Use your blog as a platform for bigger things

Yesterday CashQuests.com sold for $15,000 on SitePoint. I knew that the site would sell however even I was surprised with the speed at which the site was sold. It sold for the ‘buy it now’ within a few hours.

Mani Karthik spoke about this subject today and so did Mark Wielgus. Mark pointed out that 5xMom.com is on sale for $10,000 (see here). I really think that this site will struggle to sell at this price.

Mark hit the nail in the head when he said :

these two bloggers both made the majority of their money with pay per post, who are currently enemy number with google, and probably don’t have much of a future

I think that the owner of 5xMom.com saw CashQuests sell for 15 grand yesterday and thought that she could get the same. I actually think that she could get a few grand for it due to the 200+ subscribers but at $10,000 the owner has effectively priced themselves out of a sale. There are a number of reasons why I don’t believe it will sell at this price. For starters, it has been penalized by google and currently has a PR of 0. More importantly the site does not look like it will make money in the future without some major changes. The sale claims that it makes $100 a month via TLA and $120 a month via PayPerPost but with a PR of 0 both of these income sources will disappear.

The part which I noticed was the claim of $300 a month via adsense on only 12,000 uniques. Call me skeptical but I don’t know how anyone could make that much with adsense with that kind of traffic (in this genre anyways).

My Prediction : Don’t expect to see this trend of selling blogs anytime soon

* Whilst writing this post I noticed that the CSS blog CSSJuice is now up for sale too!

So why are so many bloggers selling their blogs?

I can understand why a lot of bloggers are selling just now. It’s well known that most new blogs fail because the owner loses interest or has lack of time or whatever and if the price is good then it’s right to sell rather than plod along half heartedly.

I enjoy blogging as I enjoy giving my opinion on certain subjects however I know that it can take up a lot of time and it can be incredibly frustrating at times too. It takes a long time to establish your first blog and promote it and at the start you will probably be spending as much time promoting your blog as you are writing it.

In my opinion, if you are sick of running your blog, sick of having to write posts week in week out and you hate having to deal with emails every day then you should sell because you are either writing about a subject you are not interested in or passionate about or blogging is just not for you. This might sound harsh but it’s true

If you are considering selling your blog then I recommend

• Posting your blog for sale at the SitePoint MarketPlace. Sitepoint seems to be the most popular place to trade websites at the moment.
• Provide as many stats about traffic, income and the work needed to maintain the blog and be as truthful as you can.
• Don’t get too greedy and outprice yourself. If you place the minimum bid too low then you might not even get that important first bid.

Use your blog as a platform for bigger things

What most bloggers don’t realise is that the first 6 months of your first blog is the hardest. It’s when some great posts get missed and it’s when your spending a lot of time trying to make a name of yourself.

Whilst I do think that it’s right for some bloggers to be selling their blogs, for others I think they are jumping ship way too soon. What a lot of bloggers who are selling up should appreciate is that once you have an established blog you are in a fantastic position to make money on the web. You have authority, you have traffic and most importantly you have a large readership.

It was no surprise to me that Jonathan-C. Phillips new blog Freelance Folder grew at a faster rate as his first site as he could use his first blog Smart Wealthy Rich to promote his new blog. Likewise, Daniel Scocco from Daily Blog Tips used a combination of great posts and his name and traffic from his first blog to take Daily Writing Tips from 0 to 3500+ subscribers in around 6 months (and I’ve no doubt his new blog Daily Bits will reach 4 digits very quickly soon too).

The reason why your 2nd blog will grower faster than your first should be obvious to most - You have an audience!! You are in a very good position as you can promote your new blog on your first one. For example, imagine John Chow started a new blog today which concentrated exclusively on affiliate marketing. I wouldn’t be surprised if the new blog surpassed a thousand readers within a few days!

Blogs can make a lot of money through advertising however there are many other ways in which you can take advantage of the huge readership your blog has. Of course, launching a new blog with a similar topic is one way to make money however there are so many other options available.

For example, a large readership you are in a great position to recommend related products. I read a football blog which sells t-shirts via spreadshirt on the blog and makes much more from that than it could from advertising. Fan based blogs in particular usually make more money selling related products than using advertising networks.

Bottom line, you have an audience who trusts you, how can you make money from them?

Overview

I don’t see this trend of bloggers selling their blogs selling going away anytime soon however I do think that most of them are being sold too early. Not only will the value of your blog increase as time goes by, more and more doors will open for you and your blog when your blog readership increases.

Have any readers considered selling their blogs? If so, what were the main reasons for selling?