Selling a website, much like selling any business, requires owners to provide potential buyers with relevant information about their business. Thankfully, the data that is typically requested is fairly straightforward and almost always digital in nature.
If you’re considering selling your website or even an entire web-based platform, the following starting point for data likely to be requested is a great starting point.
Analytics
Google Analytics, Chartbeat, Parsley, regardless of which platform you are using, a potential buyer is likely to request access to your account in order to verify session, user, page views, and other analytical data.
There are two ways you can go about providing this information. First, you can provide screenshots of all numbers being requested by a buyer. Second, you can give visitor (read-only) access to your analytics platform(s).
Keep in mind, if you have been running your website for more than a year, the buyer will typically want to examine various forms of data ranging from annual down to monthly and possibly even weekly reports.
Because of the complexity associated with analytics, we strongly recommend providing direct access to serious buyers. If you’re uncomfortable with unfettered access, a simple non-disclosure agreement can be used to secure your private data.
A Monthly P&L Year-To-Date Statement
A P&L statement summarizes a business’s revenue, costs, and all expenses incurred in operating the business. These statements are typically most useful on a monthly, quarterly, and annual basis.
Website buyers are typically looking for websites with some level of steady traffic and growing, or in the least, steady revenue streams. A monthly profit-and-loss statement for each month of the current year will provide a quick snapshot of the website’s operations, growth, and sustainability.
Previous Years P&L Statements
Along with the current year-to-date P&L documents, buyers typically want to see how you’ve grown your business over the previous years of operation. At HMG Capital we ask to see the current year plus the previous two years of operating statements.
The current year P&L and previous year P&L statements should be delivered in an excel format if possible.
Revenue Partner Exports Or Account Access
If you’re running a website that focuses on driving revenue from ads, a buyer will want to see your total earnings in the form of revenue partner exports.
Exports can usually be quickly requested directly from a partner’s ad portal or through a direct request to the ad partner.
You can also provide a potential buyer with direct access to your accounts and allow them to pull this data. We do suggest that you verify the reputation of any potential buyer before giving direct access to your revenue-based accounts.
Operations Overview
Buying a company is about more than just the profits it can generate. A serious buyer will need to understand what it takes to operate your business. Below is a small list of potential considerations you will want to provide to your website’s potential new owner.
- Publishing Cadence: How many articles are published each day, week, month, etc.
- Are articles published at a certain time of the day?
- Are articles assigned by an editor, chosen by writers, picked in a different way?
- Essentially, what is the start to finish content production process (ideation, writing, editing, moderation)?
- How are daily operations handled?
- Is there a team or person responsible for handling revenue partners?
- Is there someone specifically in charge of editorial decisions?
- Are there in-house employees, contract workers, guest posts, etc?
- How many hours per week does the owner put into the platform?
- What does the owner do on a daily basis to maintain and grow the website?
- Is there someone in charge of third-party partnerships, such as social media account management, and third-party partnerships such as affiliate marketing?
- Overview of Social operations (content production, scheduling, volume)
- Overview of Email marketing operations (production, strategy)
- Overview pf Referral operations (sources, strategy, insights, tech/software)
- SEO Practices
- What is your SEO strategy?
- Are you link-building?
- Technology
- CMS and hosting details.
- What plugins, if any, are you running?
- What changes have you made to your website in the last 12 months?
- Other Assets And Initiatives Tied Into The Website
- Are there podcasts, videos or other initiatives included in the sale?
- Is there an e-commerce platform being utilized for additional sales?
- Are there any other assets not mentioned above that you will be including in the sale?
Because every website is unique, there are often follow-up questions based on the criteria listed above.
Ultimately, our main goal at HMG Capital is to paint a broad picture of how a website owner has been successfully operating their business and to learn what it will take to maintain the website’s growth and build upon the parts of its operation that has made it successful.