Building a Website to Sell

There are scores of experts (and a plethora of websites) that are offer advice as to building successful websites for your portfolio, or how to buy and flip websites for a quick profit.

If your objective is to build websites to sell, here are a few tips we found very useful in our website building activities that you may want to consider.

1. Create your site with a buyer in mind…research ‘what is selling’. To ferret out ‘what’s hot’, we suggest checking out sites like www.Sitepoint.com/marketplace/, www.SiteBuildit.com, www.Craigslist.com, and www.ebay.com. Here’s a tip with respect to eBay: be aware that buyers tend to be looking for bargains and bid low!

2. Your site should have its own domain – no Sub-domains or subdirectories of irrelevant domains.

3. Install Google Analytics immediately, as you want 90 days of data flowing as soon as possible.

4. Record all your expenses – especially your PPC and marketing costs.

5. Make the site as “hands off” as you can…serious buyers are looking for revenue, not a job.

6. Traffic, unique content and revenue are what sells; focus on achieving at least two of these.

7. Avoid hype in your sale listing title or ad.  Real buyers are serious people who move fast; they will be turned off by generic claims. Make sure you show all pertinent information, including negatives. They will ask you all the tough questions so it’s better to address them up front.

8. Include screenshots or ‘proof of traffic’, sales and expenses.