How To Buy A Website Without Getting Scammed (Critical Tips)

Blogging and the number of websites is only growing with time. There are over 1.7 billion websites on the planet and the figures will only go up.

More and more people have started to believe that online marketing is a thing and actually, a very profitable thing if you know what you are doing.

This is inspiring thousands of marketers, business owners, and entrepreneurs all around the world to buy pre-built and well-established websites for consistent revenue as well as growth..

What you need to know is that the internet is one of the places where many customers can lose their money easily (like in seconds). The increasing demand for websites has led to the growth of many brokers in the field seeking to get money out by hook or crook.

Many business people get scammed of their hard-earned money multiple times by these brokers. Unfortunately, you can’t do anything about them but be very careful with what you do to save yourself from losing the capital.

You need to know how you should be going about buying websites without losing your money or getting scammed.

This post will be giving you some of the important and practical tips that you need to have at the back of your mind when you want to buy websites so that scammers don’t take your money away.

Secretly Analyze The Website’s Performance

Before you buy a website, it is critical to secretly check the website’s performance in all major aspects that matter such as what are the traffic sources, how the articles have been written, is the owner doing any black hat techniques to rank high on Google, what marketing strategies are bing used, and the domain age as well.

You can do that by utilizing various tools such as SimilarWeb and The Hoth’s services. You can do that for absolutely free and also, you will find how some scammers trick people by doing that.

Do Your Research About The Brokers

It will be very ideal that you check on the portfolio of the broker that you will be buying from. Make sure to look for brokers that have a reputable name in the industry.

They must be people or entities that are well known to be doing the service to people. Look for some of the people that have done business with them for assuring that you are doing business with the right person or company.

You can do that by reading reviews people share on YouTube, blogs, and social media. Here’s an example:

How to buy a website without getting scammed

You need to be careful about various red flags that can come about. Be cautious of any unprofessional dealings or things that are not ordinary.

Make sure the broker answers all of your questions. Take note of brokers that convince you to buy cheap websites or hyping some bad websites so that you can get interested in buying them.

These are the red flags that you must keep in mind. Getting a broker that many people recommend is the solution to making you build trust with them.

Deal with the brokers that are ready to give you full access to look at the website you intend to purchase.

Avoid the ones who are not comfortable with providing full access as they might be having something they don’t want you to see. I have been cheated for $5000 once by a broker because I just got excited to buy a ‘cheap’ website that generates ‘amazing’ profits.

Some well known brokers or platforms where you can buy websites are:

  1. Empire Flippers
  2. Motion Invest
  3. Flippa
  4. Shopify Exchange

Analyze The Website’s SEO

analyze website's SEO

Search engines play a significant role in helping the websites be seen easily on the internet. It is very important to look for websites with a strong SEO profile. It is never an easy task to optimize a website for search engines and if you get one that has been optimized the right way, it’s a positive sign.

It might cost you a lot of money and time to optimize the site for SEO, hence the solution is to go for websites that have a high authority already. Make sure that the keywords that they rank for will relate to the customers that you intend to serve.

SEO performance is an indicator of a good website as it shows the overall potential of the website.

You hence need to go for the websites that have been performing well. Most website sellers know that this is a thing that many buyers put focus on and they can try to trick you.

While it is important to have a website that is ranked high on the search engines, you need to be very cautious going through it.

Look At The Traffic And The Growth Potential

Getting good traffic will always be important in helping one realize the profit on investment. It is very important that you lookout for a website that gets a good amount of traffic every single month.

Having a good amount of traffic will show the growth potential of a website. It is easier to grow if you have many people coming to the website every single month.

You, therefore, need to go for the sites that will not be burdening you but instead grow with just a little bit of effort. Good traffic is essential in showing steady growth.

Look if the keywords that the website rank for have high and consistent search volume. Steady growth is a good indicator of strong marketing strategies. You can check the traffic by using various SEO tools such as Ubersuggest or Ahrefs.

Have A Look At The Niche’s Seasonability

You definitely would not like to spend a hundred thousand dollars on a website that generate revenue only for 3 months in a year, right?

Would you do that? Of course not, right? Hence, before you go about buying a website, you should look at the niche seasonability by having a search in Google Trends.

Here’s an example of a website I was about to spend a lot of money on but saved myself from getting into a lot of trouble because I looked at the seasonability.

buy a website without getting scammed: niche seasonability

If the topic has a constant search interest that is steadily growing with time, it’s a good deal. If not, do your research before you make the purchase.

Does The Website Have Evergreen Content Or Trendy Topics?

Many times it happens that you buy a website that is doing fairly well in terms of traffic and revenue but suddenly, all the traffic starts doing down because people are no longer interested in the topic(s) anymore.

Think about how fidget spinners were a trendy thing for a while and suddenly, everything went down. You need to be aware about this as well.

What Content Management System Does The Website Use?

Other than this, you should check which CMS (Content Management System) is the website using. Majority of the websites use WordPress and it is recommended to all marketers, business professionals, and bloggers in general who are looking for steady growth.

If the website is using Blogger.com or Wix.com, you probably don’t want those websites because WordPress provides way better functionality for you and your team to work with flexibility. Make sure you check that out.

Check The Website’s Value With Valuation Tools

website valuation tools to save yourself from frauds

Once you are confident that the website is generating revenue and everything is good, you will have to check the website’s actual valuation with the help of valuation tools.

You might find someone asking $50000 for a website that is worth $40000. Why would you waste extra $10000 when the actual website’s worth is $40000, right?

Hence, it is important to consider the valuation of the website(s) as well. This could be done by using Empire Flippers’ Valuation Tool or any other trustworthy valuation tool out there on the internet.

Have A Look At The Monetization Methods

If you are buying a website for a better revenue stream, you need to analyze the monetization methods as well. If the website is mostly dependent only on one way of monetization such as Amazon affiliate marketing or just an info product, it might lead you to face many problems in the future.

Think about how Amazon slashed their commission rates. What if something like that happens with your website and you lose 50% of the revenue overnight?

The will be nothing more than a scam, right? Thus, you need to make sure that the website has the potential to be monetized diversely.

Finalize Meeting In Person If Possible

Doing face-to-face business is one strategy that helps people avoid scamming. Having a face-to-face discussion will be very important in helping you know the person that you will be dealing with.

It will be easier for you to have a look at the website and check on all the parameters you want. It is very important as you will only hand over the money after being satisfied you have the right website.

It is very hard for one to be conned face to face as you will need to do all the confirmations before doing the purchase.

You can always meet in public and in safer places just for security. If you lack the knowledge of what to look at, it is never a sin to bring someone with experience along to help you out.

This is very important for you as you will be realizing the fishy activities instantly. Avoid relying on screenshots to prove to you that the website is performing well.

Meeting in person helps you get to view the performance as the screenshots might sometimes be altered.

Many brokers can Photoshop screen and dupe you badly. Meeting in person helps you get to view all the parameters that you consider important by yourself. Some sellers even fake screenshots on their Amazon Associates’ account to befool you but when you meet in person, that could not be done.

Also, if in case you can’t meet, you can ask for a one-on-one video chat and reduce the chances of being tricked. But even doing that, you have to be extremely cautious. Keeping asking the person questions after questions unless he has no fake answers to give.

Make Payments Through Safe Websites

Having proof of payment is always crucial when buying anything. You need to buy the product and have a means of proving it.

This is always powerful in helping you in case a lawsuit ensures. Having safe payment sites is also very important to help you avoid being scammed. You can always look for websites like Escrow that can handle the money on your behalf.

This is going to be safe as you will be authorizing the payment to be done only after confirming the product. Sometimes, the scammer will convince you to buy via any other site to save the broker’s fee but that should not be agreed on in any case.

If you have to make payments to the brokers, it is always advisable to use debit cards. It can be easier to report a fraud claim if you realize that things are not going well.

Your bank can freeze the account and the transaction will not go through. You, therefore, need to be very intense on how to make payments as the money is always the interest of many scammers.

Check The Website’s Revenue Properly

You must be sure of the operating cost that you will be going to incur but you must also check the money you will spend compared to the profits you will be getting.

Know the cost of hosting the website and be sure that there is no hidden cost. This will be helping you know if the website will be profitable or not.

Don’t be scammed toward believing higher revenues lead to better profits. A website might be earning $4000 a month but if $2000 are the expenses, why would you pay a high price for that, right?

Assess the cost of operation critically to avoid websites that are being dumped because it is making losses. It will be important to know if the website will need you to hire employees or just do business with freelancers (which is easy).

Know all the skill sets that will be needed to run the website for you not to be stranded after purchase.

Do have a check on the money it will cost you to hire the needed human resource and compare the profits at the end. Knowing the cost of running the business will be a very important factor that will help you make an informed decision.

You will know whether you are getting a profit-making website or going to run at a loss.

In Conclusion

Having a website for your business will be important in helping it grow to the next level as more and more people will shop and look for information online. While there are many scammers out there, you should not let the fear make you stagnate with low profits.

It will be good to comprehend what to anticipate while buying the website and make well-informed decisions that you won’t regret in the future. Looking at the points highlighted in this post will help make you avoid scammers.

You will be having an upper hand and the right ideas to help you face the market with confidence. These highlights will help you save your business and avoid scammers that can hurt your finances.

Whether you are a big business or an interested individual who wants to buy websites for generating passive income, keeping these things in mind will surely help you out.

Buying websites will be a very simple and exciting task if you put all the mentioned tips into practice.

You must, therefore, be observant when going into the market to make a purchase of a website. You must look into the ways that will be helping you get out from the dangers of being scammed.

You should understand how the scammers do their trade for you not to fall victim. You can always be safe if you look into some important elements that will be guiding you through the purchase process.

I hope you found this post helpful. If you have got any questions or suggestions, feel free to jump into the comments section down below and let the community know what you think.

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