How to Sell a Blog Part 2: Forums and Promoting the Sales Post

In part 1 writing the main sales post on the blog itself was addressed but just like any content that sales post needs eyeballs focused on it. Every potential buyer will visit the blog and see the sales post, therefore a key task is to spread the word that your blog is for sale and that you’re offering a great deal open for everyone.

Places to Promote the Sale

Forums are the obvious place to start, for example Blogger Forum or in the “buy, sell or trade” section of the Digital Point forums.

The post in the forum should be a summary of the sales post on the blog, with out all the aggressive salesmanship. In the forum there are lots of other blogs up for sale creating competition, which means only the main details need to be given or the buyers will just click down to the next site if your sites stats are not clearly given.

Stats to Use When Selling
These are listed in order of importance:

1. Current earning rate of the blog
2. Google Page Rank
3. Traffic stats
4. Technorati rank
5. Alexa Rank

Details about pricing and a link to the blog for the rest of the details are essential as well.

The easiest way to get around in a forum is to have a look at the other blogs that are up for sale and use their post as a guide to what stats you need to write about. If you notice a weakness in one of the other blogs you could openly state that your blog is strong in that department (e.g. lots of comments and a loyal readership).

Email all the bloggers in your niche, especially those you have networked with before as they may throw in a post about your site being for sale or even be interested in a purchase themselves. I previously referred to them as your “blogging buddies”. An un-personalised e-mail to bulk send to all of them is not the way to go. Those that you ‘network with’ frequently should be treated as individuals. I’m sure you agree that an email to a busy A-Lister needs to be different to an email to a blogger who you previously mentored.

Leave comments everywhere without spamming. After making your normal comment there is nothing wrong wit adding that your blog is up for sale.

The Bottom Line
A blog that has no readership and traffic is not worth anything; it only has potential to be worth something. If you have written a batch of high quality articles and looking to sell them it would be better to sell them as an e-book, or even better, give them away as a free e-book for a publicity stunt for your next project.

Things to Remember:

• As soon as you get a bid, don’t hesitate on publishing it on the blog. More people will bid if they see others are bidding.
• Have a BIN (buy it now) price. You could get away without one in the blog sales post but people in the forums will want to know.
• You can offer to throw in a freebie if someone pays the BIN price.
• You can have a ‘Minimum increment’, which is where the next bid must be at least e.g. $20 more than the previous.

The Main Thing I learnt

Under pricing the Site is the worst possible mistake to make. It is so much easier to reduce the price than increase it. I made this mistake myself, starting the bidding at $400 when it was worth far more than that (and went for far more).

Have you successfully sold a blog?