What does the current owner WANTS?

If he even don't want to sell, you still can enter a re-design or co-op agreement.

If he wants to sell, will he still want to write articles? Perhaps he believes (or you know, or the visitors know) that the site will 'die' if he doesn't update it anymore.

Anyway, a common ROI for any business is 12-18 months. But I've seen websites being bought for 3 or 4 months of its revenues.

Your case is a little harder, since the website doesn't even have ads now, so, how do you calculate its value? And it might happen that when you talk about AdSense to its webmaster, he will put it and decide not to sell :) But I wouldn't worry about this, the risks (low or high) are something that you will have to dive in.

Anyway, do any of the similar websites have ads? Quality and traffic wise? You might want to speculate on them first to see their prices, to have a better idea of how much to offer.

Also, you could email the webmaster saying that you want to put ads on his website, asking for a quote.

Your idea of a partnership is not half bad, however, the only problem is that the adsense pie can be pretty small for even sites with great content.

Does it have $100 a month or $10,000 a month potential? That should be your guiding question. Answer that and you’ll know what to do.

Bottom Line:

What's the audience?

What's the traffic?

How long has the site been in existence?

What is the position in the SERPs?

Is there is repeat audience?

Do you think if new content stopped you would loose out?

All things to consider?

[edited by: Khensu at 3:03 am (utc) on Sep. 18, 2006]

The site is currently run by someone who is not a webmaster. Rankings aren't that great(although I did find it when I searched several keywords) but I believe could be with a little help. The content is there, but no one's advertising it... IE, there are no descriptions, no title tags, pages don't even have a menu through which others can be accessed... no forums, no mailing list... the site needs help!

The articles are well-written, but scroll on and on for 8 pages and could easily be chopped up into smaller, more manageable articles, each one optimized for keywords...

Has anyone here ever purchased such a site and turned it into an income producer? I guess it's like buying a fixer-upper in real estate in a way. Does it work for websites?

Other webmasters keep saying that you should own more than 1 site to diversify... is purchasing one the way to go, or building it yourself?

hi, i think you are mostly interested in the contents/articles not the website at all. And the fact the owner writes articles.

Isn't it easier for you to buy his articles and not his website?

Yes and no.... if I purchase the articles, and set up a site with them, isn't that duplicate content? Isn't it better to just purchase the site?

Also, the site has good inbound links.

But I suppose I could start a site on the topic instead, use some of the better articles... get articles from other authors... and build my own links and content?

>>>and build my own links and content?

You'll have a head start by purchasing the site. It's difficult to gauge what a fair price is because a fair price is often judged to be a multiple of earnings. Without earnings you have nothing to base the purchase price upon.

I've come across this situation and from conversation with the owner accurately guessed a price at which he would be willing to let go of the site. Some people let go at fifty bucks for a domain, some let go for $300-800 for an entire website. Others want more.

Imo, for your situation, it will be difficult to make it add up. However, you can take a look at the monthly pageview numbers, then look at the queries the site could be ranking for, and add that up for a guesstimate of total impressions. Then multiply that by the percentage of clicks (conservative percentage), and multiply that number by a CPC that is a little lower than the best case scenario. You should be able to work out a best case scenario/guesstimate of monthly earnings.

It's not totally accurate, but it can give you an idea that sometimes will shine a light on how good or bad the earnings potential really is. Especially if the guesstimate is somewhat a best case scenario and it doesn't look that great, then it's helpful for keeping you from wasting your time.

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For instance, if the monthly queries on the O tool are 30,000, then that means there are roughly 1,000 queries a day (probably more in Google, unless a lot of those queries are automated queries, etc.). But assuming they're legit for the purpose of working out a guesstimate, move forward and do the guesstimate with the understanding that it's a guess.

Now, of those daily one thousand queries, if you rank less than number one, you can expect a smaller slice of those thousand potential visitors. So you have to be honest about how likely you will be able to rank number one. Out of a thousand queries per day, you could very likely end up with a dozen daily visitors.

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Also, be sure to play around with the Google Trends tool comparing variations of keywords and how steady the traffic is. You could even open up an AdWords campaign and test how many impressions you get on a daily basis for selected keywords.

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Bottom line is to get the website at the lowest possible price, right? If he responds with an outlandish counter demand, then you might want to demonstrate how you justify your price and if he agrees with your assessment you might have a deal.

Good luck.

I just found a website that is a niche site, well-written articles by an expert, and runs NO ads. The current webmaster appears to do it just for their interest in the subject.

why don't you first of all ask if the owner is interested in selling?

sounds to me like they might not even be interested.

From the sound of your other threads it sounds like you are more than capable of producing good work yourself. Why not do it from scratch yourself? I would certainly be asking for a significant sum of money if I had a content rich, well regarded site with a number of good quality links - I think it may take a while for you to recoup your money. Have faith in you own ability and write your own!

uhwebs,
Since he is not a webmaster, he will want you to manage and develop the site, and since the content is so good, you want to keep him as a writer on board.

If I were you I would transfer ownership of the site to myself for a sum (for price follow MB's advice), have control, include in the deal that the web site by line and his name will remain on the site so that it still appears to the public as his site, and through channels give him 50% on the monthly earnings of all new articles he puts in from now on.

This keeps him motivated to write keeping his name and new regular earnings, reduces the price you have to pay for the existing, gives you full control, everyone is happy.

One final advice: Make sure to include in the deal an exit strategy for both of you.

Thanks-- martinibuster, that was a great explanation!

To the person who said to start my own site instead.... I might, but I don't know much about that topic, other people could write so much better.

But I want to know for future reference what to do. Even if he isn't interested, there are a few other sites out there I'm looking at that are similar.

One more question. Rather than buying a site, could I buy the articles and create my own? Is duplicate content that much of a problem?

If it isn't, I might start my own and use other's articles.

>Is duplicate content that much of a problem?
Yes
now and will even get worse in the future, stay away from duplicate content if you want to rank well in serps.