Sitepoint is one of my favorite marketplaces to sell websites. It’s one of the best due to the simple fact that it charges to list websites for sale. This simple step keeps you from having to week through a bunch of junk to find the “gems” of a particular marketplace. However, no matter where you go to find a website, you’ll need to do your due diligence. Even a marketplace like Sitepoint has it’s duds, and some of them are just flat out dishonest.
The easiest way to find a site to stay away from, is looking for screenshots to the right of the listing. If the seller hasn’t taken the time to post proof, then it’s almost 100% guaranteed that his/her claims are bogus. It takes all of 10 seconds to post a screenshot, why anyone would avoid it is beyond me. I know that I’d never want to buy a site that doesn’t offer visual proof of their traffic and revenue claims. Why would you?
Other quick things to look for are sites that are what I like to call “The Sitepoint Norm”. These sites are capitalizing on the easiest temporary trends on Sitepoint. One of the most common would be the countless anime sites that are listed daily. While most of these are complete garbage, there are a few that would be worth the asking price. People keep listing them because of their ease to create and maintain, and the ease of building “captivated traffic”. Captivated traffic can be described as unique visitors that spend more than 10 minutes at a time on your site. Any video site has the ability to build “captivated traffic” rather easily due to most video lengths being over 10 minutes. The other thing working in their favor is the ability to easily update the sites by purchasing a script that updates the site automatically, by pulling video feeds off of other sites.
However, these sites are generally “lazy man’s gold”. They aren’t worth buying, and if you plan to sell them… don’t plan on it being a long-term trend. Sites like these will always sell, but not for as much as they’ve been going for lately. Eventually you’ll reach the point of market saturation (which I think we’re getting close to now), and people will no longer want them.
If you are looking for the best deals on sitepoint, you need to be looking at blogs that have been around for a while, or niche blogs. Niche blogs are simply wonderful for creating passive income due to the small market that they cater to. The smaller the market, the easier it is to rank well within that market. Also, niche blogs tend to sell for a lot less than bigger blogs, and it’s not uncommon for them to make more money due to the fact that they cater to targeted traffic, and groups. Older blogs are the second deals to look for. If you can find a blog with thousands of posts or pages, then it’s a definite buyer, assuming the price isn’t overwhelming. Older blogs tend to have older domains, which rank better in search engines. Also, the more content you have on a site, the more visible you are to search engines, and usually the more organic traffic you’ll receive because of it. The real mastery comes from when you find these sites, leverage a specific page of the blog for a laser-targeted affiliate program or product of your own creation. This is the easiest way to leverage traffic without having to build it first. Generally, you can find more of these on Digitalpoint, but you’ll have to weed through a ton of crap first.
In closing, sitepoint is a wonderful marketplace full of any kind of site that you can hope for. And the best part? It’s only getting bigger by the day. However, make sure that you are on the lookout for the bogus deals that makes marketplaces a dangerous place for new buyers. I recommend going to check out some of the deals at sitepoint right now, and trying to decide whether they are good or bad buys.
June 9th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
I actually check sitepoint every other day but have never bought a thing. I guess it’s due to the fact that there is so much to be wary of. However, having toned my due dilligence buying domains on TDNAM and following your advice…..I think I may be ready to have a go.
I’d like to see a post on your due dilligence methods!!! If only to see if I am missing anything.
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Bryan Clark reply on June 10th, 2008:
I’ll work on something! Most of it was covered in the last post, but I’ll get something together like a list or a powerpoint presentation to put it all in one place for you guys.
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June 9th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Sitepoint is great and also helps in finding your niche if need be. Not that you are copying anybody idea, but if you are having a hard time like me at finding a niche it helps a ton. Great article.
The one thing I am definitely getting out of all these is anything you do as a buyer should be expected as a seller. So when the time comes for me to sell a site screen shots and everything else I would like to see will be provided.
Thanks for another great read.
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Bryan Clark reply on June 10th, 2008:
You are right on the money. Anything you’d look for as a buyer, you need to make sure to include as a seller.
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June 9th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Great article Bryan. Short and sweet. It’s almost like an inner office memo of sorts warning everyone about the “secret shopper” coming for the month’s quality control inspection. I second AP’s request too!
My perspective would be from building an asset to keep rather than sell. If bloggers new what was looked for by buyers, they could improve the quality of their blogs in turn making them more profitable (in my case valuable).
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Bryan Clark reply on June 10th, 2008:
Although the site is based around Site Flipping, there is definite value in the buy and hold method. Just think, you could amass a website portfolio worth millions over the next 10 years, and then sell to finance your retirement! Sounds exciting to me…
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June 10th, 2008 at 4:09 am
I like visiting Sitepoint’s Marketplace every day or two for market research and ideas. It’s eye-opening just watching what sells, how much for - and more importantly, what DOESN’T sell and why!
I see quite a few sellers making some very basic mistakes.
Plus, I don’t quite follow why some of them put a high start bid. At least on eBay, it’s been shown that a low starting bid generally results in more bids, and thus a higher final value. Whether that would be true or not on Sitepoint I don’t know, but I’d imagine it would be better to at least get bids started - to get the ball rolling, as it were.
There’s always the possibility of creating a bidding frenzy by starting off low. You can always have a reserve price if you don’t want to sell it below a certain price.
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Bryan Clark reply on June 11th, 2008:
I agree completely Paul. Too high of a starting bid is a terrible waste of an auction. It just doesn’t generate the interest of something with a lower starting bid. I try to list all of my high ticket (x,xxx +) items for about $150 to start. And I’ve never once had one end anywhere close to that. They usually fetch my asking price, and sometimes it even goes OVER what I thought I’d get for the site.
Thanks for the great comment!
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June 10th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
Hey Bryan,
Hope you win our World Championships of Website Flipping. You are def. one of the more knowledgeable guys on this topic.
The guys at Sitepoint were sharing with me some of their numbers and you are right about 60% - 70% of the sites on their end up not selling.
However, they did say that out of over $5mil worth of websites for sale in April, $1.2mil worth sold. I think that’s huge! I wish I could say my site was responsible for over a million dollars worth of sales in ONE MONTH!
Justin
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Bryan Clark reply on June 13th, 2008:
Sorry for the late reply Justin. This comment was a casualty of Akismet for some reason. I found it in my spam comments, although I’m not sure what triggered the filter.
Those are amazing numbers! I’m with you… 1.2 million in a month would be pretty awesome
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