Super expensive blogs sold in 2008
Most small businesses owners were hit hard by the economic crisis in 2008. However it had little or no influence on some online ventures, which not only maintained their operations but their owners turned into millionaires.
The year has been an inspiration for hundreds of thousands bloggers and Internet entrepreneurs world whide especially after the sale of the 3 most talked about blogs for some fairy tale money. These widely rumoured super expensive blogs were:
ArsTechnica.com acquired by Conde Nast
Blog topic: Tech news
Price: estimated $25 million
Staff: 2 founders and about 8 employees to remain with Conde Nast as part of Wired Digital
Announcement Time: May 2008
PaidContent.org acquired by Guardian
Blog topic: Money-related news with a special focus on technology sector
Price: $30 million +
Staff: Rafat Ali (founder & editor) and Nathan Richardson (CEO) both remain to run the business
Announcement Time: July 2008
Bankaholic.com acquired by BankRate
Blog topic: Financial services and banking
Price: $15 million
Staff: Johns Wu is the founder and the only perron to continue editing the blog
Announcement Time: September 2008
The trend seemed clear with the first two: both are reputable publishers, distinguished brands with an extensive readership base, and grand performers of the top social voting systems. Both blogs are tech related and provide breaking ground info on the newest trends in the industry.
However the third blog clearly does not fit into the drawn formula of Internet success. The blog is only 2+ years old, is edited by one person only, the post are occasional, and not so many people knew of the site prior to the news of its acquisition by BankRate. So it may seem that such a large investment is not logical.
However it may seem so until you check the SEO of the blog. The site ranks well in Google for highly competitive finance related keywords such as ‘credit cards’ or ‘money market rates’. Each blog post is well optimized and can be found for a wide variety of keywords. This lets us make an assumption that most every visitor to the site is a targeted visitor and after reading the post he/she will most likely click the affiliate link to see the bank deals and special offers. Thus the high conversion rates create the favourable price estimation for blog acquisition.
So, I believe the conclusion here is pretty simple: you can sell your blog in two ways – either by making it incredibly popular with the online community, thus bringing value to the potential buyer, or by making it consistently popular with the search engines, which will bring in targeted customers only, which in it’s turn will still add value to the buyer. An example of Bankaholic.com proves that the having both of these factors is a favourable condition but far not mandatory.
So I’d like to wish anyone who wants to make a fortune by selling a blog in 2009 GOOD LUCK! Because often, no matter what promo strategy you choose to implement, Luck plays a huge role in the success of an Internet venture.
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