Website 4 Sale Breakdown - Falling Traffic. Falling Revenues

A couple of weeks ago I did a breakdown of a website that was for sale.

In the breakdown I gave you a quick overview of what I was looking for, what I liked and didn’t like about the site.? And why I would or wouldn't take the sales process any further.

Why?

Because my goal is to buy another content-based website before the end of the year and I thought sharing my thinking process while doing that might be helpful.

So if you were interested in that breakdown process, that's great because that's what I'll be talking about today (only with a different site to last time).

And if you're NOT interested, you can just skip today's email and I won't be offended.

So here we go.??

As soon as I saw this website in Flippa’s weekly roundup of sites (affiliate link), my heart sped up just a bit.??

It’s a site that’s a mix of interviews with semi-well known (okay, sort of famous) people about the books they’ve read and liked and lists of books to read

What’s not to like about that?!!

I love interviewing people and I love books.

I immediately headed over to Flippa to take a closer look.

And what I saw had me first looking at the website, then coming back to Flippa and ripping through my checklist.

Is it generating revenue?? Yes.? It’s making around ￡2,100 a month

What’s the profit margin?? 57% (so ￡100 a month).? Pretty reasonable profit margin, even if the amount of revenue isn't very much at the moment. That's the point of buying a site like this. You take what's there, fix it up and scale the revenue and profit, both.

What’s the asking price?? Well, the seller has set a reserve of $3,176 USD which is in my price range.? Another tick.

I look at what the seller has to say about themselves and their website.? Everything seems legit and above board, although it would be nice if there were more seller verification details.? This seller is only verified for their email address.

There is nothing here about why the site is for sale.??

However, the seller does provide a fair bit of information about traffic numbers and operating costs, which helps fill in the gaps.? And they talk up the future potential of the site, which is always good.? Maybe a bit of marketing spin here, but also you can tell that some genuine thought has gone into their beliefs about future growth opportunities for the site.

So far it’s all coming up roses.

Market Insights show the website asking price is a touch higher than with other similar sites for sale, although the ones that HAVE sold are very similar in price.? So another tick.

So I move on to the Analytics section and I realise that in my excitement I’ve skipped right over a really important piece of information.? The number of page views has tanked.? Not just since Google’s Helpful Content Update, but since last June.

?Uh, oh.

What’s going on here?? I need to know what’s causing the drop in traffic.

I look at the detail that comes with the page views graphic and it look okay.? The average time that people are spending on the site is quite good.? Lots of organic search traffic, which is also good, UNLESS, the problem is that the site has been smashed by Google for what they deem “not-so-helpful-content.”

There are a whole bunch of “unassigned” visits.? That simply means that tracking hasn’t been set up for some of the sources, so it’s impossible to tell where that traffic is coming from.? Not a show stopper, but not great either.

The traffic insights from SEMRush which show the authority score, number of referring domains, number of backlinks and keywords the site ranks for is also reasonable.

Last thing to check is whether there are any social media accounts which come with the website.? And the answer is yes, with some pretty decent numbers.

Am I still excited about this site?? Heck yes.

So I take the next step.?

I reach out to the seller and ask for access to their Google Analytics account, which they promptly give me.

The numbers there reflect what has already been reported in Flippa.

So I take the next step.? I start to think about what kind of a strategy would be needed to (A) build the traffic back up and (B) add new ways of monetising the site.

Which means that I really have to know what caused the drop in traffic.??

The most likely reason is because the seller was using AI to create their content and then Google’s Helpful Content Update comes along and slaps them down with a penalty.

So I reach out to the seller again and ask them.? They respond and say that they did all the research on which books to read themselves, but yes, they did use AI to help build the reading lists.??

Once I hear that, I talk to one of my collaboration partners, who talks to her SEO expert, who does a quick check of the site and confirms that well over 50% of the content looks to be AI generated.

Now that doesn’t mean the seller is fibbing.? It means that they used AI to take what they’d already done and turn it into the content.? So they’ve done most of the work.? However, Google isn’t going to know that because everything looks the same’ish and there’s AI fingerprints all over everything.

So whether the seller deserved it or not, Google has basically stopped sending traffic to the website.

And now it’s decision time.

Now that I’ve been through all the available data, I have to ask myself:

• Is this a site that I could really enjoy turning around and building for the next 10 years? Absolutely yes.? I’m still excited about it.
• Do I have the skills to turn the site around? Yes, but I’d need to put a really solid turnaround strategy in place that would need to work quite quickly.
• Do I have the time right now to do the work to turn the site around? Sadly, no.
• Could I get someone to help with doing the work?? Yes, but the website isn’t generating enough revenue to cover the cost of that person.? Which means I would be significantly out of pocket until the revenue picked up again.

I’m sad about that because I still like the site.? But the timing is just wrong.

I have too many other projects on the go right now and I wouldn’t be able to give this project the time it needs to become a successful site again.

Plus I just got an email today from the seller saying he’d received an offer above his reserve and even though the auction still has nearly 3 weeks to run, he’s seriously considering it.? And did I want to top that offer?

So even if I had wanted to go ahead with purchasing the site, topping the existing offer would have put it outside my price range.

So there you have it.

If you’re intrigued by the site and you think YOU might be able to turn it around and make a go of it, go ahead and make this guy a better offer.

And in a year’s time, I’ll be looking back and thinking “if only …” ??

I hope that breakdown was helpful.

Let me know if you’d like to see more of these breakdowns and if so, what kinds of questions would you like to have answered.

Take care and I hope you have a great week.

Trudy

P.S.? Got a website you want to improve or sell?? Hit reply and let me know if you'd like me and one of my collaboration partners to do a live breakdown (and please include the URL of the website).