5 Ways to Sell Your Website or Domain
You may own a website or domain you are no longer interested in keeping. But before you decide to sell, you first have to determine whether or not your digital assets are sellable or worth anything. A mistake many newbies make is that they waste a lot of resources (time and money) on trying to sell a website or domain that has no value.
For more information about appraising the value of a website, click here.
Appraising the value of a domain is similar to a website but has its differences, and I will write another post on that later.
Once you’ve determined whether or not your website/domain has value, you can now sell them. So what are the best ways to sell your digital assets?
Here are 5 ways:
Website Marketplaces
Website marketplaces include sites like Flippa or eBay. The good thing about listing your website or domain with an established marketplace is that the buyers are already there. In most cases, the buyers find your listing so you don’t have to work as hard trying to promote your listing. The bad thing about selling via a marketplace are the listing and commission fees. Also, you probably won’t get the best price. For these reasons, you should do some math ahead of time to ensure there is enough room for profit. No point in using a marketplace if you’re not going to be making any profit.
Brokers
A broker is an individual or a company that specializes in buying and selling websites/domains on behalf of their clients. Unlike marketplaces that may handle both websites and domains, brokerages typically specialize in one or the other. For example, companies like Latonas and FE International only specializes in website brokerage. While there are companies that focus solely on domains like Domain Holdings, and Media Options.
The benefit of using a broker is that they are experienced at what they do. They have industry connections, and they do all the legwork for you, from research to marketing. Furthermore, they have the negotiation skills to help you get top dollar. The only downside to using a broker is the commission fee, but does it really matter if you are hitting your reserve price anyway?
Forums
Some webmaster and domaining forums have sales sections where you can sell websites or domains. Two popular ones are DigitalPoint and NamePros. The biggest benefit to selling your website or domain on a forum would be that there is an established base of members who are constantly looking around to buy or sell. This immediately puts your listing in front of hundreds to thousands of potential buyers. Another benefit to selling on a forum could be that they typically don’t charge a listing fee. There are some forums that do charge a listing fee so be aware of that.
Social Networks
If you have a large following on your social network account, you could leverage your audience to sell your website or domain. What better customer (buyer) than a follower who likes or shares the same interests as you?
Direct Reach-out
Use a search engine to look for competitors in your niche. Run some queries close to the topics of your website or domain and see which sites rank for them. From there, you can email them one-by-one, or build a list first and then group mail in one shot.
Another way to reach-out is to find potential buyers through the forums or social networks.
In the past, I’ve sold websites and domains using this method. If you have good negotiating skills, this method will probably help you squeeze the most profit out of the deal since there is no middleman and you are most likely dealing with an end-user. The downside to direct reach-out is that it can be a very time-consuming process.
Have you used any of these methods to sell your website or domain? Am I missing any other methods?