How To Value Your Website.

This is a question that is consistently asked and there is no simple solution, however it is generally agreed that you should value your website based on the following criteria;

1. The Age Of The Domain

Search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN often attach more value to older sites, which means that they are likely to receive a higher listing in search engine results pages (SERPS) and as a result are likely to attractive more visitor traffic. An older domain of at least two years will attract a higher premium.

2. Back links

These are the life blood of any website as they are responsible for improving the respect attached to your site by search engines, which in turn boosts visitor traffic. The more back links a website has the better, providing that they are from sites with a similar theme to your own, I.e. a Personal Finance Blog, which has links for numerous other personal finance blogs is likely to do well. As a guide, sites with 2,000 back links will attract a higher price but sites, with 6,000+ back links will do especially well.

3. Page Rank

This feature is specific to the Google search engine, which is the most highly regarded of all the major search engines and from which most websites receive the highest volume of visitor traffic. Each website is ranked between 0 and 10, with 10 being the highest. Page Rank is important because it determines how likely your website is to appear in the top 10 results of any internet search. Google does not publish the exact formula of how page rank is calculated but if your website has a page rank of 3 or above it will command a higher premium at sale, then those between 0 and 2. The higher the page rank the more your website could be potentially worth.

4. Visitor Traffic

The volume of visitor traffic you receive each month will determine the profitability of that website in the long term. A buyer will want to know the breakdown of search engine traffic from the likes of Google, Yahoo and MSN as well as how much traffic is generated from pay per click advertising and other referral sources. One thing to watch out for is you are buying a website is to verify that the site traffic is authentic. Always ask for a screenshot of the traffic statistics to that particular website. Most website owners’ use Google Analytics or other statistics collection software as their traffic management tool and you’ll be able to see instantly how traffic to that website is generated. After all you don’t want to buy a website which has thousands of monthly visitors only to later discover that they all come from pay per click advertising which will cost you significant sums of money to keep generating. Look for organic sources of traffic from search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN, social book marking sites like Digg, Reddit or Delicious. Also be wary of lots of traffic from froum sites as these are likely to be from froum signatures posted by the website owner. When you purchase the site it is likely that the owner will replace these links and your visitor traffic with subsequently plummet. In general sites with at least 300-500 visitors per day are highly regarded.

5. Content

Content really is king when it comes to website valuation. Look at the quality of the content on the website you intent to buy or sell. Is it original content, or is it just spam content that has been published from article directories and which is also downloaded by thousands of other users. Does your content add value to the website rather than purely being a means to place advertising nest to it. How many pages of content do you have? Is it 5 or 10 pages or 100+ pages of high quality content that your site visitors can engage with? The type, size and quality of your content will play a major role in providing an accurate website valuation.

6. Domain Name

The name of the domain is also highly important in valuing your website and will make it easier to sell your website to potential buyers. The more keywords your domain name has in its title, that directly match the content of your website, the higher the valuation of your site is likely to be, especially if it is a competitive keyword. For example a domain called debtfreefinance.com which has lots of content relating to debt free living will be more attractive to buyers than jennysfinancetips.com, which has the same content. This is because search engines look for your site to follow the theme of your domain name and will rank you more highly as a result.

7. Revenue

This is not as important as you may think because the person buying your website is likely to have their own ideas for developing revenue via the website. However if you can demonstrate that your site is already generating attractive revenue streams then it will make a potential buyer more interested. Also be clear about what level of automation is required to generate this revenue. For example a website which is fully automated and just needs occasional updating to continue to develop revenue will be more sort after than a site that requires regular human intervention. An example of an automated website might be a successful forum where members generate constant content, with only little moderation from the website owner. A blog based site may need fresh content from the owner on a daily basis in the form of articles to keep it relevant and interesting and to keep visitors coming back.

Once you have taken these website valuation factors into account make sure that you cover them clearly in the sales copy you write when selling your website as it will help buyers take more of an interest and more importantly, help you to get the best possible price when selling your website. All of these factors are important to remember whether you are buying or selling a website and will enable you to get the best possible deal available.

Check out some of our other user friendy tutorials and guides to help you earn money online with integrity;