in its domain marketplace and member forums.

    Cost:

    • $60 membership fee

    Talk Freelance

    talkfreelance
    http://www.talkfreelance.com/

    A a growing community that is focused on freelancers who do work to develop web properties. The site also has an active web properties market place which is free.

    Cost:

    • Free

    Marketplaces

    There are a lot of marketplaces where you can buy and sell web properties. Many of them with millions of dollars in transactions each month and have a lot of great opportunities. The same rule applies here as with forums. Do your homework and know who you are dealing with.

    Marketplaces often times have higher quality websites and domain names for sale and offer an extra level of protection. Sellers do have to pay fees or give up a percentage of their sales to the marketplace in exchange for listing their property. Those fees and the tendency for properties being sold to be of a higher caliber also mean that the average selling price of a property can be significantly higher. In some cases 100% – 500% more than it would be in a forum or through a private sale. Also, just because there is an extra level of security in a marketplace doesn’t mean there aren’t scams and bad deals.

    Sitepoint

    sitepoint
    http://www.sitepoint.com/marketplace

    By far the largest marketplace for websites and domain names. It is the largest marketplace to sell both property types. Sitepoint is a great place to find established websites that are already making a profit. However, Sitepoint is often criticized for not policing their sellers and buyers resulting in bad deals on both sides. There are a lot of properties with inflated stats, buyers that don’t make payment and questionable properties. With that said there are still a lot of deals to be found.

    Cost:*

    • Domain Name - $5
    • Website - $20
    • Premium Website (over 10k) - $40

    Godaddy

    tadnm
    https://www.tdnam.com/

    Godaddy’s TDNAM is not the most active and doesn’t usually get the top of the line domain names but there are some real gems to be found if are willing to pay. Also, TDNAM has a good selection of expired domain names that you can search before they are available to register. Some domains may have a website associated with the sale but it is primarily a domain marketplace.

    Cost:*

    • Annual Membership:$4.99 Listings – 5-7% of sale price

    Sedo

    sedo
    http://www.sedo.com/

    A domain marketplace as well as a domain parking service. Sedo has a lot of competition but is by far the leading domain name marketplace. In 2007 they reported sales of 72 million dollars a 60% increase from 2006. Sedo regularly has great domain names for sale and if you search you can find some good domains at a bargain. They do use an auction process for all of their domains. Meaning once you bid an initial amount that is accepted it is then pushed to an open auction.

    Cost:*

    • 10% commission

    Ebay

    ebay
    http://www.ebay.com/

    Hot or cold place to find domain names. True to its nature you can either find a lot of junk or a few gems. You do have to do your fair share of digging to find gems but there are some good websites and domains available on Ebay. The nice thing about Ebay is that if you do find a good web property there usually isn’t as much competition because it is not the typical place where buyers and sellers are looking to do business.

    Cost:

    • Listing Free:$.20 - $4.80 depending on the starting price of your item
    • Commission:5.25% + 3.25% if over $25 + 1.25% if over $1,000

    Flip Square

    flipsquare
    http://www.flipsquare.com/

    A new marketplace that is in development as a secondary market for sellers to directly list any of their web property related products; Established websites, Domain names and designs.Flip square is incorporating additional security features to protect buyers and sellers to prevent bad deals, artificially inflated stats and buyers that don’t commit. Flip square has not yet launched but if you would like to keep up to date on its status and participate in its beta launch marketplace sign up on their homepage. Flip square will be a great marketplace for buyers and sellers to do business.

    Cost: *

    • First 2 months will be free of charge.

    Doing your Homework

    Cool tools – Some cool tools to help you with buying and selling websites and domains.

    SEO for Firefox – Provides you with the # of links, age, Alexa rating and PR of a domain name.

    Compete.com - Provides free information for every site on the Internet including site traffic history and competitive analytics; a list of available promotional codes across thousands of online retailers; and site-specific trust scores based on up-to-the-minute data from Compete and third party security services.

    Quancast - Another way to compare traffic and reach numbers for websites you might be interested in buying.

    Archive.org - This is a great way to see how long the website you’re interested in buying has been around and what type of content it had on it.

    Finding the right deal:

    Most Listed - A great marketplace listing aggregator. Come on we’ve got to have the shameless plug.

    *additional fees for enhanced listings

    Aaron Kuroiwa contributed to this article, visit his website for professional translation services.

  • The Dangers of Buying a Blog

    • Posted By: Mubashar
    • In: Advice
    • On: January 25th, 2008

    An interesting post over at Devlounge, about traffic levels dropping after the sale of a blog. The headline … “a site will lose up to a third of its traffic after being sold.”

    Whilst the post admits that this is a generalization, it seems to merit consideration when deciding how much to pay for a blog you are looking to buy.

    Devlounge itself was acquired a few months ago by Splashpress Media, who have a lot of experience in buy blogs, and whilst this can’t be considered a scientific study their experience is probably very close to the norm and not the exception.

    Blogs traffic is understandably tied to the blog authors, their personalities defines they style of the blog, and these celebrities gather their own little following. When the site changes hand, the followers may move on with the original authors, and the style of the blog will inevitably change with new people in charge. The decline can be eased by having the original authors stay one and help with the transition, make a few posts, and advice on style and content.

    At the end of the day however the Blog is now yours, you must stamp your style on it and build a following of your own.

    Whilst this drop is less likely with other types of sites, which are less personality driven, it is worth thinking about how you will keep your users with you as you bring your own style and method of operations to the site.