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Your Complete Guide to Buying & Selling Blogs

Blogs seem to be hot commodities these days and everyone wants to get in on the game. Big corporations and global brands are starting up their own blogs or buying up popular ones in hopes to gain more exposure, develop a reputation, and build a loyal community. A recent example of this is TrueHoop, an independent one-man operated basketball blog that was acquired by ESPN – a name I’m sure everyone has heard of. Although wildly successful stories such as this are not very common, it just goes to show how valuable a blog can be. That being said, let’s dive into the selling and buying of blogs – what the advantages and disadvantages are on both ends and some tips to make sure the right decision is made.

Selling Blogs
First, we’ll go into why anyone would want to sell their blog. If you’re selling, you’ll learn what you can do to get top dollar.

Why sell a blog?
There are many reasons why someone would decide to sell their blog. Below are some of the top reasons why bloggers will decide to cash in on their beloved blogs and capitalize on all of their hard work.

• A big company offers to buy it
  If you sell to a well-known brand, you can always tell stories of how so-and-so company bought YOUR blog. It’s all about image and you’ll go down in history as an established blogger. Your new esteemed reputation will also bring you more job opportunities and benefits from the buying company.
• The right price
  Many bloggers are extremely attached to their sites, but everything and anything can be bought at a price. It really depends on the person, but the right amount of money can usually entice a blogger to sell.
• Time to move on
  Blogging is hard work and takes a large amount of patience, willpower, time, and effort. At a certain point, bloggers may just burn out and decide to throw in the towel. Selling seems like the right option because the blogger can get a return on all of the investments that they made in creating and maintaining the blog.
• Something goes wrong
  If something goes wrong with a blog or site, it is easy for the owner to jump ship and unload. Possible scenarios include banning in search engines, industries going awry, or increasing competition. It can be a smart move on the seller’s part, but buyers beware!

Selling a blog – How to get top dollar
If you’re thinking about selling a blog, take a month to tidy things up and increase traffic and revenue as much as possible. If you had an advertising campaign that you were thinking about launching but never got to it, now’s the time to do it. Use a month before selling to do as much as you can to garner traffic and maximize revenue. Blog buyers use traffic and revenue as major factors when calculating price so you definitely want to use these to your advantage.

Buying a blog
On the flip side, buying a blog is also a big decision and should not be taken lightly. There are certain situations when buying is optimal and other cases when starting one from scratch is optimal. It really depends on the situation and the company or blogger’s needs. First, let’s look at the advantages and disadvantages of buying a blog.

Advantages of buying a blog

• Loyal readership and a reputation from the start
• Well-known brand
• SEO advantage
  More ranking potential with an older domain, more content, and established links
• Revenue coming in from the get go

Disadvantages of buying a blog

• Adjustment period
  It takes a while to get adjusted to the blog – but the blog and its readers don’t pause for a new owner
• Owner Dependency
  The success of the blog may have been dependent on its previous owner. Once he or she is gone, the blog could fall.
• Limited range of topics
  Since you did not create the blog, you may be restricted only to the current topics covered by the blog.
• Cost
  Obviously buying a blog is much more costly than starting one from scratch.

Buying a blog vs. starting one from scratch
When you start a blog from scratch, you have much more control in that you can create the design, decide on your content, and develop your own loyal following. However, with this control comes much more work and time required to develop anything substantial. A blog that is bought from a previous owner is already established and has incoming traffic, frequent readers, and usually a steady revenue. Ultimately, it comes down to the blogger’s preferences and return on investment. If buying a blog will lead to greater profits then that is the best route to take. However, creating a new and unique blog from scratch and then gaining more readers and traffic than any other site in the niche can be much more fulfilling and lead to even more profit. Like I said, it all depends on the person’s preferences, risk aversion, and ideas.

Tips for buying a blog

• Never buy a blog on a topic you know nothing about.
  This is a surefire way to lose an already established readership
• Get as much data as you can.
  This includes traffic reports, SEO ranking reports, revenue data. Anything and everything you can get your hands on. SEO jobs in Manchester may be the right step for your career.
• Don’t take the owner’s word for it.
  Obviously the owner wants to get as much out of you as possible. But don’t just take everything as fact and be blindly led to paying more than you should. Check and confirm everything and make sure the site is sound.
• Figure out why they’re selling.
  Why are they selling the blog? We looked at reasons why someone might sell their blog, but there may also be underlying reasons why. Is the niche that the blog is in falling? Was the site penalized in search engines? Check for all these things before making the investment.
• Bid low and stand firm.
  Don’t just offer whatever the seller is asking for – in most cases this is highly inflated. Bid low and work your way up if necessary.
• Have a plan.
  Don’t just buy a site because you think it is undervalued or is interesting in concept. You must have some sort of a plan to continue or improve on the site in order to increase revenue or at least maintain it.

So there you have it. A complete guide on buying and selling blogs. Now that you have all of the tools and insights necessary, take a look at Blogging Fingers, a blog that is going for sale right now. From a buyer’s standpoint, what do you think? Let’s see who it goes to and for how much.

Related Post: 3 Key Components of a Successful Blog

This article was posted by guest blogger Gyutae Park of Winning the Web, a resource providing winning Internet marketing strategies to make money online. Be sure to participate in the comments contest for a chance to win a free copy of Aaron Wall’s SEO Book!