Here’s Why Buyers Will Pay Six Figures for Your Content Site
Microsoft started from an arid Albuquerque garage by two college drop-outs with the aim of developing personal computers.
Nike began when Bill Bowerman wanted lighter running shoes for his track team.
These huge household names came from humble beginnings. And thanks to the democratization of the internet, you can start building your own media empire thanks to a valuable asset you own.
Your blog.
Content sites can turn your passion into profit by monetizing your content through affiliate marketing and display advertising and become a great side hustle to create a passive income by generating a revenue stream without needing to tend to the site.
Many content site owners will focus on expanding the business once they’ve tasted success. They’ll try to grow traffic and revenue by nurturing different channels and increasing the site’s reputability.
It gets easier to rank for keywords when a site’s domain ranking (DR) increases. When your site reaches a certain DR, you’re considered an authority site in your niche, and there’s more incentive for other websites to leave backlinks to your content.
As you continue investing time and effort into growing the business, it creates this compounding effect where more traffic leads to increased revenue and vice versa. In time, your humble blog becomes a valuable digital asset that’s worth six or seven figures.
However, success never comes without a price.
Growing a content site to that stage requires more than just sweat equity. You’ll need to invest more time and capital to keep pace with the business’s growth. By that point, you might not have the energy or inclination to keep going with your online business.
Neglected sites with outdated content and broken plugins are a common sight. Instead of letting your baby go to waste, what if there is another solution?
What if you could sell your business for a profit?
Why and When would you Sell Your Darling?
Selling an online business has never crossed the minds of many entrepreneurs as a possibility.
On our marketplace, the most common reasons for selling boils down to personal or business-related. Some sellers don’t have the time anymore because of life commitments like raising a family, while others want to use the capital for travel.
Another business venture might have caught a seller’s attention, and they want to use the capital to grow this new project. Sometimes, a seller may have just reached the end of the road with their first online business.
However, selling an online business isn’t the end of your wealth-building journey. Unlike the business giants of today, selling your content site means you’re selling a single asset. You can raise 2—4 years of profit upfront in cash in a single transaction and start building your media empire.
You can either invest the capital into smaller businesses and use your experience and grow these assets to flip them for a profit down the road or invest in offline instruments like real estate and traditional bonds.
However you allocate this capital, a profitable exit is the beginning of opportunities.
How Content Sites are Valued
Before we explore the different ways to improve your online business to get a higher premium, let’s first understand how this type of asset class is valued.
Our valuation formula is as follows:
12-month average net profit x Multiple
We look at the average monthly net profit over a year because we feel it reflects how volatile online businesses can be. A content site is at risk of declining traffic and revenue if there is an unexpected change in Google’s algorithm or commission rates of affiliate programs.
And we’ve seen it happen many times, usually without warning. However, these same factors also contribute to the business’s success.
The monthly net profit is simple to work out. Determining the multiple is a more complicated process that depends on many factors, like the age of the domain, number of traffic channels, and how many keywords your site ranks for.
Thankfully, the multiple needle can be moved for a higher sales premium. Let’s explore some ways to improve your online business for a more profitable exit.
3 Tips to Improve Your Business’s Sales Price
Improving the average monthly net profit is always a solid strategy to increase the sale price. But there are other ways to increase the value of your business outside of just profit.
Expanding your business and streamlining its operations increases your business’s value in the eyes of a buyer. Here are a few things a buyer looks for when looking to acquire a business.
SEO and User Experience
The universal truth for all content sites is that your content isn’t worth as much if it can’t be found by readers. Making your content easier to find by search engines through on-page optimization will boost your traffic and likely increase your revenue.
Buyers will pay attention to the types of keywords your site ranks for to get an understanding of how established your site is in its niche. Most authority sites aim to be prolific in searches for keywords with low competition and high search volume.
However, ranking on the first page for more competitive keywords will draw considerable interest from buyers. While user experience isn’t really indexed by search engines, it has a significant impact on a buyer’s due diligence.
Make sure your site’s loading times are quick by changing the hosting provider, compressing images so that they don’t congest the site, and using a lightweight WordPress theme.
The quality of content is also important. Buyers will be turned off if articles are riddled with grammatical errors and links are spammed throughout. A/B testing can help you test which aesthetic and even link placements can lead to longer reading times and higher click-through rates (CTR) of affiliate links or display ads.
While ranking highly for competitive keywords is a priority, remember not to compromise the user experience in the process.
Backlink profile
On top of onpage SEO, buyers will also pay attention to the backlink profile of content sites. With more backlinks directed to your site, your domain ranking will increase and make ranking for keywords easier and your site will be more authoritative in Google’s eyes.
While you have less control over the number of links that come your way, you have some influence on who leaves a backlink to your site.
Some SEOs still use public blog networks (PBNs). They’ve gained a shady reputation since Google implemented the Penguin algorithm update in 2017. PBNs can still be used as long as the linking domain is reputable and relevant to your domain’s niche.
I’d advise against using a PBN if you have less experience in building up content sites or if it’s your first time.
A more common alternative is to offer a guest post contribution via email outreach. By writing a useful article and having it published on a high-DR site in a shoulder niche, you expose your online business to a brand new audience as well as gain a backlink from a reputable source.
Generating guest posts can be a highly effective way to raise your brand awareness and increase your DR, but it’s definitely a long-term play, so you’ll need to be patient.
Other approaches you can use in a link building campaign include Web 2.0, manual, blog comments, forum comments.
Using black hat methods aren’t recommended because managing this type of backlink profile can exclude a lot of newbies to online businesses from your buyer pool.
Traffic and Revenue Diversity
Many entrepreneurs will focus on growing one traffic channel as much as possible for as long as possible. However, the business can be seriously impacted if that channel gets hit by an unexpected algorithm change or if your site is in breach of terms.
By building up other channels of traffic, you mitigate the risk if a channel is affected as described above.
For example, you could build a following on a specific social media platform. Many businesses underutilize this approach without realizing the unique benefit of the ability to gather real-time customer data by interacting with your followers when they respond to your content.
Another approach is to grow and monetize an email list. You can build a loyal audience by encouraging subscribers to sign up for your newsletter, which presents curated content that delivers outstanding value filled with practical tips and industry insights.
If done right, you can even create a business just from an email list alone, like Morning Brew.
Creating traffic diversity ensures that readers will still consume your content. However, the same risks apply when it comes to revenue. If you’ve monetized your site through affiliate marketing, apply for different affiliate programs.
This can help you to maintain similar profit margins from commissions if the affiliate programs change their commission structure as Amazon did in April 2020.
In the pursuit of diversifying your revenue streams, you can explore some interesting options, such as starting a dropshipping store or an Amazon FBA business. Signing up your eCommerce business as a vendor on an affiliate program means you can earn additional revenue from commissions while driving external traffic to your storefronts from your content site.
Starting a separate online business opens up opportunities for these types of promising and profitable synergies.
Growing Your Media Empire One Sale at a Time
You could continue grinding to build up your content site through the tips we described above, or you could sell to raise capital and begin building your media empire.
Your hard work won’t go unnoticed. Savvy buyers will appreciate and pay for a content site with a high DR, quality content, and a diversified and quality backlink profile.
In our Industry Report from last year, content sites sold for an average sales price of $111,187 for an average sales multiple of 30. As these numbers indicate, buyers will pay six figures for a site with good DR, quality content, and diversity in revenue and traffic.
Even if your site isn’t as established as you had hoped, it can still sell for a lucrative sum. There are all types of savvy buyers with varying motivations; some buyers are especially on the lookout for a site with declining traffic and revenue to improve it and sell for a profit after some time.
And selling gives you the chance to start exploring other business opportunities. You might apply what you’ve learned, and start fixing and flipping content sites, or begin investing in something else entirely.
If you’re ready to start building your legacy through your media empire, start by registering to sell your site.
Vincent Wong
Vincent is a Content Specialist at Empire Flippers. Originally from the UK and now residing in Malaysia, he loves everything related to online businesses. Outside of work, he’s usually running after his toddler and trying to play football, read, and keep up with the latest Netflix series when possible.
