Do you ever buy websites to grow your business?

[MichaelCorfman]

There are many strategies for growing a business. For a web-based business, that might mean providing better content, increasing traffic, improving the customer journey and a thousand other strategic and tactical activities that can form the foundation for organic growth.

One possible strategy that can help a business grow is acquisition of new sites. But it is a strategy that requires investment and not just hard work.

For this week's poll I ask whether you have acquired other sites as part of a growth strategy for your business. If you have, I invite you to share your perspective on how that strategy has worked for you. If you have never acquired another site, please share your perspective as well. Have you investigated possible acquisitions and decided they were bad deals or otherwise not for you? Are you committed to the site or sites you are already involved with, and think adding another site into the mix would not be productive?

Please share your philosophy around how to best grow your business and what has and has not worked for you.

Michael

[MichaelCorfman]

Personally I have been involved in a few website acquisitions over the years. In each case I had a specific reason for the acquisition that went well beyond simply continuing to operate the acquired site. In every case I viewed the website and related business as a complementary expansion of our existing business that would benefit both our existing business and the business associated with the website that was acquired. Fortunately, in all cases the synergies proved to be real and the benefits proved to be significant.

The first major website acquisition we completed closed 20 years ago this June. In fact, the reason I have website acquisitions on my mind at the moment is because of that upcoming 20 year anniversary. Twenty years ago our CasinoCity.com website was almost seven years old and was a directory of casinos with no editorial content. The site we acquired (RGTonline.com - Rolling Good Times Online) was focused on editorial content for gaming enthusiasts. I decided adding editorial content into the mix of what we had to offer would help us grow, and it did. Today, while the site we acquired is no longer strategically important to us, the content and relationships we acquired allowed us to jumpstart the integration of editorial content into our overall business in a way that would have otherwise been impossible. You see, at the time we acquired it, the RGT website had an editorial collection of over 15,000 articles and relationships with a number of contributing authors. Today we've grown that editorial collection to over 120,000 articles, and we continue to have relationships with many of the contributing authors we first began working with 20 years ago.

Michael

[big fish]

I've purchased many websites for growth over the years. I've also sold some premium domains I wasn't using and then reinvested into portals. I have not bought any in a long time but I'd like to if I can find the right one at the right price. Now the market is hot so finding a good price can be tough. Thanks Michael!

[golfbettingsystem]

Have bought a couple in the same niche over the years from competitors who were winding up their sites. One was fine; the other had a manual penalty on the site which wasn’t discussed or disclosed and I naively got caught out there. Lesson learnt!

[BCGame Affiliates]

I have never, but it is interesting to hear from those who have.

[CatalinAMG]

I would definitely take the shortcut and buy some ready-made websites, but it's tricky to find decent stuff with a good price/quality ratio.

[CasinosBroker]

I've been purchasing websites for quite some time now.

Acquiring websites in your niche is important to grow your business.

It requires time, work, and due diligence. But overall if an entrepreneur succeeds with a deal - it will benefit him.

[Pokerface]

Yes, we continue to so this as a side business. Can be hit/miss but have been some great rewards too.