Do you own a domain name or a website that you plan to sell? If you are no longer using your site and want to sell it for some profit, then read on for some useful tips.

Before you put the tag of ‘this website for sale,’ it is important that you gather some important information about the business of selling websites in order to maximize your revenue.
 
1. Find Out The Worth Of Your Site – If it is a domain name, it is good to ask around on various domain forums. If it is a content website, assume the buyer will want to be able to recoup his investment within 1-2 years pre-tax.

2. Make Your Website Interesting And Catchy – Do some online research and update your site before you offer it for sale. The design of the site is very important to catch the buyer’s fancy. For example if the site pertains to selling children’s items, make it colorful and lively, but not too gaudy. After designing it properly, make sure that the site has some utility. Just offering to sell a website, which has no useful content or purpose, is like hitting your head against a wall.

3. Have Your Statistics Ready– Get your affairs in order before contacting potential buyers. They would like to know your total website traffic, as well as the traffic breakdown (how many visitors from various search engines, how many are direct bookmarks, what are the popular keywords of your site, average page views etc.) This would give the buyers a quick glance about the performance of the site.

4. Maintain Some Financial Records To Substantiate Your Site’s Performance – It is always advisable to maintain some financial data on the website, such as how much money you earn from advertisements etc., so that potential buyers get an idea about the site’s financial performance.

5. Make A Good Sales E-mail Letter – This is relevant as in this you introduce the website and its history to probable buyers, reasons as to why you are offering your website for sale, what the future potential of the site is, its profitability etc.

6. Sell To WM Media: If you like our blog, you will probably like dealing with us too :). Contact us using our “Sell Your Website” form to get an offer on your site.

A common question that troubles most website owners is: How do I sell my website? Every year thousands of websites are sold. The advent of online businesses is largely responsible for the demand of websites. The tag “This website is for sale” is as common as Hollywood couples getting a divorce! Today, there are numerous website owners who don’t know how to sell a website profitably.

Getting A Good Price For A Website Sale

Keep in mind the following points to get a good price for your website.

1. Determine the best place to sell your site, as certain sites sell more profitably at certain places.
2. Prior to listing your website, determine its price to set the right value.
3. While listing website, make sure that you include all the important information about your site.

Are you still wondering how to sell a website? Well, there are techniques that can help you sell website more profitably. Follow the given tips.

Choosing The Domain Name

Remember, the best domain names are the ones that are easy to remember. In contrast, lengthy domain names, misspelled versions of terms, and numerous words linked with hyphens can decrease the value of your site.

Building The Audience

The value and popularity of a website can be judged by the number of visitors it can attract. If a website attracts more visitors, it will be more valuable in the eyes of potential buyers. Therefore, increasing the traffic to your website is an imperative task. First, start focusing on the requirements of a specific group. Remember, instead of selecting a general theme, take a specific theme. In fact, specific websites are search engine friendly. Moreover, you can apply search engine optimization techniques to boost your website traffic. This will help immensely when it comes to selling your website.

Escalating The Sales

In general, buyers are attracted toward websites that have carved their niche in the web world. A website with a huge audience and great sales can should easily tempt potential buyers. The value of a domain can be easily determined by the number of sales it creates each year. Now, you don’t need to worry about how to increase the sales. Start with less expensive items that can be produced in bulk. You can easily sell your products if a good demand is created. Another way is to arrange huge annual sales.  All you need to do is offer an expensive service that appeals to numerous people belonging to a specific industry. This is a great method to increase your sales manifold times. 

Building Brand Name

This is will also help when developing a website. Try to establish your domain as a good brand name. There are several ways to do it. Promote it by putting up your ads consistently in significant places. Also, put your name on important websites through advertising. Further, present yourself as an expert by writing articles. Direct active involvement in your industry’s important Internet discussion groups can also be a good idea.

The buying and selling of websites is a good money making business. However, to get the maximum returns from a sale, a profitable website must be developed first. If you are into any sort of business, having a website related to your product or service is a must. Purchases and sales of goods and services on the net has become so easy that gradually the traditional system will become a thing of the past.

If you own a website and want some profit out of it, then some basic rules of web designing and navigation need to be followed. Offering a website for sale is profitable only when you are able to divert traffic to the site.

So, What Are The Characteristics Of A Profitable Website?

1. Be clear as to what you are selling – Before buying any product, the buyer will definitely want full information about the product being displayed. Selling things on the website will become difficult if the pages take a long time to load or if your order form is difficult to trace. Suggested options are to keep the size of each page limited, use thumbnail sized photos which can be enlarged for bigger versions, etc.
2. Make your website easily navigable – Time is money. If a buyer cannot easily find what he wants on a site, he will waste no time to move on to your competitor’s site. So, before you put up the advertisement of ‘selling my website,’ make sure that you also include a search function for the site on the home page.
3. Increase curiosity in the buyer so that he indulges in impulse buying - For example, you can run banner ads on the website content pages for the products that you are selling. Make the ads attractive so that they catch the fascination of the surfer. Remember, the more the number of click-throughs your site logs, the better chance you have of selling your website at a premium.  You may also include links to a few related products, for example a woman buying a hair conditioner from a site can be linked to a site on hair dryers.
4. Customer feedback is a great way to improve your site’s quality – A feedback form helps you to know the standing of your website and your products. Moreover, if you plan to sell your site, it also helps build a good database along with public relations. Make sure that you answer all queries by customers related to your product. Customer feedback also helps you improve the content, design, and layout of your site. These can be great ways to increase the value of your site before attempting a sale.
5. Increase traffic to your site by helping people find their way back to your site later on - Many visitors may have found your site through a link. Keep in mind that they might want to return to it at a later stage or even recommend it to someone else. Therefore, make sure that each page on the website includes the URL at the bottom as well as your site’s name.

If you have developed a website with the intention of selling it at a later stage, then take steps to bring in maximum traffic to the site from the get-go. Your buyer will definitely try to gauge the upside of the site’s future. Therefore, the value of a site upon its sale depends greatly on its performance and efficiency.

If you are interested in selling your website, then make sure that you first develop it properly to attract visitors. You can find different platforms on the Internet where buyers and sellers come together. Select the best among them and put your website up for sale. Look for helpful strategies in order to generate a large amount of traffic for your domain. A good online business means quick flow of cash. Make sure that you take good care of your website by paying attention to details like its content and design. You need to develop the content on a regular basis. Try to make it customer-friendly by adding all the essential information. The design of your site should be attractive enough to draw the attention of your visitors.

Get Started Now

There are several things to consider when selling your website. Don’t plan for the sale until your site is ready for it. Try to be as informative and comprehensive as you can. You can also get yourself some online guidelines to buy and sell websites. Remember one thing: your domain value depends upon how much traffic you can generate. That means the more number of visitors to your site, the better your chances for making more money online. This will make your website more suitable to the buyer’s eyes. Try to build a good relationship with your customers in order to gain their confidence.

Get More Visitors

Traffic flow is really important for increasing your website’s value. There are so many ways to boost traffic to your website. First of all, you need to have an interesting domain name. A unique name always proves profitable and attracts lots of eyeballs. Make sure that you use all the interesting and useful features in your web page. The navigation options should be simple and user-friendly. Try to update the content and design regularly. You can use the help of popular search engines like Google to sell a website. The higher the ranking of your site, the better the chances of finding more buyers for your domain. You can also increase traffic by publishing relevant and informative Press Releases online. Make sure that you do your homework regularly before selling your website.

Try to maintain your website by organizing its tools and features. Get updated on the latest developments of web technology. You should include all the relevant features in your site. When selling a website, try to project a reliable and convincing image of your site for the prospective buyers. If customers are happy, your site will definitely fetch you a handsome amount of money. Keep in mind that your website should provide everything possible that a customer needs. Before selling your website, keep in mind that interested buyers will want to know how much traffic and cash you are earning.

eBay website sale is a very popular method of making money online. Anyone can use this platform to make money. If you have a good knowledge of the web and you know how eBay works, then you can easily earn around $500 per day.  eBay is a website to sell stuff. Apart from varied books, there are several readymade websites also known as turnkey websites based on various subjects. These turnkey websites are established websites, which are used for the business of website sale. 

The concept of doing business through eBay is quite easy. Buy a website, add value by increasing traffic and enhancing website appearance, and resell it at a higher price. We now take step-by –step approach to understand the processes involved in website sale through eBay.

Finding The Turnkey Websites

Do some research on Google and you will come across a huge number of turnkey businesses. It will cost you around $50. But this price covers all of the material you’ll be putting up for sale.

Creating A Domain Name

After having bought a turnkey website, create a domain name. However, make sure that this name complements the product you’re going to sell. The key to a perfect domain name is to have a short, catchy, and interesting name. Remember, if the name is not interesting, you won’t be able to attract buyers.

Submitting The Website

Now starts the task of submitting your website to some search engines. But before that, be sure that it looks appealing and is free from grammatical errors. Remember, the look of your website is very important. So, pay proper attention to its overall appearance and check out whether it gives the impression of a professional looking website.

Going For eBay Website Sale

Go to eBay for website sale and sell off the site as an established website business. So, here you are selling a fully established website with ready-to-sell products and a registered domain name. But before that, have a look at the strategies other sellers are applying to promote their auctions on eBay. Another important point to remember is that you are doing a business, so professionalism counts! Your auction listing should be free of crazy fonts and weird colors and designs. These things could prevent you from finding a buyer.

Listing

In order to pull more bidders, start the listing at a low cost. Initially, the bidding amount might not be great. But you will realize that as the auction draws nearer to a close, the price continues to increase. In fact, many pros simply buy numerous websites, register its domain name, enhance the website’s appearance, and pass it on to eBay to present it to a wider audience in just a few hours!

Attending To The Buyer

This is the final step in an eBay website sale. As soon as the auction is over, don’t delay in attending to the buyer when you receive payment. This will help you win your buyers’ trust, a very important factor in any business!

Well, if you want to get into a business that provides you 100% profit, then joining an affiliate is not your cup of tea!  Website business for sale is the ideal solution. So earn money the online way using eBay website sale and watch your income grow.

If you are into Internet entrepreneurship, then selling your website requires a lot of ground work. It is an important to find out the market value of the site you are planning to sell. You have to turn into a wise negotiator so that you get the best price for your efforts.

Internet entrepreneurs have various reasons for developing and selling websites and domain names. You might have developed a website as part of your hobby. Gradually, it turned into a revenue generating source, but now you want to sell your website with the purpose of making a one-time profit. Or, you may be into the business of creating new websites, developing it over time and then selling it at a good price when you get a good offer. Such websites are carefully nurtured websites that have good quality content and keywords that have been optimized on major search engines and thus have a good volume of traffic. Another reason for selling a site is that you may be venturing into a completely new area or product, and so want to cut ties with a different sector before moving on. Whatever may be the reason, selling websites is often a profitable venture.

Important Steps To Consider Before You Sell A Website

The first thing that comes to your mind is, “What price do I quote if I plan to sell my website? What is the market value of my website?”

There is no established method or mathematical formula into which you can put numerical values and arrive at a sales figure for your website. It is a trial and error method. You can compare your website with other similar ones and arrive at a comparable cost based on the ongoing rates. Moreover, it also depends on the mutual agreement between the two parties – the buyer and the seller. Who out of the two is a better negotiator?

There are two commonly used methods to assess the value of a website. You can combining them with other factors which you feel are relevant while determining the price of your website.

Average Monthly Income– Most people use this straightforward mathematical formula for assessing a website’s value. Most website acquirers pay about one years profit for the site (or about 12 times the average monthly income).

What Is The Cost Involved In Creating A Similar Website? In this, we try to value the price of the site by taking into account its assets and inventory - that is the quality of its content, search engine optimization, quantity of images, the volume of traffic, links on the site, etc. With a higher volume of traffic, you will get better offers when selling your website. The more well known the site is, the higher will be its price.

Factors which lower the value of your website include lack of links or relationship with others, poor revenue generation through advertisements, poor publicity, etc. At the end of the day, you will be able to sell your website only at that price which a buyer is ready to offer.

Aside from loading slowly over dial-up connections, there are a number of problems that can develop for webmasters that use flash and other scripts on their websites. If you choose to work with a professional web designer, he or she should be able to setup these scripts in a manageable way – and should offer to fix any problems that arise from their use. On the other hand, if you’re designing a site on your own, you’ll need to be able to manage these scripts properly on your own if you plan to use them on your site.

CHMOD and PHP scripting

Most of the web hosts on the market today offer web space that is hosted on a Linux or Unix server. Aside from offering you unparalleled stability, they are also much cheaper than Windows based servers. In addition, if you need special scripts, you can get most of them for free without even having to look beyond the offerings provided by the web host. If this is a service you plan to use, make sure your web host offers Fantastico – this is the industry leader in providing free scripts.

That said, if you decide to purchase or run a custom script, you’ll need to be familiar with several things, including creating MySQL databases and editing CHMOD permissions. While these steps are not overly complicated, they can be intimidating for a new web designer. See if you can find a book at your local library on PHP scripting, or search for free tutorials on the web. When you feel you’re ready to begin using custom scripts on your site, make sure you purchase them from a retailer that offers good customer support – there’s nothing more frustrating than following the instructions given and having your script not work! Good customer support will help you sort out these problems.

Exceeding bandwidth

Aside from causing your site to run much slower, Flash, Java Applets and other scripts eat up bandwidth. Once you’ve exceeded the amount allotted to your web hosting account, your site will simply stop functioning. You may or may not receive an email from your web host letting you know that users cannot access your site. Unfortunately – if you aren’t careful – it may take you days, or even months to find out that your site is unavailable. This will cost you in search engine ranking, as well as leave a negative impression on visitors and potential customers.

Therefore, you’ll want to find out how much bandwidth is used by these applications before you purchase and install them. Ask the retailer for an idea of the estimated bandwidth use before you purchase the script. If you aren’t able to find out, you can try installing it and testing the application yourself while keeping track of how much bandwidth is used. Don’t be afraid of scripts that eat up a lot of bandwidth – in today’s hosting market, bandwidth is extremely cheap and you can always increase the amount dedicated to your hosting account to run the scripts you need.

Once you purchase web hosting and begin to build your website, you may find that you want to increase its functionality with specialty scripts. However, use caution. Some third party scripts can be a security risk – so search online for other user’s experiences to make sure it’s legitimate. In addition, because various scripts use up a lot of bandwidth, you’ll need to make sure that you don’t exceed your monthly or yearly limits. By keeping a close eye on your site – and making adjustments to your scripts as needed – you’ll keep your site going, keeping visitors and search engines happy.

Aside from using blogs and WYSIWYG editors, there are a number of tools available on social networks that can help you build simple websites. In some cases, these resources can help you create forums, photo albums and anything else you might need to make your website more appealing and productive. Whether you’re building a hobby page or a site for your business, social networking site tools offer an easy way to design websites and locate suitable audiences for them.

Ning Networking

Today, Ning is one of the hottest new social networking sites. When you sign up for their free services, you’ll be able to create a blog, homepage, photo album, and even a forum for your site. Perhaps best of all, if others are interested in the topic of your network, they’ll be able to join your group and create the same type of features. This can offer you a tremendous opportunity to create all sorts of online resources that can help you make money or advance a social cause.

For people who don’t know how to code in HTML, these sites can be ideal. Just like popular blogging sites like Blogger and Blogspot, Ning provides you with standardized templates that will help you build your first site in a matter of minutes. If you do have some HTML skills, you’ll be able to modify these templates to suit your own style and needs.

Bookmarking sites

Even though the Ning network does not allow you to create bookmarks, you can create free link pages using social bookmarking sites like Delicious and Stumble Upon. Aside from offering you an easy way to organize your favorite bookmarks, these sites are also invaluable when it comes to backlinking to your own webpages. When combined with resources on the Ning networks, you can create an enormous amount of traffic by combining your resources with those of others on the network.

Squidoo

Squidoo is a new type of social collaboration network in which users create “lenses” – simple websites designed to showcase a user’s knowledge on a specific topic. When you register with Squidoo, you can choose the topic you’re interested in writing about and then create a site about it using their simple drag and drop interface. Squidoo lenses can be a great introduction to basic site design – plus you have the advantages of being indexed quickly in the search engines and gaining traffic from the vast network of Squidoo users.

Depending on your needs and objectives, a variety of social networking tools can be used to help you build and promote your website. Aside from offering templates that make it easy for you to publish your materials efficiently, you can also use these tools to manage search engine optimization at the same time. Even if you are a seasoned web designer, you might find that social networking tools allow you to quickly gain a web presence in a certain niche and tap into tons of free traffic from users on these sites.

When you see fancy websites created by movie studios and large corporations online, you might feel overwhelmed, thinking your own site should look that way. While these sites may draw a great deal of traffic, it’s important to remember that people are drawn to them because of a brand name or specific product – not necessarily because of the content of the site. If you’re just getting started as a website owner, don’t underestimate the value of a simple website. Simple, easy to produce sites can easily pull in traffic – and possibly revenue – if you keep the following guidelines in mind:

HTML only sites are simple and SEO friendly

When it comes to simple and easy, there’s nothing quite like a simple HTML site that includes keyword-rich text and links other relevant pages. Aside from being the most basic kind of website that you can create, these pages are also the only ones that a search engine can navigate. Unfortunately, if you add frames, javascript, or other menu elements, the search engine will not be able to crawl each page on your site and index it properly. As a result, your page rank may be much lower than that of a simple HTML page.

Simple HTML sites can be created with many free tools

Today, almost every web hosting service includes some type of HTML editor. Because adding links and new pages are fundamental to building a website, they all include these functions. Therefore, even if you have never created a website before, you can easily build large sites using the most basic HTML tags to accomplish your goals. You can even practice on these services for free before you begin your own site by signing up for a Yahoo Geocities account and launching their site builder.

Adding increased functionality to simple websites

Of course, there will be times when you want to add more complicated items like shopping carts, photo albums, and guest books to your website. While each of these items requires complex scripts to create, they’re all designed to run on a simple HTML page. Therefore, you won’t need to worry about compatibility issues. You can find thousands of free scripts online that can be added to your site by copying and pasting the code into the appropriate pages – so you don’t even need to worry about writing the script.

There’s no question that we’d all like to have award-winning websites, complete with all the whistles and bells available today. However, it’s also very important to make sure that consumers and search engines can navigate your site easily and efficiently. Consequently, if you want to get the maximum benefit from a small- to medium-sized website, your best option is to use the simplest HTML tags that you can find.

As you learn more about website development, you’ll probably find that you want to experiment with different methods and more complex design techniques. When you do get to this point, it’s important to remember to keep an eye on the page rank and web traffic for your sites. Surprisingly enough, you may find that your simple HTML websites are more likely to outperform the complicated ones across the board.

As we move further into a global economy, more and more people are realizing that they’ve got to have a web presence. Whether they want to build a business, share personal interests, or take part in global activism, web design newbies face the common question of whether to build the site on their own or seek out professional help. As you might expect, there are several factors to consider before making this decision.

Cost of hiring a web designer

Depending on the size and complexity of the site you want to create, hiring a web designer or team can cost anywhere from $30 to thousands of dollars. More reputable companies will command higher prices in exchange for the guarantee that the work they do will meet your needs. On the other hand, when you create your own website, your only expense may be the actual cost of purchasing web hosting that will give you access to the web design tools you’ll need.

Timing considerations

If you don’t know HTML – and don’t learn new computer programs easily – it can take you days and even weeks to learn to create the perfect website. If you’re a busy business person – the time it’ll take you to build the site may be better spent on activities directly related to your business. However, if you hire someone to build your site, you’ll likely cut this time in half. If the site you want is fairly simple, a professional designer may even be able to have your site up and running within 24 hours.

Uploading and installation

Once the website is completed, you’ll face a whole other set of hurdles in actually getting the site to run properly online. Typically, issues can range from broken links to scripts that are not compatible with your web host’s operating system. If you build your own website, you’ll have to try and sort out these problems out on your own. If you hire someone to build the site, ask if they’ll also include installation and a final check to make sure that each aspect of the site works properly.

Future changes to the site

If you can create your own site, you’ll be able to modify it whenever you want – which is important, since you’ll want to update your site with new information frequently. Unfortunately, if you hire someone to build and install the site, you’ll have to depend on them to make even the most minor changes for you. If your web designer becomes unavailable, or decides to raise their prices, you may have some difficulty getting these changes made.

As you consider whether or not to hire someone to build your website, it’s important to think about future needs as well as current ones. In addition to cost, you’ll need to take into account your ability to learn how to create a website and the skills to maintain it. If you’re anxious to get up and running, you may find that hiring out the project makes more sense for you. On the other hand, if you’re looking to put up a personal page about your life, you may find that you enjoy the process of learning to build your own website.