To Sell or Not To Sell ?

[Expert]

I have a gambling site and I think to sell it.

I registered it on December 2007. I bought 2000 unique articles on last 7 months.

I have one staff who is putting the pages online.

One staff for optimization.

One for article marketing, and one for link building.

I am buying paid links and bidding directories for last 3-4 months.

As it is a new site, it hasn' t good rankings and visitors yet. I think it will be out of sandbox in 2-3 months.

And I don' t know how much I earn from this site because I had other sites at the past and most of revenue that I earn now is probably from them.

So in last 7 months I spent :

$60,000 for articles (last 7 months)

$12,000 for links (last 3 months)

$ 2,500 for bid directories (last 4 months)

$ 15,000 for staff (last 7 months)

$ 1,500 for hosting (last 7 months)


Totaly $ 91,000

My earning per visitor is high ($12 per visitor). So I know that when I am out of sandbox, 7600 visitors will give my investment back to me, as there is 2000 pages professional written unique content.

I must continue to pay $4000/ monthly for links. The problem is my budget for investment is almost finished.

I have to drop links? (which will cause 3 months and of $12,000 links)

or

the best choice is selling the site who can continue to afford $4000 for links for another 2-3 month ?

[TheGooner]

Wow - you've come at this business a totally different way than I did.

You've employed staff, paid for links, paid for content, all driving up expense BEFORE you've generated revenue to match. A brave move, or reckless? No let's stick with brave. But in trying to accelerate your growth you have taken a very significant risk.


Unfortunately, I do not believe that selling your site is an option if it is not generating a profit right now - as most sites are sold as a multiplier (8x, 10x or 12x) of their monthly profits ...

So why would someone want to buy a newish site (less than 1 year) that is burning money so fast that the initial owners need to dump it?

I think that in order to get "value" out of your site you need to be with it through this period and still have it when it is making profits. So I'd say thay you control your spending to match your income + remaining budget.

But there will be other (more entrepreneual) affiliates out there who have experience in your methods who may have different / better advice.

Perhaps selling a share of your site to an investor?
I don't know - but lets see what else is suggested ...

Good luck mate.

[esquirexx]

Deleted. sorry.

[Expert]

Thanks for advices Gooner. Just to make it clear, I' m in this business for 3 years old and I followed the same way at the beginning. I started with $11, s most of you do. For 1,5 years, I built site alone, wrote reviews myself, earned money, saved it in my back account. Then my site closed, because of gambling ban in my country.

After it closed, for 1 year, I used my money for PPC advertising, earned money, saved it in my bank account. Then PPC companies stop gambling ads.

After they stopped, for a year I built a new site (this one), bought reviews, bought links, employed staff.

So it is a calculated risk. And I do my job well, at least I think I do, so I don't see this as a risk.

I know that if I can survive for another 3-4 months, I' ll start to earn money, and in one year next step will be opening a casino : )

Just kidding, not that much of course.

Just tried to explained that I' m not that much brave. Step by step.

[Viriatu]

i feel so small when i read this kind of stuff.... im only promoting for 3 months, i choose a board forum and i have 145 guys that have a 7$ value each as of now.... so from where im standing seems a big risk counting that you have so much expense monthly based... i guess you better stick to it and wait for value, so you can at least sell it for a price that is fair for both parties.....

[LuckyLove8]

This is just my humble opinion but now that you have alot more content and out of the google sandbox, there is probably room to cut staff wages. Either by cutting hours to part-time or dropping the positions entirely. At this point it is probably more cost effective to outsource the work you need as long as you can find quality partners.

I know how tough it is on a growing business, theres never enough money for everything. But at $12/visitor I think in the long run it would be more profitable if you can hold out and see the true fruits of this investment.

If your running low on cash, you may want to seek more investors with a prospectus on the current earnings and growth/profit potential. This would be a way of "part selling" your business so you can still maintain a significant share of the business without entirely giving up on it. Otherwise you could seek a personal or business loan from the banks.

Have you done a full review of your advertising budget? After this many months, you should have enough data to know what is actually delivering a return on the dollar.

Lastly... I'm very very curious, could you tell us your site address?

[mojo]

Maybe I'm crazy but putting 91k into a new venture without a guarentee is a little beyond my comprehension. Then to try to sell after 7 months makes me question my sanity.

Really...91k in seven months? Then want to sell? What is wrong with this pic.

[esquirexx]

.....

[Expert]

Thanks for advices. I dropped the links which I must re-pay today. I can afford other expenses. I' ll wait another 3-4 months and will se what will happen. May be I can't rank at the top but still I' ll have a medium site with 2000 pages.

[LuckyLove8]

still curious about the link....

you have taken a completely different approach to the business. I'd love to see how it looks.

[esquirexx]

.....

[Expert]

I don' t want to give the name in public, as here are my competitors in my country, and this one will may be banned too.

I pm' d it to you.

[TheGooner]

I don' t want to give the name in public, as here are my competitors in my country, and this one will may be banned too.

I pm' d it to you.

So you think that you need to keep your site secret in order to succeed ?
Why on earth were you spending so much money on links then?


A strategy built around non-publicity is very strange.

[Expert]

Yes, we' are asking the visitors their ID before they login to our site : )

I write a message at GPWA. My competitors know my nick. After I mentioned my site here, they complained about it to legal departments. And my site closed, because of the rules on my country.

Now if I say that I own xyzcasino.com, they may complain it to legal deparments again, although it is now in English language. And this one will be closed, too.

[LuckyLove8]

Yes, we' are asking the visitors their ID before they login to our site : )

I write a message at GPWA. My competitors know my nick. After I mentioned my site here, they complained about it to legal departments. And my site closed, because of the rules on my country.

Now if I say that I own xyzcasino.com, they may complain it to legal deparments again, although it is now in English language. And this one will be closed, too.

i'm going to keep assuming good faith here..

have you thought about hosting outside your country? There is very little power your local legal departments have if it is hosted overseas.

[Expert]

it was already outside. But it doesn t change anything. Even youtube is closed here.

[TheGooner]

Ah - I see.

Yes - when I was travelling through Dubai to the last world cup I saw that they'd banned a lot of "undesirable gambling sites" including my GoonersGuide.com site.


If you're living in a country that does ban sites on the net (China, Turkey, Greece, parts of asia and middle east) - and targeting those countries - then you need to avoid being included in that censorship.

However, by buying links and getting SERPS and traffic, you are going against that idea. It seems to me that these links are a total waste or spend, if you're planning to operate in secret and a "word-of-mouth" basis.

That also counts against long term business though as it could be zapped overnight - unless you've built a whole lot of duplicate sites ready to simply email your members and give them the new location ... but even then links are a poor spend - as the SERPs is valuless if you relocate.

So I think it's a good idea to end those links.

[LiveCasinoPartners]

I think your content should draw natural links (at least that should be your goal). So the $4000 / month in link ongoing link payments probably not necessary.

I'd keep it and see what happens.

It would probably hard to sell it until you have revenue stream that's more or less consistent.

Good luck.

[masontech]

You sure have invested a lot into a site very early on. You either have a large cash reserve or large dangly bits!

Is it good business sense to invest so heavily into such a competitive area as ours?

I would cut the ongoing expense and ride the wave with what you already have, which sounds like a lot. Google rewards good sites, so fingers crossed that your investment pays off.

[penny-slot-machines]

Would I be right in thinking that if you invest to heavily in link-building, especially early-on it can have a damaging effect on your SERPS?

Especially if they are paid-for links and google detects that...

As far as I'm aware, google wants to see slow and steady growth (i.e. natural). Too many links too quickly appears unnatural and so can make a site look like it is buying links, which they do not like.

Have I got that right, or is the general consensus that quick link-building is actually OK with google?