Last week, I shown you the 10 most expensive blogs of all times, which have been sold for incredibles amounts of money. But what if you want to sell your own blog?
Some months ago, I sold one of my blogs on the Sitepoint Marketplace for $3500. In this article, I will show you how I successfully managed the sale and how you can do the same with your blog.
Things to know before selling a blog or a website
Before explaining to you the whole process of selling a blog, there are a few things you need to know: Firstly, after a successful sale, you will have to send the blogs files and/or database to the buyer as well as transferring the domain name.This is why I recommend using separate hosting and a separate domain registrar. Some hosting companies provide free or cheap domain names, though they are not transferrable. Which means that you’ll never be able to sell the related website.
For my domain names, I use GoDaddy.com.They do a good job, they’re quite cheap and they provide a quality service. For my hosting, I use WP Web Host, a quality web host specialized in WordPress.
The other thing you have to know is how to transfer files to the buyer (This basically consists of creating a .ZIP archive of all the files on your server and dumping the database) and how to transfer a domain name, or push it to another account (If both you and the buyer are using GoDaddy.)
I’m not going to explain the whole process of pushing a domain name to another account because there’s lots of available tutorials around the internet to do this, but if you need help, feel free to leave me a comment and I’ll see what I can do.
Why selling a blog?
Back in February 2009, I decided to sell Lyxia.org, which was my first “serious” blog, which was created in July 2007. Lyxia.org was basically a French version of Cats Who Code. It had 500 subscribers (Less people speak French than English, so don’t compare this number to other blogs which deal with the English language) at the time of the sale.
As time passed by, I launched other blogs as such as Cats Who Code and WpRecipes.
Since I also have many other websites to manage, time was missing to take care of all those blogs and Lyxia.org was updated less and less frequently.
This blog had a sentimental value due to the fact it was my first blog, so I was not really happy about the idea of selling it. But there were only two possible solutions: Finding enough time to update it, or selling it. Otherwise, the blog will slowly die and lose all of its value.
It became clear that if I waited any longer without updating it, the blog will lose some of its traffic, and value. As Lyxia.org was the last on my priority list, I took the decision that it had to go.
Time to act
The decision was made. It was time to act and sell the blog. I decided to sell it on Sitepoint Marketplace, which is now called Flippa and has a lot of crappy new feature such as a success fee, which basically means that Flippa will take 5% of the final price as a fee.
Back in the gold old Sitepoint days, I had to pay an honest $20 fee to post an auction, and that’s all. I paid the Sitepoint fee, wrote the auction text, added some stats and the sale was ready to go.
I didn’t had to wait that long: Less than 24 hours after the auction started, a French guy bought it, using the “Buy it now” button for $3,500.
I sent the files to the buyer and transferred the domain name to him the day after, making him the official owner of Lyxia.org.
Where can you sell your blog?
If you’re looking to buy or sell a blog or website, you should have a look to the following websites:
Flippa.com : It was previously the Sitepoint marketplace which is where I sold Lyxia.org. I also purchased PsdVibe there before it became Flippa.
I have only good things to say about the old Sitepoint Marketplace, but I have to admit that Flippa’s “Success Fee” (A fee which applies to all successful sales and takes 5% of the final selling price) totally turned me off. But as Flippa is the largest place to sell your online properties, you’ll probably have more chances to sell your blog there.
Sedo.com : Sedo is a huge domain name marketplace. I have never bought or sold anything there but they have a good reputation.
Namepros.com : Namepros is a well known forum for domainers. I have bought and sold many domain names there and they also have a forum dedicated to websites and blogs for sale. Posting is free, but I have never seen any cool sites to buy there, most are crappy blogs or MFA.
Private sale/Word of mouth : This may be the best way to sell a popular site or blog. You could use Twitter and write a post on your blog to let people know that you are currently accepting private bids for your blog.
What about you? Have you ever sold a blog or a website? Do you often browse auction sites, looking to purchase your next website?
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Thank you very much for this post. I’ve been thinking about this for some time with no real starting point so I appreciate the links for further exploration!
I only ever sell domain for $5 in ebay this far, but yeah — if the situation force me, i may sell my site.
This post could be potentially dangerous. I want to know more about selling blogs- trouble is I only have one :p
The word I’ve heard from clients is to avoid GoDaddy like the plague for domain registrations. Lots of problems, evidently. I’ve used Moniker.com and never really had to use GoDaddy, so I can’t say, personally.
@Liane : Dangerous? Why? I don’t understand what you mean.
@Volomike : I know some people really hates GoDaddy but my experience with them is really good. (30+ domains registered at GD) Moniker.com is great indeed. I alos like name.com for registering domains.
I have a few blogs not generating an income, how would I determine their price tag, since they’re not generating an revenue? I’m happy to sell them, since they’re not my core focus…
I must say Jean, I’ve tried selling these blogs and domains on Flippa without any success and no longer a fan of flippa, since I’ve lost money trying to sell a number of times.
@Muzi Mohale : Sometimes, website without signifiant revenue can still being bought for a good price. But this is very rare.
The price tag can be determined using factor as such as traffic, blog design, domain name, niche, CPC, etc.
I have http://www.soccerwires.com a blog about the business of soccer in south africa…provides great potential for a soccer blogger since the world cup is around the corner…how would you rate it?
Thanks for sharing your experience in such a “transparent” way, that’s a really good/useful article. I recently had to transfer a domain ownership for the fist time…and just found out that it was really not that simple/fast as I thought it would be. So really make sure when you choose your registrar /hosting that the domain you buy will be easily transferable. That will make your life much easier if you need to transfer it later!
These are some excellent tips. I have a few inactive blogs that I plan on selling, and this is a great guide to follow. Thanks Jean!
Great post! Here in sweden we have a website were you can evaluate your blog. It´s just to put the URL into a search-box, and then you see how much it´s worth.
I don´t know if it works with blogs from other countries than sweden, but those which I have tried do. http://bloggvarde.se/
(one swedish “krona” is about 7 $)
Anyway, I think it´s pretty cool!
i really had a bad experience, when i try to buy a domain, my friend said to me use godaddy for searching your needed domain and i searched after that the cost for some expensive me @ that time, so i thought to buy it in a another company. but the particular domain was registered with godaddy and i have to buy from there. so i lost few favorite domain names. but i heard there hostings are good.
@Muzi Mohale : Hard to say but the blog looks great and have good content. You should definitely sell it before the World Cup to maximize the profit.
Have you tested the site Bjorn talked about?
@Bjorn Edvinsson : So cats who blog is worth $11,000? Not bad for a 2-months old blog =D Nice tool to get an estimate.
@Bjorn: Nice tool! Although I think it evaluates my blog a bit high, but I take it
@Bjorn & @Jean-Baptiste: it’s the other way around, 1 dollar is 7 kronor
Thanks for the post. I have couple of blogs I’ll probably sell at some point, so reading about experience always helps. And as I hadn’t really looked into this yet, other sites than Flippa (SitePoint) were new to me.
@Antti Kokkonen : Wow, so my blog should be worth $112? 11,000 were a bit too high but $112 is definitely too low in my opinion
I was a dedicated blog flipper before launching appsherifff.com. I lost interest as the flipping market lost its value. 2 years ago, Lyxia.com would have been worth atleast $8K easily.
@Rony John : It’s a nice blog you have here! I’ve never been a blog flipper, but it is interesting to know how to sell a blog you lost interest in instead of letting it dying slowly.
I’ve just used bloggvarde.se and their estimate is a bit suspect, my blog is worth $3,232 which I think it’s way too high considering that blog doesn’t generate any income. Would be interested to know what does the bloggvarde.se base it’s valuation on? In all honesty, I think the Swedish are paying inflated prices for blogs worth far less than their true value…(it’s old my personal opinion)
A blogger offered to buy my blog. But this is my hobby blog, well should I sell it or just say No. He did not offer a figure so I take it as he is not a serious blogger. right. My blog is PR2 pg 1 , 2nd from the top. How much does a blog like this worth ? thanks for your advise
I’m not considering to sell my blog but this is really usefull when I want to sell it anyway..
Thanks!
Hmm, sorry for the missunderstanding! Just like Antti said, 1 dollar is about 7 kronor…
Hey jean this s a great article. I am trying to sell my website right now but not sure if I should wait. Should I monetize it before I sell it or it should not matter? It a development website
An update about selling soccerwires.com I’ve resolved not to sell, but instead switch into a news aggregator similar to blogengage and others to focus on the soccer blogging community…after-all the domain name fits perfect to that niche…though at the moment, I’m figuring out what would be the best way to monetise (since I’m new to news aggregating)? I welcome suggestions…
This is a great post. My last blog lost all of its value because I made a few key mistakes — so I definitely understand the decision of selling it or ‘waiting it out’ because of sentimental value. It is a great lesson I learned for the future, and now I plan all my blogs around selling them, whether I know yet if I will want to or not.
One thing I did not consider was the hosting and domain name. I always purchase my domain names from the hosting provider because of the ease of use for me and for a possible future transfer (unless its absurdly expensive or something). I’d say the key thing to finding a good web host is one that offers cPanel (most do today of course, but I have had some recent ones in the past that didn’t). Most hosts that both have cPanel can easily transfer it somehow, and most hosts will do it for free.
@Crystal : Yes, a separate hosting and DN provider is definitely a must have.The mistake you’ve done was made by many people before (including me a few years ago!).
This is a very important subject a lot of people forget about. They think they will create a blog and sell it and become rich. What they do not realize is that they have NO idea how to sell it! Which is the most important part.
Personally I have used Sedo in the past and it has worked great for met. They have also been changing how things work and adding some cool new featured. I would definitely recommend it.
Thanks again for the post.
Do you have any tips on what to put in the description if you are selling on Sitepoint (Flippa) or a similar auction website?
i think selling a domain on other websites cost commission charges… which is bad… i recently sold one of my domains to a friend – so no commission charges
although the price was less i had the satisfaction that i didn’t lose out on the commission 
hahahaha
nice post !!