How Much is My Website Worth? Plus 7 Tips on How to Sell It

But first, a legal disclaimer:

⚖️ I am a writer, not a website broker, financial expert, or legal expert. This article is meant to give you a rough idea of the process you’re looking at, not to replace professional legal or financial advice.

With that out of the way, let’s talk about website values!

What impacts a website’s value? 💵

There are many different factors that influence a website’s value, but before we dive into those, it’s important to note that we’re talking about market value. This doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the amount you’ll make when you sell your site; that number is determined by what your buyer is willing to pay. Sometimes it might be more than market value, other times it will be less.

Still, knowing the market value of your site gives you a number to aim for. So let’s take a look at what you’ll use to calculate it.

Traffic split

You might assume that the total number of visitors to your site each month/year is what determines the value, but not all traffic is of equal value.

There are two types of website traffic: organic traffic and paid traffic.

Organic traffic

Organic traffic is the term used for visitors who find your site through search engines, like Google, Yahoo, and Bing. This is the most valuable type of traffic because it requires little ongoing investment, creating a wider profit margin.

You can figure out how much organic traffic you’re getting by looking at your analytics. You can also see how the amount of organic reach you’re getting compares to similar sites by using an SEO tool, like Organic Research by Semrush. This can help you understand where your site fits into the market.

Paid traffic

Paid traffic is any traffic brought to your site through paid advertisements. This type of traffic requires more funding to maintain, reducing the profit margin, making paid traffic less valuable.

Luckily, if you’ve been properly tracking your ads with UTM parameters, it’s easy to figure out the percentage of traffic you’re getting from paid ads.

The ideal split

There is no universal standard for an “ideal” split of organic vs paid traffic, and most investors will expect to spend some amount of money on advertisements to maintain a site’s popularity. However, you want to have more organic traffic than paid traffic, ideally a lot more. Personally, I think it’s good to aim for at least 70% organic traffic.

Net profit

Total revenue can be misleading if a company spends a lot of money on basic business upkeep. This makes it important to calculate the net profit, which is the amount of money your business earns after expenses. You can figure this out in two steps:

1. Subtract your operating costs from your total income – this reveals your gross profit
2. Subtract the amount of taxes paid from your gross profit – this reveals your net profit

A high net profit shows that your website is efficient at turning products/services into money, and every year you sustain a high net profit increases your site’s value.

Revenue streams

Potential buyers will also want to know how your website makes money. Specifically, they’ll be looking at two things: the number of income streams and the quality/reliability of those income streams.

Number of income streams

A website with only one income stream is vulnerable; a major market change can come along at any time and destroy that income, making the site unprofitable.

Sites with several sources of income, on the other hand, can survive if one or even two of those sources disappear. For this reason, sites with diverse income streams are generally going to be more valuable.

Quality/reliability of income streams

The other factor to consider is how reasonable it is to expect that those income streams will continue turning a profit and/or increase that profit. There are two main factors to consider here:

• Ownership. A program like Amazon Affiliates can change the profit sharing model or even disappear entirely at any time. On the other hand, if you allow companies to buy ads directly from your site, you control how much each ad costs, how long each one runs for, and how long the entire program runs for.
• Past revenue. A buyer is more likely to believe that an income stream is stable if you can provide records of steady income or income growth over a period of multiple years.

The split of these income sources can also be important. For example, if you do run your own advertising program on your site, but the bulk of your money still comes from affiliate links, that might lead to a lower overall value.

Domain “Indexed” age

This is how long the website has actively been indexed on Google and other search engines. An older site is more valuable because it has had more time to earn quality backlinks. Older sites typically also have a longer revenue history to prove that their earnings are reliable.

Backlinks

Another thing to consider is the number of quality backlinks there are to your site.

There are two types of sites you want to have backlinks from:

• Editorial sites. These are links from established news sources, like CNN or Forbes.
• High-traffic niche sites. These are sites in your niche that receive a lot of organic traffic.

Since these sites are considered authorities on certain topics, them linking to your site makes you look more trustworthy to Google. This can help you withstand algorithmic updates.

Upward traffic and revenue trends

The only thing better for a buyer than a steady source of income is a steadily increasing source of income. If you can show that you’ve had significant gains in traffic and/or revenue, this might increase the value of your site.

External factors

External factors are other assets sold with the site that increase its reach and profitability. Common external factors are email lists and social media accounts. If you can prove that you have a highly engaged audience in these places, or better yet, figure out your actual conversion rate, this may increase your site’s value.

Monthly/annual multiplier

The final thing to consider is that the person buying your site won’t have it for just one month or one year, but for several. Your site will continue earning money for them over all of those months/years, which means its value is greater than what it earns in one month/year.

Unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all multiplier. Some sites recommend a multiplier of 36 months, which is in line with the commonly recommended multiplier of three to five years. Other sites recommend a multiplier of six or more years. And what they want you to multiply varies too: some people suggest you base it off of gross income, while others suggest you base it off of net income. In the end, you need to choose what seems reasonable to you (or seek out a financial advisor to help you figure it out).

How much is my website worth? Two ways to find out 🤔

Use an online website valuation calculator

The easiest way to get an estimate of what your website is worth is to use a website valuation calculator. These are free online tools that analyze various aspects of your domain to determine the value of your website.

Every website valuation calculator uses a slightly different formula, but generally you can expect them to look at some of the key factors we discussed earlier:

• Overall traffic
• Ranking on Google and other search engines
• Domain age
• Social media visibility (number of shares on site content)
• Quality backlinks
• Income estimates

Some valuation calculators may also offer estimates for things like advertising expenses/revenue or the cost of hosting and the domain.

Pros and cons of using a website valuation calculator

What online website valuation calculator should you use?

If you want to use a website valuation calculator, I recommend using the Worth of Web website valuation calculator. It provides a detailed report on various aspects of your site and shares customized action recommendations to help you increase your site’s value.

Calculate it manually

The other way to figure out your website’s value is to calculate it manually. To do this, you’ll need to calculate your net profit on either a monthly or annual basis, then multiply that number by an appropriate number.

Pros and cons of calculating it manually

What multiple should you use to determine the value of your site?

Most sources recommend that you use a multiple that equals out to around three or four years. You also need to make sure your multiple uses the same measurement of time as the profit number you’re using. For example, if you’re working with monthly net profit, you want to use a monthly multiple of 36. On the other hand, if you’ve measured your net profit on an annual basis, you’ll want to use an annual multiplier of three.

Here’s an example of what this calculation can look like:

Net profit: 12,000/year
Multiple: 3 (years)
$12,000 x 3 = $36,000
Overall value: $36,000

How can you make your website worth more? 🚀

Disappointed with the initial answer to the question “how much is my website worth?” There are a few things you can do to increase your site’s value:

• Improve your design. Make sure it’s mobile-friendly, easy to use, and quick to load.
• Optimize your site for speed. Choose a quick-loading theme, optimize your images for the web, and take other steps to improve your loading times.
• Create more evergreen content. You want to make sure that the bulk of your content will still be valuable in a year’s time. This will help you bring in a larger amount of organic traffic.
• Update old content. Add new information and keywords to older content where possible. You’ll also want to clean up broken links and images. This is a good way to ensure that old content is still bringing in organic traffic long after it’s published.
• Look for backlink opportunities. Reach out to popular blogs in your industry to have your site featured.
• Add more sources of income, putting emphasis on income sources that give you full control of how much money the site is able to make. For example, if you have affiliate income, and you sell ads directly, you want to focus on building up direct ad sales.
• Build up your brand in relevant places, with an emphasis on your email list. An email list is more valuable than social media accounts because the email list is your property and remains yours when you switch email marketing tools.

You’ll note that most of these aren’t quick solutions. If you want to make your website more valuable, you’re going to have to invest a significant amount of time into it.

Tips for selling your website 🤝

Knowing the value of your site is only one aspect of a successful sale. There are several other things to do to make sure your site passes smoothly between owners and turns you a profit in the process:

1. Optimize your site. Again, take some time to optimize your design and loading speeds, update old content, and optimize any social media profiles or other assets you plan to sell with your website.
2. Calculate your value. You can use either of the methods covered in this article. You can also use both methods and, if there’s a significant difference between the numbers, choose a price in the middle.
3. Get your paperwork in order ahead of time. Potential buyers will want to look at records of your traffic, operating costs, and revenue. Many will hire a CPA to look through your financial records as well. You want to make sure there’s something organized for them to look at. For more details, check out this guide to preparing financial statements before selling a business.
4. Know what you’re willing to accept. Most buyers are going to haggle, hoping to make a profit on their investment sooner rather than later. Decide ahead of time if you’re willing to bend on the sale price and, if so, how low you’re willing to go.
5. Consider hiring a broker. A website broker can help you navigate the legal processes involved in transferring ownership of your site and related assets. They can also help you with the technical side of these transfers.
6. Consider consulting a lawyer. A lawyer can help you draft a contract of sale that covers all the processes and contingencies related to the sale.
7. Keep your team in the loop. If you work with a team, make sure they know what’s happening with the sale. If the buyer intends to keep the same staff, you’ll also want to work with them to make sure the transfer of employment goes smoothly.

👉 Most of all, take the time to do things properly. You don’t want to find yourself mired in a legal battle over some misunderstood piece of contract language two years down the road.

How much is my website worth: final thoughts 🏁

Valuating a website is a tricky thing. There are many different factors to consider, and the rules seem to vary depending on who you ask.

You also don’t have to figure this out on your own if you don’t want to; there are tools like the Worth of Web site valuation calculator to help you answer the question of “how much is my website worth.”

If you have any questions on how to valuate your website, don’t hesitate to let us know in the comments.