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In the past few weeks we have seen some fairly high profile blog sales, at least in the make money online niche, including -

• BloggingFingers.com ($6,000)
• CashQuests.com ($15,000)
• OneMansGoal.com ($8,500)
• Blogtrepreneur.com (Not Sold Yet - Predicted low five figures)

If I had the writing resources available to me I would have loved to have snapped up all these blogs to create quite a nice make money online network, but that would simple be beyond my capabilities to manage at this time.

Blogging Fingers was the first to tip the scale, gathering attention from plenty of other blogs about the sale. This in turn led to the other sales, which haven’t quite garnered as much attention but that certainly hasn’t harmed the final selling price and I think therein lies one of the main motivations for this spurt of blog sales - the money is good.

I’ve been in personal contact with a few of the people behind these sales and I think it’s safe to say for every blog listed above, the main reason for selling is “personal reasons” of some kind, which to me means there are other projects they would like to move on to, they have grown tired of writing to their blog or something a bit more serious has forced them into the sale.

Does This Indicate The Start Of A Mass Exodus?

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Continuing the thread from yesterday’s post regarding Ed Dale and the Dominiche system for buying and selling websites, I thought I might relay the story of how I acquired a set of niche websites that presently generate roughly $1675 in monthly passive income.

Unhappy With My Blog Income

The reason why I decided to go looking to buy websites was because I was not satisfied with the income I was generating from blogging. I was making about about $2,000 to $4,000 per month, no small amount for most bloggers, but I was still frustrated with the slow growth that is the nature for most blogs. This was back in the latter half of 2006.

I wanted to use the revenue generated from blogging and reinvest it to accelerate my income growth, but I was wary of increasing my labor as a result of any purchases. I had already experienced what happens after buying another blog when I acquired SmallBusinessBranding.com back in December 2005.

For the months that followed the purchase of Small Business Branding I came to a very clear understanding that while buying additional blogs can increase your income, unless you come up with an alternative content model to writing it all yourself, you end up significantly increasing your workload.

There is only so much blogging one person can do, and if you read through the archives of this blog you will see I have thought considerably about using blogs as a passive income source and eventually changed the structure of Small Business Branding to reflect a better model (see How To Outsource Your Blogging for details and also my series on professional blogging as a sustainable business model).

With my previous experience I decided that for my next website purchase I wanted something that was a pure passive income source (or as close as possible) and preferably was so from day one - I didn’t want to have to hire any people to produce content or perform any significant ongoing roles myself after buying the site.

User Generated Content Is Gold

I’ve always loved sites that grow because of the existing user base. If the people who use your website also create the content, thus generate the value, and even better - spread the word (market) for you - then you have the perfect formula for passive income.

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I’ve mentioned before that I derive some of my income online from websites I have purchased - forums in particular - that bring in a steady stream of passive revenue.

It’s not a huge source of income for me (about low four figures at the moment), but given the return on investment - you can buy a website and earn back your investment cost within 12 months at most (usually closer to 6 months) - it’s hard not to take advantage of all the amazing opportunities currently available in the online real estate world.

Dominiche

Ed Dale became famous as an Internet marketer because of his amazing story of selling 38 niche websites for 5 million dollars. He’s gone on to make over 9 million from website trading and it’s pretty clear Ed knows how to make money from buying and selling websites.

Ed, along with his friend Frank Kern, created a program called Dominiche, which teaches people how to replicate their system for locating, buying and profiting from website real estate. Earlier this year Ed joined the team at StomperNet and it appears that Dominiche came along with him.

Presently Ed is producing a series of videos introducing people to the world of buying and selling websites as part of the relaunch of Dominiche, this time brought to you by StomperNet. I just finished watching video number 8, where Ed explains how sometimes it’s better to have little money when entering the web property market.

Yaro Quits Blogging

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Read previous articles in this series:

• Part 1: Build Your Preeminence
• Part 2: Communication Channels
• Part 3: Technology
• Part 4: Content and Pricing
• Part 5: Triggers
• Part 6: Prelaunch and Launch
• Part 7: Dealing With Attrition
• Part 8: Set Your Membership Site On Autopilot

Selling your membership site is a real option and worth considering as an exit strategy. If you enjoy the set-up and launch of a membership site, but the ongoing maintenance is not a role you want to perform, you can sell out and move on.

Some people deliberately focus on site flipping, buying under performing sites, optimizing them to increase profits, and selling for a nice gain. There’s no reason you can’t do the same with membership sites, once you understand how they work, or you could start sites from scratch with the intention of building them up quickly to sell off for a big profit.

It’s worth bearing in mind that selling your site is an option at any point. You may have problems with marketing or dealing with attrition, or you just don’t want the responsibility anymore, so your best option is to hand over the site to someone else.

You will get more money selling a profitable, autopilot membership site, but that isn’t necessarily a point you can reach by yourself and if your focus is moving elsewhere, selling your site today is an option. There are plenty of people interested in buying web property at all stages of development.

Preparing for Sale

I have not personally sold my own membership site as I write this, however I have purchased and sold several sites over the past seven years and I know the process very well. Selling a membership site is no different from selling any form of web property, buyers are interested in the same metrics and the more you can do to present your site in a good light, the more money you will make.

If you have ever taken an interest in buying businesses in the real world (bricks and mortar) you might be quite surprised when you head online and investigate the web property marketplace. Web property can be very under priced when compared to their real world counterparts. This might be because the whole idea of buying and selling websites is very new, or it could be because of the virtual nature of the asset. Whatever the reason, your job when selling your membership site, if you want to get a high price, is to prepare well.

Here are a list of the metrics you should collect and provide in a concise document, which you can give to potential buyers who demonstrate serious interest in your site.

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