Selling SEO business

I've been working for myself in the field of SEO for just over 12 months and have built up a decent little business. I have 4 main clients who between them give me a profit of just over £1500 a month. I also have 2 websites which are very well established which I use as part of the process, they bring in an income as well but this is then spent on links on other site to my clients websites. I've recently taken a full time job and I therefore don't have the time to spend on this any more and I'm looking to pass everything on to someone else who has more time to spend on it. There is potential with at least 3 of the clients to increase what they are spending as they are at the early stages of the process and are expecting to increase their budget in the future. Does anyone here have suggestions as to the best way to go about selling everything? where I could advertise? what I could expect to get for it all? etc etc! or obviously any offers directly from here would be very welcome!

Unfortunately, if the clients are your only asset and you have no Intellectual Property changing hands the only thing you can do is give them away.

In fact, since you desire to skip out on your current obligation not to mention getting paid to do so) you really should be paying someone else to get rid of that liability.

Business buying and selling is about "tangibles" of product and service IP, processes, brand identity, and stable cash flow... 0 new business, and 4 return customers that might isn't considered stable.

My clients are happy with the results so far and are paying for a service which includes a number of inbound links, banner advertising and so on, all of which have tangible value. Advertising space alone on one of the websites generates £100 each month which is spent directly on links elsewhere. That website alone therefore has a value of at least £2400 based only on the value of advertising sold. That is not to mention subscriptions and ppc click income and so on. Effectively what I do is use the advertsing space I have on a number of websites and sell that on, by packaging it up with SEO. I could sell the websites individually but it seems to make more sense to just sell it all as one ongoing business as they are all packaged so closely together.

Why on earth would I give it away? thats absurd! there is no liability that I would want to get rid of, there are just 4 customers who are happy with the results of spending their money on advertising with me and are planning on increasing it in the future. If I didnt find someone interested in buying it then I would pay someone to run it for me, I certainly wouldnt give away a business generating £1500 a month! would you? if so I'm happy to take it off your hands!!!!

If you compare your 2nd post to the 1st... you said things quite differently.

1st - cash flow that may or may not be there after sale

2nd - assets that will be there after sale.

your processes that keeps the client are the assets - not the free will of the client.

Sure yes I see. The issue is whether the customers will stay I supppose and what work is involved going forward. Well each of the customers is different, but its fair to say that in each case they are happy with the results so far and as long as the results continue to be good then they will continue to stay. Strategies and keyword analysis, on site optimisation and so on has all been handled for each. It's not reallly just a matter of them paying for adspace though, I mean for all of the customers there is link building work that needs to be done and that is ongoing. I'd say theres about an hours work every day for someone who knows what they're doing, on average. I suppose its a matter of working out how much of the income is actually for ad space and how much is for the work to be done

Perhaps a suggestion might be to slice and dice it? Depending on how much time you have you can outsource offsite optimization (linking, etc.) or even onsite/external advertising or a combination of all three?

Don't want to get involved in this debate, but the customers do have value. They are included in the "goodwill" value of the business.

Also, you can value the business in a number of ways. You have little to no hard assets, so book value is out as a base value. But, you could value it based on a discounted cash flow basis. The amount of discount would be the stickler. Your business is based upon only 4 highly mobile customers and has only been is existence for a one year period. In the final analysis the true value of your business is what you are willing to sell it for matched to what a willing buyer is willing to pay.

Thanks to everyone for their comments. I think what I will do is work out the value of the actual websites themselves, based on what the advertising space would go for if sold independently. Then add on something for good will, and that will be the total package cost. Obviously it will have to be a significant figure otherwise I'd just keep the business myself. But I appreciate it is only worth what someone will pay for it, I'm sure theres a happy medium between what I would want and what its worth to someone. Ultimately for someone starting off in the business of SEO this is an ideal package, a nice income, some very good clients and a few websites thrown in as well, theres big otential to grow the business too as the clients are all well connected and will make referrals, thats how they all came to me originally. So anyway thanks for the comments, does anyone have suggestions as to where would be a good place to advertise this for sale?

Mnnnnnn.

Well hows about this...... Give me the bussiness, and i will pay you
700 per month for the next 10 months.... hence you have sold your clients and the £1500 income per month to me for £7k

On seeing this thread again it occurred to me "that is exactly what I did"... gave it away.

For residual on new contracts, free ad space, free content, free links, and free SEO services [indefinitely]... which is a far more lucrative than getting any upfront monetary value.

Since they need to make a go of it - that which they would have paid me is poured into the business for stability.

Food for thought.