Allows You To Hit The Ground Running

Whenever you consider buying websites, it’s important to consider what you are actually getting for your investment. If you’ve ever started a website from scratch, then you know how challenging the process can be. From picking the domain to selecting a host to writing the content to getting traffic and optimizing for conversions, the checklist for developing a new site can be daunting.

While there is a time and place for building websites from scratch (we teach you how to do that too), this section of the training program teaches you how to buy websites.

When you have the opportunity to buy a web business that has already worked through many of these beginner challenges, you are left with a business where you can focus more of your time on doing the things that matter: increasing traffic, increasing sales, and focusing on actually making money.

 

The Site Is Already Making Money

I wish I could find a concrete statistic on this, but since we all know that 95% of small business fail within 5 years (sba.gov), I would venture a guess that 99% of websites fail within the first 5 days (maybe not quite that fast, but you get the idea). Why? Because most people start websites without any concrete plans for monetization.

When you have the opportunity to purchase a website that has made it past the challenging stage of getting off the ground and it has revenue to boot, that is a business worth looking into.

This is perhaps my favorite reason for buying websites.

By purchasing a website that is already making money, you have the unique opportunity to build off the work of the previous owner. They’ve already spent the time testing what works and what does not, and they are always happy to give advice on what they would do differently if they started it all over again.

That is invaluable information, and it saves a lot of the time you would normally spend testing different revenue models. From day one you can focus on the money because there is already money there!

 

Built-In Traffic

Second to monetizing your website, getting traffic is a real challenge. Some might argue traffic is even more important than monetization. After all, how can you monetize a site with no visitors. Either way you look at it, traffic is important, and when you buy an existing website, the existing traffic source you buy can be worth its weight in gold.

Not only will you continue to have visitors to your new business, with free tools like Google Analytics you can quickly see what visitors are doing on your site, where they are going, who is buying your products, and what you need to do to improve.

It’s important to verify where the traffic is coming from. Is it primarily affiliate driven? Is it from SEO or PPC? It is cyclical, or is it focused on one or two pages only? These are all things you want to verify during the due diligence stage, but purchasing a website with built-in traffic sources is always a good thing!

 

Content Already In Place

Have you ever sat down to write a paper or better yet an article for your website? It’s hard. Writing is not always easy especially for those of us not gifted that way. Since content is the food for search engines, purchasing a website with content already in place can really help you leverage what you can do with the site under your ownership.

Perhaps the owner didn’t organize the site in the most optimal way from an SEO standpoint. Maybe they are passing pagerank onto pages that they shouldn’t. There are any number of things you can do with the content of a website once you own it, but the benefit again is that it’s already there.

 

Initial Search Engine Rankings

Finally, there are the search engine rankings. It is no secret that age matters for domains (at least from Google’s perspective), and any time you can buy a site vs. starting one from scratch it may be a good idea for this reason alone. There are certain markets where it will be next to impossible to break the competitive barrier sites already ranking for those desired keywords possess.

If you have the opportunity to buy a website that is ranking well, or even remotely well for a set of keywords in which you are hoping to rank, buying websites for search engine rankings is something you can’t ignore. Often times it can take months for a new site to make any measurable progress for certain keywords and phrases.

What Should I Know About Website Marketplaces Like Flippa, WebsiteBroker.com, & Others?

About: Flippa, an off-shoot from the old Sitepoint Marketplace, was launched in 2009 to serve the growing demand for website buyers and sellers.

It’s owned by Matt Mickiewicz and Mark Harbottle, the founders of Sitepoint and popular design site 99Designs, as well as veteran internet entrepreneur Leni Mayo and MelbourneIT Director and ex-CEO of Hitwise Andrew Walsh.

Flippa serves a more low to mid range buyer/seller market and is increasingly becomming full of template style websites that are nothing more than “turnkey” websites a seller may sell dozens and dozens of times (the appeal is that they are pre-built websites, but that is about all they have going for them; they do not make good investments – unless you want to build template sites to sell, but that is another topic for another day).

Prices: Most sites that sell on Flippa go for between $200 – $3,000. There are the few exceptions to the rule, and it would not be completely out of place to see a website for sale in the $20,000 – $100,000 range. If you are looking to sell a website, this will help you know what price ranges to expect, and for buyers this is a good framework to keep in mind when purchasing.

About: When most people think of eBay, they think of, well…everything, and so it is no surprise that you’ll find a website marketplace on this marketplace to the world.

eBay is a great place to buy just about anything, but eBay is probably the worst place to buy or sell a website.

It has more to do with the psychology of eBay users than the eBay brand itself. After all, why do most people use eBay? To get the best deal. They are looking for a bargain, and anyone who is looking to sell their “business” on eBay is typically not the type of person you want to buy from.

Having said that, since eBay is the defacto marketplace for everything, this can be a great source for diamonds in the rough. Uneducated sellers may go to eBay because they simply do not know the alternatives. If you are in the market to buy a website, eBay is a good place to check once or twice per week because occasionally lighting will strike.

Prices: eBay is FULL of template sites with most prices staying under $2,000. Anything over $2,000, be sure you commit to a thorough due-diligence and review process.

About: WebsiteBroker.com is probably the oldest true website marketplace online. Started in 1997 just as the internet was becomming mainstream, WebsiteBroker.com was created to bring website buyers and sellers together even before there was real demand for this type of service. Remember that even though they have the word “broker” in their domain, they do not offer any type of website brokering services. Similar to Flippa, WebsiteBroker.com tends to have a little more established, higher priced websites for sale.

Prices: There is still a lot of templates and junk on WebsiteBroker.com, but if you are looking to buy, expect to see prices in the $5,000 – $200,000+ range.

About: BizBuySell is a true high-end business marketplace. Typically, brokers are doing the listings, so you will be dealing with them when it comes to communication about the site, but if you have the budget, BizBuySell is a place to find some very high end, very successful web businesses for sale. Alternatively, this can be a great resource for researching potential markets.

While you won’t find the URL of the website for sale, many times with just the industry and provided financial numbers (available to most people without contacting the broker), you can get a lot of great, real market data about a niche or topic you are looking to get into.

Prices: $20,000 – $20,000,000+

Can I Use A Broker When Buying Websites?

In a word, no. Brokers represent sellers, and due to the nature of the relationship (where a commission is paid on the successful sale), most buyers would not want to pay a broker 10% on top of the purchase price to find the business for them. While there are always exceptions to the rule, remember that brokers represent sellers.

Are There Any Top Secret Ways To Buy Websites That Nobody Else Knows About?

Yes, and thank-you for asking. This is probably my favorite way to find websites to buy, and it’s a complete process we teach you in the BASW Training Program. One thing you’ll start to notice when browsing some of the website marketplaces listed above is that most of the good businesses go fast. You have to be on the ball, or risk missing out on the opportunity.

This technique was developed to combat that and to locate websites to buy that no other buyer even knows exist.

It’s so powerful and so unique that I can not talk about it here, but there is a very specific approach you must take when using this technique, and each BASW Member has access to all our training, templates, and resources for using this extremely powerful method to buy websites.

I’m Excited To Learn More About Buying Websites, What Else Do I Need To Know?

One common question people ask is what the entire buying process looks like. It’s actually pretty simple and straightforward: 1) Locate website. 2) Go through due-diligence. 3) Draft legal agreement. 4) Transfer funds. 5) Seller transfers domain/content. 6) Your done.

Obviously there are important things to consider during each one of those steps, but if you like what we’ve given away for free, then you’ll love the full BASW Training Program where we peel back the layers on not only buying websites but building, selling, case studies, and more.

This course is the culmination of a combined 10 years marketing online, over 36 different transactions, several million dollars in sales through our sites, and a tireless commitment to providing the most comprehensive course on this topic. Here is a just a sample of what else we cover related to buying websites in the member’s area.

Overview for what kinds of sites to look for and what to avoid

Why buying a website is such a good idea?

Where to find websites for sale?

Example of a good website to buy.

Best type of sites to buy.

How much to pay for a website?

How to transfer the funds to the seller?

Fraud checklist to make sure you don’t get scammed.

IMPORTANT: How to verify the facts & figures the seller provides (due diligence)?

How to write a purchase agreement to protect you.

Should you use a lawyer and accountant?

How to find rundown sites and buy them for pennies on dollar.

Negotiating tips for getting the best deal (cheaper prices, payment terms, etc).

See a real life case study of my most recent website purchase.

Legal Agreements

I mentioned legal/purchase agreements above, and I could feel the haze coming over your eyes. Please don’t be intimidated by these terms. If you are going to take this business seriously and use it to make hundreds of thousands even millions of dollars, you will need to use legal agreements on your transactions.

If you’ve ever hired an intellectual property attorney or a business contract lawyer, you know they can charge $250 to $400+ per hour of their time.

Not to worry. One of the bonuses for signing up to the full training program is that I actually GIVE YOU three different legal agreements you can use when buying & selling websites. These documents cost $6,500, with just one of the purchase agreements costing $3,619 to have written.

You get all of them as part of your tuition.

These agreements will save you thousands of dollars in legal fees, not to mention the peace of mind knowing you are legally covered in case something goes wrong with the transaction.

Mastermind Group

And that’s just one of our bonuses. The other bonus we offer that you simply can’t and won’t find anywhere else is our Mastermind Forum. Here you can post your questions, interact with other like-minded professionals who are serious about this business and willing to share tips, strategies, and successes they’ve had along the way.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. While learning how to buy websites is important, this is only one part to our training program. Next, I want to show you how to sell a website by sharing 8 common mistakes most website sellers make. If you don’t have a website to sell yet (notice I said yet…I’m thinking positive for you), then think of this as a checklist for things to watch out for when buying.

NEXT: How NOT To Sell Websites.

 

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