Website Deal Flow (Jan 31): 4 Listings

In this week’s newsletter, Colin Ma picks one listing on the Flippa Marketplace, one on Empire Flippers, and one at Investors Club. Plus a featured listing on the Money Nomad Marketplace.

January 31, 2023

Hey there 👋,

And we’re back with a dedicated Website Deal Flow newsletter!

Aged SEO domain picks are now in a separate newsletter called Dropping Domains where I’ve teamed up with top SEO domains expert Sean Markey. The first email was sent yesterday, here’s the post if not seen it yet.

This is part of the ACQUIRE.GG newsletter network on Substack I’m building, check it out.

Anyway, back to websites, the main reason you signed up in the first place!

I previously asked whether I should go wider than showcasing Flippa listings in a poll and this was the result:

As such, this newsletter will now start to cover all marketplaces, and I’m happy to say that for this newsletter, I’ve teamed up with top website builder and investor Colin Ma who is soon launching his own Substack (I seem to be convincing everyone to do this!).

I previously worked with Colin where he wrote the deal flow emails for the Website Investing newsletter which I sold to Travis and became investing.io. This was recently featured in They Got Acquired.

Before we get to the listings, here is our content site criteria and terminology.

And here are the Top 20 Upside Wins for Website Acquisitions (an Insights Report in partnership with TreasureHunter) that you can look to apply to your website acquisitions:

Cheers!

ps sponsorship opportunities are now available (both sponsored ad and classified), just hit reply to this email or connect at richard[at]acquire.gg if interested

Flippa

Over the last week, there were 21 new content site listings on Flippa earning > $100/m with verified traffic (GA integration) over 2 years in age:

Small content sites ($100/m to $500/m in profit) - currently 58 listings, 9 new listings (9 auction, 0 classified)

Medium content sites ($500/m-$5K/m in profit) - currently 96 listings, 12 new listings (8 auction, 4 classified)

Large content sites (over $5K/m in profit) - currently 21 listings, 0 new listings (0 auction, 0 classified)

Colin’s Thoughts

This site in the health space has a lot of potenital, but is not for the faint of heart. Because the site is in the YMYL space and the particular sub-niche, there is likely some volatility in these SERPs. That said, an experienced and confident SEO can likely take this site to great heights.

With a brandable domain there are no shortage of topics that can be written about. Currently, the content isn’t focused on a particular subject, I suggest that the new owner double down on the existing content that works to go deeper on a particular subject, instead of trying to cover as many topics as possible.

The biggest (and easiest) opportunity lies in adding an ad network. The site currently qualifies for Mediavine and may qualify for Adthrive in a few months. Adding an ad network can increase revenue up to 30%.

Overall, this site has plenty of levers to pull to be grown, but I wouldn’t recommend this for a new investor. Instead, this is much better suited for mid or high-level SEOs due to the trickiness of the current sub-niche and the importance of EAT for this site.

What Colin likes:

  • Brandable domain

  • High value per visitor

  • Unique niche

  • Rising traffic and revenue

  • Adding an ad network can increase revenue up to 30%

What Colin doesn’t like:

  • Poor EAT, especially for a YMYL site

  • Top page gets 74% of site’s traffic according to Ahrefs

Empire Flippers

8 new content site listings on EF this week (i.e. Amazon Associates, Affiliate, Display Advertising).

Colin’s Thoughts

This content site in the animal niche is a great opportunity for someone who is familiar with both SEO and utilizing social media to drive traffic. Investors looking solely to leverage their SEO skills should stay away since there are 2 other traffic sources bringing ~15% of the site’s traffic.

Because of how broad the niche is, there are an unlimited amount of content topics that could be written. So far, much of the content has been targeted to do well for both social media and SEO. Product reviews could help drive organic traffic and increase the $ per visitor. On the content side I recommend creating content around one specific animal at a time so that the site can focus on topical depth, instead of topical breadth.

Overall, this is a solid site for an involved operator who has SEO and social media skills who is looking to reinvest into the site to grow it to its potential.

What Colin likes:

  • Diversified traffic - 16% traffic comes from social and 15% of traffic comes from referrals

  • Increasing Revenue

  • Includes Facebook groups with 550K+ followers, and a Pinterest account with 140K+ followers

  • Traffic goes to a diverse set of pages - the top 3 account for less than 5% of the site’s traffic

What Colin doesn’t like:

  • Decreasing organic traffic

  • Guest post revenue

Promoted Listing

Content website for sale in the "Disney" niche, offered at $50,904.

  • TTM average profit: $1,414

  • 1,050,033 pageviews in 2022

  • Evergreen content

  • 21,600 person email list

  • 455 member private Facebook group

  • 98% of revenue comes from MediaVine

Investor’s Club

Colin’s Thoughts

This content site in the cat niche is one worthy of consideration for anyone looking for a more established business that can be run semi-passively. With 800+ pages the site has plenty of topical relevance to continue to receive solid traffic.

The current owners have done a solid job growing the business and optimizing it - unfortunately, this leaves little room for quick wins, making it a poor choice for anyone looking for a quick flip. Instead, this is better suited for medium to long-term investors who are looking for slower, but more consistent gains.

That said, the site may have been affected by a January update. If the site lost more than 15% of its traffic (compared to October since I want to account for seasonality), then it becomes less attractive.

What Colin likes:

  • Increasing revenue and pageviews

  • Solid EAT

  • Income is diversified across multiple streams

  • Traffic goes to a diverse set of pages

  • 800+ pages to optimize

What Colin doesn’t like:

  • Might have lost traffic in January

  • No obvious easy upside

Ok that’s all from this week, if you’ve not yet subscribed you can do so below:

Cheers!

Important Disclaimer: Not financial, investing or tax advice. This newsletter is strictly for information, entertainment and education purposes. Nothing in here is investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Talk to your professional advisors. Do your own research. This newsletter is monetized through affiliate links and sponsorship.

Reply

or to participate.