Acquire Deal Flow: 1 Content Site on Flippa
This week's content site pick on Flippa is in the diet and health industry and is listed for $190K.
Hey there 👋,
This week's content site pick on Flippa is in the diet and health industry and is listed for $190K. Every week I pick new content sites and media property listings on Flippa that meet my criteria and have upside available, from three different revenue buckets. If you haven’t already, you can subscribe below:
Since last week, there were 4 (-31 on last week) new classified listings (ones with an asking price, not auction listings) for content sites on Flippa earning > $100/m with verified traffic (GA integration):
Small content sites ($100/m to $500/m in profit) - currently 38 listings, 0 new listings
Medium content sites ($500/m-$5K/m in profit) - currently 79 listings, 2 new listings
Large content sites (over $5K/m in profit) - currently 21 listings, 2 new listing
However, there is only one that passes most of my criteria - I actually break this rule my rule about featuring sites where a significant % of revenue comes from guest / sponsored posts.
This Week’s Picks
Please view this as initial screening - I am not recommending you should acquire these assets. Do you own due diligence and/or buy DD on Flippa or Centurica.
For my criteria and terminology see this post.
If you want further assistance with your acquisition, you can book a micro-consulting call with me on Clarity, details at Acquire.gg.
As a Flippa affiliate, I earn a % of what Flippa earns from listings sold.healyeatsreal.com - $190K
Listing Description: “A 10 year old content business in the diet and health industry earning average $4,000 per month.”
Monetization: “Revenue is generated through blog sponsored content & influencer marketing (75%), AdThrive (23%), and affiliate programs/ebook sales (2%).”
Website Analysis
Blogroll homepage, with sidebar optin - what you’d expect for a food blogging site. Website loads very quickly, getting 100% score on GTmetrix:
Traffic Analysis
According to Semrush, search traffic has been on a steady decline since 2019:
But Ubersuggest (which I’m finding more accurate these days) suggest it’s bottomed and now rising again, back to the same level YoY:
Regardless, the site is still ranking on page one for some decent volume keywords.
Content Analysis
Top page bringing in 16% of organic traffic according to Semrush (so no real page dependency here) and the content quality seems very high, covering every question about sprouting lentils! I have to assume it’s written by the original site owner / seller (given the domain name!) Hannah Healy, which is always ideal. Not seeing any copyscape issues.
Vast majority of content (308 pages in Google index) is informational:
Backlink Analysis
Good site authority of 48 in Semrush but referring domains have dropped off quite a bit over the last 6 months, but top anchors are all brand / looking clean:
Patey Analysis
Sponsored blog content for me is always a red flag if done by an SEO, but is common with food blogging site owners, and she appears to be professional stating has contracts in place:
I've worked with a myriad of companies on sponsored content including Target, Kroger, iHerb, Vital Proteins, Albertsons, Walmart, Quest Nutrition, Vons, Vital Farms, Truvia, New Chapter and more. In the past year I worked with 13 companies on sponsored content, many of whom had contracts for repeated content.
The website comes with a decent-sized email list of 5K (which you can at least value at $1 per sub if not a lot higher) plus large facebook page and pinterest accounts - the seller states that 27% of the 38K pageviews showing for August is from social.
A potential problem is that the site is running AdThrive which typically requires a minimum of 100,000 pageviews per month, which the site used to get (and may get again). So the new owner may not be able to successfully reapply, and may opt to choose Ezoic - your EPMV may vary (it can actually be higher on Ezoic).
Upside Wins
Move from blogroll to more static homepage to better direct link equity to boost the most important pages
With affiliate bringing in only 2% of revenue, there’s an opportunity to better optimize the site, i.e. add exit pop for affiliate offers
I’d move that 5K email list to Substack, run a weekly newsletter and get the companies who are paying for sponsored blog content to advertise there instead - try to generate the same (or more) revenue that way, whilst removing google penalty risk away if companies are paying for dofollow links. Also add CPA / affiliate offers using Swapstack such as Verb Energy who pay $7.50 a conversion
Valuation
This may be the main sticking point.
You will need to obviously get Google Analytics access, but assuming September search traffic is indeed increasing (as Ubersuggest is showing) then we can assume that September pageviews are back to 50K pageviews. September revenue was stated as $793 which works out to be a combined RPM of $15 (sponsored content + advertising + affiliate).
I think with the potential upside wins above, someone could double RPM.
The seller states that:
Summer is notoriously a low spend time for advertisers so every year the revenue dips quite a bit in the summer.
Which would explain why revenue was ~ $800 last month, whereas March 22 revenue was 10x higher. Assuming a L12M average can make sense (it may not), then with an average monthly profit of ~ $4K, the $190K asking price gives almost a 50x monthly profit multiple, which is obviously on the high side.
I’d make an offer considerably less to take into account that the majority of revenue currently comes from companies paying for blog content, and therefore I assume links.
🗣️ Patey Recommends
Here are platforms, services and products that I have personally used or know the founder/team and can recommend.
Flippa - the largest marketplace for buying and selling websites
Odys - premium aged domain marketplace
Namecheap - where I hand register web2 (and now web3) domains
Centurica - premium due diligence services
Content at Scale - one click AI content that’s good enough to publish (you get a 20% boost in credits with this link)
Human Proof Designs - buy ready made sites and a whole heap of operational services
WorkHero - managing wordpress sucks, use WorkHero so you don’t have to
Niche Site Metrics - find low competition niches based on actual data
That’s it for this week’s content site picks. If you’ve not yet subscribed here’s the CTA for you:
And come follow me on twitter or book a micro-consulting call with me.
Cheers!
Richard
Important Disclaimer: Not financial, investing or tax advice. This newsletter is strictly for information, entertainment and education purposes. Nothing in here is investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This newsletter is not tax advice. Talk to your professional advisors. Do your own research. This newsletter is monetized through affiliate links and sponsorship.