Did You Design Your Website with An Exit Strategy?

Web sites for most businesses can perform many of the same basic functions that off-line systems can; sales, market research, branding, customer service, etc. Very few businesses will use their web site for more than 1 or 2 of these functions. Even fewer businesses will create their web site with an exit strategy in design when using their website for sales, market research, etc. When an exit strategy is left out of the equation, a lot of money could be left on the table.

What is an exit strategy? In this case it is the way in which you are going to end the ownership of your website. Will you just close your web site down or will you get your investment back and sell it? Most business owners just close their web site down when they are done with it and fail to realize that they could be flushing a valuable asset down the drain. It would be similar to walking away from your store and leaving the inventory, customer list and all of your trade secrets behind for who ever is clever enough to come by and salvage what is possible.

If you have your web site for several years, over that time you have developed a following, traffic, content, gained a lot of knowledge about your niche based upon customer buying patters, or visitor traffic patterns, and so much more. You don't realize that it is an asset. If you can determine how much your web site makes per month, you can know how much you can sell it for. If you have a sizable email list, you have an asset that a smart email marketer can make use of to generate even more income on a monthly basis.

If you get considerable traffic to your website, and your website is not branded to who you are (such as oprah.com), then you should create an exit strategy based on how much you can get from your web site when you decide to sell it. If your are going to sell off your business, your web site will add that much more to the value of your business when you sell it. How can you know how much to sell your web site for? There are some websites out there that will give you an estimate of how much your web site is worth. Some of the factors these sites take into account include:

The amount of traffic your website gets

The number of Inbound links your website has

It's popularity in the Web 2.0 Space

How much it comes up in the search engines.

Domain Name

How many directories your website is included in.

When building and marketing your web site, you will want to incorporate as many of these factors as you can. Be sure to build your web site so you can easily add content, and always add new links pointing to your web site as well through the numerous linking strategies that are available. You want to create your website with as much value as possible. If you create your website with the mindset that you will sell it, you will end up with a web site that has much more value in a few years than if you just put one up as an online brochure.