Website valuation as a corporate asset?

[Sharksfan]

I know this is a little off topic but then again I know a lot of the AM crowd around here has worked as SEO types for companies.

I am an owner in a company. I've been doing a lot of SEO stuff for our small company lately for the product lines we work with. Last time I checked I had 3 of the top 10 Google spots for our products. This was for search results numbering 22,000,000+

For longer tail stuf we are starting to dominate as well. It's pretty cool to see the rewards of the SEO work.

Here's the question though - let's say the business was sold (always a possbility...). Does anyone have any background in what a corporate website would be valued for as an asset of the corporation? It is NOT a sales site - it does drive traffic to our sales department but there is no direct selling ability. However, we are beating several companies with revenue 10-100X our size and we are also beating HP (Hewlett Packard) in their own listings of some of their high-end enterprise software.

 

[riddarhusetgal]

Not being flippant but try using advance search - esp. searching the domaining section...

may also consider looking at sites like compete and seopivot for info on all your top rank words....
try a comparable valuation similar to traditional corp finance....i.e.

cpc of words ranked for X no. of searches per year = seo value....i.e. the dollar value of those rankings if the next best alternative was used - adwords

I would subtract out 20% of the traffic because if you don't anyone knows what they are talking about might be suspicious of your claiming 100% of the traffic (i.e. the part flowing to the paid listings....)

I'd also assess domain value as well as an equity asset - perhaps get a valuation from moniker which if I recall is the only domain name appraiser used by the irs for audits....

Hence: (domain value) + (SEOV)=Market Value of Rankings....that's a rough number I'd start with....

Of course you will need a discount rate (to adjust for risk) but that is another black box. I think the above is definitely a start in the right direction. Lastly, I'd also hit up dnsalesprice.com to look at historical values of comparable domains to help me adjust the domain name asset value up or down.....

And on that note.....

Good Luck Bro

 

[Fatbat]

I'd say the valuation of the site is based entirely on what sort of revenue it generates for you. Whether that is direct or indirect (latent?) doesn't really matter. The value of your business is based on what sort of revenues it generates. It would then stand to reason that your website is worth whatever % of those revenues it is responsible for.

 

[Sharksfan]

Good stuff, thanks - that's actually EXACTLY what I am looking for.

Ideally I want to add another $1,000,000 in approximate valuation to our company from market exposure. That would mean somewhere in the neighborhood of 650,000 visits/year (figuring $1.50/click from Spyfu numbers).

Since the traffic is substantially lower than that now it gives me something to shoot for. It also has made me re-evaluate a few things I am doing for other people....hmm.....

 

[Fatbat]

Of course I should have also added plus the value of the domain name itself if you have some especially impressive premium name. Some companies are able to add a cool million to their worth if they simply hold an incredible domain, even if the site doesn't earn them squat for revenue.