What To Look For In A Website Broker?

Just like in the real estate business, website brokers get paid by the seller. This is something that you need to keep in mind if you are a buyer. A broker can help you structure your website in the best way possible to attract the highest offers possible.

Given that buying or selling a website may be the most important business decision you have made thus ar in your career, you need to make sure that you are making the right choices.

Seller Tips

If you have defiantly decided that you want to sell your website, then consider the following questions that you may want to ask before deciding on who to choose as your website broker. These tips are taken from the following resources, ultimate website selling guide, general business valuation and the website broker guide.

What is your experience?

When interviewing a website broker ask them the following questions

• Do you run websites yourself?
• Have you sold one of your own websites?
• How long have you served as a website broker?
• Do you work full time or part time as a website broker?
• How many sites have you sold in the past

What is their web presence?

Visit the website brokers website to see how fast it loads, how easy it is to use, what the design is like and what other businesses it has for sale. Do a website search for terms like 'sell your website' and 'website broker' and see what results come up.

Ask them:

• How much traffic they get per month?
• What is the bounce rate?
• Where do the visitors come from

What is their track record?

You can find a lot about a broker by looking at their track record:

Make sure you ask the following:

• How many website similar to mine did you sell last year?
• How long was each listing on the market for on average?
• How many listings did you have in total last year

How do they sell your website?

The major USP of a website broker is how they sell your website. You need to figure out if they can find you a buyer that is going to pay you a premium for your website. Apart from posting a for sale ad on their website, ask you broker what else they will do to sell your website.

Also ask them if they can show you a sample memorandum that they have prepared for another client. This is the selling document that a broker uses to show to buyers to present your website for sale.

Look for details in the memorandum and if it is a persuasive document or not. Check out this article on more tips on how to sell a website.

Can they give referrals?

Finding out what other webmasters say about a particular broker will give you a good idea on how they will be to work with. Have a chat to them about two things. Firstly their level of professionalism, do they answer emails promptly, treat you well as a customer. Secondly ask them how long it took them to sell your website and if they got an offer higher that the offer that you originally asked for originally for the website

How do you value websites? 

Considering the following:

• What valuation methods are used to value your website
• What range do they apply to your website for a value
• How often do they receive the asking price for the website

You may also want to look at normal business valuers to get an idea of the value of your website as well.

What do they charge?

Good brokers will generally charge 15% for smaller sites and 10% for larger sites.

Do you have an exclusive period?

Find out how long the exclusive agreement is with your website broker. A good broker will generally ask for an exclusive period because they want to be certain that you are committed to the process.

This article is an original contribution by Tom Jones.

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