How to Analyze Content When Buying AdSense Information Websites
By far the most popular type of website that website buyers request from us is AdSense information websites. These are essentially websites that provide information to website visitors and earn revenue from AdSense or other forms of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.
Examples of AdSense information websites include news websites and blogs. The blog you are reading right now is an example of an AdSense information website.
Of course, information can be disseminated in multiple forms such as text, images, and videos. But in this article, we will focus on text-based information. We will focus on websites that provide articles to readers.
Let us look at 5 factors that a website buyer must analyse carefully before buying an AdSense information website:
1. Length of Content
The first thing every website buyer must look at is how long the content on the information website is. Some information websites have short articles of less than 250 words. Other websites have articles of up to 1,000 words. I’ve even come across a lot of personal development blogs in which the authors of these blogs write articles as long as 5,000 words.
There is no required length of content for any type of website. The length of content appropriate for any website depends on the subject matter and the readers’ preference.
For example, readers of personal development blogs are more likely to to enjoy more detailed in-depth and long articles than, say, readers of gossip blogs. Gossip blog readers want their information short and quick. They want to quickly find out what happened in entertainment recently. They are not interested in reading long detailed articles.
As a website buyer, it’s important for you to understand the appropriate length of content that you will be required to produce after you acquire the website. The rule of thumb is to produce content of similar length to the previous website owner.
2. Frequency of Content
The next aspect of content that you have to analyse is how often the content is produced by the website owner.
Some blog and website authors publish new articles every day. Other writers publish articles once or twice a week. As a website buyer, you must establish the frequency of content on the information website.
As with the length of content above, you must, at the very minimum, maintain the same frequency of content. If the previous website owner published one article per day, then you should also aim to publish at least one article per day.
3. Quality of Content
You must assess the quality of the website’s content. Ideally, you want to buy a website in which the previous website owner published unique content. That is, content that is unique to the website and is owned by the website seller.
The last thing you want is to buy a website whose content is also available on multiple other websites. After all, the value in an information website is content. You want to ensure that you invest in and acquire the very best content possible.
If the website’s content is not unique, it doesn’t mean it’s not a good investment. But as a website buyer, you should expect to pay less for such a website than, say, a website that publishes 100% unique content.
A quick check of the website URL at Copyscape will tell you whether the content is unique or not.
4. Expert Content
In line with quality of content discussed above, you have to establish whether you have the required knowledge to produce articles of the same level of quality as the previous website owner. Some websites require expert knowledge, especially if you are buying a specialist website.
You have to ask yourself the question “Do I have the knowledge required to create these articles myself?”
If you do have this knowledge, how much time will it take to create new articles?
If you do not have this knowledge, you may have to outsource content creation to experts. How much would it cost you to do this?
This extra cost may not be an expense incurred by the previous website owner and therefore will not show up in their financials. You must therefore account for the extra cost to you to operate this website successfully.
5. Extra Cost of Content
In situations where the website buyer has to incur extra costs to create new articles for the website, many website buyers expect the website seller to reduce the website’s asking price to account for this extra cost.
The fact is that this extra cost is not the website seller’s responsibility. This is a cost that the website buyer has to incur because of the buyer’s inability to produce the same quality of content or frequency of content or length of content as the previous website owner. As such, most website sellers will not and should not reduce their asking price in this scenario. This is the website buyer’s responsibility.
Website Buyer’s New Content Strategy
Finally, as a website buyer, when you acquire the information website, at the very least, you should maintain the website operations that the previous website owner did. The primary objective is to maintain the same level of content, and therefore, maintain the levels of traffic and revenues to the website.
Do not do less than the previous website owner. AdSense information websites are considered passive income websites. However, passive income does not mean that the new website owner has to do nothing in order to receive the same level of cash-flow as the previous website owner. At the very least, the new owner has to do the same amount of work as the previous owner to maintain the same level of cash-flow.
Of course, as a website buyer, you can do more work than the previous website owner. In fact, that is what you should aim to do in order to increase the level of revenues on the website. In this way, you increase your profits and return on investment (ROI).
Author: Kris Tabetando
Kris Tabetando provides mergers & acquisitions (M&A) advisory and brokerage services to Internet companies. He also partners with investors to acquire & manage Internet businesses.
- Connect with Kris:
