1. What’s the reason behind the sale? This is the first and foremost question you should ask. There may be a good reason for selling the website. Or, there could be no solid reason at all. The point here is: that you will never understand the reason behind the sale, until you ask about it. Also, Google tries to rank websites according to their age. Remember, older websites are more valuable.
2. What is the domain’s market reputation? This is essential. You should consider buying a website that has a famous domain name. This will greatly assist you in developing an online business by providing you a firm start. Things will be lot tougher if you are purchasing a website that has a bad reputation. It is suggested that you should consider buying a website that has a well reputed domain.
3. Do you have expert knowledge on the website’s topic? If you are not acquainted with the overall topic of the website, then how can you possibly benefit from it? When buying a website make sure that you are familiar with its subject matter and feel comfortable with it. This is not for your own good but for your customers as well.
4. Is the site supported by large number of back links and does it have an above average PageRank and Alexa ranking? Back links are created by placing the link of one website on another. They have a sole purpose of directing traffic to your website. They are important factor to consider when buying a website. Similarly, PageRank and Alexa ranking must be reviewed before buying a website.
5. Does the website contain relevant information? Again, this is necessary. Google greatly stresses on the importance of relevant content. You must remember; the website must have content that relates to its topic. This increases the value of website in the eyes of search engines.
6. Does the website provide a newsletter or mailing list? Is the list well-managed? In simple words, how many times bad e-mail addresses or unresponsive recipients have been removed from the list? You can enquire the owner about mailing list, when buying a website. Ask him that is the list included as part of the deal?
7. Will the seller offer support after the purchase? Even after there has been an exchange of ownership there may be some details that need to be adjusted. Make sure that you enquire the seller, for how long he or she will offer the support after you have bought the website and obtain all the details in writing.

Buying a website can be tricky at times, since it is often difficult to make up your mind. Once you are in doubt you may cancel the deal altogether. Simply make the buying process easier by asking the above mentioned questions.

Selling websites can be a profitable business. Most people develop websites with the intention of sale. The main reason behind creating the website is to make it profitable with increased traffic so that it can be sold at higher price, later on. If you really want to make substantial income from selling websites, then you must ensure that your website is profitable. You can generate income from your website in a number of ways. Your website can either display advertisements or actually sell product and services. By using the services like Google Adsense and Yahoo Publisher you can earn from the advertisements displayed on your websites. Various ad networks can also assist you in earning revenue from ads placed on the website. If your website is receiving a high traffic then these networks can assist you in making extra monthly income. Normally, you are paid on monthly basis for the revenue generated by advertisements.

You can sell your website when it starts generating stable monthly income through advertisements. Remember, that a profitable website is valued the most. A website that earns large monthly income can be sold for higher profits. Let’s suppose that your website has been earning $500 per month from Google Adsense. You have also been earning this fixed amount of money over the period of last three months. Now, when selling your website you will mention this fact to the client. The reason for mentioning the three month period is to show that the website is generating steady monthly income. It also verifies that your website has income stability enabling you in achieving the desired selling price. Selling websites can be profitable business, if your website is earning steady income.

Depending upon the decision you take, your website can normally be sold if it has been earning consistent income for the period of six to twelve months. This is usually the general time scale that can be used to determine the selling price of your website. However, you should understand that this period is based on new websites that have been generating revenue within or less than three months. If your website has been producing stable income for long time period and aged well, then you can receive higher profits by selling it. You should follow these basic principles if you really want to earn money selling websites.

Selling websites can be difficult in the beginning. You can make this challenging task easier, by properly evaluating your site, so that you have an appropriate idea about the worth of your website. This can be done by carefully monitoring the monthly sales over the period of several months. If you website is earning stable income, then you should sell it according to its true value.

Buying a mature website will assist the buyer in avoiding the Google Sandbox, which means that your website is not being shown in Google searches. The purchased website should be at least 12 months old. There are certain variables to consider when buying a website such as at what stage you are taking over the website and how much profit you will gain. Other factors include the price that owner is expecting to receive for the website. When buying a website, it is really important for you to consider the amount of traffic on the website. You have to pay money according to the amount of traffic. Normally, websites with higher traffic are more expensive.

Top seven strategies to consider when buying a website

1. Buying a website that has traffic targeted towards the product or service you wish to sell. This will help you establish a customer base very quickly but you need to keep a check on the quality and target of the traffic. Buying a website with a high traffic that consists of users who don’t increase your revenue, will only consume a lot of bandwidth.
2. Buying a website that generates income from advertisements. In this case, you might not need to change the website. You simply need to increase website traffic and improve the advertisements on the site. Sites that are poorly optimized but have plenty of good content are ideal for this opportunity.
3. Buying a website with the intention of flipping it quickly. You need to find sites that are not doing well and can offer you a large profit after restoration.
4. Buying a website that is community driven. A site comprising of forums with a nice target audience is the optimum target. You should choose a community that has established high value for advertisers and has a selection of products that suit your marketing strategies or match the products and services you already offer.
5. Buying a website that has a highly popular keyword niche and is expected to become popular in the future. Search engines rank the websites according to keywords. You need to identify trends before they become really popular so you can benefit from them.
6. Remove or merge with the competition. This is when you purchase competing websites. Alternatively, you can combine with your competing website or another website to create one large business.
7. Buy a website for domain name. In this case, you just want the domain name and don’t really care about the content of the website.

Visitor value can be determined by the simple formula that suggests: Monthly Visitor Value is equivalent to your Monthly Income divided with the Unique Monthly Visitors. In more mathematical terms:

Monthly Visitor Value = Monthly Income / Unique Monthly Visitors

For the sake of clarity Monthly Visitor Value, Monthly Income and Unique monthly visitors are referred as mvv, mi and umv respectively.

Before you proceed to calculating the monthly visitor value you must find out your monthly income and unique monthly visitors. You must consider these aspects when valuing websites. They can be determined with the following methods:

Monthly Income: To find this out, add up all the money earned from your various products and services through AdSense, Paypal accounts. You should also include the earnings from affiliate and merchant accounts. The best method of finding monthly income is through generating reports from your website.

Unique Monthly Visitors: This can be done by your web hosting service that has a tool that can be used to inform you about your monthly visitors. These tools can provide you reports containing the number of times your site has been visited. If you are trying to find an easily available tool that is also simple to use, try Google analytics. You can learn more about it by searching from Google.

To assist you in valuing websites, we have provided an example of a successful tutorial e-books business:

Let’s suppose you sell tutorial e-books online for $30 per book and you have sold 40 copies. So, your monthly income from sales of tutorial e-books is $1200. You also found that revenue from AdSense, Paypal, affiliate and merchant account is $1500. Now your total Monthly Income is: $2700. By using Google Analytics, you discover your Unique Monthly Visitors are: 4000.

By inputting these various values into the formula, with MI = $2700 and UMV = 4000, we get:

$0.675 (Monthly Visitor Value) = $2700 (Monthly Income) / 4000 (Unique Monthly Visitors)

Each visitor viewing your website has a worth of $0.675. However, if this was a negative number, you would have to re-assess your marketing plans. You will need to improve your website’s sales through higher traffic.

You should aim at improving your Mvv trough various marketing strategies. Some of the tools that can assist you in achieving a higher Mvv include: Pay Per Click campaigns and paid advertisements. You should also try to increase your conversion rate. This can be done by increasing the number of customers who purchase your products.

With this simple yet effective formula you can find the true value of your visitors. This information can be extremely essential in determining your visitor’s worth which in turn can be used to assess the true value of your websites, assisting you in selling and buying websites. Valuing websites is important so that you can differentiate between actual price and true value of your website.

1. Timing – you have to remember that timing is the key to any good sale. Sell too early and you might end up with little to no demand; sell too late and you might end up with a market fully saturated by competition. Timing is crucial to make sure that your site will be in demand.A lot of people believe that the best time to sell would be when your site has established a reputation. You need to show buyers that the site actually has huge potential. This will increase its value and help you with the negotiations.
2. Potential – we mentioned potential in the above discussion. What exactly is potential and how do you judge it? Well, there are different ways to judge a site’s potential, but there are three that stand out:
   1. Traffic – this refers to the amount of people that visit your site. Having more traffic means that your site has more profit potential and this equals an increase in value.
   2. Ranking – page ranking isn’t as reliable as it used to be in online marketing, but some people still use it as a gauge for the profitability or potential of a site. The ranking of web sites can be observed pretty easily and can be a great way of looking how easily new users can find your site.
   3. Profits – potential can be observed in just how quickly the amount of the site’s profit is rising. Of course, there are only a few occasions when this situation causes a web owner to sell, and one of those occasions usually involves a person not having enough resources to support the increasing business. Selling could prove more profitable than continued operation.
3. Location – knowing where to sell your site is very important. This affects the sort of exposure your sale gets and thus, affects the number of potential buyers. Knowing the right locations to promote the site would let you maximize the amount of money you can make from the sale. This applies both to promotions and to actually finding an auction site.
4. Pricing – setting a price for your site is crucial to encouraging buyers. The price should give you enough profit, yet should be within your target market’s reach. Remember that website flipping and selling is all about making profit. Set a highlight price, but you should also be prepared to negotiate and lower the price.

These are just some of the factors that you should think about when selling your website. Remember to value the site fairly and to think about when a deal is good or not. Time the sale right and you might just find yourself getting maximum profits for your effort and investment.

You may find websites suitable for your purpose in two ways: using search engines and directly contacting the owner of the site you’re interested in, or by scanning the ad placements in online marketplaces such as our WebsiteBroker.com, SitePoint or in webmaster forums. If you already have a target niche, searching for sites using keywords is the recommended option as you can get better bargains this way. Remember that you need not see a “Site-For-Sale” notice for you to start negotiations - you must contact the site owner and make your offer to buy the site regardless of the site being for sale or not.

After you’ve found the right website, you should now proceed to the valuation of the site’s worth. You need to ask and find answers to the following questions: Is the site and the domain a new one? Are there loyal users and visitors to the site? Is the site earning revenues and in what form? What other possible revenues can I derive from the site? How much work is necessary to turn it into a profitable venture? How can I integrate this site to my niche market? If I build a similar site from the ground, how much will it cost?

You can get answers to some of these questions from the owner if the site you’re buying is advertised for sale. You must not rely on these proofs alone. Do some research using Internet-based assessment tools, particularly if it involves a large investment.

Online tools such as Google Toolbar, Yahoo Site Explorer, Alexa ranking tool and many others give useful data on popularity, traffic, search engine optimization, global reach and links for websites. Another useful tool, Tidgulator asks some questions about the site, including net profits, the size of its member base and other info to give you an estimate on the value of the site. All these listed tools would in some ways provide you with data to aid you in making a realistic valuation. But it is still up to you, the buyer, to come up with the figure which you would use in your negotiations.

When you have set a reasonable value for the site, it’s time to negotiate. Don’t try to bamboozle the owner into submission – you wouldn’t want to offend him and get him to bad-mouth you in his network and ruin your reputation wholesale. If the owner tells you he’s not selling the site or that he needs time to consider your offer, keep the lines open. If he’s amenable to the idea, ask how much would be his asking price and negotiate from there, using the data you’ve gathered to leverage costs that he would put forward. If the asking price is too much and the owner wont budge, you can back-out politely and move-on to your next prospect.

If both parties come to terms, the contract can then be drawn which stipulates the terms of sale and other provisions. The last part in finalizing the sale is payment: the best way for both parties is using escrow services such as Escrow.com, wherein you deposit the agreed amount which will only be released to the seller after you confirm delivery of the goods (website).

1. Popularity – you would want a site that has been established, with good traffic flow and an established name. Successful entrepreneurs agree that the best type of site to buy would be one that has a generic domain name. This lets more people stumble onto the site by typing generic urls. Of course, more popular sites also cost more.
2. Establishment – it is always better to get a site that has been online and has established itself somewhat. This way, your acquisition of a website would also get you access to various contacts who can help you support that website and improve it. Purchasing an established site may also get you a steady flow of profits from established clientèle.
3. Potential – this is the most important factor that you should look for in a site. Potential is what you think the site could be with your help. Without potential, a site is worth nothing. The business of website flipping is all about bringing out the true potential of a site and profiting from it.
4. Upgrade costs – You need to take a look at the site and determine just how much work it needs in order to become salable. Try and translate all costs , including manpower and effort into financial terms so you can better understand exactly how much is riding on the site development. Make sure that the site development is cost-effective. After all, it is still a business and you need to get some profit!
5. Expertise- do you actually have the knowledge required to turn that site around? You need the right skills and understanding of market behavior in order to anticipate what would make a site do well.
6. Tech – The value of the site revolves around the technology it employs. This usually determines the efficiency of a site to reach target customers or users. The technological value of the site also determines just how much work you have to do in order for the site to become competitive. As you may realize, on the internet, technology always counts.
7. Comparative cost – not only should you consider the cost of acquiring and revamping a site, but you should compare that cost to building a new site from scratch. If too much of the site needs renovation, then you might want to just forgo the acquisition and build a similar site from scratch.

These are just some of the essential factors you should look at in order to judge a website’s value. Remember that the aim of site flipping is in increasing the site’s value and profiting from its sale. Taking into account all these factors would definitely help you gain a better judgment on where you stand in business.