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Pricing a website for sale

by ChristineP
16 replies
Hi there,

I have a website that is ranking 7th on page 1 of google.
The keyword it's ranking for gets (according to market samurai) 2400 searches/day or about 70K searches a month.

There is some heavy competition on page 1 but I've been working hard and it seems to have paid off.

My site now averages about 10 visitors/day - and I make a sale every few days.

I am considering selling this site - but wanted valued warrior opinions first.

On Flippa - sometimes people expect the sale price of a site to be 6 to 12 x monthly income - but for my site, I couldn't let it go that low.

I would hope given the site quality and position on google could be of great interest to someone.

So I am asking - does google position, site quality, site potential have any weight on Flippa? Any ideas as to what this type of site could sell for?

p.s. I sell a physical product but it's dropshipped, so no inventory.

Thanks,
Christine
#pricing #sale #website
  • Profile picture of the author Tonybuk
    Hi Christine

    Probably desn't help you much, but I have just started lookig at Flippa and sometimes there just dosn't seem to be any logic to the sale prices

    The higher value sites seem to go more on previous/potential earnings rather than whether or not they are optimized etc..

    Perhaps it is just that everyone can do SEO now, so they don't consider it a 'feature' of a potential purchase....?

    TonyB
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  • Profile picture of the author XtremXpert
    2400 searches/day, first page on google and only 10 visitors/day? Something is not ok here.
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    • Profile picture of the author ChristineP
      Originally Posted by XtremXpert View Post

      2400 searches/day, first page on google and only 10 visitors/day? Something is not ok here.
      Well, I don't think something is wrong. I just got to 7 yesterday and then the previous 3 weeks sitting at 10th - last spot on page 1. So I will be watching to make sure the traffic increases. I wasn't that surprised by that number simply because the top 4 or 5 spots generally rake in all the main traffic.

      I'm not ranking that well (page 5'ish) for other long tails so not expecting much traffic out of that. Some of my backlinks are ezine and I do get some visitors from that as well.

      But - anyways - thanks for the input! Now that I've moved up to 7th spot I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing to get higher up the rankings and hopefully see some more conversions.

      I do believe I'll be holding onto this one for a while longer!
      thanks,
      Christine
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      • Profile picture of the author paulie888
        Originally Posted by ChristineP View Post

        Well, I don't think something is wrong. I just got to 7 yesterday and then the previous 3 weeks sitting at 10th - last spot on page 1. So I will be watching to make sure the traffic increases. I wasn't that surprised by that number simply because the top 4 or 5 spots generally rake in all the main traffic.

        I'm not ranking that well (page 5'ish) for other long tails so not expecting much traffic out of that. Some of my backlinks are ezine and I do get some visitors from that as well.

        But - anyways - thanks for the input! Now that I've moved up to 7th spot I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing to get higher up the rankings and hopefully see some more conversions.

        I do believe I'll be holding onto this one for a while longer!
        thanks,
        Christine
        I think you've made the right choice. It sounds like you're putting a lot of work and effort into your website, and it'd be a shame to let it go for so little on Flippa. Try to get ranked for more long-tail keywords, this might help quite a bit in increasing your site income.

        One thing Flippa buyers like is consistent income, so if you can show proof of decent and consistent income over some time, chances are you'll be able to get appreciably more for your site when you decide that it is time to flip it.

        Paul
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        • Profile picture of the author Teravel
          Originally Posted by ChristineP View Post

          I have a website that is ranking 7th on page 1 of google.
          The keyword it's ranking for gets (according to market samurai) 2400 searches/day or about 70K searches a month.

          My site now averages about 10 visitors/day - and I make a sale every few days.

          On Flippa - sometimes people expect the sale price of a site to be 6 to 12 x monthly income - but for my site, I couldn't let it go that low.
          Originally Posted by XtremXpert View Post

          2400 searches/day, first page on google and only 10 visitors/day? Something is not ok here.
          I have to agree with XtremXpert on this. I have an Amazon Product Review blog thats sitting on the 7th page of google, and I get over 70 uniques per day (last 3 weeks average). I have a second Amazon Product Review blog sitting on the 2nd page of google that gets over 200 unique views per day. Both of the sites are for keywords that have less than 5,000 searches per month.
          To have a site on page 1 of google and not get any traffic from it, I would have to say that Market Samurai lied to you. Do some proper research on the Google Keyword Tool and see how far off MS might be.(Local Monthly if your in the USA).

          What I think happened is you searched for your key terms in Market Samurai, and left it on a Broad search. But, when you are looking to see your rankings, you are using Quotes, which makes it an Exact search. The difference could change from a 2400/day to 8/day.

          As for the pricing of your website... I have found that a website will sell quickly (3-5 days) if you post it on Flippa for 8x (Monthly Profit), have a reserve price of 12x(Monthly Profit), and a Buy Now of 16(or 18)x(Monthly Profit). Of course, you have to show your statistics and prove it's value. But, a website making $1 per day (30 per month) will sell quickly for $480.

          Find out how much profit your website makes on a monthly basis (Average it to the nearest dollar) and multiply it by those amounts. If you can prove those numbers, you should be able to sell the site through the Buy Now button quickly. If you feel 16x(Monthly Profit) isn't worth the work you put in, I can suggest a few things through PM to increase the value of the site.
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  • Profile picture of the author paulie888
    Christine, I have to concur with Tony as well. The buyers there are far more concerned with current and potential earnings than anything else, and how well the site is optimized/designed and its position in Google does not really seem to matter to them much if it's not making much money.

    Ultimately, I feel that the majority of buyers on Flippa are looking for turnkey websites that make them income passively without putting any more work into them. We may not like how superficial the buyers are, but this is just how that marketplace works.

    Paul
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  • Profile picture of the author EcommerceBusiness
    My opinion is that value should be based on traffic sales and conversion. A bad site with a lot of traffic is worth more than a really cool site with no traffic. It is easier to fix a site so that conversion rises than get traffic.
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  • Profile picture of the author Headfirst
    I generally price at 12 months gross or 6 months net depending on the site. Based on your post above you're looking to find a way to sell it for more. It's tough enough to get 6 months net on a site, I can't imagine anyone paying upwards of that expect in special cases. Keep the site and work to improve traffic and conversions.
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    • Profile picture of the author inter123
      10 visitors seem really low. With 2400 searches at 1% you would get 24 visitors and that is not taking into account the long tail traffic from broad searches.
      They used to say (monthly income x 10) is what one can expect but from what I have been seeing sites are selling for a lot less then this I think the recession may have a part to play in it.
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      • Profile picture of the author N4PGW
        Originally Posted by inter123 View Post

        They used to say (monthly income x 10) is what one can expect but from what I have been seeing sites are selling for a lot less then this I think the recession may have a part to play in it.
        I think it is really supply and demand. How many more people are trying to sell sites on Flippa today than this time two years ago? Like anything else in the money-making world, the pendulum swings as people find new ways of making money and as the market moves.

        Cheaters don't help any when they fake the results so the buyer comes out with less results than he expected to buy. Therefore, the people who would otherwise be glad to pay a premium for a site are now very cautious. The winners are the ones who have the ability to understand their own potential with a given site.

        Just a couple of thoughts on what might cause the instability of the prices.
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  • Profile picture of the author Ryan Even
    If you have a ton of backlinks and solid search engine positioning you may be able to sell it for more to someone who has another use for the site and is just wanting to pick it up for the search engine position (and not for the income the site is already generating).
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  • Profile picture of the author BlondieWrites
    Unless you have a really good domain name, most likely you won't sell the site for much.

    At only 10 visitors a day, that's just not a lot of value. I am not meaning to sound bad here. You say you have good search ranking, and that's good... but for whatever reason you are not getting traffic.

    I would try upping the traffic to the site, even if it doesn't make more sales for you, if you want to sell it for a higher price.

    Good luck!


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  • Profile picture of the author cooler1
    Which hosting do you have? Have you ran the SEO tools. 10 visitors/day sounds low.

    My site www.myhealthcolumn.com had 197 visitors yesterday. Before i was only getting around 20 visitors per day but then when i went to "Get in Google" in SEO Tools in HostGator, the visitors have increased by around 170 per day.
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    • Profile picture of the author arttse
      Buyers on Flippa are only interested in revenue. If the site pulls in 1000 visitors a day and only makes $20 a day they will value it no more than $120-130.

      You can always contact your competitors directly and offer them the site as they will probably value it accoding to the traffic which could fetch anything upwards of $500.
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  • Profile picture of the author BlogTyrant
    I've sold lots of sites and it is very rare to sell one based on "potential". I did it once but it was a very interested buyer in a very specific niche.

    Keep it for a year, get some revenue going and then flip it.
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  • Profile picture of the author N4PGW
    Originally Posted by ChristineP View Post

    Hi there,

    I have a website that is ranking 7th on page 1 of google.
    The keyword it's ranking for gets (according to market samurai) 2400 searches/day or about 70K searches a month.

    There is some heavy competition on page 1 but I've been working hard and it seems to have paid off.

    My site now averages about 10 visitors/day - and I make a sale every few days.


    Thanks,
    Christine
    I get 20-30 visitors per day on a few sites that are no where to be found on Google. Their only marketing is though the pinging from each article being posted from WP.

    I saw one other case where someone had similar results. I searched the term he was ranked on page 1 for and the problem stood out like a sore thumb. He was ranked either 3 or 4 on the page, but just above his in either 2 or 3 position, was an exact duplicate of his search result. I followed both and they were selling the exact same product.

    From what I can tell here, that should not be your problem at all. I'll take a few guesses, about what to look for.

    You are selling products, that may be obvious in the search results page. You may not be targeting buyer keywords. Or, the wrong meaning of the word. I just heard of someone who wanted to improve his financial lifestyle so he wrote articles about how living an 'alternative lifestyle.' He didn't get the audience he expected.
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