This traffic and growth technique is one that many marketers overlook and the other A-list marketers fail to talk about. If done correctly, buying undervalued websites is a great way to grow your existing business.
Many times, you can find these websites that are either about to expire or have been left abandoned by the owner and purchase them for very little money.
Whether the webmaster simply doesn’t understand the value that their website holds, or they got tired of the project and moved on, these sites are generating traffic (a ton in some cases) on a regular basis.
When you’re thinking about this strategy, you can relate it to buying a rundown house. You buy the house, slap a new coat of paint on it, fix a couple cosmetic issues, and then the house is worth substantially more.
Sometimes, you can find websites to flip that already have built in customer lists and email lists. So it’s like buying the same house that already has tenants in it, remodeling it, then cashing in once you’re done.
Most of the time, the webmasters simply don’t know how to follow up with their customers to generate more sales, or send out email marketing messages to generate sales in the first place.
It’s surprising to hear, especially when you work so hard to grow your own business, that webmasters will have a literal gold mine sitting in their hands and not know how to mine it.
Using a strategy called “sweat equity”, you can dramatically grow your own business in a couple different ways.
With some of the different methods below, your “sweat equity” can be used to find undervalued businesses and utilize them in your own business to generate more traffic and revenue.
Method #1: Add Additional Income Streams.
One of the best ways to diversify your business and ensure you’re not relying too much on one single area is to add additional sources of revenue.
Buying undervalued websites, monetizing them, and then increasing the traffic going to them is the easiest and most cost effective way to tap into additional revenue sources.
To do this and make sure you’re getting maximum return on your investment, you’re typically going to want to find websites that haven’t already been monetized.
When this happens, they’re going to be priced far lower than a site that is already generating revenue. You can come behind the previous owner, add in new sources of revenue, and then choose to either sit and let the site mature again or start driving more traffic and increase your revenue even further.
Blog owners are one of the best sources for these types of sites.
That’s because they’re passionate about their topics and usually have loyal followers. They aren’t always the best marketers, though, or understand what the following they’ve built is actually worth.
That creates a perfect scenario for you to buy the sites for less than you would on an open marketplace or a brokerage.
To find them, you’ll want to dig through the search results of major search engines, looking for blogs that haven’t yet been monetized.
Read also: How This Family Guy Made $1,250,226 Building and Selling Blogs
Method #2: Remove Your Competition.
Another great way to grow your own business while also removing your competition from the market is to buy their websites from them.
This goes into the same scenario as the bloggers who don’t realize the value of their business. When you see new competition popping up in your market, chances are high that they don’t know what they’re doing and are having success in spite of themselves.
If you’re able to swoop in and make them an offer on their business that is hard for them to refuse, you can purchase their website and use the traffic and revenue to further position yourself in the marketplace.
What you do with the website after you’ve purchased it is entirely up to you.
You can either use it as a satellite asset, generating revenue and attacking a different segment of the market on the side of your main business.
Or you can take what the previous webmaster has built and merge it into your own business to grow it even further than what you could have done on your own.
Method #3: Merge Into Your Business.
Buying websites to merge them into your own is exactly like big businesses and corporations do in the offline world when they’re acquiring other businesses and rebranding them as their own.
Not only are you going to be pushing your competition out of the marketplace, you’re going to be instantly growing your own content base, traffic, and revenue, if you do it right.
You get to merge their customer list into your own, and start marketing their business in a way that they couldn’t when they owned it.
There’s no better way to dominate your market than to buy out every competitor that comes into it before they get a chance to really see the value in what they’ve built.
Where to Buy Undervalued Web Businesses?
Now that you know the best ways, or most profitable ways to use the websites you’re acquiring, tracking down the websites to actually buy can be tough to do.
Fortunately, there are a ton of different ways and marketplaces – like Flippa.com – you can use to find the undervalued websites waiting for you to take them over.
You also don’t have to wait around for people to list their websites for sale.
Like mentioned above, you can use the search results in major search engines to start tracking down sites that may not already be for sale, but the owner would be willing to consider your offer.
You can also use digital product marketplaces like JVZoo and Clickbank to find websites that aren’t being marketed properly, and then reach out to the owner with an offer to buy.
Many times, the owners will launch their projects and then they’ll fail to perform the way the owner intended. So they’ll end up abandoned. Other times, the owner simply got distracted with other projects.
Some of these sites are in evergreen markets, so the potential upside is insane, when the sites are in the right person’s hands.
This creates a great situation for you, because you can buy the sites for substantially less than you may be able to acquire sites that have already been listed for sale on the open market.
How to Find Established Businesses For Sale?
Maybe you want to avoid having to put in the work to market and grow the business or are looking for established businesses to acquire so you can grow your own business quicker than you would be able to by purchasing someone’s failed project.
In cases like those, you’ll want to go through a broker. Reputable brokers, like Digital Exits, always have lists of businesses that are for sale that have existing revenue and traffic.
The price you’ll pay for these businesses is often substantially higher than what you’ll pay by searching for businesses yourself. But the fact that they are already established makes them better investments for you. Especially when you intend to hold onto them for long periods of time.
Regardless which strategy you use, acquiring other websites to grow your own business is a great strategy that has been used in the offline world for generations, and many marketers fail to talk about it in today’s landscape.
Using the information laid out here, you can get started finding these undervalued businesses to work on growing your own.
About The Author
This article was written by Jock Purtle, an internet entrepreneur who has built several successful businesses from scratch.
