I want you to ask yourself that question in regards to your current set of websites that you are either selling or attempting to sell on Flippa. No BS, are you actually selling established websites on Flippa, or are you just trying to hock a website that may have some potential with quite a lot of work to be done? This really needs to be considered something terrible at the moment, especially with the introduction of the new feature on Flippa that allows sellers to go ahead and select whether or not their website is a “start up” or an established website, however the one problem is that there is no real guideline on what constitutes an established website.
Established Websites Have A History
The bad news for those who specialise in creating websites and selling them 3 days later is that an established website has a long history. Whether it is 6 months, a year, or ten years, it has a history that is notable, and most likely a subscriber or follower base that reflects that.
If you are selling established websites on Flippa, the that history will no doubt be reflective in its high quality content, the back link structure of the website, and at times, even the aged domain that it is built on. Content can easily be checked, however the remainder can be checked using the Way Back Machine and Market Samurai, so if you are looking to claim that your new website built on a 4 year old domain is indeed established, remember, us buyers are now smarter than we were a few months ago.
Established Websites Earn Income
For a website to stand the test of time, it is generally going to have been proven to be monetizable, and if it hasn’t been monetized already, there will at least be a chance of it being monetized. Whether this is in the keywords that it ranks for, your customer targeting, the traffic level or advertiser interest, it is going to have commercial potential.
It is an obvious statement that any website that is for sale that is indeed established will have at least some kind of income proof built up to support the sale. This is website flipping 101 bare bones basics though…
Established Websites Inspire Community
How many comments is your website attracting? How many RSS subscribers do you have? How many followers on Twitter and Facebook does your website have? It goes without saying that any established website that has an ounce of community will inspire visitors to become active.
This is not something that can be faked, thus it is something important that you should look into. As much as it is possible to pay commenters to make a website look active, again, all it takes is a little due diligence to see that the level of content doesn’t match the level of community that the site has.
There Is One Downfall
This has been seen already, and this is where buyers need to take care. Whilst there is no real and fair way to automatically determine what websites are established or not, anyone can label their website as established on Flippa. Of course, some are saying that the system is not perfect, but when you look at everything that Flippa has taught us about due diligence over the past 6 months, their role in your correct decision making really should only be minimal. If you buy a faulty appliance from an electronics retailer, who is to blame, the retailer or the manufacturer? This is where due diligence comes into play.
Whilst I have no doubt that Flippa is doing the right thing here in offering a way for buyers to see whether or not a website is worth the purchase, there are a select few out there who don’t tend to agree whenever Flippa make changes that impact the start up market. I can see their point, however, it is in Flippa’s best interest to continue selling high quality websites and retaining buyers and sellers alike. I think that we can all agree that if sellers were allowed to continue selling websites that are in the start up category with blind promises of being able to make thousands a month, gradually more and more people would be burned enough to stop buying at Flippa, right?
This is your chance to take advantage of where the market is heading. In fact, I challenge any start up website seller to spend 6 months creating a high quality website that has real proven potential. You will make much more from just one site than you normally would in a month if you play your cards right. If you don’t know how to add value to a website, join my list below, and I will let you know when my free course is available that will teach you how to do just that.
