The income from affiliate marketing and affiliate websites can be significant. If you decide to change gears or get out of the job, however, selling your website can be a good way to cash out – if you price your site appropriately.

How to price a website

The pricing of a website, just like any other commodity, is a bit of a difficult challenge. You should price a website based not only on what you are willing to take in exchange for your work building up the site and its readership, but also on what you believe future earnings of the website might be. The topic of your website, the number of readers, and average income all have an impact on the price someone may be willing to pay to take over your site.

Yearly averages released

Flippa, a marketplace for buying and selling websites, has released its yearly report on website sales and revenue. For the business sites sold on Flippa, the amount paid for a website differs greatly depending on topic area and type. Affiliate websites are the 2nd best sellers when it comes to amount paid.

Keep philosophy in mind

If you are truly personally invested in the community you have built around your website, then you should also carefully consider who will be purchasing your site and how it will be run. It is a personal decision how concerned you will be with the direction your website will go after you give up control. It may be worth taking a lower sales price or smaller income from the website in order to be assured that someone you trust to take on your community will follow the philosophy you have built your website on and around.

Get it ready for sale

Just like getting a home ready for sale, you need to get your website ready for sale. Clean up the site, and get the basic search engine optimization up to date. You should also collate statistics on monthly and yearly income, average number of visitors, and social engagement. You want your website to look as good as possible for sale, so know the answers that potential buyers are looking for.