Buying a website is not easy. It’s a challenge and occurs over a period.
If you are wondering how you can buy the website or what are the essential points you must remember before buying a website; this post is perfect for you.
Today we are going to discuss some essential points on what matters the most when it comes to buying a website and how you can do the same for yourself and find success and profit at your workplace.
Are You Buying a Website?
Understand the objectives:
Before you begin a project, understand the objectives.
Even if you are planning to outsource some of the technical stuff, it is still advisable to be prepared with the plan.
This will help you a lot when you begin with your web company as it will help you understand exactly what you want.
Define goals:
Next, you have to define the goals of the website. These are basic building blocks without which you have no real plan or direction.
You have to spend some time thinking about what you want from the website. What is it being built for?
Do you want it to be some kind of information resource that needs to be updated daily or a simple brochure type display about the company?
You should also know whether you want blogs too, up on the website and if videos should be included or not.
Another thing to remember is whether you want to have social media links that can be sent to various accounts. Write them down as they can really help.
Have a sitemap ready:
Next, you need to have a rough sitemap ready. By the term sitemap, we mean the list of pages you want on the website to display.
This could be basic stuff such as Home, About Us, Services, Contact Us, etc., You may also add other essential points such as News, Resources, Blogs, etc.
Get the content together:
Now that we have got all of that done, we next progress towards gathering the content. Now, this is an essential step and something you should always know before buying a web company.
The content is essential and can really change the way people look at you and your website.
Having the information ready is also useful as it can help you save money and help the projects finish at a much faster pace.
You don’t have to be perfect at this though. But you have to know your business better to succeed.
Statistics and History:
Do you know that your website’s current history can have a huge impact on your website and may also boost the chance of having more success in the future?
It will help you gain access to all the analytic reports and the historical information you may need about the online property that you are considering to purchase.
In case the seller happens to be a little hesitant, understand that the sign is not a good one and walk away.
Things To Consider Before Buying a Website?
Here are a few things you should know about the history and stats of the website.
The domain’s age:
The domain’s age is considered extremely important. Domains which have been there quite some time will perform much poorly in all those search engines, even if the other important factor of SEO is on the top of its game.
If you want to make some investments and hope for a better response, it’s understandable. But if you wish to have instant profit, remember to shortlist the domain for more than a year.
Google penalties and what you should know about it!
When Google charges you with a penalty, it can be quite challenging to save the situation.
You can still get it done, but we assure that it will take a lot of time and effort which could be spent on doing something different. So before that happens, get rid of all black hat SEO tactics.
Developing and designing history:
Now here are some questions you can keep in mind.
- How long has it been since the site developed and designed?
- Who was involved and has the routine maintenance done?
- How long did it take for the development to make and how much did it cost?
You will have to repeat the process eventually so that all the answers will come across as a warning.
Trend growths:
Traffic, conversions, and rankings tend to grow. Steady growths will indicate genuine marketing efforts.
Huge valleys and peaks are a big sign of experimentation and massive spending on advertising and marketing or less than genuine tactics of SEO, is something you should be mindful of.
Penguin Panda and Google Penalty:
A very important thing to note down is Panda or Penguin Penalty.
Both these updates have penalized several websites for using SEO methods that are unnatural and prohibited.
Now it’s difficult to rescue the website which has become the victim of sketchy SEO, so you better not waste your money or effort or time on something that doesn’t matter.
You may also use websites such as Penguin Tool and SEMrush. These points are really simple and can definitely help.
Website Design:
When people want to begin a website, they are generally concerned with the look of the website.
When you buy a website, you should always keep this in mind. The design will not only give your website the image it needs but also provides the foundation for the UX.
If the website and blog are not well designed, then you should get ready for some other investment that can help the design become more professional.
Ranking of keywords:
A website can end up ranking the wrong keywords and drive insane traffic so that is also something you should keep in mind.
Wrong ranking keywords will never help you make a lot of money. If the website is ranking for any targeted keyword, you have to convert the visitors into sales.
Take a look at Google Analytics to analyze the landing pages as well as the popular pages.
Demographic:
If you combine the entire traffic on social media for ShoutMeLoud, it will definitely contribute towards 10% of the whole traffic.
When the website has a good plan, never hesitate to show off the content. If the website is not all that popular on Facebook and Twitter, the chances are high that it doesn’t have that community touch because the content isn’t too good.
Understand that there are different kinds of websites:
There are two different kinds of websites that are available to us, and each has its pros and cons. Here’s a discussion on both of them!
Custom Coded Website:
A custom coded website in simple terms is a site which is created with the help of a specific kind language code that can be changed only by someone who understands how to update and write the code.
The pro is that it is very cheap to build and the disadvantages are that its very expensive in the long term and cannot be updated by you.
You have to speak to the web company if you need any further updates. This kind of website is only for those who are looking for long-term business.
Content Management System:
Content management system websites are those that have been built on some predesigned system. They have a very friendly backend which you being the owner, can get into, so that the content can be updated.
This is considered highly useful if you have plans on getting some regular updates done such as news or blogging.
The pros for these are that the content is very dynamic which allows galleries, videos, slides, etc.
It is cheap in the long term and can be updated so that you don’t need to contact the web company or need any updates. The only disadvantage is that it is expensive to build.
What should you search for while choosing a web company?
There are two different types of companies that are needed while building websites.
The first one is called marketing companies while the other is called development houses. In case you want a big website, then you need a development house.
If you want a smaller site, the development house is not required as it doesn’t have much content and design. They won’t be able to help you with the content and advises you on the best practices for design etc. This is the reason why you should build a site just the way you tell them too.
Several marketing companies deal with front-end design. They can help you put all the ideas into the website and reap the best practices as well.
Important Research:
You should always remember to spend time on market research as that can take you a long way for sure.
In some cases, this is one of the most effective ways to your website done. Those who conduct daily market research are more likely to succeed in the business than those people who don’t.
Last points to remember while buying a company:
Before we end the article, here are some essential points you should always keep in mind before you buy a company.
Sell or buy a new website instead of a company:
It doesn’t matter whether you are selling or buying. What matters most is that the main feature of the transaction and list should be on the site itself.
The seller should have a list of assets on the website and not themselves. It does not help you boast or pick up stock in a successful brand or individual.
If you want to buy or sell the name of a domain, you have to make sure that it stays as a success even after the owners are switched.
There is no price tag on social media:
If speak of this legally, you are not allowed to sell or buy any Facebook page or Twitter handle. So there is no need to put a number on certain social media accounts if you happen to sell your domain in an escrow.
If you take a look at the stats on site listing and the pricing on various social media accounts, we would suggest you be wary. This could make you get banned from the website permanently or from getting access to any website.
You should remember to transfer the ownership of all the social media accounts under the domain’s contract or sell them as if it’s a part of the company.
Make sure to do your homework:
If there are any exaggerations or details left out, you have to check for every aspect of the agreement and report all issues by the buyer and seller.
When it comes to revenue and traffic, you have to provide and receive detailed stats and analytic reports.
Always remember that the higher the price is, the more detail and documentation will be included.
All these numbers must be checked and verified. If they are not provided, you should go ahead and ask, and you’d be surprised seeing the results and answers you get.
Your target audience:
Knowing the target audience and having that clearly defined. A few questions that you should ask yourself is whether the website knows what the target audience is and if that is the case, does the audience match or complement the existing prospective audience.
When the content changes, the keywords may be manipulated, new links may be established, and above all, you may imagine what else can be done to bring a variation on the website.
Overall, buying a new website has several obstacles, but we hope that with the entire article, most of your doubts and questions have been brought to an end.
With that, we would like to bring the post “Buying a Website” to a close. If you have any further queries on what else you should be doing when it comes to buying a website, please let us know in the comments section below, and we promise you won’t be disappointed at all.