Investing in Websites
Websites are just like any software and therefore have value. The 2 main commercially valuable parts of a website are its domain name and the actual website content itself.
Investing in Domain Names
You do not even need to create a website to earn money from the website business. You can invest in a domain name which you hope will have value in the future that other people will be interested in buying it from you for a higher value than you first originally invested in. According to GoDaddy.com for example one of the highest domain names ever sold publicly was CarInsurance.com for $49.7 million in 2010.
Do not think that flipping domain names are extremely lucrative as decades may pass by before your domain name investment appreciates in value. Going back to CarInsurance.com the domain name was first registered way back in 1995 then got sold for $49.7 million in 2010. It means that it appreciated in value $3.3 million per year on average though this might be an oversimplification.
Of course the previous example above is one of the best example of profiting from your investment in domain names. Is there a secret in naming domains? There are those that advise on sticking with the most popular domain name extension “.com” while others advice on keeping your domain names short and simple.
There are however enterprising people who register domain names using the name of popular and/or big companies before these same companies can even register their domain names themselves. This happened most frequently during the early days of the internet when companies where skeptical about the commercial value of having a website.
Investing in the Website Itself
Let us now go to investing in the website content itself. The website you may be investing by creating it yourself or buying it may be a blog, eCommerce, informational and anything else in between. Would you resell it outright or further develop it before reselling it or maintain it as a long time business concern? It all depends upon you. I suggest you go to sites like Flippa.com before investing in a website just to see how much potential value you stand to get if ever you want to sell it later.
One good example is nerdwallet.com which the creator Tim Chen started out with only $800 of his own money in 2009. As of 2018 it is now worth over $500 million dollars. A former finance worker who got laid off at Christmas time he got the idea of starting a personal finance website when his sister asked him for advice regarding a personal finance issue.
The full story is in the CNBC article: After being laid off, this 35-year-old founded NerdWallet with $800 — now it’s worth $500 million. I hope this inspires you.
Conclusion
Websites are not only digital products but are also digital real estate. This means that they occupy online space which people can visit and even buy from. A domain name can make any company or individual very visible online which is now a prerequisite if anyone wants to be famous and rich.
You can create your own website or buy one and rework it according to your whim. There are in fact many people who create websites and domain names just to resell them for a profit. There are people who have even made this activity their business. It is clear however that like all investments it is better to spend less in acquiring one and hold and develop it long enough until it appreciates in value.
To reiterate again you should not only hold a website but develop it as well as the visitors of your website will not visit again if they see no fresh content from it after a while. A website becomes valuable if it keeps getting visited by people. In the website business it is very important to get repeat views as website owners only mostly earn thru high viewership numbers even though they may be repeat ones.