Micro M&A Strategies To Grow Your Business: 4 Strategies
Bio: Mushfiq is a prolific investor who buys, grows, and sells online businesses, and specializes in content websites. He has done 215+ website flips to date and several have resulted in multiple 6-figure exits. He manages WebAcquisition.com, an M&A company that provides due diligence, growth strategies, mergers, and more services for acquisition entrepreneurs.
Introduction
Growing an online business can be a major challenge, especially when it comes to SEO and growing a site in a competitive niche. A smart strategy involving mergers & acquisitions of other online properties can not only speed up the process but strengthen your online business.
The strategies behind each acquisition are going to differ based on the online property type, number of followers, amount of engagement, and a variety of other factors. Not many online businesses are taking advantage of this strategy, which helps make it even more effective.
What Is Micro M&A?
Micro M&A stands for micro mergers & acquisitions and refers to the practice of acquiring used domain names, social media profiles, websites, and other online properties to boost or grow your business.
I add micro because these deals tend to be $50,000 or less, often much less, making them a far cry from the multi-million dollar corporate mergers covered in places like Forbes.
Some of the online properties that can be purchased and merged into your brand include:
- Facebook groups
- YouTube channels
- Existing websites
- Social media profiles
- Aged domain names
Each of these has the potential to boost an existing business through careful due diligence that proceeds to the actual acquisition of these properties and merging them into your existing business.
Doing this on a small scale or micro level means you make sure each property has the potential to deliver maximum impact for minimal investment.
Benefits of Micro M&A To Grow Your Business
Growing an online business from scratch takes time. Google can be slow to index and they tend to take time to rank blog posts or direct traffic to sites they decide are authoritative. One of the major benefits of acquiring online assets through Micro M&A tactics is speeding up that time frame.
Getting links from sites you acquire, acquiring used domains that forward to your current business, or driving direct traffic from existing Facebook and social media groups to see immediate attention are just three of the common ways micro M&A can quickly benefit
Many different ways using acquisition strategies can benefit you by accelerating the growth of a current business.
4 Micro M&A Strategies That You Can Deploy
There are four major Micro M&A strategies that you can use to grow your business. Each of these techniques has its pros, cons, and strategies to get the most out of them.
Building a Micro Media Network of Content Sites
It’s no secret that backlinks are a crucial part of SEO and getting search engines like Google to recognize and rank websites. Having a network of content-based websites in the same or adjacent niches to your business that can link to your main business website can give you a major leg up on the competition.
Monetizing these network sites can also provide at least some side income that can then be reinvested into growing your main business even further.
Pros:
- You have a network of backlinks your competition can’t acquire since you control them
- Existing traffic can be funneled to your main business via links and promotion
- Sites kept active can be monetized for some additional passive income
Cons:
- Can be expensive to acquire in large numbers
- Smaller sites tend to be less effective for SEO boosting, but larger sites are more expensive
- Requires content maintenance and investment to maintain the health of the network
Merging Smaller Content Sites Into Your Business
I’m a big fan of acquiring smaller neglected content sites and merging them into my main website. This involves moving the existing content over to my site where I’ll add more content or edit as I see fit, and using 301 redirects to push the backlink juice from the purchased site to my main site.
The new backlinks (through 301 redirects) and additional content can combine to add a lot of new keyword rankings, and a big boost in authority…not to mention more organic traffic!
Pros:
- When done properly increases your site’s authority
- Reduces the competition since you’ve acquired a competing site
- Infuses your site with more quality content
- Transfer authority via “aged” tropical relevancy
Cons:
- Due diligence is required to make sure any content you use is high quality and original
- Any spammy links pointing to the other site are now pointed to your site
- Too many off-topic backlinks can “shift” the relevancy of your site
Acquiring Social Media Channels
There are many social media channels out there that aren't going to move the needle, even if they're in the right niche. However, using proper due diligence to find active social media channels in the niche can provide some exceptional micro M&A opportunities.
A good social media channel can result in immediate traffic to a website and sales based on interaction with an active community in addition to increasing the value of the website or online business if the social media channel is included as part of the package.
Pros:
- Target potential customers most likely to buy your products or interact with your site
- Can often get excellent value from a cost-per-follower or cost-per-lead perspective
- Can drive social traffic immediately to the main website
- Opens up another platform to advertise your main business and/or new products
- High-value social media channels are often relatively inexpensive to acquire
Cons:
- There is the potential for a large exodus of community members after the ownership transition
- Doesn’t directly improve the SEO of an online website
- Due diligence can be a bit more difficult when trying to determine how active and engaged a community is, bots vs real followers, etc.
Acquiring & Merging Aged Domains for SEO Boost
Aged domains are an interesting tool for growing a business because they carry with them a history of backlinks that hold authority in the eyes of Google. By properly using a 301 redirect, powerful links to an old domain name can have their juice pushed through to your main site.
This can be a way not only to acquire links within the niche that might otherwise be impossible to acquire but get aged links from authoritative sources like The New York Times or other major news organizations.
Even a handful of well-aged domains that 301 Redirect properly can cause the authority of a website to jump and skip months or even years that would otherwise be needed to build that level of authority otherwise.
Pros:
- Can be a powerful way to boost your site’s authority and backlink profile without having to spend hours on outreach
- May give access to backlinks that would otherwise be very difficult to acquire
- Easier to operate than a network of active sites
Cons:
- A good aged domain is valuable and that means they tend to be expensive
- It can be difficult to find a good aged domain in some niches
- Competition can be fierce
- If there hasn’t been a site in that domain for a long time some of the link juice could be diminished in Google’s eyes
Where To Find M&A Deal Flow?
There are multiple excellent resources for finding good deals for M&A opportunities, but no one spot will be a “one-stop shop.”
The best places to find merger and acquisition options will depend heavily on what online properties you’re looking to acquire.
Some of my favorites include:
- Spamzilla (aged domains)
- Ody Global (aged domains)
- FameSwap (social media accounts)
- SocialTradia (social media accounts)
- Flippa (domains, existing websites, and social media accounts)
- Empire Flippers (existing content websites)
Actionable Takeaways
Smart micro M&A has been a major strategy whenever I grow a major website or online business. These techniques are powerful, repeatable, and can be used by anyone to build up strong authority fast in their niche.
Focus on the acquisitions that provide the most opportunities and best ROI, and you can use these same techniques to grow your online business.
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