Have you ever flipped or purchased an existing website? If you’re like many buyers in the webmaster community, you probably made your buying decision based on two primary factors:

1. Traffic
2. Income

Chances are also good that you negotiated a sale price based on income over a period of a certain number of months. For example, the price you paid may have been the equivalent of 10 months’ income from the site.

While that kind of strategy may be common in webmaster communities, it’s not necessarily smart business. By looking only, or predominantly, at a website’s income you neglect other significant value points and you risk passing up great opportunities for mediocre ones.

Think about buying websites more like purchasing an existing traditional business. You’ll find there’s a lot under the surface worth considering. For example, you might want to look at the site’s:

1. Branding and visibility (think Twitter: poorly monetized, but major value through visibility)
2. Authority status and content (authority content is worth more than generic keyword-stuffed content that would turn off real visitors)
3. Staff (and whether or not any of that staff will remain on board for a period after the purchase–important if the audience draw is to the owner and not the site itself)
4. Domain name (even if a site’s content isn’t particularly valuable to you, the domain name could have considerable value of its own, especially if it ties in well to your existing business and offers better branding possibilities)
5. Competition and Niche (if the website is in a true gem of a niche that is just getting started but has long-term potential, the site carries more value than something in an oversaturated niche like mesothelioma)

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Can you imagine being able to work from the comfort of your own home, doing something that you like and even getting paid for doing it. What else could you ask for? Working from home or home based business opportunities extend across a variety of fields, ranging from writing, programming, designing, and consultancy.

Working from home can have various orientations as well; however, the hot favorite is freelancing. A freelancer can be defined as a person who works, and gets paid by the hour, day, or a single consignment. A freelancer is not someone who works on a regular basis for an employer. Freelancing may have its own set of fluctuations as far as getting work or acquiring projects are concerned and it is completely understandable that a steady 9 to 5 job, increases a sense of security as you know exactly how much money you will receive at the end of each month or week., however, freelancing gives you the opportunity to stay flexible, be creative, and at the same time make some profits.

Thanks to the ever increasing growth and use of technology, it has become very simple to start and run a business from home. Technology has been successful in eliminating boundaries, and overcoming limitations caused due to geographic conditions. You can now serve the needs of a person or an organization which maybe located on the other side of the planet.

Please ensure that you have a dedicated workplace, at home; sitting close to the bed, watching television while you are compiling a document, making a list of groceries that you need to buy while working or simply sitting next to your children while they play might not entirely help your cause. (more…)