There are some things that an Internet marketer learns that become a part of their entrepreneurial goals. After a while, it becomes beneficial to buy websites which already have a big following and have been around for a long time. This is called “age” and the longer the website has been around, the longer it is considered an authority on the niche it is in.
So let’s say you’re an Internet marketer and you want to go into the beauty and skincare niche. You can create a new website and blog or opt to buy one which already has fans and a whole lot of content. It would do you well to go for the latter option since an existing website already has traffic. This is a steady stream of people who regularly visit the site to read articles, share content, leave comments and generally interact with other people there. This is what is valuable in a site, not the flash animations or heavy graphics. No matter how pretty a new site can be, there’s no discounting the real interaction an existing site can deliver. This is priceless, and it’s one of the primary reasons why “aged” websites can command a high price in the market.
For netpreneurs looking at buying websites and maintaining it later on, there are certain things you need to know when buying a website.
- You need to research on the history of the site you are interested in purchasing. The longer it has been in existence, the more stable it tends to be.
- You need to know which platform the website uses. Knowing which platform it uses will give you an idea how easy or difficult or easy it is to maintain. You would eventually need to make updates and other improvements.
- Find out how easy it is to edit the website to your modifications. Is this something you can do by yourself or would you need to hire a regular staff member to do this for you?
- Check if the target market of the website can service your own segment of consumers. Its present followers will be yours in the future so if it’s not a match with what you have in mind, forget it and go look for another website which shares the same target audience as you.
- Find out which marketing strategies are being used. This is imperative because you might have to continue using it right away once the transfer is done. Are they using newsletters? Email blasts? Are they into social media marketing? You have to find out ahead of time what you are signing up for because you don’t want to be spending all your time just keeping one website up and running. The idea is to have plenty of websites working and generating revenue at the same time.
- Knowing the traffic quality it gets will let you know if the website is a money maker or not. Check the source of the traffic and information pertaining to it.
- It is important that you figure out how much it would take you to maintain the website per month. From here you can set targets on revenues.
- Listen to what other people think about the website. Focus on the reviews given customers and visitors. Chances are they speak the truth.
- Finding out how much you need to spend to buy it is important. If it is too cheap, you’ll have to ask yourself why it is being sold. If it’s too expensive, leave it, you may be better off creating a website from scratch and just wait for the traffic to grow naturally and organically.
- Always be pleasant with the website owner. Becoming friends with the person who used to own the site is a good idea. There’s no need for hostile takeovers or bloody mergers. The former owner can help you when updating the site, taking over the hosting and many other details that you would need to in order to keep it running like a well-oiled machine.
The infographic below shows you figures about these ten tips. Our data and information can keep you from making the mistake of buying a website that won’t be profitable in the end.
All these are important and play a big role in the process. Take a look at each one and study them carefully because they can make or break your success online.
