Selling your website? Here’s why you need to clean it up before the vultures arrive!

If you are in the market to sell your website, you need to be prepared for buyer’s to try to tear your website apart. Not literally, of course, but to get a better deal the vultures will pick out the smallest of flaws in your site. The only way you can avoid the vultures and get buyers to agree to your asking price is by making sure your site is in top shape before you set out to sell it.

There are certain elements within a website that are easy to pick apart, while others require more in-depth analysis. We will cover all of these elements so your website is as clean as possible before you sell it, whether that be on an auction or through a broker such as Kingmakers.

Make the site design more appealing

The design of a site is one of the first things a buyer will notice. We all know the importance of first impressions, so you don’t want them to think your site is generic or bland. This will automatically put them off and turn buyers away.

While elements of Flash and JavaScript are not well-received by search engines, as they increase page load time, there are many other options users have at their disposal to liven up their website. Use videos, images, and attractive colors to make your site design more appealing.

Aesthetically, your site design should be at its best in order to sell it for its most. If buyers like the design, they will be more interested in hearing about what else the site has to offer them.

Make sure the website is optimized

Everyone is aware of how optimization is important for search engines. You need to focus on both on-page and off-page optimization tactics to get the most out of your website. Have a content marketing strategy so that your website ranks as high as possible.

While the content strategy is very important, there is more to site optimization. A properly optimized website also focuses on making a profit for the business. While SEO is vital to that process, there are a few more elements you need to focus on. SEO will help bring in the traffic and improve your content, design, and overall message on the site.

However, you still need to be able to convert those visitors into sales. You can’t expect visitors to buy or sign up for your solution just because you were one of the top search results. This means having a proper call-to-action on your site to ensure that the bounce rate is low and that visitors are prompted to take action.

Go mobile

With more mobile users today accessing the internet, you need to make sure your site is optimized for mobile access. Not only do users appreciate this, but search engines do as well. They give preference to sites that are mobile-optimized. Buyers will check to make sure your site is optimized for mobile devices so that you are appearing high in all search engines.

There is more to optimizing a site for mobile devices than just making it responsive. Yes, responsiveness helps in adjusting the size of the site size to adjust for different screens. However, you also need to make sure the images, videos, and features you have on your site work and function on mobile devices. Only then will you have a completely mobile-optimized site.

Enhance user experience

User experience has become a vital part of SEO, and at the same time ensures that users remain on your website. Do you remember the last site where you waited for over 10 seconds for it to load? You probably can’t—because you ended up closing out of that site. Little elements like load time make a huge impact on users, which is why you need to ensure that development elements of your site are high performing.

To ensure your site loads quickly, here are some little things you can do: Host any videos on video streaming sites and embed them to your site. This way videos won’t add more weight, which adds to load time, to your site. Limit the use of Flash and JavaScript. As appealing as they look, both add a lot of weight to your site.

Optimize images by resizing them before putting them on the site. With high-resolution pictures reaching well above 10 MB, you need to keep the file size as small as possible while also maintaining picture resolution. Programs such as Photoshop allow you to reduce file size while maintaining image quality.

You also want to make sure that the site makes it easy for users to find what they want. Integrating a search tab along with a site map can help achieve that. These will make it easier for users to get the information they are searching for, ensuring that they keep coming back for more.

Monetize the site, if needed

For those interested in selling a site that doesn’t sell a solution, such as a blog, you can easily monetize it before you sell it. Here are two main ways to monetize your site:

Google ads: You can host Google ads directly on your site with Google Adsense. It’s simple: the more visitors that come and click through to these ads from your website, the more money you make. You just need to make sure that your site has high traffic for this tactic to be fruitful.

Affiliate marketing: This is a great way for bloggers to monetize their sites. Big brands such as Amazon have affiliate marketing programs where sites that host and promote the big brand’s product get a commission for each product that is sold when clicked through from your site.

Selling a website isn’t as easy as you may think. You need to ensure your website is in complete order to get your asking price. If not, chances are you will be met with offers from vultures, who will pick your site’s flaws apart and pitch low-ball offers.