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How To Sell A Website for Maximum Profit

This is part 4 of 34 in Poker and Making Money Online, a 34 Part Series.

Act weak when strong, act strong when weak. Know when to bluff.

Poker Bluff

Selling a website for top dollar is similar to bluffing in poker and here’s why. You want to sell your website for the most your buyer will pay, your buyer wants to buy your website for the lowest amount possible. Good old negotiation.

In order to sell your website for top dollar and get the most money out of your buyer, you need to really sell the features and benefits. In poker, when you’re bluffing, you want to do the same thing. You want the other people at the table to know everything about your cards, that is, you want them to think that you have something worth folding to.

So in order to win this melee and come out with the most money, you need to show the buyer why he should pay top dollar. This includes listing all of your stats, income, and generally unspoken benefits such as:

1. RSS subscribers
2. Newsletter members that are opt-in (or double opt-in)
3. Type in traffic
4. Organic search engine results
5. Current backlinks on popular sites
6. Unpublished content
7. Ideas for future development
8. Domain age
9. Popular content
10. Accounts (Twitter, Technorati, Blogspot, etc)
11. Multiple revenue streams
12. Relationships with others in the same industry
13. Affiliate company contacts

Explaining these benefits to your buyer is like going all in. You are telling your buyer that you have the nuts. If your site lacks value, by showing more quantity of features, you’re bluffing. Sometimes it works and sometimes you bust out!

By |January 28th, 2009|Projects|0 Comments
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Evaulting a Niche Market

This is part 3 of 34 in Poker and Making Money Online, a 34 Part Series.

If there are too many competitors (some irrational or inexperienced), even if you’re the best it’s a lot harder to win.

Being the best at something doesn’t mean you’re going to be #1.  Consider the 1980 Olympics when the USA Hockey team defeated USSR for the gold medal. The Russians were heavily favored, they were clearly the best, but in 1980 they weren’t #1.

1980 USA hockey Victory Picture

So what does it take to be #1? Hard work and picking the right horse. Some people think that determination will suffice with hard work, but you can be the most determined player in a niche market and still not be #1. There are people with more money, more time, a better team, an older domain, more backlinks, and an established foothold in your market.

Here are a few things I look at when determining if I can become #1 in a niche.

1. Number of SERP results. If Google lists 64 million results for your term, it might be time to narrow it down. Google “computer parts” vs “laptop computer parts”. Which do you think would be easier to become #1.

2. Is there a name brand involved? I always avoid a trademark because they’re obviously the market leader. Consider “laptop computer parts” vs “hp computer parts”.

3. Age and authority of #1 domain. For “hp computer parts”, HP.com is the #1 site. HP.com was registered in 1986, has over 1,000 Wikipedia mentions, is ranked in the top 200 for all websites by Alexa and is clearly the best choice for “hp computer parts”. What makes me think I can beat HP at their own game? What advantages do I have over them?

4. Knowledge of the industry. Do I know any other webmasters that own similar (but not competing) websites? Can I look to someone for a few links to kick start my link building? Am I familiar enough with the market to come up with creative link baiting and viral ideas? If not, what separates me from the other 1,000 niche sites in the industry?

When you find yourself stuck in a market where you’re the best, but not #1, consider this…you may never be #1. We like to believe that if we stick with a site long enough that we’ll eventually beat that big competitor, but you might never win. I’m not trying to be a downer, I’m just being a realist. That’s tough to handle news. You might never beat NewEgg, TigerDirect and Geeks.com for top rankings for “computer parts” no matter how determined you are.

So even if you’re the best SEO, link baiter and viral marketer, there is a great chance that you’ll still be ranked #12 at the end of the day. Switch to a niche or product with less competition, or weaker competition and become the top dog!

By |January 27th, 2009|General|2 Comments
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It’s OK to Switch Horses

This is part 2 of 34 in Poker and Making Money Online, a 34 Part Series.

It’s okay to switch tables if you discover it’s too hard to win at your table.

Horse Crossing River

We’ve all heard it said, never change horses while crossing a stream. In essence it means that when you’re in the middle of something, see it through. I couldn’t disagree more. I’m notorious for not seeing things through. A recent example is my free hosting website.

I designed a site, rented a full server, bought software, spent countless hours setting it up and then went live. I estimated that I would need 200 members in the first month, 600 after 2 months, and 2,000 after 3 months, in the 4th month I hoped to break even with 4-6,000 members. After 15 days, I had 60 members, and only 7 had actually taken the time to switch their domains to my free web host. So in reality, I was 193 members short, by the end of the month I had 14 domains switched and websites built and 7 subdomain websites created. So after 31 days I was 179 member websites short and couldn’t see how it was going to work. After the first month, I emailed the members that had created sites, and arranged a deal with another web host to get them set up somewhere else and closed 22Gigs.com.

I had thought about this idea consistently for about 3 months before diving in. I had done market research, had a plan, marketing lined up, sponsors, contests, etc. I realized pretty quickly that my horse wasn’t going to make it across the river. Should I stay on that horse and keep digging my financial hole, or should I get off the horse and find a stronger horse to cross the river?

So if you’re in a market that is beating you down and you can’t see an end in site, maybe it’s time to move on. Keep that site in the background and try something new for a while. You never know when you might want to give it another shot.

When the going gets tough, the smart find an easier way.

By |January 26th, 2009|Projects|0 Comments
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