10 Things You Must Know Before Buying A Blog – Do you want to make money from a blog without having to bother making it? If so, you can invest by buying blogs that have made money. However, before buying a blog on Flippa or a forum, you need to know the following ten things so that the blog you buy will become an online asset or “money machine”.
Income
Income is usually the main factor that determines the selling price of a blog. For example, a blog that earns the last 30 days of Google AdSense for $ 100 has a selling price of $ 1,000 (10 times the income of the last 30 days).
To verify the consistency of blog income, you must ask for screenshots of blog earnings for at least the last 3 months. Don’t be lulled by income for the last 30 or 7 days.
If the blog uses Amazon affiliation, pay attention to the list of products sold in the blog income screenshot. Is the list related to the product being promoted or the topic of the blog in question?
If Google AdSense is used as a source of income, observe the time of making a screenshot of income (for example, see the image below). If there is no information about the time of manufacture, be careful because the screenshot can be engineered.
Traffic
You don’t want to be deceived by a fake that comes from a bot, right? Therefore, ask for traffic data from Google Analytics. Why?
First, Google Analytics is a trusted reporting tool. Second, you can ask the seller to add your gmail account to the Google Analytics blog so that you can see the traffic report directly. When viewing the traffic report, pay attention to the key words entered, source of traffic, visitor’s country of origin, bounce rate, and the ratio of new / old visitors.
Link Building Used
Blog rankings on search engines (especially Google) affect the amount of traffic. If the blog is entered on page 1 of Google for the keywords poker it is targeting, do not necessarily “deify” that position. You must know the link building technique on the blog to ensure that the blog is safe from Google Penguin updates later on.
The trick is to ask the link building technique for the seller concerned. Not only stop here, double-check the backlinks that point to the blog with backlink checkers, such as Open Site Explorer, Ahrefs.com, or Majestic SEO. Quality backlinks usually do not come from black hat or spamming activities.
Age and Blog Platform
The simple rule is to buy a blog that is at least 4 months old so that you have the opportunity to get the income data for the last 3 months. The ideal age is one year because the blog is resistant to changes in the Google algorithm. To check the age of a blog, you can use the Whois checker (for example Whois-Search.com or Whois.Domaintools.com) or Wayback Machine.
Regarding flatform, you should buy a self-hosting WordPress blog. This is because WordPress-based blogs are easy to operate and under your control (read WordPress vs Blogspot).
Authenticity and Readability of Articles
A good blog contains original content, not copy paste. The easiest way to see the authenticity of blog content is to use CopyScape. In addition, if the blog is in English, also check the readability of the articles. Make sure the article is not an article that results from spin because the article is of low quality that is prone to being hit by the “Panda” raid.
Seller Information
Don’t buy a blog from an untrusted seller. Therefore, you must know the seller’s personal information such as full name, home / mobile phone, email, Skype and social media profiles (Twitter, Facebook, and Linkedin). Remember, trustworthy (professional) sellers will give all the information with pleasure because they treat businesses to sell blogs in the long run.
If you buy a blog on Flippa, don’t forget to also see the seller’s rating. This rating is based on feedback from previous buyers. A 100% rating means that the buyer is satisfied with the quality of the blog and the seller’s service.
Blog Reason For Sale
You must also know the reason why the blog is sold. Examples of reasonable reasons:
- Need money for offline purposes (eg buying a house, paying for car payments, medical expenses, etc.)
- Some percent of the proceeds from blog sales will be invested to create new blogs
- Do not have time because the seller is more focused on other blogs or other online projects
Keep yourself away from the reason blogs are sold because they have the potential to generate a large passive income. Why? Because if it’s potential, the seller shouldn’t sell his blog, right?
Payment method
If the seller does not provide payment mechanism information, you must discuss this so that the transaction runs smoothly and safely. The best way is to use third party services, for example Escrow.
Unfortunately, Escrow does not support transactions in Indonesia. However, don’t worry, you can do a payment mechanism like this:
- You pay 100%, then the seller transfers the blog to your hosting
- Anda membayar 50% dan sisanya dibayarkan setelah transfer blog ke hosting Anda selesai
Feeling worried that your money will be taken away should not appear if you buy a blog from a trusted seller. In addition, if you buy a blog from an Indonesian, you can make a payment agreement signed by both parties on the stamp. This is legally binding so that no one is harmed.
Blog Transfer
Blog transfers are usually done by the seller and take 1 to 3 days. If the blog transfer is done by another party, make sure you do not bear the costs because the blog transfer is the seller’s obligation.
Blog Maintenance
Blog maintenance depends on the concept of the blog. If the concept is set and forget, you don’t have to bother updating the blog content. If you have to update regularly, you must ask the seller about how to update content: self-written or ordered in article writing services.
If you can’t write yourself, you can search for local or foreign article writing services (eg iWriter). However, when ordered, you must ask the seller about where and who the author is so you can order the article in the same place and person to maintain the blog.
Conclusion
Even though you have a lot of money, you still need to be careful in buying a blog. You better spend a lot of time knowing the ten things above rather than spending a lot of money buying a blog that does not become an asset in the future.
What else do you need to know before deciding to buy a blog?