Ten Commandments of Selling Your Website

The higher the price of the business, the more the following apply.

1. Clear your diary. It's going to take a lot of time whether you do it yourself or use a broker. Whatever the outside limit of time you estimated, multiply that by five or ten.

2. Prepare, prepare, prepare. Before you go public, get together all your data, stats, accounts, contracts and anything else buyers could possibly want.

3. Forget about sunk costs i.e., what you've spent in development or design. You'll get pennies back on the dollar, if that. Buyers don't pay based on what you shelled out.

4. Choose your location carefully. DigitalPoint is best suited to the sub $1,000 sites, Flippa for other cheap sites over $1,000 (contrary to popular opinion and the odd exception, higher value sites tend to not find buyers on Flippa and I have the stats to prove it. The average for sites sold in Flippa is circa $1100). If yours is worth $100K+, use a broker!

5. De-personalise the site. Nobody wants to buy a site that is highly reliant on you, your personality, your social network and connections or your specific combination of skills.

6. Be realistic with your price. If it's not an auction format, have prices in mind both for an all-cash deal and for a minimum cash component in a more structured deal.

7. Use professionals - accountants, lawyers etc., rather than doing it yourself.

8. Be professional yourself. Respond to buyers promptly and deal with enquiries immediately they arise.

9. Think outside the box and do the footwork necessary to identify parties who most stand to gain by acquiring your business ... and approach them.

10. Conduct the transaction safely through an escrow company you trust or, better still, through a lawyer.