shanecleveland.net

First Website Acquisition!

I have completed my first purchase of a website! I wrote recently that I had sold a couple of side projects, and now I have been able to reinvest those profits back into a new project.

A while back I had the idea to build a directory site for camper van rentals. I was inspired by Peter Askew – yes, the onion guy – who likes these niche directory websites. I started doing some research, and I stumbled across WestfaliasForSale.com.

Lo-and-behold, the owner had advertised the site as for sale, as he was not focused on the site any longer. The site has been around for nearly 10 years, has some good backlinks, and excellent organic traffic. The traffic had been on a decline from its best days while the owner was very active, but it still had good positions for the best keywords.

It looked like a year had past since first posting for sale, so I thought I might be able to get a bargain. I contacted the owner and was given access to the site analytics. It turned out the camper-van category had seen a resurgence during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the site traffic and revenue had benefited. The site owner was undecided about selling now, and I was not inclined to offer more.

A few months passed, and I had started to experiment with the business model. It has proven out pretty well, I started getting some organic traffic pretty quickly and am ranking well for some pretty good long-tail keywords. With more consistent posting and the addition of more relevant content pages, I think these sites could begin to do really well.

The owner reached back out recently after not being able to renew his interest in it, and I agreed to acquire the site at the original price. If looking at the revenue over the past year, I got the site at a good multiple. But if multiplying over just the last six months, not as much.

I think the site can continue what it is doing now without a problem, and if posting new content regularly it can certainly grow. But I also think there are some additional opportunities for revenue. In addition to that, I believe that I may be able to do some cross linking and devote some shared resources to the sister sites I am building up from scratch.

#acquisition #sideproject