Buying a complete website: what is there to know?

Buying a ready-made website means pur­chas­ing an already func­tion­al website and every­thing that comes with it: domain, design, content, traffic, and rankings. In doing this, you take on re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the website, and usually the web hosting contract as well. You can keep the contract as it is or change to another provider. But buying a ready-made website does not mean that you will start earning money straight­away and you can just sit back and relax. Be aware that after you buy the project, it has to be cus­tomized to fit your strate­gies and ideas.

Buying a website is a good way to further your own online project. Whether the aim of your website is to represent a company, shop, or a blog, getting a pre-existing website means you don’t have to start from scratch. Through this method, you save time and effort when it comes to the de­vel­op­ment and set-up of your web project. The website comes with a developed customer base so you can rest assured that the site will get traffic. The more suc­cess­ful the website, the faster it will become prof­itable and you can develop it further with your own ideas and concepts. In the end, buying a ready-made website is an in­vest­ment that saves more than just time: it also smoothes out the site’s operation if the purchased website is well struc­tured.

It’s not always advisable to buy a website since the purchase does come with risks: you need certain venture capital to invest in a pre-existing website, which is con­sid­er­ably higher than it is for a new project. Ad­di­tion­al money, as well as time, should also be factored into cus­tomiz­ing the website. The com­plex­i­ty of the task depends on how much your planned design differs from that of the original. If you change the style of the website a lot, it could have a negative effect on the existing customers and ranking given by the search engines (e.g. Google). You should be aware that you’d have little op­por­tu­ni­ty to apply and expand your own knowledge if you buy a ready-made website rather than create your own.

Fur­ther­more, you have to deal with copyright issues regarding existing images, texts as well as user-generated content (e.g. comments). If you blindly accept this content, you’re taking on a risk that could come back to haunt you one day. Before you buy the website you should have its value appraised. Even after you’ve carefully examined the website, some analysis results could turn out to be in­ac­cu­rate or even fake, so there’s always a residual risk.

There are many different ways to buy a website. There are special online mar­ket­places that offer and auction off es­tab­lished websites. These mar­ket­places are easy to find if you search for them. Domain packages, meaning internet addresses, can also be bought if you don’t want to buy a complete website. Al­ter­na­tive­ly, you can write directly to the website owner to let them know that you’re in­ter­est­ed in a sale. Check the contact details for the best way to get in touch with the site owner.

The online mar­ket­places give a good insight into how much money should be invested when buying a website. The price depends on the type of website (store, community) as well as its technical so­phis­ti­ca­tion and per­for­mance (visitors, search engine ranking, etc.). The prices range from several hundred to several thousand dollars. Since websites are usually bought in order to be further operated and developed you should consider ad­di­tion­al costs on top of the initial pur­chas­ing price. These ad­di­tion­al costs include web hosting, the domain, e-mail, and other useful features.