The Dangers of Buying a Blog
So, for a while now, I have been watching Sitepoint, and other places where you can buy and sell sites. I have also watched as numerous sites I know well have been bought and sold, and there is one major thing I have realized: on average, a site will lose up to a third of its traffic after being sold.
I know this is a generalization, but from what I have seen over the last couple of years proves to me that I am right, especially where blogs are concerned.
Most blogs are focused around a certain person or persons running the show. They post on the site, deal with advertising, and design. As a reader, you build up certain expectations and when a site is sold, all of these expectations crumble as the new owner always does something different with the site.
So my first piece of advice to a potential blog purchaser is to make sure that you factor in this drop, as pretty much nothing you can do will stop it from happening, and the stronger the personality of the original owner, usually the greater the drop in traffic.
An example being Paul Scrivens’ sites. The guy has a very strong personality, and a certain style of writing, but even more than that, he has fans that follow him around, and are interested in what he is doing. As soon as he leaves a site behind, a certain group leaves as well, and there is nothing the new owner can do other than hire Paul to write more articles on the site they have purchased.
So does that mean you shouldn’t buy a blog? Well, of course not. Buying a blog, even one with a strong personality can be a great business move, and allow you to access an audience you might have missed before you purchased the blog, but make sure you factor in this drop, and make it part of your plans.
When purchasing a blog, make sure you have some promotion methods in place, some big ideas, and some powerful writers to help carry the site through the transition, and remember, the more you change, the more you can expect the original audience to go somewhere else. It is a very hard business issue that is more apparent in blogs than pretty much any other type of site.
I would love you hear your ideas on other dangers you’ve experienced in buying or selling a blog, and if you have bought a blog, was there a traffic dip, and how did you combat it?
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No experiences but I do have a two-part question. Did Splashpress Media notice a significant traffic drop with the acquisition of DevLounge, and what big plans did the company put into place to counter it?
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Certainly,the typical visitors of the devlounge are dropped down.AS they were here for the aj’s articls.now aj is not here they’ll track other aj’s projects.Devlounge will evolve if they put some aspect on design and interview articles.
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If I recall correctly, AJ is still here, he just doesn’t write as much. I have seen him around here though.
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Splashpress Media has noticed a drop in pretty much every blog it has purchased. The drop hasn’t been enough that we wish we hadn’t bought the site, but it has been noticeable. I have only worked for Splashpress for a month now, and one of the things that both Thord and I are working on are ways to combat this slump.
We are very happy and lucky that aj has stayed on to do some posting. In fact, we wish he was around more, as we really enjoy his style.
Our plans focus on finding more contributors for this site with specialties in every major niche that this site covers as well as kicking myself in the butt to write some longer, more in depth posts for the audience that this site has. I never realized how die-hard some of you all, so I am excited about trying that.
It will definitely be great to see the site continue to evolve and change. And for those of you still reading, thank you!
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It’s maybe just me, but unless it was a very good deal, I’d never buy a blog. I haven’t seen one blog turnover, which would encourage me to buy a one of any sort.
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You are seeing a significant traffic drop because AJ cultivated not only the articles, but his marketing tactics. I am sure that he sold you the blog, not his marketing tactics.
One thing that many people who write articles lack, the actual knowledge of business.
AJ wrote articles that were a little more original, while I am not saying that your articles are horrible, they just lack the originality of someone who is learning, experiencing, and feeling the emotion of his own article.
You can’t be a teacher with no passion.
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Also, buying a blog is not bad!
Have you ever heard of buying out your competition? Well, business’ do it every single day. If you are really trying to make something via the internet. You are going to have to take real life business tactics and strategies to the web. One of which IS buying out your competitors!!!
If you have to buy a blog because you can’t design, originate, code, and write the articles yourself, DONT BUY IT! Because THAT is when it will fail. When you have no knowledge of what you are doing.
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I heard from the above post about traffic dropping off after purchasing a blog. What about the PR? Do the back links start to disappear? Anyone have any bad experiences dropping PR of a website or blog after a purchase?