Selling Website Checklist

selling websites checklist

I’ve been selling off some of the sites that no longer fit into my overall plans, and thought I’d share with you what steps to take before transferring the site to the new owner.

Of course, you need to make sure the funds you get are real. So far, I sold my sites to people I’ve known online for a while, but if you sell on Flippa.com or other similar site, you need to make sure you are not dealing with a fraudster (is that even a word?)

Once you have the funds in your hands, its time to start the transfer process.

1. Initiate domain transfer at your domain registrar. The steps you need to take depend on your registrar: my domains are registered with GoDaddy and I needed the buyer’s customer name or number, and the email associated with their account.

2. Go through the site’s files and delete irrelevant ones. I don’t know about you, but if you owned the site you are selling for any length of time, you’re bound to find things that are not intended for others to see/have: personal pictures, paid plugins or programs, specific landing pages for PPC campaigns you tried, keyword research, and more. I found all of the above on the site I sold today.

3. Download the site to your computer, zip it and send it to your buyer. If it’s a WordPress site, make sure to backup the database, as well as the files.

With the sale of a site, there are other opportunities. For example, if the buyer is a first time website owner, they’ll need a good host, possibly an auto-responder, and sometimes even help getting going.

Make sure to have a list of the services you use, with affiliate links when appropriate, and not only will you help your buyer, buyer you’ll also make a little more money in the process.

If you sold a site, did you do anything different?

Desktop Clutter – How is it Affecting Your Productivity?

desktop clutter

It’s confession time: I can no longer see all items on my desktop. There! I said it. I don’t know how others organize their information, but I definitely have a problem. I want to have everything right there, in front of me, so I can find it. But, by doing that, I am actually making matters worse.

I noticed I waste a lot of time looking for the right document, and many times can’t find what I am looking for.

So, what are all those folders you see on my desktop? Here is just a sampling:

• PLR articles
• PDF documents I “saved” to “read later”
• ghostwritten articles I commissioned as far back as 2 years ago, and still haven’t used
• programs I use on a daily basis
• client website backups
• website projects I started and never finished
• a lot more…

Over the next few days, the plan is to re-organize my desktop folders, delete old or outdated files, and find a better way to keep my desktop organized.

I’d love to hear how you keep your computer organized.

How to Lose $200 a Day

losing money

It’s not something anyone plans to do, but it happens to some of us. As I am pondering over my life as an entrepreneur, I see I’ve made some mistakes that took me off my course.

I started online in October of 2000 with a gift basket site: I knew nothing about building or maintaining a website, SEO, or how to run a business for that matter.

In the process of learning how to bring potential customers to my site, I not only learned how to rank well in Google, but I also learned about AdSense and affiliate marketing.

And with that knowledge, I began to suffer from the “shiny object syndrome”, as some call it. I wanted to test everything I learned, and so I started accumulating a new domain for every new project I thought I needed.

I also started to look for other ways to make money online (sound familiar?), and so I lost my focus. I went from making a consistent $200/day to sometimes only $10/day.

I learned a lot in the past few years, but how is that good if I can’t get out of learning mode? Just learning something new every day will not help me unless I make a decision to follow through and apply what I learned.

So, I’ve been pondering where to take my business form here on, and I decided I need to get back to basics. I already started “trimming the unnecessary fat”:

• gave away several domains I didn’t have time to develop
• sold a site I lost interest in
• let a few other domains expire
• started this blog to share my journey back to a profitable online business

Are you making the same mistake? If so, it’s time to look at your business and decide today to focus: one project at the time!

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