Best Practices When Selling a Website

By | May 31, 2011

Too often, website owners make a simple mistake: they think that simply because they own a domain name or a particular website that they’re going to be able to sell it online without much trouble.  In some cases, these people are right – but not all the time. That’s because selling a website is in many ways just like selling anything else. If you were going to sell your home, you would make sure to list it with the right broker, keep it clean and attractive, and even clear out the landscaping outside.Why should selling a website be any different? Well, in many ways it’s not: there are best practices when selling a website you’ll want to be aware of. Let’s explore a few key best practices so that when you list your website, you can be confident that it’ll sell.

The Website Itself

The first thing you should pay attention to is the website itself. Is it just a domain name with parked hosting, or is it something that’s set up where a customer can buy, take over, and instantly have an audience? This distinction is an important one because it’ll mean a sea of change in terms of your website’s value – as well as how quickly it will sell.

Issues like search engine optimization, the quality of the domain, the navigation on the site – they all play into how valuable your website is. And how do you know how valuable it is? Your website is only as valuable as the price someone is willing to pay for it. Every one of your best practices should be aimed at enhancing the website’s value to a customer, not to enhancing it for your sake.

If you’re in doubt about how to go about these practices, simply think about one thing first: cleaning. Keep things simple. If you’re not sure how to make your home look great, for example, you can always improve it by cleaning. Clean out the navigation system on your site. Clean up the SEO and Meta tags – anything you can think of to clear out the cobwebs and get your website “show-ready.”

Finding the Right Broker

Working with the right broker – a place like WebsiteBroker.com – is also a major step to ensuring that your website sells like it should. Sure, you could do the old time-tested strategy of “for sale by owner,” but there’s a good chance that if you’re reading this article, you could use a little help in the selling department. That’s what broker sites like this one are for: to attract an audience of people who might be interested in your site, and to ensure that you actually make the sale.

Is it harder than it looks? Probably not.  Just keep poking around this website and you’ll find a number of simple solutions for better practices when selling your site. And don’t be afraid to take some of this advice and apply it to your site – you just might be happy with the results. More importantly, your potential buyers will be happy too.