I have a little bit of experience selling websites online now and there are a fews things that happen every time. I'm not talking about large websites here, just smaller one-man-show sort of sites - the kind you find for sale on eBay or SitePoint. Here they are:
1. By putting your site up for sale, you are basically exposing your sites entire business model for the world to see (and to copy). So don't put your site up for sale unless you truly plan on selling it. Keep in mind it may not sell so be careful what you tell the world about it.
2. Everyone and their dog will hammer you with questions about your site. Not because they want to buy it, but because they are trying to extract information from you that they can use to monetize their websites. They will say they are interested, pepper you with questions, then disappear forever. This happns A LOT on SitePoint.
3. People will bid on your auction, when they have no intention whatsoever of buying it. Strange/weird but true.
4. A LOT of people that have no clue how to run a website will want to buy it. Be careful here because you could wind up selling your site to someone, only to get emailed hourly/daily with questions on how to do this, and how to do that. If you are selling smaller sites like I do, you can kiss your profit goodbye given the amount of your time they will take up with questions.
5. Selling a site is like selling a used car. You will spend your time talking about the great things about your site, and buyers that contact you will spend their time talking about how your traffic is declining, profit is declining, etc, etc, even though it isn't true at all. Btw, I find this is the mark of a true buyer as well. People that really want to buy your site, will be the ones that are most critical of it. If they aren't being critical, chances are they are just trying to extract information for use elsewhere.
There you have it, some things to watch for that will happen if you decide to sell your website, so prepare for it!
web development