How to Sell Your Online Business With FE International Buying an Internet Business – Advanced Legal I Want to Sell My Website: Are you Ready?
Are you considering to sell your website? First of all, you need to understand if your online asset is marketable.
The first thing to keep in mind is age. Buyers of a higher level demand at least 12 months of existing history and proven sustainability. The website also needs to be profitable.
If you are planning to sell your website but are not quite at these levels yet, you can certainly get started to increase your website valuation.
One easy win is to make sure the mobile version of your website is properly optimized. You can work on increasing your revenue.
You could also place your website as a good reference within a growing subniche within your industry. As a consequence, you will end up gathering a wide variety of backlinks coming from trustworthy websites in your industry, which also helps increase your valuation.
Another area to focus on is updating your website frequently and adding more content. If you have engaged social media profiles or, better yet, an active mailing list, that is yet another powerful asset. The more diverse your traffic sources are, the higher valuation you will receive.
You should also streamline and document all internal processes in your site, so any new owner can scale all processes very easily. The greatest benefit of doing all these things is that you will likely have a very hands off operation, with minimal owner input, while the website isn’t sold. That, coincidentally, is also a great way to increase your website value.
Once you are at a point where your business is optimized for new ownership, then it is time for you to prepare for the sale, so the sale process can be smooth and stress-free.
One important aspect is to hire good legal counsel. Nowadays there are lawyers specialized in website sales and purchases. If you can’t find any in your local area, you can always search for lawyers specialized in small business acquisitions – the skill set is very similar.
Finding, selecting, and hiring good counsel makes a world of difference. Selling or acquiring a digital assets brings unique challenges and having prior experience in a similar transaction is a definite advantage. This experience can immediately translate into understanding the different components of the business, such as domain names, intellectual property, contract assignability, and so on.
You should also understand that the contract writing phase will only happen after conference calls, due diligence, negotiation, and a ton of effort made both by the seller and the buyer. A reasonable attorney will, therefore, promote collaboration and avoid creating hassle and making unreasonable demands.
An easy red flag made by unreasonable attorneys is to insist on drawing an asset purchase agreement from scratch. That means they are interested in accumulating more billable hours. Customizing an existing template to the specific deal terms is more than enough.
All you need to ensure in your APA is to map all elements of the business, such as assets, accounts, contracts, and so on. Each asset should be properly identified, and the APA has to ensure ownership and transferability of the asset – domains, hosting, content, social media and email accounts, licences, subscriptions, and also map out all third-party associations – if any. A good APA should include a non-compete term, as well as a period for training and transition support.