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How to Buy a Blog and Make Money
Are you wondering how to buy a blog and make money from it?
Blogging can be a great way to make money, but maybe you don’t want to worry about starting and growing a blog from scratch for whatever reason.
Buying an existing blog is a great solution!
I have already written about how to sell a blog so today I wanted to talk about how to buy a blog. I have personally started and sold over a dozen blogs now, so I know there are many people out there interested in buying a blog.
I have also bought several blogs myself, so I’ll share my experience with that.
While you might be interested in buying a blog, you might also have no idea how to get started. And that’s where this guide is here to help.
Read on for everything you need to know about how to buy a blog!
Why Buy a Blog?
First things first, why buy a blog?
Starting a blog is easy to do and expensive (you can get started for less than $100.) So what are the reasons you might buy an existing blog instead?
There are a number of reasons to consider buying a blog:
- You want to skip over the startup phase and don’t want to worry about building and growing a brand-new blog from scratch.
- You are new to blogging, and want to buy a starter blog that is turnkey and ready to go so you don’t have to worry about starting it yourself.
- You’re an investor with some capital available and you’re ready to acquire a profitable business to create a new long-term income stream.
- You want to buy a blog that is currently underperforming, fix it up and get it earning more money, and then sell it for a profit.
- You want to repurpose the content from an existing blog to another blog you own, therefore just using the blog you buy just for content acquisition.
Honestly, there are many different reasons why you might want to buy a blog!
And luckily there are blogs that are available to buy for any budget or scenario.
Types of Blogs You Can Buy
There are two main types of blogs you can buy: monetized and non-monetized.
I have experience selling both of these types of blogs.
I have also bought both of these types of blogs.
Which type you buy will depend on your budget and what you’re looking for. Here’s an overview of each type of blog and what they typically cost:
Starter Blogs
Buying a non-monetized blog is what I call a “starter blog” and basically this would mean you are buying a blog that has content on it, but may or may not be getting any traffic, and is not making any money yet.
Starter blogs are a good option for anyone with a lower budget.
If you are new to blogging, you may want to buy a starter blog so you can skip over the process of creating a brand-new blog yourself. Starter blogs often come with a nice premium WordPress theme, have social media accounts already created, and have a number of blog posts already published.
I have also seen more experienced bloggers buy starter blogs just to use the content on them. For example, if you buy a blog with 50 blog posts on it for $2,000, then you’ve gotten each blog post for $40 which is a good rate, and you can move them over to your existing blog. This is easier and cheaper than hiring freelance writers or spending the time to write all that content by yourself.
A starter blog typically isn’t generating any revenue (or if it is, it’s a very low or irregular amount like $10 a month) and may or may not be getting any traffic.
You can expect to pay anywhere between $500 and $4,000 for a starter blog. A higher price will typically be for a blog that comes with a lot of content and is getting a little traffic and maybe even generating a little revenue.
Established Blogs
The other type of blog you can buy is an established blog.
This is going to be a blog that has a lot of content published and gets consistent traffic and revenue. The price will depend on its average monthly earnings.
You can typically expect to pay a 24x to 36x multiple for blogs. This means that you will pay 24x to 36x the average monthly earnings (after expenses) of the blog. So if a blog has generated $300 a month on average for the last 12 months, you could expect to pay between $7,200 and $10,800 for it.
Buying an established blog is better for an investor who has more capital, because obviously this can cost quite a bit more than buying a starter blog!
However, you are acquiring a profitable business that you can start earning money from right away, without having to build up the site any further.
Of course, many people buy blogs specifically so they CAN work on them more and further increase traffic and revenue in order to resell for a higher price later.
But you can also acquire a blog to earn passive income from.
What to Consider Before Buying a Blog
When you are looking for a blog to buy, there are a few considerations to keep in mind to make sure that you are getting a good deal.
First of all, the overall quality.
I’ve seen a lot of really poor quality content on blogs for sale, both starter blogs and established blogs. Personally, I would not want to buy a blog if it doesn’t appear to have high quality and well-written content on it. It makes me think the seller didn’t put much care into the blog when they worked on it.
For established blogs, you also want to look closely at traffic and income.
How does the blog get its traffic? Is it mainly from organic Google search, Pinterest, or social media? Is traffic consistent or are there seasonal spikes and dips? Has traffic stayed stable, or been on an upward or downward trend over the past year? Which blog posts bring the most traffic? Is it evenly spread through a number of posts, or just a couple posts bringing the majority of the traffic?
And then you want to consider the income.
How is the blog monetized? Display ads, affiliates, sponsored posts, digital products, something else? Will you be able to stay on the same ad network when you buy the sit? Will the affiliate accounts be included in the sale? Is income trending up or down? Does it tend to fluctuate seasonally?
Also consider what other assets are included in the sale: social media accounts, email subscribers, and so on. These can add to the value of a site.
Due Diligence Process
When you buy a blog, you always have to do your own due diligence to a certain extent to vet the site and make sure everything looks good before you buy it.
However, a big benefit to buying a blog through a broker is that they will have typically pre-vetted the site and verified things like traffic and income.
Before you make an offer, you will have the opportunity to be added to the site’s Google Analytics account, so you can verify the traffic.
You will be able to review a P&L sheet showing income and expenses for the blog, as well as screenshots showing proof of income.
I highly recommend going through a broker when buying a blog.
It doesn’t cost you anything extra (the seller is the one who will pay the broker’s fee) and gives you more peace of mind. Although again, it’s important to do your own due diligence before buying a blog to make sure everything is in order.
My Experience Buying Blogs
As I mentioned, I have now bought several blogs myself.
The first blog I bought, I paid $2,000 for. It was a great blog with quite a bit of content on it already, and it was getting around 8,000 pageviews a month from Google, but the previous owner hadn’t been able to spend time on it or monetize because she was busy running her other main blog.
I was able to come in, put ads on the site, add some Amazon affiliate links, and start earning right away! This site made around $60 a month without me having to do a single thing with it, and I was able to sell it for a nice profit.
This is just one example of what you can do buying a blog!
I could have also held onto the blog for longer and attempted to grow the traffic and income further, and sell it for a larger profit in a year or two.
But to be honest, I was not really interested in the niche of this blog and so I decided to just do a quick flip on so I could pursue other ventures.
Where to Buy Blogs
Now that I’ve covered most everything you need to know about how to buy a blog, let’s talk about where you can actually find blogs to buy
- Blogs for Sale: I have worked with Chelsea at Blogs for Sale many times. She frequently adds new blog listings to her website Blogs for Sale. You can find non-monetized starter blogs and established monetized blogs.
- Motion Invest: This is another website brokerage selling established blogs and niche websites. There are some affordable listings here if you’re on a budget.
- Investors Club: They sell established niche websites earning at least $500 a month. So not the best place to look if you have a very limited budget.
- Empire Flippers: Empire Flippers sells all types of established online businesses, including blogs. You will find that most of these listings are on the higher end when it comes to price, with some listings up to a million dollars.
- Flippa: This is an independent marketplace, meaning they don’t vet every blog for sale, so you have to be careful. However, you can find a lot of non-monetized starter blogs and established monetized blogs here.
- Facebook groups: There are multiple groups on Facebook where you can buy blogs (typically non-monetized starter blogs or established blogs at lower price points.) You will need to be careful when vetting potential purchases.
These are the best places to find blogs to buy.
What to Do Next
Once you’ve found a blog that you would like to buy, you can put in an offer for it. You can offer the asking price, or try to negotiate.
If a blog is really good it will sell quickly and may sell for above asking price, so there probably won’t be much room for negotiation. I have unfortunately lost several blogs I was trying to buy because of this!
When you purchase a blog, you will typically put the money in escrow first while the seller transfers everything over to you. The website, domain name, social media accounts, any other accounts included in the sale, and so on.
Once you have everything and have inspected it to make sure it looks good, you can release the funds from escrow and the sale is complete!
How to Buy a Blog
I hope you found this guide on how to buy a blog helpful!
Buying a blog can be a great investment with an incredible rate of return.
For example, if you buy a blog that is earning $1,000 a month for $30,000 (a 30x multiple) and you didn’t do anything at all, you could keep it for a year, earn $12,000 from it, and then turn around and sell it again for $30,000 or more.
Or let’s say you did the same thing, but worked on improving the blog, adding more content, and increasing the income. In two years you might have increased the income to $2,000 a month, so you would have earned between $12,000 and $24,000 from the blog while you owned it, and then you could sell it for $60,000.
These are both really great returns on investment.
Even if you buy a blog that is not monetized, you can bypass the startup phase of creating and growing a new site, and start earning money faster.
There are many benefits to buying a blog and it can be very lucrative!
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