Last Update 8th December, 2016 — So you want to sell a blog? While still at University I was fortunate enough to sell one of mine for 5-figures.
It was then that I realized that making money online was something I really wanted to give a try because I thought it might help me avoid a real office job and try to perhaps build a business that could help those around me.
I don’t share the sale figures in this post because I want to make myself seem big – I still have so much to learn – but rather to give you some inspiration that shows how possible it is to make a living from the Internet.
I am going to divide this post into three sections:
- The pre-blogging stage
How to get set up for success on the right platforms and with solid ideas. - Building a blog worth some money
How to write content, headlines, and build a valuable blog. - Selling your blog
How to sell that blog that you’ve built up to the right buyer.
Nothing in this post is particularly insightful or new, if you know where to look. What I wanted to do though was write a blog post that lays out the whole process so that everything is in one place and you can continue to come back and reference it as you move forward.
First, the pre-blogging stage…
This section is about all those little things you need to do before you start your blog. If you already own and run a blog then you should still read it and just see if you think it is worthwhile continuing with your current project or perhaps starting something new. Most of the time you will be able to keep doing what you are doing by just making a few little tweaks.
1. Write a blog you believe in, or pay the price
One of the things all the pro’s tell you is that you need to do something you love. I know how tacky it sounds. But, to be honest, it is actually a really important thing to think about both from a self fulfillment point of view and a profit point of view. Here’s why.
Firstly, if you spend eight months working on something you don’t believe in or something that disagrees with your personal morals then you are going to end up hating yourself for wasting that precious time. Unless you really believe in the project then don’t even bother doing it because you will end up with lots of regrets later on. I, for example, would never do anything in the adult industry because I don’t believe it has a good impact on society.
Secondly, if you don’t enjoy working, writing and building the blog you will lose interest after about a month. Glen from Viper Chill talks about this a lot. The initial excitement of making a bucket load of cash wears out really fast, especially if it doesn’t go as fast as you anticipated. If you don’t enjoy writing those posts you will pay the price from a profit point of view.
2. Pick a niche with depth
The next thing you need to do is pick a niche, but make sure it has depth. You need some room to move and grow and expand. If you pick something too narrow you will find your readership doesn’t expand despite all your hard work. If you pick something too broad you will find it is far too hard to compete with the existing sites.
Let me give you an example. Let’s say you really want to do a blog about content or copy or sales writing. It would be very hard to compete with Brian Clark of Copyblogger.com as he is largely considered the authority blog on this niche. But if you had some experience with offline sales copy you might want to write a blog that is more focused on that – sign writing, brochures, TV ads, etc. You have a niche but it is not too big or too small.
3. Don’t worry about dominating the niche
When I first started trying to make money from blogs I wanted to have the biggest and the best blog on that particular topic. I was frustrated if I was ranking number four or five on Google instead of number one. But after time I realized something. You don’t need to dominate the niche entirely to make money. Sure, being number one is amazing but it isn’t a requirement. The internet is big enough for you to still be successful without being the dominating website in your niche. Remember that.
4. Have an idea about how to monetize the blog
Before you start this journey you want to have a blogging strategy to work with. Why? Because people are only going to buy a website if it is profitable. It doesn’t matter how much traffic you get, how many great articles you have, etc. unless you make a good profit. I have seen some amazing blogs for sale that get tonnes of traffic and have some really good subscriber levels but buyers just aren’t interested in them unless they can see a way to turn a profit without much effort.
5. Get your own domain and hosting or miss out
If you want to sell your blog for $20,000 you need to be on WordPress. Why? Because it is a blogger’s dream. It let’s you add hundreds of different free plugins that change the way your site works, it is perfectly optimizable for Google and allows you to post articles with ease. I really am a little bit obsessed with it.
If you don’t use WordPress to publish your blog then you are not giving yourself the best advantage. You’ll need your own host to do this. I’ve written an article about the best WordPress host that will help make the process as simple as possible and here’s a 44-point checklist on how to start a blog that will give you a good set of guidelines to follow. And if you need help with setting up WordPress on your hosting then read our guide on how to install WordPress.
Second, build a blog worth some money…
Now I want to go into the stage where you actually have a blog and are trying to gear it towards a sale in a few months. I want to go through all the things I did (and do) in order to give it the best possible chance of selling.
1. Produce a lot of valuable content
The most important thing you need to do is produce content that is valuable. And you need a lot of it. The whole purpose of a blog is to help users in some way so unless your content is doing that you are going to fall short.
So what does valuable content mean? Well that is what you have to figure out for your particular site. Sometimes valuable means having a lot of articles that touch on a lot of different keywords and as such bring in large volumes of traffic that click ads. Other blogs get better results by getting subscribers to sign up and then selling them affiliate products over time. I have had websites that work both ways – it depends largely on the niche and the way you structure and run your site.
Figure out what will make your content valuable and produce it accordingly. Keep tweaking it over time as you may find that it takes a while to get into the right rhythm.
2. Have a clear call to action based around that content
In marketing we have a thing called a call to action which basically means that you encourage your visitors to do something. Once you have figured out what type of valuable content you are producing you need to figure out your call to action based around that content. Let me give you an example.
Let’s say you have a blog about the latest BP oil spill disaster. You might be producing content that is all about keeping people up to date with the developments of the leak – essentially a news site. In that case you might find that the best call to action is one where you ask people to subscribe to get the latest news on the progress. You know people are interested in what is happening now (otherwise they wouldn’t be on your site) so then it follows that they will be interested in future updates. Work with that.
3. Make it super easy to subscribe, comment and navigate your blog
Your blog’s content is what brings visitors to your site. The last thing you want is a crappy design sending them away. It is critically important that you have all the design elements in place so people can easily subscribe to your feeds, leave comments and navigate around all the different sections. Not doing so could cost you money.
Imagine you write a three part series on how to look after your heart. Now imagine it gets Dugg and Stumbled and starts to go viral. Thousands of people get sent to a post in that three part series. But what if you failed to show people how to navigate to the other parts in that series? You would lose a lot of readers on that initial page. That is a navigation issue – something that happens all the time.
Your design has to work with your content to get more page views, better interaction and more subscribers. Take a look at Darren Rowse’s multi-million dollar digital photography school blog – everything about the design makes you want to look further, explore different categories or buy a product from one of his affiliate links. None of it is an accident.
4. Interact with every single comment, email or forum thread
I once sent Darren Rowse an email telling him that I was having problems leaving a comment on his site. I told him not to worry about it too much as it was obviously working fine for everyone else. He replied in about ten minutes telling me that every single one of his readers were important to him and then tried to problem solve the issue with me. Instant fan for life.
You need to make your blog more than just a soap box platform and more like a discussion over coffee with mates. Talk to your readers in the comments, answer emails and take the time to make it feel like you care and you are available. Why? Because one loyal reader that returns each time you post something new is far more valuable than 100 visitors who don’t interact in any way. And you have to recognize that people become loyal to other people, not to random websites.
5. Install Google Analytics on day one
One thing I will talk more about later is the fact that all potential buyers who are serious about the transaction will want to look at your statistics. If you only have a few months on record then you will almost always lose the sale. This is a mistake I have actually made more than once. I get so caught up in just pumping out content that I forget to install the statistics. Here is why that is stupid.
Firstly, you need to constantly monitor your statistics to see what content, keywords and design elements are working on your website. If your bounce rate is 95% you need to start to figure out why. If 80% of your Adsense income is coming from just two successful posts don’t you think it would be a good idea to know which ones they were and optimize the crap out of them?
Secondly, if you can’t prove all of the statistic claims you make in your sale period then you won’t get a buyer. You need to have physical proof that you get a certain amount of views, rankings, clicks, etc. Syncing your blog with AdSense and Analytics is the best way to do this. Make sure you do it today if you haven’t already.
6. Spend 20% of your working time on other websites
This is an extremely important point. Please read it carefully. If you have 10 hours a week to work on this blog you need to spend two of those hours on other websites leaving comments, writing guest posts and interacting in a meaningful way. This might seem like a lot but, in actual fact, it is free advertising that gets you more readers, better rankings on Google and a bigger profile in the industry you are in.
- How to comment properly
Make a folder in your bookmarks called “Comment Blogs” and every time you find a website in your niche bookmark it for later. Each week you should visit all those websites and leave a comment or two on their latest posts or popular posts with a related link in the URL section. Make the comment useful and helpful and always related to the content of the article. In a few weeks I will show you how to find hundreds of relevant posts to leave your helpful comments.Make sure you sign up with Gravatar with an image that will represent you for years to come. You want people to instantly recognize the logo or picture and associate it with great comments and a good knowledge base. - How to guest post properly
The best guest posts are the one’s you write an have to sit and think about whether you actually want to post it on your own website because it is so damn good. Find the top guys in your niche and email them casually about some unrelated topic. Perhaps chat to them on Twitter for a few weeks in a cool and friendly way so you can build a rapport. Finally, when you have an amazing post written, send them your idea and a bit of an excerpt. Nine times out of ten you’ll get the gig.Make sure your bio line in that guest post is very catchy and draws people over to your website. And make sure the links you include have a good anchor text with relevant SEO keywords. I have seen my rankings for particular phrases skyrocket after doing guest posts with good links on a top website. Don’t muck it up.
None of this should have the feel of spam. You are a real person interacting on other real people’s websites. Make sure you are adding something nice that represents your own website in a good way.
7. Plan your articles around keywords and topics and then people
You will often hear the big boys talk about writing for people, not search engines. And while that is a very good rule that you should abide by, it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t spend a good deal of time making sure the topics you write about are keyword focused. You see, writing articles for Google is, in a way, writing for humans because Google build their search engine to help people find what they want. What I’m trying to say is you can’t do one or the other – you have to make sure your articles are written for both.
Here’s what you need to do. Brainstorm a whole bunch of topics in your niche and then get online and start researching keywords. You need to come up with a whole bunch of main keywords. You then need to come up with a dozen long tail keywords for each of your main keywords. Once you have done that, you need to turn them into interesting questions/post ideas that appeal to real readers.
For example, you might run a fashion blog about jeans. Your main keyword might be blue jeans and your long tail might be blue jeans for plus sizes. You then have to create interesting articles around those two like How to Buy Blue Jeans When Your Weight Constantly Changes as an example.
8. Develop social media accounts and leverage connections
A big part of building a successful blog is building successful social media accounts. Why? Because you can then use these accounts to promote your website and drive more traffic and better interaction. It is also a big plus when it comes to sale time – buyers love to see that you have Twitter and Facebook accounts with certain amounts of followers.
- Twitter
Sign up for an account under your real name if it fits with your blog’s strategy and then create a background image that sells your blog. Darren Rowse does it perfectly here. You should start by finding people in your niche and following them and some of their followers. Make sure all the people you engage are relevant to your blog. Tweet on a daily basis and reply to questions and interact with topics. Post any new article you produce on Twitter and occasionally ask for a re tweet. Again, if you provide value you will get a good response.Make sure you install the Re Tweet plugin on your blog to make it easy for people to Tweet. - Facebook
Facebook is becoming bigger and bigger in the blogging world as they make changes like adding a “like” button instead of “share this”. You can also now use FBML to change the look of your Fan Page to make it more unique and branded. Create a Fan Page, not a group, and develop a high res sidebar image that takes up all of the available 180px x 540px. Make sure your sidebar text has a call to action and feel free to add a fancy splash page using the FBML extension.Don’t spam Facebook. Don’t use it as much as Twitter. You should think of it as more of a reminder that your website exists as opposed to a conversational tool like Twitter. Keep it simple by asking relevant questions about interesting topics.
You should also be on Stumble and Digg and all the others and make sure that you use them regularly. These things don’t really pay immediate benefits but, over time, they become extremely valuable for your blog and your long term success in the industry. This is especially true when you begin to connect with the big players in your niche. Such contacts often lead to valuable back links, guest posting jobs and so on.
9. Knowledge is power
The blogosphere is constantly changing. New technologies, plugins and trends emerge and it is vital that you stay on top of them. Furthermore, it is important that you become good at writing blog posts or outsourcing them efficiently, whatever it is you are doing. For these reasons and more you should read and then read some more. Follow blogs like Copyblogger, Problogger, Viper Chill, and SEOmoz and everything they write. These are guys who do it extremely well and pass on a lot of good information to their readers.
Third, selling your blog the right way
Now we can get into the final curtain call, the time when you decide to sell your blog. In this section I am going to go through all the main things that you need to know in order to maximize your sale price, stay safe during the sale and finish it off quickly and without stress. Of course, if I miss anything please leave a comment and let me know.
1. Gather data and discover your site’s value
The first thing you need to do is figure out how much you are willing to sell your blog for. This is called valuation and is an area that is extremely controversial amongst web marketers. There are three questions that need to be asked and answered here:
- How much does it make?
How much does your site make per month, on average? Is that a consistent level or are you having spikes. Is that income stream at all inefficient and as such could be improved before or after the sale. Figure out exactly how much it makes before we move on. - How much are you willing to let it go for?
Your blog might only make a few hundred a month but you might perceive it to be worth a whole lot more. This can be an issue at sale time as your potential buyers won’t have the same emotional attachment that you do. You also need to know this in case you want to reject the bids you get in order to develop it further. - How much is someone willing to pay?
This is the ultimate answer and, realistically, the only relevant question. I have heard Yaro say it and I heard my dad say it to me when I was in high school. The only true valuation is what someone is willing to pay. The other methods are just speculative.
The general equation that people go by when it comes to website valuation is 12 x monthly revenue. So if your site makes $500 a month it is worth around $6000. That being said, I have seen blogs sold for closer to 24 x monthly revenue on a lot of occasions.
2. List your blog on Flippa.com and point other listings to that sale
The best place to sell your blog is, without a doubt, Flippa.com. This website is solely designed for selling websites and as such it has a lot of serious buyers with real money to spend on quality websites. There are other places to sell your blog but most of them don’t have the same protection and reputation that Flippa has so what I do is just use them to direct traffic to my Flippa listing. For example, you might want to create a thread on Digital Point Forums about selling your blog but then say that the purchase can only be made over at Flippa.
3. Create a truthful and enticing listing with all the necessities
Your listing must be enticing but it must also be truthful. If you lie on any of your statistics or earnings you will get found out. The guys spending $5k plus on websites know what a cheat looks like and the will, most of the time, take legal action if you mislead them. Make sure you sell your website as much as possible but don’t manipulate any of the facts.
Your listing should:
- Have a catchy title
The title is what draws attention to the sale. Make sure it is catchy and sells the benefits of your website. Include things like a high Page Rank, monthly income, large traffic numbers, etc. if they are what is working in your advantage. For example, if you have a lot of RSS subscribers but not much income your title could be something like: Cooking Blog with 5000+ Subscribers, Top Google Rankings, Massive Opportunity. Always take the option to list your sale on the front page of Flippa. It is expensive but worth it. - Include screen shots of your data
You need to include screen shots of your important data items like traffic proof, income proof and so on. You can also go one step further and take screen shots of popular articles and Google rankings. This is not required but it really gets people interested. To take a screen shot on a Mac just do Command-Shift-4 and on a PC just press Print Screen and then Paste it into a blank Paint Canvas. Windows 7 users (well done!) you can just use the Snipping Tool. Make sure you blur out any sensitive information like account numbers and number of click in Adsense. - Use dot points to show benefits
A website listing is just like a blog post – people only skim read. Use dot points and headers to divide your listing in to areas of traffic, revenue, subscribers, etc. You should also make a summary dot point list at the top of the sale showing all the advantages and benefits that the buyer will get when purchasing your site. Focus on benefits, not just features. If you have a number one Google ranking tell them why that is going to benefit their business.
Don’t be stingy on the amount of time you spend writing this listing. All your hard work can be undone by laziness at this stage. Spend some time looking at the other listings that have lots of bids and see what they did with their advert. Make sure you really have a tight, easy to read and enticing listing before you put it up.
4. Price it properly
When I list a price for my website I always put it at slightly higher than what it is worth using the 12 x monthly revenue model. This has the effect of leading your buyers to believe that it is a quality site and getting them to delve deeper to see why it is priced so. I then set the reserve price at the level I am ready to let it go for. What often happens is you get into negotiations with a potential buyer over email and work out a price that suits both parties. If you set your initial price too low than you can’t bargain up, only down. Keep this in mind.
5. Make sure your site is clean and working
Something that a lot of newbie sellers do is forget to tidy up their website before the sale. I even remember visiting one listing and noticing that the site had just been hacked. A very unfortunate bit of timing but you have to make sure it doesn’t happen when you are trying to make a good impression.
Before you post the listing up make sure your links all work, your site is cleanly coded and there are no cross browser design flaws. For example, sometimes people’s sidebars go a little out of shape in IE or Safari. Make sure all of these issues are sorted out before you sell.
6. Accept payment only through Escrow.com for above $5,000 sales
Escrow.com is a website that makes your sale very safe. Why? Because they only release the domain name to the buyer once you have received the money. Here’s how Escrow works.
You open an account and then create a transaction between you and the buyer. You both agree to terms and then the buyer send their money to Escrow’s third party website. You then send the files to the buyer and once they have approved them in the Escrow website they send you the money they have been holding. The idea is that you don’t send them the domain name until you are certain they are going to pay. Escow makes sure of that.
Paypal is a wonderful service but I have heard so many horror stories about people who have transferred their domain and then had the buyer charge back the money. They lost out big time. Quite often you can get your domain back but it is massive hassle I would try to avoid.
7. Check your local tax laws
Before you make that sale ring your accountant and check your local tax laws. In Australia, for example, if you sell an asset after owning it for less than a year you get an rather big tax penalty. Selling a blog after eight months might, in that case, be a bad idea. Make sure you know how much tax you are roughly going to be charged and what category the sale falls under. For example, is it part of your income or is it a capital gain?
Conclusion
If you follow these steps you will, hopefully, have a nice smooth sale of a very valuable website. Once you have done it once the task is then, as I am doing, to build tens or hundreds of them at once. Now that is a nice income! If you ever have any questions about your blog sale or development just drop a comment and I will try to help you out.
Epic post Tyrant. Absolutely loved it.
I sold a blog for $1000 recently. Not quite the $20 thousand mark but getting there! Was exciting for me.
$1000 is an amazing start. Don’t you just think that the lessons you learned from the experience will really set you up for the future?
The Tyrant
Fantastic blog with some really in depth posts. It seems there aren’t many blogs out there with this type of detail so I am really happy I found you.
I am going to stop back for sure and ask questions about selling a blog.
Thanks.
SW
I agree, Starwonder 🙂
Thanks Starwonder.
I’d be happy to help in whatever way I can.
The Tyrant
This is a post that every new blogger needs to read! A definite plan is so important if you want a good result in the end. I have started way to many blogs on a whim that are now just empty and cob-webbed filled.
Nice to meet another Aussie blogger.
Thanks Thomas. Glad you liked it.
Hope to see you around the comments again!
Tyrant
Perfect post…Thank you for sharing some extremely things.
Probably the most helpful plus current information I found about this subject matter. Indeed happy that I discovered your web site by chance. I’ll probably be opting-in to the rss feed so I can get the latest updates. Truly appreciate all the stuff here.
Thanks Elisha.
Wow seriously great post, my blog is just a compilation of random posts, and it’s on Blogger, I guess It’ll need some work if I wanna sell it one day.
Hey Jimmy.
Get it on to your own domain name asap if you are serious about that blog. Its so important.
Thanks for leaving a comment.
The Tyrant
What a great post! Your planning is superb. You have hit many great points like producing a lot of valuable content, taking advantage of social media like twitter and facebook in order to create more value to your potential selling site.
Thanks Justin!
Hope to see you around the site again.
The Tyrant
[…] How I Sold a Blog for $20,000 in 8 Months | Blog Tyrant […]
Great post! I have had a blog for a couple years. Still working on getting
the traffic going. I wish I had read this when I started. Still learning…
Keep at it Dave!
Nice ot see your carrying through with your suggestions and commenting on ever readers comment, thats cool to see.
My question would be, why exactly did you choose to sell the blog if it was making money and had authority? 20k isn’t a lot really, so I’m guessing there is a much more business based reason for the sale, or some logic which I did not see described in the post.
Look forward to your reply
Hey Dee.
Very astute question.
The reason always seems to be different. The first time I sold it was because I was moving out of home and needed money. Pretty basic and not very savy!
It’s a good question to ask though because unless you have a good reason it might be better to hold onto it and keep earning, growing, etc. That original site I sold for $20k would be worth a fortune now.
Great question.
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What kind of hosting do you suggest for these blogs? Will a shared hosting site work, or do you get hosting through WordPress?
Does the hosting method affect the sale price at all?
Great article!
Hi Eric.
Some people think where your blog is hosted affects your SEO. I don’t really.
Just start out on a cheap host like Dream Host and then as your blog gets more popular you can get more bandwidth if you need it.
Definitely don’t do a WP hosted site though – grab your own domain.
A wonderful post and true to the spirit of sharing. I like how you stress to choose something you are passionate about.
Thanks Carl. It is so important.
Am two weeks into my blog and you have confirmed all of my beliefs as to what makes a good blog and opened my eyes to new ideas I hadn’t thought of. Great stuff. Thanks
Really nice tips.. Amazing inspiring article.. I’m going to start right now a blog!
By the way, I’m from Venezuela and congratulations again!
People buy blogs?
I’m amazed. I know it happens. Unlike TV, here on the internet, we never get to find out what happens to these purchased blogs say 6 months, or 12 months later.
Are they making the same money for the new owner which the original creator was making/claimed was making?
Does anyone have any personal experience of the “What Happened Next?” situation after buying a blog?
Paul
Hey Paul.
Great question. I can tell you that every blog I sold now looks and feels like rubbish. Most of the new owners just didn’t care to keep it going or turned it into some spam style blog.
If you care about your blog I recommend doing a contract at the sale that says what the new owner can and can’t do with it.
Tyrant
A question about reader loyalty: If you’re building up the value of several different blogs, as you are, do you worry that you’ll alienate readers when they figure out that you’re only planning on personally running the blog for under a year?
Hi Glacian22.
Yes I do worry about that.
But there are other factors to consider. For example, I do not plan on selling all of my blogs/sites. This one for example I don’t think I will sell.
Other blogs are so general in their information that it doesn’t really matter. For example, I have a fitness one that is authored by over ten people. I mostly manage the site.
Some blogs just wouldn’t work without their original author. If you are planning on selling you really do need to consider that.
Great question!
Tyrant
I have a web design/ development business(currently being revamped) I will provide information/tutorials etc about WordPress, photoshop, PHP, HTML and so on. My goal is to attract new small business clients. I don’t think these types of articles would attract that type of visitor. Would it be better to write about small business, freelancing, etc. to try to draw clients?
Thanks for any help/ suggestions
Hi Kevin.
Do both. Write some article for web designers and some for web design clients. That way you tap into both markets.
What do you reckon?
I wasn’t sure if having too wide a variety of articles could hinder a blog.
I have been thinking about selling my website. It is not a blog but rather a widget website. Im making 600+ a month. I could probably make alot more if I got ads on the widgets them selves. For example my piano gets viewed 100,000 + each week. I have not figured out how to get someone to advertise on my piano widget. But it is top 50 on apple.com widgets. Got any advice? Buttonbeats.com
Jason, that is a lot of traffic. Perhaps we should talk over email?
Shoot me an email with the contact form above if you are interested.
Tyrant
My biggest score so far is I sold a blog a couple years ago for $10,000. I put a lot of work into it, but it was nice to cash out before the niche went dry.
The only thing I would add to this article is this: BE VERY CAREFUL WITH WORDPRESS!
There are tons of security holes and if you get hacked you can run into a lot of problems with your search engine rankings, etc. Do not take this lightly or you may end up flipping burgers for a living 😉
Good point Batman.
Security can be a problem, especially if you are lazy with updates, etc.
Tyrant
$20000 for 8 months work? Seriously, there are easier ways to make money.
What about if you do 10 at once?
From the amount of work you describe above, do you think it’s possible to have 10 blogs on the go, with 10 niche subjects, fully interacting with each site in comments and social media? Seems like an enormous amount of work for one person to do. I suppose it varies from person to person, but I know that I couldn’t manage that kind of headache!
Outsource as much as you can. I think it’s about time management really.
Thanks for your comment.
“would never do anything in the adult industry because I don’t believe it has a good impact on society”
So are you saying that you don’t look at porn? Well thanks for sharing your moral stance on pornography with us. Perhaps it would be better to say “I prefer not to promote adult websites because I cannot use Google Ad Sense (and other affiliates) with it.” Rather than saying, “I’m anti-porn!”
Just my 2 cents.
Hey Regular Guy.
Thanks for sharing. I didn’t mean to come across as judgemental or anything but I guess if I am honest I would say I am anti porn. It’s not a religious stance, just a personal preference.
Check out the revolutionary neuroscience book called The Brain That Changes Itself for some pretty amazing reasons why porn is a problem.
Thanks for your comment.
Tyrant
what happens to my blog that i poured my heart and soul into after i sell it? is there any way that i could sell a blog and still have a little control over the content and direction that it has? what about all the loyal followers? if a blog is sold do the loyal followers ever have a problem with the sale and abandon the blog?
Good question.
You can have a contract of sale done up that stipulates that the blog can’t be used for x, y and z after the sale.
Tyrant
[…] How I Sold a Blog for $20,000 in 8 Months […]
Hi, I’m new to your blog. Would it be possible to share the urls of the blogs you have sold? Would like to see some examples. Thanks!
Sorry Reney. Those are top secret… for now.
[…] By: the Blog Tyrant […]
Great post! Working on my first blog now and this was a great post to read. Your insight is valuable.
Thanks Kate! Hope to see you back again.
Tyrant
Hey Blog Tyrant,
Very valuable post. I am leaving my 9-5 gig, and becoming a professional blogger. I think my content has what it takes, but I’m having trouble with immediate exposure. All my friends are influenced in a positive way, but I would like to be more agressive of being exposed to everyone. What’s the best advice to set my site on fire?
Hey Pino.
The first thing I noticed is that your blog is kind of hard to navigate and read with the lined background and the courier new font.
Change to something more clean and easy to read I reckon would help a lot.
Also, use that space up the top right for something more important than the wiki quote. Perhaps your subscriber stuff should go there.
Good luck with the new career.
Tyrant
Great post with a lot of good tips. We will try to follow some and hope for same success 🙂
Thanks man!
Hello!
Really good article! thanks for sharing all this info! I have a question, how do you manage your time? It seems to take a lot of time, special when talking about to make 100 of them. I want start a blog like this, but l also have a full time job, a boyfriend, movies to see, etc. 😉
Claudia – its all about outsourcing and finding what is the most important thing. Check out my post on why Blogging is a waste of time.
Perhaps it is preference, but I would rather continue building and growing my sites and have the monthly income rather than cashing out. While you do get more cash up front, once you hit month 13 to whenever you will end up ahead. This also gives you more properties from which to launch additional sites, link to,etc. Over time, this becomes a very powerful snowball effect. To me, site flipping is akin to a cash advance loan, with the large interest that you pay is in lost potential revenues in years 2, 3 etc.
Its a good point. Sometimes you need to free up some cash to expand into other areas though. You know?
Am I the only one here who is thinking.
“Sell your blog for $20,000 in 8 months… and congratulations, you’re below the poverty line.”
Read the comments above for an answer to that one.
Thanks for commenting.
Tyrant
I too would prefer to keep growing the site, but I appreciate your article and some of the information is very useful.
Its a valuable post with real gems in it. In fact, you have covered all of the aspect from very beginning up to the end. Thanks a lot for such a nice post.
Honest suggestion not to use PayPal. I’ve faced a problem with PayPal recently. I sent the payment but it happened the PayPal address mistaken. The amount is unclaimed and I’m asking to refund that money to my account so that I could send it again to the right address. Its taking more than three days. Troubles! troubles!!
Hi Suresh. Are you in India? Apparently Paypal India is not as good as everywhere else.
Great post man! Thanks for sharing! It’s very useful!
Really interesting and thorough post. I’ve never really given selling a site, although I have got one which I would let go. My problem is that when I don’t want to work on the site any more, I let it slip and lose all sight of it meaning that all the hard works was wasted. In future I know i need to sell before I lose it and make nothing.
Simon I know the feeling well. Those are the times though that if you keep pushing you make successes because when you get your flame back you will have more money to reinvest.
[…] upon a very cool blog called Blog Tyrant. More specifically, I stumbled on an article called How I Sold My Blog for $20,000 in 8 Months. It’s a great read and will give you all the basic information you need to know to start a […]
[…] comments to other readers One of the first websites I ever sold was a fitness site that was mostly used by women. Over time I built up some very loyal readers and […]
[…] Refer comments to other readers One of the first websites I ever sold was a fitness site that was mostly used by women. Over time I built up some very loyal readers and […]
Another killer post! Why am I only JUST finding this site?! There is so much information here, I feel like I should be taking notes. I love the advice about creating a comment file. I have 12 blogs/sites in my network and this would be a perfect way to stay on top of the niches.
Thanks – keep rolling out the great information. You have a reader for life.
Thanks Joi! Hope to see you around again.
[…] comments to other readers One of the first websites I ever sold was a fitness site that was mostly used by women. Over time I built up some very loyal readers and […]
[…] comments to other readers One of the first websites I ever sold was a fitness site that was mostly used by women. Over time I built up some very loyal readers and […]
[…] comments to other readers One of the first websites I ever sold was a fitness site that was mostly used by women. Over time I built up some very loyal readers and […]
Wow, there’s so much to comment on that I don’t know where to start, lol! I guess I’ll say this.
If you start a blog, pick a niche that you love so much that even if most people would have thought they’d exhausted a topic, you’d still be able to write about it. Love a niche so much that you can constantly find something to write about. With all of the ideas that you could possibly write about, there’s no doubt that you’d be able to write dozens of great articles for your blog that will be able to pull thousands of readers.
The amount of visits that your blog gets will be really important to potential buyers because they’ll want to know if they can make some money and the more visits your blog gets, the more likely chance there is of that happening.
Thanks Jasmine. Hope your gaming is going well.
Great read! Simple and to the point…thanks!
[…] comments to other readers One of the first websites I ever sold was a fitness site that was mostly used by women. Over time I built up some very loyal readers and […]
Wonderful blog, This has helped me so much with my seo learning! I continue to learn a lot from your blogs.
Hahah that is certainly one of the ways to think about it 😉
[…] Blog Tyrant”, who seems to have a lot of valuable things to say about blogging (see, How I Sold a Blog for $20,000 in 8 Months, for […]
[…] is incomplete or incorrect, and you can challenge them on it. I think one reason my blog post on selling a blog went to the front page of Delicious.com and got picked up by newspapers is because it didn’t […]
a very informative and in-depth explanation..i guess at the end of the day it all goes down to our level of laziness..the more pro-active we are the more we can achieved and likewise the more we indulge in our laziness the more we are doomed (by the way the ‘we’ is for me actually..)
i’ll be looking forward to new ideas from you..thanks again..
Thanks guys. Really appreciate the feedback.
Great read, with some thought provoking points. Interesting to note that blogs generally sell for 12 months earnings. Traditional businesses sell for anywhere to 2 or 3 times nett profit.
Yeah we have it pretty good don’t we. I’ve sold them up to 24 times monthly as well.
Great read!
I’ve used Flippa a couple of times and found that it is easy working with them. Hopefully some of these tips will help me get more in some of my upcoming sales!
Thanks Jeff.
I’d love to see some of your listings if you ever want to share.
Tyrant.
Hi Tyrant!
I would use Escrow also for smaller amounts of money who are above 1000, because there is a lot of scamers.