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Blogs for Sale: How to Buy an Established Blog

Blogs for sale on Empire Flippers are established content sites that earn from affiliate commissions, display ads and other income, and every one is vetted with automated tools and manual checks by two or more people before it is listed. Create a free account, verify your funds and unlock up to 100 listings in your price range, with new businesses published every week.

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Arguably, the most difficult step in building a blog is getting started.

With so many unanswered questions about what niche to pursue, what tools to use, or what skills to acquire, it’s easy to become overwhelmed by the options and find yourself years later without having taken a meaningful step forward.

Buying a business can be an answer to many of these obstacles, but this comes with its own set of questions that can make it equally as difficult to get started — how much should you pay for a blog? Where do you buy blogs without getting scammed? How do you identify blogs worth buying as well as ones to avoid?

In this article, we’ll answer some of the most common questions that arise when considering buying a blog, and a step-by-step method for finding a blog that works for you as a business owner and investor.

By the end of this, you’ll ideally have more clarity and confidence to take the next step in buying a blog and becoming the owner of a content-based business.

What You Get When You Buy a Blog

A blog for sale is a working content business, not just a domain. When you buy one, you take over the assets that produce its traffic and income:

• The domain, the website and all published articles
• Income streams such as affiliate accounts, display ad accounts, sponsorships or digital products
• Traffic and earnings history, at least 12 months
• Extras the seller includes, such as an email list, social accounts, writers and written processes

On Empire Flippers, blogs and content sites are listed under affiliate websites for sale, display advertising businesses, Amazon Associates sites and WordPress websites for sale. Each listing shows the asking price, the multiple and how the business makes money.

Are Blogs Still Worth Buying?

Blogs, also known as content sites, have been around for as long as much of society can remember using the internet.

With the rise of social media, ecommerce, and Web3, are blogs still relevant in today’s online world?

While on the surface, it can seem like blogs are outdated artifacts of the digital landscape, if you take a look at the Empire Flippers marketplace, you’ll see that they are very much alive and thriving as business models.

Many of the sites you visit, even the smaller ones, can on the back-end be businesses owned by a single blogger generating thousands, tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of dollars per month in net profit.

Yes, if the blog has proven traffic and earnings. To be listed on Empire Flippers, a business must make at least $24,000 a year in net profit and have at least 12 months of revenue history, so you start with an asset that already earns.

Some of the main reasons why owning a blog is still an attractive business model to own include:

Low Overhead Cost

Blogs can be launched and operated with very low expenses compared to other business models, such as with ecommerce or SaaS, which require purchasing inventory or hiring expensive talent to get started.

At a minimum, a content site requires you to pay for a domain name and website hosting and for someone to write and publish the blog content on the site. If you’re writing the initial content on your own blog yourself, you could get started with even less than $100.

No Inventory Management

The purpose of a blog is to drive traffic, and this traffic is commonly monetized when your audience purchases other businesses’ products or services.

Assuming you aren’t selling your own physical products, you won’t have to manage the process of manufacturing, shipping, and fulfillment. Additionally, you won’t need to worry about stocking out of inventory, supply chain issues, or manufacturing cost increases.

Potentially Low-maintenance and Relatively Passive

Established blogs that are up and running with a solid foundation of content and traffic can require minimal time to maintain.

Especially if content production is handled by a freelance writer, a website can provide a source of consistent and relatively passive income with very low involvement for the site owner.

A Source of External Traffic For Ecommerce Stores

Whether selling through Amazon or a personal website, ecommerce store owners endeavor to generate a higher portion of their sales organically rather than through advertising, and blogs can offer an additional source of organic traffic to accomplish this.

Companies acquiring other businesses for the purpose of increasing the sales of the original business is known as a bolt-on acquisition strategy. While this strategy originated with larger companies, it’s also now being implemented by smaller online businesses.

Can Be Flipped Like Real Estate

Many people who build websites are unaware that they can actually sell their sites, sometimes for retirement-level amounts of money.

Similar to flipping real estate, some business owners choose to buy websites instead of building them, with the strategy of growing them and then re-selling them for a profit in as short as a few months later.

Should You Build or Buy a Blog?

A common question in this space is whether it’s better to build a new blog from scratch or buy a blog.

Some of the primary reasons for buying blogs over building them include:

The Significant Return on Investment

Online businesses are usually priced at their last 12 months of net profit multiplied by a valuation multiple, typically 1.7x to 5x or more. At a 3x multiple, the blog’s profit pays back the purchase price in about three years at current earnings, before any growth you add.

For example’s sake, let’s say you bought your business at a 3x multiple, with the implication being that it would take three years to see a full return on your investment. This is roughly a 33% annual return on investment. Compare this to alternative investments such as a high-yield savings account which might yield a 1% annual return, or an index fund which on average yields an 8% return annually.

As a disclaimer, online businesses can drop below their average performance and sometimes for reasons outside of a business owner’s control, but they can grow exponentially as well.

The Time Saved

Driving traffic can take time. It’s not uncommon for it to take months for a blog to start driving traffic, and potentially over a year to make decent money. When buying a business you’re saving time and you’re making a return on your investment from day one.

Proven Performance

In addition to the amount of time it takes for a site to rank and start driving traffic, there’s the possibility that the website doesn’t rank well even after a longer period of time.

This could be due to the niche selected, the competitors in the space, or for various reasons that could ultimately mean you’ve spent months or years working on a blog that isn’t producing the level of income you expected.

When buying a blog, you’re working with a site that has a proven history of performance. You will know what level of performance to expect, and ideally, see the performance trajectory indicating its growth potential.

The Other Assets That Come With a Business

If you buy a business, you’re also buying anything else that comes with it. These might include assets such as:

• Standard operating procedures (SOPs) for all business tasks
• The Google Analytics property
• Introductions to writers or freelancers
• The domain name
• The WordPress account and any plugins set up on the account
• Social media accounts or pages
• Email subscribers

These are all assets that people don’t immediately think about when buying a content site, but many of these are necessary elements of building a business that can also save you time and resources.

How Blogs for Sale Are Priced

Most blogs are priced on seller discretionary earnings (SDE): the last 12 months of net profit multiplied by a multiple, typically 1.7x to 5x or more. Businesses under about $5 million in annual revenue are almost always priced this way. A blog that earns $30,000 a year at a 3x multiple would list at about $90,000.

The multiple moves with risk. These factors push it up or down:

Get a quick estimate with the website valuation tool, and see real sales data in our guide on how to value a website. A valuation is not always the listing or sale price.

How to Buy a Blog in 8 Steps

If you’ve decided that buying a blog is a better option than building one, how do you get started and how do you find a good deal?

Below is a step-by-step summary of how to define the best type of blog for you and how to identify ideal buying opportunities within that criteria:

1. Choosing your Budget

When choosing your budget, you will want to of course consider how much you can afford, but you should also understand how much net profit you want to generate with this business and why.

Is this business meant to replace job income? Is this meant to be a bolt-on acquisition?

You can review our marketplace of businesses for sale to get an idea of what blogs are valued at based on how much profit they generate.

Furthermore, are you just starting out in the online business space or do you already have experience with running a blog? If this is your first foray into online business or websites, you might consider buying a smaller website to test out the process and understand how to operate the business, before moving on to a larger purchase.

As a side note, when purchasing a website through Empire Flippers, you can potentially negotiate an earnout payment structure, which means you’re buying the business for a portion of the cash up front and the remaining paid out over an agreed-upon timeline.

For more information on this, we recommend reading through our definitive guide on deal structuring.

Work out your budget from the price, not the profit. A blog at a 3x multiple costs about three times its yearly net profit, so a $75,000 budget fits a blog earning about $25,000 a year. Keep cash aside for content, tools and growth after the sale.

2. Understanding Business Operations

Behind the scenes, the business operations of two similar-looking sites might be very different. One business might require the owner to work 20 hours per week, and the other business might have a team of content writers and specialists, enabling the owner to work only two hours per week.

Many buyers are not acquiring a business to be a full-time job while others do enjoy taking a more hands-on role within their business. Understand what the operations of the business look like and what your day-to-day role would look like as a result.

3. Finding a Blog to Buy

Choosing where to buy a blog is a very important step. How do you ensure you’re dealing with trustworthy sellers who are selling healthy businesses? How do you ensure your transaction is protected and you don’t get scammed?

Blogs are commonly bought and sold through online business brokerages or sold via private deals between a buyer and seller.

In addition to performing proper due diligence on the businesses (discussed in the sections below), you will want to ensure that whichever route you go, you are protecting yourself in the transaction by ensuring specific terms are outlined such as where your money is held during the deal, what the transfer process looks like, and conditions for terminating the deal.

On Empire Flippers, blogs sit in the affiliate and display advertising categories of the marketplace, and new businesses go live every week. Listing URLs are hidden until you unlock them, which protects the seller and keeps the deal confidential.

4. Deciding to Purchase Privately or Through a Brokerage

The decision to work privately or through a broker is usually more difficult for sellers, as they are the ones who pay a commission to brokerages.

Perhaps the one benefit for buyers to work privately with a seller is if they can negotiate a better deal. However, there are multiple services that brokers can provide that can both protect buyers in deals and save them time and money that could easily outweigh the amount saved on negotiating a deal privately.

If deciding to work with a broker, it’s important to note that not all brokers provide the same services. For example, most brokers do not provide a migration service, meaning a buyer and seller are responsible for transferring the business assets on their own.

Transferring a website can be risky if done improperly. It can lead to ad accounts, such as Adsense, being shut down and websites becoming demonetized.

When considering buying online businesses with different brokers, review their terms of service or ask them the following questions:

• When is a deal considered complete? Is it after all assets are transferred or just the domain?
• Do you offer escrow services?
• Do you offer migration services?
• Am I offered any protection if the business significantly drops in performance during the negotiation?
• How are the businesses vetted before being listed on the marketplace?

How Empire Flippers answers these questions: every business is vetted with automated tools and manual checks by two or more people, and the majority of applicants are rejected. The team handles the migration of the site to you, the standard asset purchase agreement is part of the terms of use, and earnouts on Empire Flippers deals are managed by the team.

5. Analyzing Blog Characteristics

The characteristics of a blog can answer a few key points.

First, if a blog is built off of a solid foundation, it is more likely to remain resilient through the inevitable Google algorithm updates. Your goal is to find a blog that is likely to continue to perform, and ideally grow, for years.

Second, if a site is not fully-optimized, this can provide ideal opportunities for growth.

Here are a few questions to ask yourself when analyzing the strength of a blog:

• Does the site contain quality content or does it look unprofessional?
• Do you find this niche interesting?
• Does the site have a strong backlink profile? Is the site mentioned by any other established blogs?
• How old is the site?
• Does the site load quickly or slowly?
• Are all pages monetized?
• Does the site use a PBN or any non-whitehat SEO techniques?

6. Reviewing Traffic Performance

Reviewing blog traffic levels and traffic sources can tell you how resilient a blog is likely to be to algorithm updates, and also how well it is likely to perform in the future.

Here are a few questions to ask yourself when reviewing a blog:

Can you identify any major drops or spikes in traffic?
Major drops or spikes in traffic might be due to the website’s reaction to a Google algorithm update.

If the blog was negatively impacted by an update, you’ll want to determine the likely cause of the drop and how it was resolved so you can determine how likely you think it is that this site will be similarly impacted in the future.

How many traffic channels does the blog have?
A blog might drive a percentage of its traffic through organic search, direct, social media, advertising, or an email list.

If a blog drives traffic through multiple channels, it is more likely to continue to perform well in the event that one of the channels is impacted.

What is the traffic breakdown amongst the top-performing pages?
Blogs that drive small percentages of traffic across several pages are seen as more stable investments than ones that drive a majority of their traffic through a few pages.

For more ideas for analyzing traffic, feel free to check out our article on the scuttlebutt approach to website due diligence.

Ask the seller for access to the analytics account and review at least the last 12 months, not screenshots alone.

7. Reviewing Revenue Performance

Similar to traffic, reviewing revenue can tell a similar story about how the business is likely to perform over the year.

Here are a few questions to ask yourself when reviewing the revenue performance of a blog:

Revenue trajectory
Has the blog experienced a year-over-year increase or decrease in revenue?

Seasonality
Do traffic and revenue fluctuate according to the months or seasons, or is revenue relatively consistent month by month?

Drops or spikes in revenue unrelated to seasonality
Was revenue impacted by an algorithm update? Was there any other reason for revenue to drop or spike?

Number of revenue streams
Does the business generate revenue through multiple sources or is there just one method of monetization? A blog might drive revenue through affiliate marketing, display advertising, or other types of paid promotion. Within these channels, there may be multiple affiliates or display advertising partners that a blog works with.

For more information on how to perform due diligence feel free to check out an article that provides a buyer due diligence checklist.

8. Identifying Growth Potential

Aside from performance, another major factor in determining if a site is a good deal is its growth potential.

Here are a few questions you can ask yourself when determining the growth potential for a site:

• Is content SEO optimized? Is there an opportunity to improve the content and how it ranks on search engines?
• Could you work with a different advertising company to immediately drive more revenue with the existing traffic?
• Could you work with more profitable affiliate programs?
• Is there an unused email list and could you potentially monetize the email subscribers?
• Could you leverage the traffic to sell your own products?
• Could you use a social media channel or create a podcast to increase traffic?

Sometimes you can make small changes to a business that can have an exponential and immediate impact on the growth of the business. If identified and executed properly, this can help you generate a far quicker return on your investment or potentially enable you to flip the site for a higher valuation within a short timeline.

Red Flags to Check Before You Buy a Blog

Walk away, or ask for a lower price, if you find any of these during due diligence:

• Traffic drops in the last 12 months that the seller cannot explain
• One traffic source, usually Google, with no email list or social following
• One income source, such as a single affiliate program that can cut rates or close
• Earnings that do not match traffic, or a P&L that does not add up
• Backlinks from private blog networks or other paid link schemes
• No analytics access, or a seller who only shares screenshots
• A trend niche that depends on one product or fad

Use our buyer due diligence checklist, the complete guide to due diligence for content sites and the 5 questions to ask before buying an affiliate site.

How to Unlock a Listing and Make an Offer

Buying a blog on Empire Flippers follows the same steps for every listing:

1. Create a free account. Registration costs nothing.
2. Verify your funds. Connect a bank account through Plaid, or send a bank statement, stock portfolio document, CPA letter or HELOC confirmation.
3. Unlock listings. Verified buyers can unlock up to 100 listings in their price range to see the URL, detailed traffic and earnings reports, and ask the seller questions. For listings over $100,000 you can book a call with the seller, and above $300,000 an Empire Flippers team member joins it.
4. Buy or make an offer. Click Buy It Now and send the bank wire, or make an offer. If several wires arrive for the same business, the first one in wins.
5. Take over the blog. Empire Flippers migrates the domain, site and accounts to you, and you stay in contact with the seller and the team during the handover.

Read the full registration details and the buyer FAQ.

Find Your Next Blog for Sale

Buying a blog can give you a working income stream from day one, if you check the traffic, the earnings and the risks first. Empire Flippers has sold 2,684 online businesses worth $600M+, and every listing is vetted before it goes live.

Browse vetted blogs and content sites for sale, or book a free call with one of our buying advisors to set your criteria and get alerts when a matching blog is listed.

Register to Unlock Listings Book a Call with an Advisor

Buying a Blog: Frequently Asked Questions

Are blogs still profitable to buy?

Yes, an established blog can still be a profitable purchase when its traffic and earnings are proven. Blogs have low overhead and no inventory, and most earn from affiliate commissions, display ads or both. To be listed on Empire Flippers, a business must make at least $24,000 a year in net profit and have at least 12 months of revenue history.

Can I buy an existing blog or website?

Yes. You can buy an established blog privately or through a broker or marketplace. On Empire Flippers you buy through a vetted listing, the team handles the asset transfer, and you keep the content, domain, traffic and income streams. See the buyer FAQ for the full process.

Where can I find blogs for sale?

You can find vetted blogs for sale in the Empire Flippers marketplace, which publishes new businesses every week. Content sites sit in the affiliate, display advertising, Amazon Associates and WordPress categories.

How much does it cost to buy a blog?

The price of a blog is usually its last 12 months of net profit multiplied by a valuation multiple, typically 1.7x to 5x or more. A blog that earns $30,000 a year at a 3x multiple would list at about $90,000. Check any figure with the valuation tool.

Is it better to buy a blog or start one from scratch?

Buying is faster if you have the capital, because you get traffic, rankings and income from day one. A new blog can take months or years to rank and earn, and many never do. A purchased blog also comes with its content, domain, analytics history and often an email list and written processes.

How do I know if a blog’s traffic is real?

Ask for access to the seller’s analytics account and review at least the last 12 months. Check traffic sources, seasonality and sudden drops, and compare traffic with earnings. Every Empire Flippers listing is vetted with automated tools and manual checks by two or more people, and unlocked listings include traffic and earnings reports. Use the content site due diligence guide for a full review.

What makes a blog more valuable to buyers?

Buyers pay more for blogs with 12 months of stable data, more than one income source and more than one traffic source. An email list, a WordPress build, a long track record, low owner time and a clean backlink profile also raise the multiple. See how to value a website for real sales data.

Should I buy a blog with no email list?

Yes, a blog without an email list can still be a good buy if its traffic and earnings are stable. Buyers often favor sites with a large list, so a blog without one may be priced lower, and starting a list after the purchase is a clear growth lever.

Can I buy a blog with seller financing or an earnout?

Yes, you can negotiate an earnout, where you pay part of the price up front and the rest over an agreed timeline. On deals made through Empire Flippers, the team manages the earnout and can hold the domain until the buyer has paid in full. Read the deal structuring guide before you make an offer.

Do I have to pay to see blog listings on Empire Flippers?

No. Creating an account is free; you only need to verify that you have the funds to buy, for example by connecting a bank account through Plaid or sending a bank statement. Verified buyers can unlock up to 100 listings in their price range. Create a free account.

What happens after I buy a blog?

After payment, Empire Flippers migrates the blog to you. You share your hosting, registrar and monetization details through a support ticket, and you stay in direct contact with the seller and the Empire Flippers team during the handover. The standard asset purchase agreement is part of the Empire Flippers terms of use.