$200,000 for my website, I don't want to sell...
- Thread starter POiZON
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ok so i talked to him, and he gave me the URL and some info about it
The URL isnt astounding, its double hyphened and hes in a tough niche, personally i am very surprised this site is converting, and couldn't really think of a reason why anybody would want to even buy it (sorry dude this is my opinion) personally, i would keep it, because if i was making that much money off of a site in this niche, theres def. room to expand.
his conversions arent astounding, but hes doing alright nevertheless.
personally i wouldnt sell, and if i did, would be over 1m
the way i see it theres 2 websites in the world. websites that dont convert, and sites that do..
the fact that this one does convert, even as mediocre as they are now, means that you can def. improve
good luck man, hope you make a good decision
The URL isnt astounding, its double hyphened and hes in a tough niche, personally i am very surprised this site is converting, and couldn't really think of a reason why anybody would want to even buy it (sorry dude this is my opinion) personally, i would keep it, because if i was making that much money off of a site in this niche, theres def. room to expand.
his conversions arent astounding, but hes doing alright nevertheless.
personally i wouldnt sell, and if i did, would be over 1m
the way i see it theres 2 websites in the world. websites that dont convert, and sites that do..
the fact that this one does convert, even as mediocre as they are now, means that you can def. improve
good luck man, hope you make a good decision
You have to look at ALL of the factors - this happened to me a while ago. They contacted me not once, but twice. For the benefit of the community I can share with you my form letter I used, if you care to use it:
Dear Mr./Ms. X:
Thank you for your interest in the business and apologies for just getting back to you.
At this time, a divestiture does not fit our current investment objectives or asset monetization goals. However, I do hope our parties can remain open to the prospect of future discussion - concerning assets your firm may find of interest and that yield attractive ROI.
Thank you again for your consideration and missive.
Sincerely,
[Sign Here]
--
A letter like this does several things:
1) Leave the door open in case you want to sell down the line
2) Acknowledges the party that contacted you (which is basically just good business)
3) Let's them know you have a well thought out plan for your business and won't be swayed by any offer of lump sum cash.
Also, YOU SHOULD MAKE SURE YOU KNOW THE VALUE OF YOUR ASSET!
What do I mean:
1) What is the value of the domain the site is sitting on - for all you know, that could be what they really want (not saying it is the case, just letting you know)
2) What major terms is the site ranking for - remember CreditCardGuide.com? As I understand that deal, the company that bought it for $30 mill was mostly looking at the fact that this guy had consistently got himself ranked for all the keywords that were worth MILLIONS in the industry and would take years to rank for via SEO or tens of millions to pay for via ppc
3) What's the PPC to SEO value - once you know these terms, find out how much it would cost to advertise on PPC, that's another bit of information
4) What are the comparables? What's the historical purchase price of similar websites?
Lastly, your website is an asset. Like any asset, your goal should be to generate the highest return at the minimum risk. If you do decide to sell, have a clear understanding of where you will direct those resources such that it gets you a BETTER RETURN than what you're currently getting.
5) Also, do you have any intellectual capital? I read the most insightful info a while back and it really helped me alot. If you have perfected a process for doing anything effective in your business - IT PAYS TO WRITE IT DOWN & FORMALIZE IT.
Why? Because if you sold your business and only you knew it, that knowledge would go out the door the minute you do. BUT, if you wrote it down such that anyone could pick it up and use it, it's now a more easily measurable intangible asset (that can be accounted for on the balance sheet of the acquiring company) in the form of intellectual capital.
In other words, it's easier to place a value on it because it is codified, can be replicated and compared to other systems thus it's easier to establish a reasonable market value for it, it can be patented, copywritten, etc.
I hope this helps - good luck!
sell it. If you know seo, you can do it again. Reinvest and expand into other niches too. My old man once sold an off name domain for $60k only cuz a company had the same name and was missing out on type in traffic...he didnt need the name or the type in traffic and used the cash for better things. SEO/SE's are WAY to tempermental, and I would bet you dont have any other offers on the table.
You could also put it on sitepoint and see what the market there says its worth...
You could also put it on sitepoint and see what the market there says its worth...
ps- lets say you decide NOT to sell it. Maybe your would-be buyer might become your biggest competitor in that case.....hmmmm
Don't forget he doesn't even have an offer yet. They have just said 'lets talk'. They don't want to (and probably won't) pay $200k.
^^ Yep.
All this build up for this poor guy may very well result in him picking up the phone, asking 200K, and hearing them say one of two things
1. "We were thinking $5,000 USD"
2. "We were thinking of giving you 50% revshare"
I think #2 is the worst, because any co. willing to give you 50% is so full of shit you can only sit there on the phone and feel your heart sink.
(Yeah, it's happened to me.)
SEO is not forever. I can't believe some of the "don't sell advice"... your rankings can change overnight man! Google doesn't give a crap if you go from Page 1 to Page 100 one day and you no longer can pay your mortgage, she's a heartless, soul-less, uncaring, insensitive, mother-friggin bitch, is what she is. Treat Google like the whore that she is, give and take her money, go to bed with her, don't rely on her.
"Sell, Mortimer! Sell, sell, sell!"
All this build up for this poor guy may very well result in him picking up the phone, asking 200K, and hearing them say one of two things
1. "We were thinking $5,000 USD"
2. "We were thinking of giving you 50% revshare"
I think #2 is the worst, because any co. willing to give you 50% is so full of shit you can only sit there on the phone and feel your heart sink.
(Yeah, it's happened to me.)
SEO is not forever. I can't believe some of the "don't sell advice"... your rankings can change overnight man! Google doesn't give a crap if you go from Page 1 to Page 100 one day and you no longer can pay your mortgage, she's a heartless, soul-less, uncaring, insensitive, mother-friggin bitch, is what she is. Treat Google like the whore that she is, give and take her money, go to bed with her, don't rely on her.
"Sell, Mortimer! Sell, sell, sell!"
Hey everyone thanks so much for all the responses. I talked to the guy yesterday and this is what transpired: The e-mail that was sent to me about the interest in buying my domain was sent from the "partner program" marketing manager from the biggest online retailer website in my niche. I have been promoting their affiliate products through my website for as long as it has been up, around 9 months.
Recently they decided to drop their affiliate program from paying out 50% to 20%. Basically my average sale went down from $7 to $3 so I stopped promoting their product, thus why they contacted me.
I sent them around 180,000 visitors a month and a good amount of revenue as well. They just want to buy the site so I won't take away from their organic traffic which is kind of funny to me giving I get around 15k visitors a day and they get around 90k a day. Also I'm not even so sure they know what they would do with the site once obtained. The just of it was they would give me 100k up front and then monthly payments for the remaining 100k over 24 months.
I turned it down, it's like nat3r said, my website is 8 months old and has so much room to grow, and a lot more potential in earnings. I feel like within the next few years I will be able to sell it for a lot more then 200k, perhaps around the 1M figure.
For the two guys that said I don’t know what I’m doing and that I’m an idiot. A few years ago I worked for an online paintball company who bought an 18 year old kids blog for $800,000 because he came up number one for the term “paintball guns.” I took that to heart, researched a niche that was surrounded by companies that would potentially do that as well, and started developing the website last August. Perhaps I don’t know everything about monetization, but I did go into this project with a plan, and that plan is coming to fruition not by “accident,” and I’m ecstatic about it.
Really hard to give an honest opinion without knowing the longevity of the niche and the amount of competitors.
There are a lot of stupid companies out there with zero knowledge of SEO or internet marketing that are more than willing to acquire websites at insane multiples.
That said, $200k for only 8 months of work is hard to pass up given the site is dangerously dependent on SEO traffic alone. You sound experienced enough to be able to replicate this quickly in another niche.
Again, hard to give an answer with the little details that have been given but from what you've stated, I'd take the cash.
Word of caution though, since the company wants to make monthly payments, double check their financial status so you'll know you can receive all the payments over time because if they go BK you won't be getting shit.
There are a lot of stupid companies out there with zero knowledge of SEO or internet marketing that are more than willing to acquire websites at insane multiples.
That said, $200k for only 8 months of work is hard to pass up given the site is dangerously dependent on SEO traffic alone. You sound experienced enough to be able to replicate this quickly in another niche.
Again, hard to give an answer with the little details that have been given but from what you've stated, I'd take the cash.
Word of caution though, since the company wants to make monthly payments, double check their financial status so you'll know you can receive all the payments over time because if they go BK you won't be getting shit.
Never ever do a contract sale. They go bad way too often, even if its for a portion. If a company doesn't have enough cash to buy an asset they should borrow it..FROM A BANK NOT YOU. It really fucking pisses me off when some assfag approaches me to buy a business from me and wants me to bank it and use the cash flow from my business to fund it. FUCK OFF. Shit, I have to head to a meeting and now I'm in a bad fucking mood.
It depends on what kind of life you live and where you live it. $200,000 would be enough to have me relaxing on the beach for 20 years.
Based on viewing the website, domain and the niche, I'd be taking the $200k if they offer it.
Why?
- domain is basically worth the registration fee (double hyphen)
- site is easily replicated (wordpress design and content)
- this is not a competitive niche as there are a ton of easy long tail keywords
The only way to expand on the revenue is to copy what your main competitor is doing -- sell direct advertising and develop relationships with related products and promote offline.
The conversion rate is shitty because there is already a lot of free content available.
Why?
- domain is basically worth the registration fee (double hyphen)
- site is easily replicated (wordpress design and content)
- this is not a competitive niche as there are a ton of easy long tail keywords
The only way to expand on the revenue is to copy what your main competitor is doing -- sell direct advertising and develop relationships with related products and promote offline.
The conversion rate is shitty because there is already a lot of free content available.
If there's one thing the Internet has taught us, is nothing lasts forever. Organic #1 is one of them. A bigger dog always come lurking around the corner right when you're thinking you got it made, and turns out your lights.
I hope you know what you're doing, wish you the best of luck of course, but feel you should have taken the money, treated yourself to whatver, and replicated your magic again.
I hope you know what you're doing, wish you the best of luck of course, but feel you should have taken the money, treated yourself to whatver, and replicated your magic again.
I would sell the site in a heartbeat.
for what I've seen and personal experience when selling a webiste you can get 2x - 3x the yearly revenue. so if they are willing to work with $200,000 price its a good price they are willing to pay considering you can lose the top positions by a small alogarythm change and your revenue would go to $10 a day... so take the offer and sell it. thats what i would do
for what I've seen and personal experience when selling a webiste you can get 2x - 3x the yearly revenue. so if they are willing to work with $200,000 price its a good price they are willing to pay considering you can lose the top positions by a small alogarythm change and your revenue would go to $10 a day... so take the offer and sell it. thats what i would do
One of the things you guys are failing to realize is that I only rank for a handfull of generic terms and even those combined make up for about 5% of my organic traffic. My website has around 80,000 words of text so the majority of traffic I get is long tail keyword based.
Probably Goa in India or there are many places in the south pacific - eg. Phuket, Bali, Fiji, Vanatu. Trick is to live like a local rather than like a tourist, but that usually means learning the lingo.
Great if you can pull it off and one of my (many) dreams.
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