I rank on the first page for many keywords, and I am closing down my business....

I previously wanted to shut the business down temporarily, but I have now decided to shut it down completely-forever. My main term is 'soy candles' where I am #1, with many backlinks holding me at the #1 for spot for over a year.

If you do a search for the term 'soy candles', you will see PAGES of small 'ma and pa' candle sites online. Would my domain have resale value? I would like to just sell the domain name, and they would use their own products, shopping cart, etc. No images, etc. would be transferred from my site. I would also include, with no guarantees, my SEO help in designing their site to have it most optimized for these keywords.

Does this sound plausible? I'm wondering if anyone has done something like this before? I have many candle making forums I could post this ad in, but I want to hear other people's input first. I'd want to at least receive $1000 for this, preferably $2000 (I have many overdue bills with this business after my marriage), and i'm wondering if that's too small, large, etc.

tyler -

I usually try to sell my businesses, as is, for about 8 times NOI -- the buyer should be paying a premium for the work you did in getting to where you are. Thus, the amount you sell the company for (under the hopeful assumption that you set this up as a LLC or C and not as a sole propreitorship) would be a factor multiplied by the net operating profit you had for the last year.

There will be disagreement on this, as it is only one way to value a business; I've had the opportunity to see a lot of different ways, and I prefer this one. NOI doesn't take into account heavy debt, per se, which is it's main drawback, but it's good enough.

Oh, and if you didn't setup an LLC, it might make sense (depending on your situation of which I have scant details) to create an LLC and transfer ownership of the site into that LLC).

Finally, as a part of the sale, you can remain on as the marketing consultant for whatever negotiated period of time deemed necessary by both you are your buyer.

Good luck!

Cygnus