Can Your Site Be Sold?
August 17th, 2007 by CourtCourtneyTuttle.com can’t be, at least not for what it’s worth. I made the decision before I started this site that I would use my own name for branding. I decided to let people learn from Court - from me.
When I made that decision, I also made the choice that I would never sell this site. I had to. Why would anyone buy a site that is so heavily branded as an individual’s personal insights? They wouldn’t.
Let’s say that you do want to be able to sell a site someday. Here are some very important things for you to consider:
Choosing The Right Domain Name
If you want to sell a site eventually, you must choose a good domain name. Here are some of the things you should keep in mind:
- Don’t use a person’s name. I know that I used my name for this site, but I am never going to sell this site. I have other sites that I will probably sell eventually, and trust me when I say that my name isn’t on those sites anywhere.
- Don’t-use-dashes-no-matter-what. Dashes in the domain will really limit your ability to sell the domain.
- Don’t use more than 3 words in the name. This rule isn’t set in stone but that’s my opinion. Domains that have more than 3 words are a lot harder to brand.
Brand Your Site As A Company, Not As A Person
Even if your site is a blog, you should brand it as a company if you want to be able to sell it someday. If you ’speak’ as a person with a name, it will likely be very difficult to sell your site. Let’s say I had created this site on a different domain. I still could have branded the site as ‘Court’. I still could have acted like me and written like me - essentially I could have created my exact site on a different domain. That site would still be hard to sell because people would still visit the site to read ‘Court’.
On the other hand, I could have created this site somewhere else and branded it as a company. People would come to read what ‘Insert Company Name Here’ has to say about internet marketing. If I had branded the site that way, it would have been a lot easier to sell. I chose against it because I know for a fact that I’m always going to be involved in this business. It’s essentially who I am.
There is a very dramatic example of a site that switched from a personally branded site to a company branded site. Make Money Online at CashQuests is a site that used to be heavily branded towards an individual. The site was created by Kumiko Suzuki and was at one time created to suit her individual style. The entire site was pink and it was Kumiko this and Kumiko that. It’s a very good read by the way.
A while back the branding of the site changed entirely. From one day to the next the pink was gone, and the site had nothing to do with Kumiko. Now it’s just the company ‘Cash Quests’. I’m guessing that Kumiko wants to sell the site eventually and is smart enough to know that she’ll be able to get a lot more if it isn’t branded as an individuals personal site. This is my own opinion but I think it’s pretty likely that you’ll see that site up for sale after it hits a PageRank update. Even if she doesn’t want to sell it, she’s making the right choices with her branding.
Overall Thoughts On This Issue
I just want everyone who reads my site to have this issue on their minds as they create and brand their sites. Websites can become very valuable ‘real estate’ and I want you all to be able to sell for as much as possible at some point. I also know that I have created my brand as a personal brand - but that’s not the best option for all situations.
How are you trying to brand your sites? I would love to hear about it in the comments here. I would also love to see some posts about everyone’s thoughts. Let me know if you create a post about this issue - I would love to check it out!
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August 17th, 2007 at 2:20 am
I think it’s great advice, Court. I’m using my “name” domain as a personal website, and I’m using “brandable” domain names for the rest of my websites.
August 18th, 2007 at 10:43 am
That’s exactly how I would do it, that’s how I do it actually.
August 17th, 2007 at 2:32 am
You said to avoid dashes. What’s your reasoning behind that? Do potential buyers just dislike domain names with dashes? Because I can also see advantages in dashes from a SEO perspective.
August 17th, 2007 at 5:36 pm
Well I know that most people don’t like buying domains with dashes because they may make things confusing for visitors (like mysite.com or my-site.com, you would have to explain that there is a dash after my). By the way, what SEO advantages do dashes have?…I’ve never heard that one before
August 18th, 2007 at 10:49 am
The only benefit is that you can get names that wouldn’t be available without dashes, so you can get more keywords in there.
Not worth it if you sacrifice the ability to brand.
August 18th, 2007 at 10:47 am
A lot of buyers don’t want to see dashes because they’re harder to brand.
Picture a conversation between individuals talking about a website. It it’s hard for one to explain how to get to the site, it’s a lot less likely that the other will find it.
If someone told you, “Go to dog(dash)supplies(dash)for(dash)less.com” it would be difficult to remember. Cheapdogsupplies.com is much easier to remember, and therefore easier to brand.
The only SEO benefit is that you can get keywords in there that wouldn’t be available without dashes. Simply having dashes in there won’t make the page rank better.
August 17th, 2007 at 5:22 am
To be honest I think I probably wouldn’t mind using dashes in my domain - it would probably help my site rank higher in search engines, and I would rather keep the domain long term then short term. Oops - just saw the above post by Sutocu - I agree with what was said.
August 18th, 2007 at 11:10 am
Your domain name is very good!
August 19th, 2007 at 7:38 am
Thanks a lot court! I kind of regret my domain name, back then I didn’t really understand or know about the importance of key words in domains.
August 17th, 2007 at 8:59 am
I sold my old blog (Affiliate Programs and Internet Scams) for $1000. It was 3 months old and I spent a couple of hours per day on it, so I consider that a success.
I wrote a post called: “How to Sell a Blog Part 1: Writing the Sales Post”. - It’s at the URL I entered.
August 18th, 2007 at 11:12 am
Well done Matt! That’s a very good post.
August 17th, 2007 at 9:02 am
I think your opinion about CashQuests being up for sale after the PR update is quite a valid one. I’d never sell it without PR but I don’t have any immediate plans to sell just yet.
I have a few major plans for the site in the next few months and their success will determine a lot.
You’re spot on about the branding of Cash Quests. The entire process of rebranding was done with the intention to give it a higher sale price. Hopefully it will all be worth the effort!
August 18th, 2007 at 11:14 am
I thought that it was a very intelligent move when I saw it. It is worth a lot more now, at least in my eyes.
August 17th, 2007 at 12:25 pm
I hope no one out there creates a site with the intention of selling it. That is what will fuel the fire for the next dot com bust.
August 17th, 2007 at 7:42 pm
There won’t be a bust unless people start investing in these sites or selling shares. I don’t think that’s going to happen!
August 18th, 2007 at 11:17 am
Michael - The problem with the dot com bust was that there wasn’t any real money there. People were investing while hoping that there would be money someday.
The type of site selling we are seeing now involves selling sites that are producing real money from advertisers that are making real money from the leads.
Cash Quests - you’re right it just isn’t happening the same way it happened last time!
August 17th, 2007 at 5:40 pm
Great tips, looking to the future is definitely very important when creating a website.
For my blog I am not using my name, it was originally supposed to be a company type name, but now it may considered a nickname for me on the net (especially because I comment on other blogs using that name and I often use it as my username on forums too[webd360])
August 18th, 2007 at 11:18 am
Your name is perfect, webd360. It can be like the name ‘Zoro’ and be passed on from generation to generation.
August 17th, 2007 at 7:38 pm
My new site will certainly have a ’sell-able’ name, and will be branded as a business, and ran much more like a business.
I can’t imagine how hard it’d be to part with a site that you sink so mny hours into though. I’m most definitely emotionally attached to my blog; I’d have to see some serious 0’s before I’d be willing to part with it.
August 17th, 2007 at 7:43 pm
Some blog for love. Some blog for money.
August 18th, 2007 at 11:19 am
Some blog for both!
August 19th, 2007 at 7:44 pm
[…] articles for which I love him. This week you should not miss his answer to the question Can Your Blog Be Sold? or his discussion of Increasing Search Traffic with Effective Link […]
August 20th, 2007 at 11:25 am
Am I the only one who finds this post ironic considering you have a widget that claims your blog is worth $369K!!!
August 20th, 2007 at 2:48 pm
Hey Court, been a while since I left a comment, it’s becomming increasingly difficult to keep in the top few spots on you top commentator list, a sign of good things for your blog, nice work.
I don’t think I will sell my blog, although things change and so might my view on this. I like the name, shame the .com was taken or I would have taken that.
August 20th, 2007 at 5:03 pm
Speedlinking - 20 Aug 2007
This week’s edition of my Speedlinking series is going to pay a little bit of respect to those blogs that have referred the most traffic to Derek Semmler dot com since the beginning back in March.
According to my Google Analytics account, the fol…
December 20th, 2007 at 9:05 pm
[…] speculated back in August that CashQuests may be sold after the PageRank update - I guess I was right! Kumiko positioned […]
March 30th, 2008 at 10:19 pm
My friends forum was being offered however we’ve decided for it not to be sold because we were afraid it was a scam. If they wanted to change the website without maintaining any originality, it wasn’t worth the value.