$200k Exit Experiment

(This is Part 1a of a long series of posts. If you're wondering who I am or why I'm here, start by reading this post: https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/ivetriedthat/blog/9-good-years )

I want to sell one of my sites for $200,000.

Why $200,000? Well, it's a realistic goal and a valuation that I feel like I can hit in a relatively short amount of time (6 months to 1 year is my timeline) as long as everything aligns and I'm able to kick some of my plans into high gear.

It's also a valuation that I know I've almost hit before. So if I've come close once, who's to say I can't do it again?

Knowing Where I've Been

To kick things off, I need to evaluate the current state of the site and the trend it's been in this past year.

Here's a look at this year's numbers so far:

Bear in mind, I have not touched this site in over 6 months. Despite the drop from January to February, this site has been amazingly consistent.

I was sort of hoping I'd notice a severe drop in RPMs because that would point to an extremely obvious and easy fix, but alas, this site is chugging along just fine.

Takeaway #1: What's it worth?

I would estimate this site would easily sell for $50,000 today.

Honestly probably more, any expert digging into the site's portfolio would see some obvious wins, ones that I myself am hoping to uncover to bump that valuation up.

The site has excellent branding and even more potential. I could easily see a bidding war breaking out.

Takeaway #2: How do I bump the value?

The biggest thing I see is the RPMs are consistent. For every 1,000 visitors, I'm making about $60 on average.

The site is currently averaging about 700 visits per day. At it's absolute peak in December 2020, there were on average 2,400 visits per day.

Just getting the site's traffic back up to where it was would put me near a $200k valuation alone.

If I were writing this out in a journal, I would have grabbed a red pen and circled that previous sentence, then I would have found a highlighter and marked it up, then I would have had it tattooed across my forehead.

I have about $120,000 in value that diminished over the past 2.5 years because I got lazy.

Man, writing that out hurts.

Oh well, that's why we are here.

Figuring Out Where I'm Going

I have a few immediate goals.

Goal #1: Re-establish the site's authority

I come from a day when screennames were popular. It was okay to hide anonymously behind a pen name, and I did (and still do to some extent)

This site was even worse as the only author on that site exists as a first name only. No pictures, no LinkedIns, no social profiles, no clue that this person even exists at all.

Even worse, it could technically be argued that the site is giving financial advice. Anonymity won't cut it anymore. I'll be developing my writer profile under my full, legal name, with links out to whichever social platforms I use.

There is a real person behind this site and I'm going to let Google know it.

Goal #2: Update 60 articles ASAP

This site thrives when it's being provided with constant updates.

A large number of my top articles have fallen from spots 1-3 to 8, 9, 10, or to the graveyard that is page 2.

I'm taking a look at my top 60 articles and working my way through updating them to provide as quick of a boost as I can to traffic.

Goal #3: Get the old newsletter going again

I was easily gaining 50-60 new leads per day with the old newsletter and sending out updates on it about 3x per week.

I got lazy and the work felt monotonous, so I just kind of, forgot about it. I ended up paying several thousand dollars for a company to store a list of names for me in a database for the past few months.

This was incredibly stupid.

I'm going to revive that old list, start sending out regular updates again, and get new subscribers back in.

It'll get my traffic and ad revenues up, plus I'll have yet another asset to throw on the table when the time comes to sell.

See You in 2 Weeks

I'll provide another update again here soon.

I'm hoping we'll be able to see an immediate and obvious boost from just the updates alone.

I also feel like these are my best laid plans and, historically, planning has never gone well for me.

Time will tell I suppose.

Thanks for reading.

-Steve

PS. If anyone wants to drop $200,000 on a site right now and save me a ton of work, don't, uh, hesitate to reach out.