What’s Your Blog Worth?

Philip Liu proposes factors in assessing the sale value of a blog. You might not be selling your blog, but you should check how it performs against these factors.

1. Age – How long has the blog been in existence?
2. Quantity of posts – How many posts does the blog have?
3. Frequency of posts – How often is the blog updated?
4. Quality of posts – What is the relevance, currency and depth of the posts?
5. Design – How does the design relate to the content? Does the design convey the appropriate feelings for a visitor to the site? Is the design appropriate for the subject matter? Can the design be improved?
6. Monetization avenues – Has the site fully explored all monetization possibilities and revenue streams?
7. Personality – Does the content of the site convey a particular personality? Is that personality desirable and/or congruent with the future direction of the site?
8. Subscriber quantity – How many subscribers does the site have?
9. Subscriber loyalty – How likely are the subscribers going to continue after a change in ownership?
10. Subscriber growth – How likely am I able to grow the subscriber base after a change in ownership?
11. Cult of personality – How many of the subscribers are subscribers because of the person who is writing the blog posts and what are the costs should that person leave?
12. Statistics – What are the sources of the traffic the site receives?
13. Number of authors – How many writers are there for the blog? What are the opportunities for growing the blog by adding more authors after a sale?
14. Real costs – What are the current and future anticipated costs of running the blog?
15. Intangible costs – What are the non-out of pocket and opportunity costs you expect to incur to implement the above improvements? For example, what is your sweat equity worth?
16. Transferability of revenue streams – Are the revenue streams transferable to the new owner or do they go with the seller?
17. ROI timeframe – How fast do you expect a return on your investment?
18. Current revenue – How much does the blog take in on a monthly basis now?

Not all of us can sell a bunch of blogs for $25 million, but we can at least make sure our blogs consistently create value for our readers.

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