Aged Site Case Study

I decided to sell the site since it’s sitting there. I’m starting some other projects so I want to close out projects I know I won’t work on.

I’ll let the site go at a loss — I’ve spent over $12,500 on the site which was about a year and a half old when I got it. The domain was registered in 2018.

Here are some details:

• 96 posts
• Domain Rating: 4.3
• 3000+ Monthly visitors
• Earning about $20-30 per month (Amazon Affiliate), down from a high of about $180 in April 2020.
• Traffic dropped in May 2020 with the Google algorithm update.
• Ranking for 1336 keywords (ahrefs)
• 13 SERP features (i.e. featured snippet, ahrefs)
• In the Tools Niche – Consumer-level tools but you could include contractor-grade tools as well.
• Hosted at Site Ground. I can personally assist in the transfer.
• Uses AmaLinks Pro so it’ll be easy to update the Amazon Associate tracking id. You’ll need to get a valid current license to keep using.
• I’m looking for an all-cash deal via escrow.com.
• I’ll provide access to my courses to help you out if you need them. I have 4 courses that could help out — especially Site Growth Plan. That one will very helpful to assess what to do and what to prioritize.

Here are some FAQs…

Why are you selling?

I haven’t worked on the site since late 2019 and don’t have plans to. I’m starting a new podcast in the personal finance and financial independence space.

Plus, I know that someone with time can do something great with this site.

Any specific strategies you used in the content creation?

I hired Human Proof Designs to do the keyword research for Keyword Golden Ratio keywords. Some are informational, some are product reviews.

Then, I hired a content company (Content Development Pros) to write the content.

If I kept the site, I would add FAQs to some of the posts and use a tool like Market Muse or Page Optimizer Pro to optimize the content.

Is the niche homeowner tools or contractor tools – ie. who’s the audience?

Mainly homeowners, but many of the tools are advanced. The domain would support contractor-grade tools and products.

How many words of content?

There are about 110K words of content. I used https://websitewordcalculator.com/ and it reported this:

But some of the pages are archives or privacy or similar legal pages. So we can estimate about 110K words and be fairly accurate.

How much do comparable sites cost?

The best comparison is where I bought the site, Human Proof Designs, one of the most popular done-for-you site companies.

They have aged sites that range from $1800 to $6000. I paid about $5500 for this site.

They also have revenue-generating sites from $3400 to $6500. These bring in a range of revenue and have some ranking keywords.

My site has far more content than the HPD sites. I added about 50 posts after I bought the site in 2019.

How much are you selling it for?

I’m looking for $10,000, over $2,000 less than I spent on it. But it’s like a real estate listing, so you can offer more or less depending on what you see the value as.

So I do expect offers of over $10,000 (since there are over 100k words of content).

It’s taken a hit on traffic but was making about $150-$180 in early 2020.

It’s well out of the sandbox and it’s under-monetized since there are no display ads.

But I’m open to offers and have gotten interested queries for all cash deals already. I’m not looking to maximize the selling price or having a bidding war.

So if you have a strong interest above or below $10k, please let me know. I’d love to have a quick transaction and keep it simple — sending the ASCS to a good home. I’ll ask for proof of funds (a screenshot) to cover the costs, then I can share more information about the site.

Screen Shots

2020 Earnings

2019 Earnings

Traffic for the last year, Mar 2020 to present

Traffic since I bought the site in 2019

Some featured snippets (13)

Ranking for 1300+ keywords

Overall from ahrefs

 

Organic Search Graphic

Link Graphs