Ever Thought About Buying a Blog?
Have any of you bloggers ever considered buying a blog…one that’s already well established? I noticed yesterday that Collis Ta’eed, best known as the founder and designer behind Freelance Switch, has put his NorthxEast blog up for sale. I have to admit, I was surprised. Collis started this blog back in February of this year, and has steadily built the readership up to about 2000 RSS subscribers. NorthxEast.com also served as the launching pad for the super-successful Freelance Switch.
This would be a great opportunity for someone trying to get into full-time blogging. You could start from scratch like most, or you could step right into a ready-made profitable web business. The blog already has 2k subscribers at only one post per week. If a talented writer bought the blog and wrote 3-5 times or more per week, I’m betting the subscriber-ship would definitely grow. (Unfortunately, I’m not a very talented writer, myself. 
) You not only get an established blog and domain name, but also the excellent design. Collis’ websites sport some of the best looking blog designs on the web IMHO.
So, have any of you ever considered buying a website? What elements would help you determine what the site is worth? If you’re interested in NorthxEast, you can hop on over to Sitepoint and place a bid.
What an interesting question!! Wow - I can’t believe that NorthxEast is up for sale… that seems like a fantastic opportunity. I’m not sure how that would work - of course you’d run the risk of losing subscribers is the content was very similar but if it was - wow. I think part of the deal would have to be a very positive hand off by the blog owner letting subscribers know that the buyer was credible and worthy.
I haven’t considered buying a blog before, but this makes me really think about the possibilities!
Christine
I would have been a lot more skeptical, but I’ve seen other blogs continue to grow after the ownership has changed hands. NetBusinessBlog, for insance.
I think the fact that Collis started using a couple of different authors in the last few months, sets NorthxEast up for a smooth transition. However, whoever buys it will have to come up with super-quality content in order to follow the footsteps of Collis Ta’eed, Leo Babauta, etc.
That’s very interesting…any idea how much he’s selling it for?
It’s being sold by auction. There are 14 days left at this point, and the current bid is about $3500.
it’s at $5,500 now, I guess Collis could sell NxE for at least 12 grand (and surely more than that). Jane May sold careerramblings.com for something like 20G (5-6 months old when it was sold I think), some blogs are perceived to be worth much more than they are actually worth. NxE is an awesome blog, so I’m sure Collis will get a nice amount
You can’t really put a price tag on a blog though, it’s worth as much as someone is actually willing to pay for it (imo)
You got that right, Jon. You could really say that about anything I guess. It will be interesting to see how this plays out over the next couple of weeks….
It’s kind of odd that they’d sell it … I mean, it is their flagship “blog about blogging”.
I’m sure he’ll get a good price for it though.
Jon is definitely right about not being able to put a price tag on a blog.
I guess the real question that I’d ask myself is after the purchase would I still be able produce quality content that would allow me to get a good return on investment. Really making the initial purchase is just half the battle.
ClarkeW, you could get 7-8 people to invest say $500-$700 to buy it, and each write 1 post per week, and split the revenues, so it’s not time-consuming, still high-quality content, and everyone sees profits
Yeah thats definitely not a bad idea at all. My biggest problem is finding enough time to dedicate to projects.
I know the feeling. Truth is, there will never be enough time. Sometimes it’s tough, but you have to decide what to spend the time you have on by figuring out what will serve you best…..not always an easy thing to do.
I’m actually more interested in buying a website ranked higher by Google and putting a blog on it.
You can find more websites being sold with high page ranks and getting a better deal. I bought a page rank 7 website the other day for $80. I’m putting a WP-blog up soon so we can see how it turns out.[ $80 page rank 7 vs. $5,500 page rank 4] I’ll take my chances!!!