The answer to this question is very simple.
You have to do whatever you can to enhance the value to a potential buyer to encourage them to get their credit card out of the wallet.
I have already mentioned a few ways that you can do this.
For example, if you can offer free hosting through your reseller account for a period of several months, you make the proposition far more attractive because the buyer has to do far less work to enjoy exactly the same income.
You can show them that there is additional income coming in from eBay and Clickbank so that they are not entirely reliant on one source of revenue. This would be relatively easy to sell as a benefit that most other blog flippers will probably not be able to offer.
You might offer to continue creating appropriate content for them for a period of time, or suggest that you will include a series of traffic videos you have made to show them how to increase their income from your blog.
I have already referred to the idea of opening new accounts with Squidoo, HubPages and the like. Including these in your offer again enhances the value of the package. The links from these sites have been established for several weeks or months which gives them more link power than new links would offer.
There really is no mystery attached to how you convince someone that your blog site offers a tremendous deal. Show them the value of what you are putting on the table,and they will show you the money.
Where to sell your site?
There are plenty of places that act as markets for websites, but for most experienced online marketers, the number one is probably Flippa, which used to trade as Sitepoint, which was always the „king‟ in the
„sites for sale‟ business.
As Flippa is a continuation of the services provided by Sitepoint, this would be the first place I would consider using to sell your blog.
Depending on how long you have been running it, there are several different categories under which your site can be listed on Flippa so make sure that you list under the most appropriate category:
Whilst there are quite a few other sites that you can use to sell your blog, I would recommend that you always start with Flippa before looking elsewhere because in my opinion (and that of most other experienced marketers), this is the „go to‟ site in blog and website sales. Another reason for using Flippa is that it is the site to which most serious site buyers turn as well when they are looking to buy an established online business. Hence, if you sell your blog here, you are likely to land the best price for it.
Other sites like Digital Point have a similar „sites for sale‟ section of the forum, but in my experience, the buyers who use Digital Point do not tend to be as serious or as clued up as those who use Flippa, so the prices you are offered for your blog are likely to be lower.
Then you have a site like eBay which many people use to sell sites and blogs, but once again, the prices you are likely to attract through eBay are likely to be a consistent with the „bargain seeking‟ attitude of people who use auction sites.
In addition, there are specialized website brokers like WebsiteBroker.com, BuySellWebsite.com, Sedo.com and DealASite.com.
I’ll be honest and admit that I have not used any of these companies so I cannot comment on their services or prices but it will do you no harm to take a look at their websites because if nothing else, you will learn a little more about the mechanics of selling your blog.
Getting paid for selling your blog
Obviously, getting paid for your blog is the single most important aspect of blog flipping, so you really have to be extremely cautious when deciding how you will accept payment for your blog.
There are a few options but it essentially boils down to whether you are willing to accept a straightforward payment via a simple system such as PayPal, or whether you need the additional security provided by using an escrow service and can live with the additional expense of doing so.
At the end of the day, how you choose to accept payment is entirely up to you, but there are a couple of factors which I would recommend you bear in mind when deciding how your site buyers pay you.
Firstly, how much money is involved in the deal and how important is that money to you? If you use a straightforward money transfer system like PayPal, it is undoubtedly going to be cheaper but the level of security that you have is lower. Hence the chances of the payment going bad could be increased.
If you are selling a blog for $100 and the money is neither here nor there, then this might be a risk that you’re willing to take. And of course, PayPal have some built-in security measures, so that you could for example dispute the sale if things went wrong.
Nevertheless, if you use a straightforward service like PayPal (or a similar alternative), you are exposing yourself to a degree of risk.
If on the other hand you use an escrow service, then the deal is guaranteed from both sides of the fence.
The escrow company will take your buyers money and hold it on deposit so that you know the money is available to complete the transaction.
They will continue to hold the cash until you have delivered the promised goods, at which point the cash is released to you.
Hence, using an escrow company provides a very high level of security and there are several highly reputable organizations that provide escrow services for online business such as Escrow.com and iEscrow.com.
Of course, the downside of using organizations like these is that they will charge you a fee to do so. Thus, you have to balance the additional security against the commission you will lose for using an online escrow service.
Whilst whether you choose to accept direct payment or use an escrow service is essentially a choice, my personal rule of thumb is that for anything less than $200, I would usually not use an escrow company, whereas for anything in excess of $700 or so, I most definitely would.
Between these two figures, it is a question of whether you trust your buyer, which often comes down to nothing more scientific than gut feeling. You must also accept that the more regularly you trust your instincts, the more likely it becomes that one day your trust will be misplaced and you will lose money.
