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Blogs can be a profitable acquisition if you know how to identify online businesses with potential. Here are some tips!
If you're looking to buy a blog in 2024, you might wonder how to spot the right business deal for you, what to avoid, and how to know whether the site is profitable.
Finding the best option depends on your expectations, the current economic scenario, and marketing trends. This guide will prepare you to purchase an established blog by providing an overview of:
Keep reading!
Related: Where To Find a Business To Buy? 8 Marketplaces To Explore
We'll begin by addressing the elephant in the room: Blog websites can definitely be a source of monthly income.
According to Hubspot's 2024 State of Marketing and Trends Report, the "website, blog & SEO" channel offers marketers a 16% ROI. But making money out of a blog takes time and effort, and the competition is intense: there are around 600 million blogs (only in the US!).
Yet, if you want to buy a blog, you shouldn't be discouraged by how competitive the market is. The trick relies on finding the right audience and implementing marketing strategies to create multiple revenue streams.
The profitability of a content site depends on multiple factors, such as the target audience, content quality, traffic sources, and operational costs; blog owners have some control over this. However, external variables such as industry trends, algorithm updates, or the economic landscape are beyond control.
Still, there are signals and ways to estimate how much money a blog makes or has the potential to generate. For example, niche sites are more likely to have a loyal base of readers who can eventually bring in revenue, or profitable blogs should not only have one revenue stream since algorithm updates can break the income source from one day to another.
Related: What Is A Niche Market & How To Define Yours?
If you plan to buy a blog, we recommend that you explore and understand the existing strategies available for a content site to make money. Currently, established blogs do some (or all of) the following tactics:
Thanks to affiliate marketing, blog owners can generate passive income and turn their hobbies into online businesses. The drill is simple: A website posts a link to a product or service that the writer enjoys, recommends, or that the brand believes readers might benefit from. The affiliate company tracks the link, and each time someone makes a purchase, the blog owner earns a commission.
By the end of 2023, the global affiliate marketing industry was estimated to be worth $14.2 billion.
One of the main advantages of affiliate marketing is flexibility. It allows site owners to decide how many products they want to promote on their blog website and which products to showcase. They can even offer to post the deals on their social media accounts and charge for it.
Affiliate marketing also allows blog owners to decide how much time they want to invest in this tactic.
This strategy is very similar to affiliate marketing. However, it focuses on generating leads for other businesses looking for potential customers. Site owners get paid every time a user fills out a form. Using tracked links, the company can identify the traffic source.
Lead generation works for niche blogs that belong to the same industry as the product or service promoted. Content sites that cover a broader range of topics will have a more challenging time replicating this strategy successfully since not all of their readers will fit in with their target audience.
Displaying ads on the website is another way to bring passive income into your bank account. Any time a reader clicks on the advertisement, the blog owner will receive a commission. This strategy can be helpful for established blogs and new content sites and a great source of income for viral content.
Ad networks such as Google Ads can increase the site's revenue by showing banners through the blog's pages. Each ad network has pros and cons, but most have a traffic threshold requirement and pay according to the CPM (Cost per Impression). With Google Ads, websites can earn between $3 to $25 for every 1,000 thousand views, but it depends on many factors.
Readers value unique and insightful content that can make their lives easier or entertain them; membership programs can fully take advantage of that. Through this strategy, site owners can make their content exclusive and create a community of readers with shared interests.
Membership programs allow blog owners to strengthen their connections with their readers and open the door to making money through other strategies, such as live events, products, or classes.
If you wish to buy a blog, consider which of these strategies is most aligned with your long-term goals since some of them demand more time and effort to yield results. Furthermore, keep in mind that your target audience, niche, and competitors (among other factors) will influence the profit you can make.
Before you buy a blog, you must look for the "red flags" in a potential investment. Though some of these issues can be fixed, working on them means extra time, effort, and resources going into making your website profitable. Pay attention to the following:
Quality websites are just one part of the formula for success. As important as good content is, speaking to an audience interested enough to pay attention and spend money is also crucial.
Successful online businesses choose a niche with multiple potential revenue streams, so before jumping into the unknown and buying blogs, learn what competitors are doing to earn money.
Try to answer the following questions:
On the other hand, you also have to look into the future and ask:
You'll be better off staying away from those sites that solely focus on a trend since they'll live for a short time.
Recommended: 49 Questions To Ask When Buying A Business
Finally, research more about the keywords that belong to that niche.
If you're presented with the opportunity to buy a blog with keywords where competition is ruthless, the best thing might be to let that one go.
A fresh perspective can make a huge difference when engaging with new readers who recently found your site.
Though AI makes it easier to create content with multiple facts and sources, the audience may be able to spot that "robotic" voice and fake tone. Having a unique approach also means not putting out the same information that's already out there since it will make it harder for the blog to stand out from the rest.
Another common problem in this category is failing to remember that their readers are humans, not search engines. Therefore, the site should be designed for individuals while being SEO Optimized. Quality content can meet both of these standards through a series of strategies that a seasoned marketer can implement.
Perspective requirements will change among niches. For example, well-being blogs should take a more humane and empathetic approach, while business sites should be focused more on results. Yet, these two examples provide opportunities to write using different tones that can engage with the audience.
Before creating any piece of content, writers should understand the niche they'll be speaking to.
As we said before, not every site should have the same standards. The needs of the site will change between industries. However, a common goal for the content is to address the readers' pain points and interests while offering solutions and valuable insights.
A common mistake is that writers fail to do their homework when researching new content, producing articles with information that can be easily found on similar websites.
Nevertheless, the opposite can also happen. A website can have remarkable content supported by facts, quotes, and multiple sources. Still, readers won't engage with it if it's boring or not unique.
Or worse, if the content is not properly promoted, the piece won't get the traffic it deserves and, as a result, won't help with the efforts to bring in revenue.
A great marketing strategy is one of the cornerstones of a successful blog. Failing to do so puts website owners at risk of being left behind by competitors who will have an easier time attracting readers and, therefore, potential income.
Blogs can make a profit by displaying ads, but solely relying on this strategy can limit their growth potential, as the user experience will be compromised.
Starting a blog with the eyes set on the money might not be the best way to do it. When blog owners follow this path, they easily give up after some months because they do not see the revenue they expected. You need to provide value to the users.
Online businesses need clear KPIs that can provide insight into performance. When purchasing a blog, a sound signal is when the site owner has goals and consistently tracks data.
Blogs for sale should include historical KPIs such as visitors, impressions, bounce rate, subscribers, traffic sources, average monthly net profit, revenue streams bringing in money, and operational costs.
The selling price of the site depends on many internal and external factors. Established blogs are more expensive than those that are still working on their online presence.
The industry and niche to which a blog belongs also play a part in the purchasing price. Blogs with a high-income audience might be worth more, though this is not always true.
The acquisition cost will also be impacted by the blog's traffic, the number of available keywords to target, the search volume of the queries, and how difficult it is to rank for them.
Other elements can influence the site's growth potential and value, such as domain registration, hosting, social media accounts, email databases, and extra services used for business operations.
Before you buy a blog, research the website to determine whether it's a good business deal. Here's a list of key features to consider:
Through this article, we have discussed the importance of targeting the right niche. Blogs that cover a topic from a broader perspective will have a hard time standing out from the search results.
A profitable niche should be small enough to reach a specific, valuable audience but not so small that it stops growing due to a lack of readers.
Besides the niche size, some of them come with higher commissions in business partnerships, more potential sources of revenue, and even lower operational costs (such as freelance rates).
You also have to consider the lifespan of the niche.
Established blogs for sale already come with a design, voice, and tone. Even if you have found a good website that has struck a profitable niche, you shouldn't forget about how the site might "appear" to the audience.
If the blog has design inconsistencies or lacks a voice and tone, it will likely be necessary to put in extra hours or resources to fix those issues.
Review if the content is optimized for search engines. An established site that doesn't get organic traffic or has an SEO strategy will take extra effort to make it profitable.
Websites should already come with a consistent content calendar or a process to publish content frequently. Blog calendars should also include the trends from the industry to prove that the website is up-to-date.
Traffic and revenue growth should be historically consistent. A website that has become popular due to a viral content piece might not be the wisest option to buy since the audience might not find any more value besides the article that drove them there.
Social accounts are one of the main channels to promote blog content, but it's not the only one. The right channel will depend on the topic and industry of the blog.
Clicks to the blog can also grow from mailing campaigns or paid ads; ideally, you should have a mix of traffic acquisition sources.
A mailing list can be valuable depending on the type of audience included and how curated the list is. They can be used to drive traffic to websites and ecommerce sites or promote third-party products or services.
Affiliate marketing deals can show the potential of a website to make money. However, this might not always be the case. When blogs for sale come with these types of deals, it might indicate a profitable niche.
Some blogs for sale can show further revenue potential by targeting a niche interested in purchasing products or services. By creating an online marketplace, the site owner gets to decide the amount of products they offer to their audience. Also, the site has the possibility to drive traffic organically to the available catalog.
Brand partnerships aren't just another source of revenue. They can help to boost the blog's recognition, and as a result, this one would have an easier time reaching new potential readers. A successful brand partnership would bring in revenue through a deal while increasing the audience size.
You might find blogs that are more profitable than others. One reason is the niche they belong to, the audience size, the target's worth, and the industry lifespan. Here is a list of some of the top industries for a profitable blog.
Because these are highly competitive industries, finding a niche is key to differentiating and providing the value users won't find anywhere else.
Fashion blogs are among the all-time favorites, but they are constantly evolving due to market trends.
In the past years, we have witnessed the rising popularity of new spaces that cover topics such as affordable and sustainable fashion, reviews of the latest products on the market, and discussions of emerging designers (to name a few).
Recipe blogs have been popular for some time, which is why it's getting harder to stand out.
Instead, niche sites that focus on specific topics like craft beer, exotic cuisine, recipes under a budget, or even those that review kitchen equipment now have better chances to attract readers.
In the past years, the travel industry has gone into full bloom, and websites that cover traveling in a broad way aren't making the cut. Audiences are looking for their specific interests, allowing the surging of new blog websites on niches such as hotel reviews, trips under a budget, women traveling solo, or cruises for seniors, just to name a few.
Blogs that belong to this niche can come off as websites with a broad content catalog. But these websites can target diverse and specific audiences like ecofriendly lifestyles, plant lovers, expats, people in a stage in their life, and many more.
Very similar to the lifestyle section, parenting blogs are designed for people searching for tips and how-to's around how to take care of and raise their kids in a certain way. They might be tailored for parents who want to teach their kids emotional intelligence or who are looking to create a healthy lifestyle for their family. Also, readers might just want a voice of comfort who can understand the challenges that come with being a parent.
DIY is going strong, and not only because it allows people to save money. Do-It-Yourself projects come with a sense of accomplishment for those who are able to execute them. Additionally, they work as an excuse for family bonding and strengthening relationships. Some of the blogs that belong to this niche are aimed at pet owners, van travelers, or women wanting to make their own home improvements.
Long gone are the years in which gaming was seen as a hobby. Now, you can find blogs that provide reviews for the latest games, walkthroughs for popular releases, and some others that work as specific communities where players can share their achievements and creations between them.
As fashion blogs, sports websites stay strong throughout time. In this category there are websites such as newsrooms that are dedicated to a sport or even to a team. Niche blogs can also provide sports gear reviews, cover events such as tournaments, or focus solely on a not-very-popular sport (just to name a few options).
The health and fitness industry has always been popular, and these blogs can reap the benefits of this popularity. It's more likely that readers will stay loyal to those websites that focus on personal training and weight loss via a certain method or aimed at a demographic group.
Personal finance and entrepreneurship blogs have been going strong for a long time now. However, the audience might have molded their interests in the past years. Now, there are websites designed for people who want to reach an early retirement, learn to invest, or are looking into potential business opportunities within an industry.
If you are looking to buy a blog or an online business, Boopos has you covered. Our marketplace shows vetted deals, hand-picked by our experts. We help you with the due diligence and guide you through the purchase process.
You can also get a business acquisition loan to fund your purchase. Get qualified and start your process to buy a blog!
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