September 21 2021
How Much is Your Website Worth?
The Transferrable Value of a Great Website
A website is more than just the online face of your business, at least when it comes to adding value to your company. It can be a valuable asset when it comes to determining the worth of your business. In fact, it can be worth 24 to 36 times the monthly revenue it generates through online and offline leads, (Source: Semrush) depending on various factors, which we have outlined below.
So, what additional elements are included when figuring out how much your website is worth?
Your Brand
The value of an established, well-planned-out website is hard to calculate. Your website needs to be thought of as the cornerstone for all your corporate messaging and branding. Your website being an extension of that brand is therefore valuable.
Another large extension of your brand is your social media presence. Your business’s LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter or Instagram presence and following per platform is linked to your website and an important part of your brand. This also applies to your business’s video strategies and the amount of activity your brand receives on your YouTube channel.
A well-developed website also includes backlinks which increase the value. Backlinks continue to be a signal in Google’s algorithms and the best backlinks are acquired naturally as other websites find value in linking to the content on your website. These are earned backlinks from your ongoing content additions made over time.
Domain Name
Say your company has had a website since the late 2000s. This means there’s a lot of history built up with the URL. This includes name recognition and brand value that has developed over time. Even if your website is newer than that, it still has built-up value as Google, and your website visitors, begin seeing the worth of your ongoing content development efforts.
More tangibly, over time, a website will build up a domain authority value. Moz defines this as “a search engine ranking score [first] developed by Moz that predicts how likely a website is to rank in search engine result pages (SERPs).” Though not an official part of Google’s algorithm, the value of the website domain and its relevance to the subject it’s referring to are some of the indicators that Google uses in its algorithm.
SEO Ranking
In addition to the value the domain has earned over time, so has the investment made into your search engine optimization (SEO) and organic presence. The more URLs your website has that are on the first page of the SERPs (or close to it), the more SEO value your site has earned. It takes time and effort to get and maintain those rankings and those rankings are tied to the value of the domain.
Successful SEO includes high-intent keywords – the keywords that indicate a user is ready to make a move with a business. These high-intent keywords are part of the valuable SEO strategy that helps your website rank well. The content on your website that supports those keywords is also valuable in that it provides the optimal user experience by answering the question the user is looking for. SEO done correctly over time will place your company in front of “in-market” users looking for solutions to their needs.
Basically, this is a sales-generating feature of your website and one that cannot simply be created from thin air. It is also a long-term investment and therefore of value to your business.
Additional Content
Not only is the content on your website important for SEO and user experience purposes, but there are other content benefits as well. Your website likely contains product specifications, videos, demonstrations, and how-tos, as well as other content that elevates your business. These content pieces are often considered a “hidden asset” of a website but can be immeasurably valuable.
What About E-Commerce Sites?
If your website is an e-commerce site (selling products or services through the site itself), there are additional benefits to be had. This includes the historical data of your customers, the customer lists themselves, as well as any other information that has been collected by the inventory/sales management system itself.
What This Means for You
When looking at the total worth of your company, it’s important not to lose sight of your online assets. Websites have an earned value that can increase over time. Don’t let your site’s value drop by neglecting to keep it updated and relevant. If executed correctly, and supported by ongoing content development, your website will, without question, be an extremely valuable and “transferrable” asset to your company.