How To Value A Website And Estimate Its Value Before Selling

Not everyone, but most people start a website nowadays to make money. In the heyday of the Internet, before the “dot com” bubble burst, there were many online millionaires. Perception after the bottom fell out was that there were no longer viable ways to make money online. This could not be further from the truth. Every day, there are people out there pounding the digital pavement, putting in the work that needs to be done to get their websites to the top of the search engines. If you are one of these individuals, then you should pat yourself on the back. The Internet loves success stories, and whether you want to sell yours or not, you need to know what yours is worth. But how can you determine that? It’s really quite simple. In order to know what your site is worth, you need to examine two key areas: net worth and growth patterns.

For your site to have any value whatsoever, it needs to be doing something to generate traceable revenue. That means you should be getting lots of traffic, or at least enough to sustain the financial growth. Revenue can come in via many different forms. You can get advertising revenue from the amount of traffic that you have each month, either by selling banner ads to companies or engaging in a text link or AdSense program. Following advertising revenue, you may be able to generate money from affiliate sales of related products. Amazon is one of the largest affiliate opportunities in the online world. Last but not least, do not discount the generosity of your audience. Small monthly donations can build up over time, and if you’ve got a large enough traffic volume contributing, you could be looking at sheer profit. Following your revenue totals, factor in any debt or expenses that you have outstanding, and you have a clear picture of your net worth. But don’t stop there.

Growth patterns are sustainable, and if you have owned your website for a long period of time, then you probably have enough information to show a potential buyer the potential growth rate if they continue to follow your model without taking on any new responsibility themselves. To add to the estimate of what your site is really worth, you need to factor in the average rate of growth from the time that you started the site to the present day. Remember, if you have a successful model or branding for your site in place, that is valuable, too, in a way that goes beyond cold hard cash.

Whatever you can get for your site is what it is truly worth. Be realistic about what you’ve accomplished when readying for the sale, and you could walk away with big profits.

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