Blog Flipping: 10 Important Factors When Selling Your Weblog Or Website
By Chuck Crawford © 2009

The market for blogs has exploded. Many companies do not want
to invest the time in developing a blog in their respective
niche, which has given rise to a whole new cottage industry,
blog flipping.

Blog flipping is done in a few different ways. Some flippers
buy an existing blog that has potential, but is not currently
producing. They take that blog and build the traffic and sales
up to a level productive enough to reap a profit from their
investment, and then sell it.

Or, more common in today's blog flipping market, is to research
a specific niche, develop a domain / blog, and then sell it.

But what does "developed" really mean? It depends on the
flipper. So buyers really need to do their homework (read due
diligence) before investing in an "established" blog or website.
Because "established" is in the eyes of the beholder, and means
many different things depending upon who you consult.

In my opinion, established means that the site, or blog, is
profitable. Now profitable can be defined very differently for
different companies. It doesn't mean that the site has to be
making money, though it does help justify the investment when
purchasing the blog. It can mean to a prospective company only
that the site has traffic that company believes it can convert
into sales. Not everyone can convert website traffic in the same
way. So there are companies out there looking to buy blogs that
have a certain, specific reader demographic that fits their
market. However, these types of sales are few and far between.
Companies that are buying blogs normally want to see one thing.

Profit.

Not just income, because a blog's gross monthly income and it's
actual profit margin can be two very different things as well.
We've all seen the advertisements screaming that you can make
ten thousand dollars a month blogging, or with Adsense, or
whatever. But the part usually left out is the investment it
takes to get that income. Sometimes the cost is far greater than
the income, making the blog or website a LOSER.

So what steps should you take to sell your blog if you are a
would be website flipper? Here are a few factors your blog or
website should have in order to get top dollar:

1. Real Web Property

Your blog needs to be a real web property. What I mean by this
is that it needs to be a real domain, on hosting you are paying
for. Free hosted blogs are not a viable investment for most
companies and corporations. There are exceptions to every rule
and I'm sure that there have been a few sales of extremely
popular Blogspot blogs, but unless you have a million visitors a
month, you're probably not going to sell a free hosted blog
anytime soon. Buy a domain, pay for some hosting, build
something that has value.

2. Professional Appearance

Your blog or website needs to have a professional appearance.
Custom design is always better, but at the very least, it needs
to have a template or layout that fits that blog's readership or
market. If you have poor graphics, even if your blog has monster
traffic, you'll sell it for much less than you could have if you
had professional web design. It's sort of like house flipping or
selling a used car. If you can afford it, a fresh coat of paint
usually brings the resell value up substantially.

3. Developed Traffic Sources

Potential buyers want to see traffic. Not just any traffic will
do for most serious investors. They want to see solid, search
engine traffic and a solid bookmarked reader base. StumbleUpon
and other social bookmarking websites are awesome traffic
sources, no doubt. But when it comes to someone buying your
blog, they want to see more than just a few traffic spikes from
a front page listing on Digg. They want to see that the traffic
is going to keep coming for months and years to come. Without a
lot of work if they can get it.

4. Documented Traffic Statistics

It is going to take more than just the summary of "hits" screen
capture from your webalizer stats to make the sale. You are
going to need at least three months history of actual traffic
statistics. Unique visitors, tracking cookie info if you have
it, Google Analytics, etc. Numbers, numbers, numbers.
Corporations want numbers in order to convince their board of
directors that your blog would be a sound investment. Private
investors are no different for the most part and they want to
know exactly what they are buying when it comes down the actual
traffic your blog has.

5. Profit and Loss

Lots of income statistics. If you are looking to sell your blog
or website for real money (read more than a few bucks nabbed on
EBAY) then you are going to need to show your buyer some stats
about money. P&L statements (Profit and Loss) for as far back as
you can go will help your buyer make his or her decision. It is
one thing to tell a potential buyer what the gross income per
month is, it's a completely different thing to show them exactly
what the net income is and how it is obtained each month. Keep
good records of your website expenditures and what the income
received from those investments are. Include every cost. Website
hosting, design, redesign, employee or outsourcing costs,
whatever. Include everything and show them the real bottom line.

6. Set a Fair Price

I know you love your site, I love all of mine too. So it's easy
to attach an emotional value to your blog and inflate the price.
It's also really easy to confuse a blog's actual value with your
vision of it's potential value. What you think the site will
make someday and what it's making now are two very different
things. Sorry, but what you think it will make someday has zero
value to a would be investor. They only want to know what the
net profit is, right now. Yes, you can take some long term
income growth statistics and make profit projections, but unless
you have these statistics going back a year or more, most buyers
are going to dismiss them entirely.

Set a real price. In the bricks and mortar world most companies
sell for 2 to 3 years of the total net income. Online, this
number is usually cut down to one year. So if your website is
netting $300 per month, the actual value of your blog is
probably somewhere around $3600. Once again, it's easy to add an
emotional price tag for all the hard work you've done to get
that blog making $300 clams a month, but your sweat equity
doesn't mean much to a buyer.

Neither do website values created with online calculators.
These sites are traffic magnets and are built totally to obtain
webmaster traffic. If you search long enough and hard enough,
you'll find a website value calculator that comes up with a
number you like. It still means nothing to a buyer. It's not
what your site is really worth and should have no bearing
whatsoever on your sale price.

7. Where to Sell your Website

Where and how you sell your website is super important. The
profit you make will be directly related. Try to stay away from
auction type formats if at all possible. If your site has some
real value, use a website broker. A broker will help you
determine the real value of your blog or website and then help
you find a qualified and interested buyer. You would call a real
estate agent (read professional) if you were selling your house,
right? So why would you rely on your "for sale by owner" plan
when it comes to your web property? Call a professional.

Sadly, one of the main reasons most flippers don't call in a
pro is because deep down they don't really want to know what the
site is worth. They want to live in their imaginary world where
their holdings are worth millions. They can put a site up for
sale on Sitepoint or Ebay for whatever price they want. Creating
the illusion that they are worth substantially more than they
really are.

8. Pie in the Sky Promises (magic beans)

Stay away from "Pie in the Sky" promises to potential buyers.
When it comes to buying a website or blog, 99% of the buyers out
there are from Missouri (the "Show Me" state) and only want to
see the cold hard facts. Offering to take them to some new level
of income at a later date is only going to make you look
unprofessional and like an amateur.

There are sales contracts that require you to assist the new
buyer for a set period of time. But these are normally for sites
that are currently making money and allow time for you to teach
the new owner just how that income is made. These clauses in
sales contracts are not designed for you to hatch your half
baked plans or for time to realize "what you think" the site's
potential might be someday.

9. Accessible Communication

You need to be extremely accessible to both your broker and
potential buyers. They are going to have questions. So you need
to have a cell phone number and an office number where they can
reach you. You need to check your email often and respond
quickly. Slow response can be a red flag signaling uncertainty,
and that's something an investor just does not want to see when
they are thinking about laying some cash on you. Be available to
talk to them.

10. Know the Details

Communication is only effective if you have answers. If you
have to stumble and stutter with your answers, it's going to
have impact on the sale. You need to have done your homework and
you need to know the answers to the questions in advance.

There you have the basics for flipping your blog or website. Of
course there are many more points that can increase the actual
dollar amount realized when you sell your blog, this only covers
some of them.

But if you follow these guidelines and are realistic with
yourself and your buyer, you can sell your website for a profit.
So take the time to prepare your web property for a real sale.
Writing a good sales pitch is fine, but it's not going to be
sufficient for most investors. You're going to need to have
these bases covered.

Good luck. I hope you sell your blog for what it's worth.
================================================================
Chuck Crawford is an established expert in web design, traffic
development and website financial analysis. He has been helping
people design and develop their internet business since 1995.
Visit http://www.business blogs.us/blog/
================================================================

Copyright © 2009 Jayde Online, Inc.  All Rights Reserved.

Top 5 Signs That Your Website Sucks
By John Metzler © 2009

Small business owners may not have the resources to invest
heavily in their web presence and finding solutions to problems
can be like finding a needle in a haystack. You know
something's wrong but don't have the faintest idea how to fix
it. Is it a technical issue? Are your ads not performing well?
Don't know what kind of traffic you're getting? Website
problems can fall into a myriad of categories. So if you think
your website sucks, a) it probably does, and b) you should read
on.

1. You Aren't Getting Traffic

You're excited about the big, expensive job the design team
just finished on your site. It looks like a million bucks! Well
it's a shame it isn't making you a darn cent. Just because it
exists doesn't mean people know about it. Announce it to the
world by submitting it to reputable directories and sharing your
useful content with others on social bookmarking sites (you do
have useful content, don't you? If not, I'll cover this
later). You can even do some link exchanges -- provided the
sites you exchange with are reputable -- just to get your site
crawled early on. Further optimize it for search engines by
following good SEO practices, building quality content and
generating inbound links from other sites. Once you do that,
you'll need to monitor progress with web analytics software.
Google Analytics is free and it has a slick interface. And we
know you like pretty things seeing as how you broke the bank on
your web site design.

If you're looking for high ROI, invest your own time in
learning search engine marketing. Better yet hire a qualified
SEO firm if you have the budget for it. Don't settle for
quick-fix promotional ideas. Build long-term exposure and a
solid reputation by attaining high rankings, keeping
email/newsletter lists, targeted ad placement and social media
participation.

2. You Have Worthless Content

What defines worthless content? Without knowing what topic your
web site covers it's tough to say, but if you have nothing that
sets you apart from your top competitors then I'd say you
aren't in good shape. If you don't know what kind of content
people are looking for on the Internet today, take a peek at
what's popular on social bookmarking sites. Observe some of the
story titles on the front page of Digg.com:

"Guinness Stout Beef Stew Recipe for St. Patrick's Day"
"In Move to Digital TV, Confusion Is in the Air"
"Kim Jong-Il Interprets Sunrise As Act Of War"
"Automatic bacon dispenser?"
"The 5 Best Obama Photomosaics on Flickr"

Words I would use to describe these topics, in order, are:
seasonal, informative, satirical, comical, and trendy. This
information is popular because it's appealing in its uniqueness
and is relevant to today's market. To set yourself apart from
your competition, you need to get creative. If you're the kind
of person who had trouble painting by numbers, then hire someone
creative. Professional copy writers can be well worth the
investment. Create free tools your customers will want to use;
write funny or interesting commentary in a blog about your
industry; put a new spin on a traditional product or service or
offer seasonal discounts. Create a comprehensive F.A.Q. on your
site that covers topics your competitors don't.

Take the time to beef up your content. Be innovative - don't be
afraid to think outside the box. Use the top competitor in your
field as a measuring stick.

3. You Have No Call-to-Action

Poor promotional language can have a sabotaging effect if
visitors aren't drawn to your conversion pages. A conversion
page is any page that acts as the final step in a visitor
submitting a form, making direct contact or purchasing a product
online. Obscuring those pages or confusing the visitor on where
to go next can make them leave your site. Internet users have a
short attention span - give them a clear direction when
navigating your web site.

Use your web analytics software again to find out what pages
visitors are landing on first. If your home page gets the most
traffic, make sure there are clear links to your sub-topics. If
inner pages are your most popular landing pages, find out if the
traffic is targeted. Once you know the type of visitor and the
specific page they land on, then you can start marketing your
content more accurately.

The bottom line is to always make clear why, and how, visitors
can buy your product. Don't get too cute with multiple steps,
options or convoluted language.

4. You're Getting Traffic But No Sales

Are you sure the traffic is relevant? If you're running a
pay-per-click campaign, ensure your ads are geo-targeted
properly and your ad text or landing pages appeal to your
customers. For organic search engine placement, have you done
keyword research and analysis before optimizing your content?
Look at your web stats and see where your visitors are coming
from. What keywords were they searching for when they landed on
your site? Are the referring sites relevant to your industry or
topic? How much time does the visitor spend on each page? Sales
won't come if your visitors aren't interested in what you're
selling. This is why preliminary keyword analysis is so
important to search engine marketing.

If you're running ads, it's always good practice to experiment
with different ad campaigns. If you put all your eggs in one
basket you run the risk of losing out on potential revenue.
Elements of your ads that you can change are:

- ad text
- landing page
- specific network your ads are shown across
- topics on which you focus the campaign
- geo-locations targeted

Remember, it doesn't pay to skimp on initial product/market
research and analysis.

5. You're Getting Relevant Traffic But No Sales

This problem could signal a technical error or navigation
problem with your site. Make sure you thoroughly test all
functionalities on various web browsers and systems. Submit test
forms. Do a link check to spot possible broken links. Is your
web hosting service reliable?

If you've ruled out technical issues as the cause then turn
your attention to the content and customer base. Has your market
taken a downturn? Can the lack of sales be attributed to the
poor economy? Have you fallen behind your competition in product
quality, selection or pricing? Does your web site's navigation
system confuse users? Your web site is the first line of contact
between the business and potential customer, but it's not the
only step you need to worry about. Telephone operators or online
payment systems can present their own issues.

This is moving away from web site problems but if any part of
the sales process takes place away from the site, investigate
those areas of your business as well.

If you're pulling out your hair over a problem with your site
and these tips still haven't helped, feel free to post a
comment and I'll personally have a peek at your site.
================================================================
With eight years in the search engine marketing industry, John
Metzler of FreshPromo knows what works and what doesn't
regarding website success. His strong grasp on visitor usability
and analysis, along with a highly-skilled SEO perspective, can
be seen through his professional SEO services
(http://www.freshpromo.ca/). Read the FreshPromo blog
(http://www.freshpromo.ca/seo_blog.html) for more free tips
and commentary.
================================================================

Copyright © 2009 Jayde Online, Inc.  All Rights Reserved.

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