Good starting traffic does not mean steady traffic. There's a reason why you want to sell the domain. Is the CTR low? Is the traffic mediocre? Is it safe for me to assume that you're not making the type of revenue you thought you would after spending $30k! on the development, content, etc?
You're not going to get $140,000 for the domain, it's just not worth your asking price -- and that's even if the domain is developed. You also say that you spent $30k on the development of the site...I'm sorry, but that does not look like a $30,000 site to me; most of the articles are bland / monotonous. The overall design lacks appeal.
The next point I'd like to emphasize is that the domain itself: "losing weight," is inferior to "weight loss" or "how to lose weight", both of which receive higher search volume (nearly 5x as much exact) and are more natural to pronounce and easier to remember. As a result, you potentially have the third best weight-loss related domain.
If you had something like weightloss.com or howtoloseweight.com, which are both superior to losingweight.com (in my opinion), then you could pull in the $140k for sure. But it won't happen with losingweight.com.
The forum is pretty much dead. If you had an active community with 5-10k users, then you could pull in the price you're asking for.
A website with some bland articles on how to lose weight, some extremely basic health calculators that anyone can find online, coupled with a dead forum community and an overall website look that lacks an attractive appeal and warm invitation will never get you the $140k.
I'm sticking with my original appraisal.
Good luck, though.
The sole reason we're selling the site is because we cannot continue the funding for content.
In late February, we focused on content that targeted long-tail keywords. Since employing this strategy, our traffic climbed everytime we uploaded content to the Website.
We made some costly decisions in the very beginning that I wish we could reverse in retrospect. Much of what was done was not neccessary.
Integrating the forum into the Website's theme was very costly, and asking for a customization here and there was quite expensive (and this programmer lived in Germany, so the exchange rate was not in our favor at all).
Speaking of the layout, this is what the original theme looked like before >>
http://wpshower.com/demo/?theme=unspoken and what you see now is the after. Most of theme gutting was completed by me, but we had a bit of PHP work done and a few custom plugins, like the quizzes. That was not cheap.
When I read criticism, I tend to be sensentive, but to honest, I don't feel a fragile feeling in my body with your comment about the design lacking appeal. Your comment about the design lacking appeal is very much lacking in assessment. I get nothing but compliments on the layout, and I know the layout is attractive, so taking your criticisms seriously is a quest.
Yes, the forum is dead (bold and all). We shouldn't have worried about a forum until we received more traffic. That I will agree on.
As with the content, I heavily disagree with your perception on that. We're not trying to be Cracked.com. We're providing information. Information is knowledge. If someone types in, "How Many Calories Do You Burn Doing Insanity?" then the user wants an answer (some knowledge) - and we provide an answer to the best of our ability. Much of the content to most of our article titles is impossible to liven up anyway. We're not going to ignore "How Many Carbs In Celery" if it has a measurable search volume and if we can rank for it. And we're not going to attempt an unnessary theme to such content. We're going to answer the question, and that's it. Additionally, the content is not exactly that appealing when you're not the one searching a percise phrase and seeking a precise answer.
The fact is - I realize that weight loss is a simple solution. Simply move more and eat less crap. It's not like the content will reveal anything that hasn't been said before.
If people are going to search information that's already out there, then the most relevant place they can land on is LosingWeight.com right now. We do what we can to give the best answer to a question/phrase. If you find the content "blah" then it's not relevant enough in your life to spark interest. I know the articles are helpful and on point...to the people who desire for answers to their questions.
Weight loss day-to-day is the hard part, and when people plan to carry out such health goals, they're going to search questions along the way, so that's where we come in.
I state this because you have the feeling that the information is essentially worthless. You're wrong.
You have to put yourself in the shoes of someone who is overweight and types in specific questions. That person wants to know "Will Ice Cream Make You Fat?" People do search such phrases, so we take the simple answer "Eat less" and apply it in article format in so many words so that makes sense for the people who search precise queries.
As with the calculators, yeah... they're basic. "Extremely basic" in your words. What's your point? How complex should they be? Not understanding your approach on that......but I can picture your rebuttle... "it doesn't make your site stand out from everyone else" ... we serve weight loss information. So we're not supposed to have calculators? Most BMI calculators use the same formula to calculate your BMI. So you're saying that we're not supposed to carry health calculators because "anyone can find online?" What's wrong with people finding them anywhere on LosingWeight.com? Just curious because *ahem* it is a weight loss site. It's appropriate, and I have zero shame for having them on the site.
I can obviously tell from reading your response about the calculators that you aren't aware of how useful our information and basic tools are for weight loss. To someone who is overweight, this calculator means the world and much more. The number or answer that the calculator spits out is often a revelation to the user. That's why these tools exist, and I'm glad they're "extremely basic."
Okay, what else?
And what's laughable more than anything else is what you quote the domain name alone. Can't even give it five digits?
Sorry, but when I see that addictedgames.com sells for $135,000, aftermarket.com for $125,000, caribbeanvacations.com for $130,000, and fruitbaskets.com for $142,500...I can't help but picture LosingWeight.com next to one of those prices. The phrase is just TOO common for it to be below what I'm asking for....and my phrase has a way higher search volume than the domains that sold for the prices I listed here. By the way, the sites that sold for such prices accounted for the domain only.
My asking price is fair, and I know it. If I put it up for $7,000, you'd snatch it. Now I see your scheme. Nice try.
P.S. The last part about the scheme...it's a joke.