The popularity of websites for businesses has increase drastically as more institutions take up online trading and business. This has also increase the number of people who develop websites, grow them and then sell them for a profit. However, you cannot purchase a website blindly. This article explains How and Why We Vet Websites That We Sell Website Evaluation – How to Evaluate a Website For Sale.
Why we vet websites for sale
Irrespective of the need to make money, we want to sell websites to the most suitable businesses or owners such that these websites add value to their businesses. Besides this a website may look very appealing on the front end only for the back end to be horrible. Therefore, we want to ensure that we only sell websites that are credible and have a well-organised back end.
Search engines have a way of upgrading and downgrading websites based on their quality, the kind of content posted therein and other metrics. You do not want to sell a website to a client then the website is continuously downgraded as this represents loss of value. Such a client can even take up legal action against you, as the seller, for selling them substandard websites. This is why sellers need to evaluate all websites sold comprehensively before they start marketing them for sale.
The process of evaluating a website
The first step is a preliminary audit of the site which can take a few hours to days depending on the robustness of the website. This step assists you in making a decision on whether the website is worth a detailed analysis. It is also at this stage that you come up with a plan on how to go about the analysis such that it is thorough enough.
The detailed analysis must be structured to ensure that all metrics are covered. Besides this, structure assists in controlling the amount of time required to complete the job at hand. Once the detailed analysis is complete, you ought to come up with a report indicating your findings. This report is essential in valuing the website for the sale.
What to look for when evaluating a website for sale
The first is the front end appearance where you evaluate the quality of content posted there, its originality, the quality of images and the general presentation. When the front end of the website is not appealing, the likelihood of the back end being good is very low. A website with grammatical errors, plenty of spelling mistakes, low quality images and is arranged poorly is not worth your time and effort. Such a website will either require a lot of work before you can find a seller or it may not sell at all.
Does the website serve a specific niche? If so, what is the niche, how big is it in the market and what are the opportunities for growth for such a website? Most buyers will be looking for a website in their niche of operation. To evaluate the niche, you must understand when it gained popularity, whether the niche is long term or it is just a passing trend, whether the niche is competitive enough and the factors that may affect the success of the business, and therefore the website, in the short and long terms. This information will be required by buyers in order to make informed choices.
You must also analyse the traffic to the website over a couple of months. What was the growth rate of the traffic in the last year? What is the quality of the traffic visiting the website? Where is this traffic coming from? Is the traffic organic or is it generated through adverts? Where adverts are used, how often are adverts put out and what kind of adverts are they? Having this information at hand ensures that you can answer all the questions that will be asked by potential buyers.