Internet Business For Sale

In my last post, I said that it was time to get serious about writing.  As a result, I’ve decided to sell an Internet business I have been working on.  Previously, I was kind of vague about the business, so let me give you some more details about it here.

The Business Idea and its History

Over the past few years I have been collecting Internet domains (i.e., Internet addresses) with the plan of creating a national network of local chiropractor directories.  All of the domains start with the city name (i.e., Denver, New York, Miami, etc.) and end with “chiropractors.”  The vast majority of the names have the .org extension.  I have 260 .org domain names for the largest cities in the U.S. (and three in Canada).  In addition, I have 70 .com domains that correspond to the .org name.  In other words, for 70 cities, I have both the .org and .com.

There were three large cities I was unable to get either the .org or .com for.  They are Chicago, Omaha, and Kansas City.  I was able to get the .us extension for Chicago and Omaha, but was unable to get any extension for Kansas City.

My plan was to create a common website template that could be uploaded onto each domain.  While I worked on that, I parked the domains at Octane 360.  If you’re not familar with Octane 360, they are a company that partners with domain owners to set up directories on their websites.  Octane 360 and the domain owner agree on a revenue split that comes from directory listings, lead generation and Google Adsense ads.

My experience with Octane 360 has been mixed.  They were great to work with initially, but their post-implementation communication has been lousy.  It usually takes several emails to my account rep to get a reply.  Right now I am waiting for a reply to an email I have sent three or four times over the past month concerning not receiving payment since February for my domains.  As of today, I’m still waiting for a response.

Even so, it’s not a huge problem.  The money we are talking about is rather small ( a couple of hundred dollars) and parking my domains with Octane 360 has always been a temporary solution.  My plan all along has been to come up with a website template I could deploy myself so I don’t have to share revenue with anyone.  The plan was for the template to be attractive, but more importantly, automated.  I didn’t want to have to take every order by hand or accept checks or credit cards over the phone.  I wanted the template to work with payment systems like Paypal and allow the client to not only make payments online, but also create their own listings, upload photos, graphics, and videos, etc.

I’m pleased to say that the template has been created and we recently worked out all of the bugs.  You can see an example at NashvilleChiropractors.org.

I started to roll out the website to other city domains, but I recently came to the conclusion that I am not the man to see this project to the next level.  In order to be successful, I believe the sites are going to have to be search engine optimized and then they’ll need to be marketed to chiropractors. 

I am by no means an expert when it comes to SEO.  The good news is that as soon as the site was deployed in Nashville, we were on the first page of both Yahoo! and Bing.  We were on the second page of Google, moving back and forth between the 11th and 13th positions (i.e., the first or third listing on the second page).  So the template we created has some really good built-in SEO, but it’s going to take more to reach the first page of Google and I just don’t have the knowledge to know what to do to get it there.

There are lots of options for marketing to chiropractors.  You could use phone calls or direct mail, but those two options in my opinion are either too time consuming and/or expensive.  What I was going to do is send a series of emails to chiropractors announcing the site in their local area and touting the benefits of being on a site that prospective patients could easily find (hence the need to be on the first page of Google).

Getting the email addresses for chiropractors was not as difficult as I thought it would be.  For many chiropractors, you can find their email addresses on the Internet.  I have a system I use that I won’t go into here, but it’s not difficult nor particularly time consuming.  For the first couple of cities we deployed to, I did the email list building myself.  After that, my niece who is home from college for the summer did it.  You could also outsource the work to a place like the Phillipines.

Business Model

So, how do you make money with this business?  It’s a good question and one that I pondered for a while.  There are basically three different business models you could use.  First, you could simply sell listings and banner ads (in the sidebar and header).  If you look at NashvilleChiropractors.org, you’ll see that this is the business model I finally settled on.  It’s straight forward and easy.

Another model you could follow is to give each chiropractor a free listing and then charge them to upgrade it.  For instance, you might list the chiros name, address and phone number, but charge them to add additional info.  You might have two packages that allows them to add data to their listing for one price, or data and photos/video for a slightly higher price.

Finally, you could use the model employed by Octane 360.  They give each chiropractor a free listing and then charge the chiropractor to be moved to the top of the list.  For instance, If a chiropractor wants to be the very first listing, they pay a certain price.  To be second costs a little less and third even less.  Only the top three spots are available, meaning you can only make money from a maximum of three listings per site.  For an example, see AtlantaChiropractors.org.

One thing that Octane 360 does that I didn’t incorporate into my site is the ability for lead generation.  As an example, if you look at the directory currently on AtlantaChiropractors.org you’ll notice a box on the right hand side of the page that says “Receive a Free Consultation From You’re Local Chiropractor Today.”  If a prospective patient fills out the information in that box, that lead is then sold to a local chiropractor.  As I said, we didn’t incorporate that function into our template, but it is another revenue making opportunity.

One other revenue making opportunity is adding Google Adsense ads to the site.  I’ll admit, I’m biased.  I hate Google Adsense ads and think they make the site look cheap.  However, I do know people make money from the ads, so it’s another option for increasing revenue.

Why am I selling?

I’ve spent the past couple of years trying to pull all of the pieces together for this project.  So why would I want to sell when everything is so close to being finished?  That’s a fair question.  There are two reasons and they are interrelated. 

As I stated at the beginning of this post, I feel compelled to write.  I have put this off for far too long.  I keep finding one excuse after the other not to write.  My current excuse is the time I am spending building the chiropractor directory business.  So that needs to change.

Also, now that the website is complete and the bugs have been worked out, my attention needs to turn to SEO and marketing.  Marketing isn’t overly time consuming, especially if I stick to email marketing (which is my plan).  SEO is a different story.  I don’t know much about it and don’t want to spend the time educating myself.  Remember, I want to spend my time writing, not learning how to get ranked higher in Google.

What’s Next?

My plan right now is to continue to work on the business as time allows.  I’m going to roll out the website to all of the domains, meaning I’ll be getting them away from Octane 360 and won’t have to share the revenue with anyone.  Another option I might look into is Epik.com, which is another service that creates directories for websites.  At the moment, I can’t see how it would be advantageous for me to do that, considering I would once again have to share revenue with someone else, but we’ll see.

It really doesn’t make sense to market the sites until they are ranking well in Google.  I’ll probably look around for someone who can help with SEO.  I don’t want to take the time to learn the tricks of the SEO trade myself, so I’d be better off working with someone who already knows.  If I can find someone who can help, then I can turn my attention to marketing the sites. 

If you are interested in buying the business, drop me a line in the comments or email me at LmindarATgmailDOTcom.