My website business reached a new milestone this summer. I decided to see what it would be like to sell a website. Since I have never sold a full site before, I didn’t know what to expect. Thankfully, I hooked up with Empire Flippers. They took care of most of the details, which I will outline for you.
The first step was deciding which of my sites I was going to put on the block for sale. Many brokers require consistency in earnings and a minimum monthly net income. I read about Empire Flippers and reached out to them, as well as a few other brokers. Empire Flippers had a $500 per month minimum, which was the lowest of the brokers I contacted. With this minimum, I chose one of my sites that had been consistently making around $500 per month, and then I sent the request to Empire Flippers to broker the deal.
The process went flawlessly. I started by paying the $297 evaluation fee. This is fully refundable if they don’t list the site doesn’t for any reason. The reputation of Empire Flippers was spot on – they were thorough. They started by reviewing my financial statements and confirming all income. They did that by logging in and accessing my Amazon affiliate income and eBook sales through Gumroad.
Once they confirmed the income and translated the foreign revenue, they discussed the ongoing expenses and maintenance cost expectations for the site. Throughout this process, the communication was clear. Most of the analysis took place over the weekend, which made the process move much faster. Once they confirmed the financial information and discussed the ongoing expenses, we agreed on an average net income of $457. This was a tad lower than the actual net income, but they considered the future monthly expenses for content creation.
We agreed on a multiple of 31 times the monthly net income for a sales price. They considered future growth opportunities, link structure, site history, and content quality, among other factors, to come up with the multiple. They listed the site for sale at 10 a.m., and only two hours later, I received a full price offer.
Just like that – I sold my first site for $14,167.
I worked with the broker and buyer to perform the site migration for the next few days. I transferred the domain name and sent the buyer all site files and eBook documents. Once the buyer confirmed the traffic and affiliate income, I was released the funds from the sale. Everything was wrapped up by Friday.
Selling my site was exhilarating and moved quickly. I learned a lot about the sales process for an online business and I would have no hesitation to sell another site. The process also opened my eyes to the possibility of purchasing sites for my portfolio. Who knows what the future will bring.