As online business brokers, we see all types of internet businesses with many different types of marketing strategies. "I"m ready to sell my website" is the first thing clients tell us when the call for a free consultation. It"s our job to help clients pinpoint an accurate market value for their internet business, which requires analyzing many different variables of the business. While people automatically assume that net profits are the most important variable, traffic sources and marketing strategies are equally important because they play a crucial role in helping investors forecast the company"s future performance. The company"s future performance is important because it essentially dictates how long it will take for the buyer to recoup their investment and begin turning a profit on the investment.

When clients tell us "I want to sell my website", one of the first things we discuss is the company"s online marketing strategy. While SEO is very important, SEO represents just 1 component of a comprehensive online marketing strategy. As online business brokers, we try to help buyers and sellers understand the areas that leave opportunity for growth because the internet business only relies heavily a 1 type of online marketing.

Can too much SEO be a risk? Absolutely. Many internet business owners learned this the hard way when Google released the Panda / Penguin algorithm updates. Overnight, internet businesses that previously had 1st page Google rankings were dropped to the 4th and 5th pages of google and as quickly as their 1st page SEO rankings disappeared, the revenues disappeared just as quickly because these internet businesses were too reliant on 1 type of online marketing. When this happened, there was surge of internet business owners looking to hire online business brokers to help them salvage the inherent value left in their business. This change hurt some businesses fairly severely with internet businesses loosing over $100,000 in value because they were so reliant on 1st page SEO rankings to bring in new revenues. No buyer will pay a premium for a business that has had such drastic decrease in revenues.

Our online business brokers always tell our clients to focus on all of the different types of online marketing that comprise a comprehensive online marketing strategy. Don"t just focus solely on PPC or solely on SEO. A comprehensive online market strategy should rely on SEO, PPC, email marketing, affiliate marketing, Remarketing, social network marketing, etc.

The idea here is that you diversify your company"s marketing strategy to ensure the internet business is never too reliant on 1 single type of online marketing. As many people learned with being 100% reliant on SEO, Google"s search algorithm can change overnight and if your internet business is on the wrong side of this change, your net profits will feel the impact, which also negatively affects your company"s valuation.