Are you planning to sell your website, e-shop or blog?
If that’s the case, there are several ways to discover the worth of your project. So, In this blog article, I will talk about the tools you can use to evaluate your website, and other factors you should keep in mind when selling your website.
Why sell your site?
It is clear that the question of value is central when deciding to sell a website. But what drives someone to want to sell their site in the first place?
You may no longer be interested in managing your site or the number of sales or visitors to your site may have stagnated.
Often times, selling a website is simply part of a business model. In this case, what attracts in the first place is novelty, that is, building a website, growing its presence until it reaches a certain success, and then selling it for profit.
So, how can you get an estimate of the value of your website?
Domain vs. Website Value
To begin with, it is important to distinguish between selling a domain and selling a complete website with its content, etc. An estate that has belonged to you for years but you have never used is likely to be worth a lot of money. This rule applies especially to .com domains with SEO keywords associated with popular topics. The value of the website usually includes the value of the domain name. Nevertheless, there are many other factors that matter when looking to estimate the value of a website.
Estimating the value of a website: the key factors
There exist a good number of online tools which can help you estimate the value of your website. We have presented some of them below and highlighted their weaknesses or specificities. However, an accurate calculation of the value of your website will only be possible once you have met the requirements mentioned in the sections below.
Determine the value of a website based on your profits.
If you have earned income from your website, e-shop or blog, the profits you have made will be the number one criterion for determining the value of the site. Typically, you can calculate the minimum value of a project using this formula:
Monthly profits x 12Anyone considering acquiring your website should buy it at least up to its average annual income. It is also possible to choose 24 or 36 months as the basis for calculation. Ultimately, it is up to you to negotiate a sale price based on profits.
Buyer demand can also influence the price.
In order to estimate your website based on sales, it may be a good idea to relate sales to your investments, for example, your maintenance and operating costs. How much time did you invest to get sales? How many ads or links did you buy? And how have your sales evolved over the last month or year? Is there still room for improvement for your sales or have they already soared to the zenith and beyond?
Calculate the value of the website with the number of visitors
The number of visitors who visit your website on a monthly basis is crucial in determining its value since website monetization is based on the number of visitors or clicks. For example, if your website garners 50,000 visitors per month, views and clicks on banners or affiliate links will far exceed those of a 5,000-visitor site. This necessarily increases the value of the website. A higher number of visitors to a website usually equates to higher sales figures.
To get the value of your site, you could multiply the possible advertising compensation by your number of visitors and your monthly revenue. Then multiply the result by 12, 24 or 36 months to get an accurate indication of the impact on the value of the site.
To estimate even more accurately the number of visitors your site attracts, why not track it? Google Analytics, for example, provides highly accurate numbers. When interpreting these, be sure to take seasonal fluctuations into account.
Pay attention to the competition. Google Analytics or tools such as similarweb.com may be useful for this purpose. Simply entering the domain name of one of your competitors will provide you with an order of magnitude of its number of visitors as well as other comparable characteristics.
Website estimation: an overview of other key criteria
In addition to sales and number of visitors, there are other criteria that help determine the value of a website:
- Backlinks: The more third-party websites that link to your site, the better. Anyway, the quality may vary from one backlink to another. Wikipedia, for example, is a bit of the holy grail, while a Facebook link is not worth much. Organic backlinks are of great importance because a sudden increase in link numbers is often a sign for Google that they have been purchased.
- Social media: Well-maintained social media profiles, accompanied by an active community, can have a positive influence on the value of your website.
- Newsletter subscriptions: the same goes for your newsletter subscribers. High rates are a positive sign.
- RSS readers: If you run a blog that has many RSS subscribers, it denotes high-quality content.
Be sure to subtract all costs associated with your website before making an estimate and compare your amounts and findings to those of your competitors.
Assess the value of your website using comparison tools
There are many online tools to calculate the value of your website. Well-known examples include Worth of Web, Empire Flippers, and SiteWorthTraffic. They all work similarly.
To get started, you enter data specific to your website. This may just be your URL, but you can also include the number of visitors, your sales, and your industry. The tool then calculates an approximate value for your website.
Some providers ask for personal data and you may have to pay a fee to see their analysis. Other tools simply analyze your URL. These have the advantage of allowing you to subject your competitors to a similar estimate.
Evaluations conducted on these platforms are largely based on experience or comparable values: each of these tools collects information about similar types of websites and their (real) value for sale. A comparison is then made with your website and an estimated value is obtained. It may be a good idea to use several tools to analyze your website, as there can be large differences between the estimated values.
Keep in mind that the result is an estimated average. Ideally, you would combine the results obtained from the tools with the value you calculated by following the tips mentioned above.
Estimating a website: Summary
Use the list below to determine the value of your website:
- Determine the value of your domain.
- Set an evaluation period, such as 12 or 24 months.
- Calculate the profits (sales minus advertising expenses, Hosting, etc.) and the number of visitors during this period.
- Analyze your backlink structure.
- Take a close look at other positive signs such as social media, newsletter, followers, etc.
- Determine your growth potential in terms of visitors, sales, subscribers, etc.
- Use evaluation tools to get a price estimate based on your competitors and experience.
- Look at your competitors next to your website.
- Set a price as well as the lowest offer you are willing to accept.
- Put your site up for sale on platforms and keep a close eye on interest and offers to buy.