Without further delay, let’s dive into today’s guest post about how to buy a blog (the right way) and make sure you’re setting your new blog acquisition up for long-term success.
1. Find a Niche You Care About
Unless you’re hiring someone else to manage your blog, it’s important to buy a blog you’re passionate or at least knowledgeable about.
Perhaps the niche you want to get into is cooking, hiking (like Hike with Ryan), writing, personal finance, marketing, travel, fitness, film, photography, parenting or otherwise… but what’s important is that you’re buying a blog in a space you personally care about.
By choosing to buy a blog in your niche (or field of expertise), you’ll feel more confident creating content that will resonate with your audience.
In a saturated, competitive online space, chances are there’s a blog that already exists in your subject matter of choice—that’s why it’s important to narrow your content focus.
For example, if you want to write about vegan cuisine, you can focus on looking for a blog that caters toward newly-transitioned vegans with step-by-step recipes for the average beginner.
Once you’ve decided on a particular blog you’re considering as the acquisition target, having a strong blog strategy will allow you to expand the reach of your new blog after purchasing it.
2. Check for Original Content
So, you’ve narrowed down what niche you want to explore. Before making the jump to purchasing a blog, you want to run a plagiarism check to ensure that all content on the website is original and unique to the site.
A website like Copyscape allows you to search the web for originality of content and any existing duplicates.
You may come across similar existing content on the web, which may not necessarily be a cause for concern.
However, taking the time (before buying a blog) to do this research will show you just how saturated the blog’s niche may be—and why you should focus your acquisition sights on a blog that has original content, rather than a ton of repurposed stuff that won’t serve your goals very well.
3. Understand Business Operations of the Blog You’re Buying
Chances are, you may live thousands of miles away from the blog seller.
If possible, meet with the current owner (virtually or in person), ask questions and gain insight on everything you need to know—like whether or not they’ve developed a blog business plan to follow for growing their site, or if they’ve just gotten lucky.
Understandably, meeting the blog seller may not be an option, which is fine. If you’re using a website like Flippa.com to buy a blog, you’re able to see chat forums associated with a particular listing. Read through these discussion boards or ask your own questions.
Understand what the blog needs to thoroughly support it. Is there a team that handles certain aspects of the blog? Does the current owner hire blog content writing services to create blog posts?
Think of any additional blogging costs that may be required to continue running this blog.
Pinpoint all the pieces that go into supporting the blog and ask yourself what you would need to continue sustaining it.
This may mean transitioning the previous owner’s team to continue working with you, or completely doing it on your own.
Whatever decision you make, have a strong strategy and meaningful blogging goals in place that will allow you to run your blog successfully in the long run.
