Four years into publishing The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine (TOS), owners Paul and Gena Suarez recognized a need for an easy-to-use, FREE, online community where homeschool moms, dads, kids, and grandparents could interact and launched HomeschoolBlogger.com (HSB). Within the first month of its existence, HSB hosted more than 30,000 visits! By the first quarter of 2008, HSB was hosting almost 400,000 unique visitors and averaging more than 9 million page views monthly. Currently, HSB logs more than 500,000 page views per month, hosts about 11,000 new posts per month, and registers 25 new users daily. For many homeschoolers—both teachers and students—a visit to HSB has become part of their daily routine.

Obviously, TOS has identified—and met—a vital need within the homeschooling community. The success of HomeschoolBlogger.com has proven it.

So, why sell HomeschoolBlogger.com and its counterpart, HomesteadBlogger.com? “We’re narrowing our focus at The Old Schoolhouse®, and we’ve fulfilled our original goal: to provide a ‘mini blogosphere’ for homeschoolers around the world,” explained Gena Suarez. “It’s time to hand over the reins to someone else. We’ve simply decided to invest our time and resources in other opportunities that have our attention.”

The site almost exclusively uses open source code, thus effectively sidestepping most licensing fees. Last year HSB rolled out a brand-new platform on WordPress, which offers lots of bells and whistles. More than 140 themes are available, including plugins that provide both secure and feature-rich styling of any of the themes. The platform changes also enabled TOS to minimize maintenance costs and support time.

The current platform makes it possible for a new owner to easily assume control of the site on the existing server. Surprisingly, even if the new owner switched to a different server, migration should require downtime of 8 hours or less! The site could grow to power more than 8 million users before a rewrite or change in platform would be necessary.

HSB operates correctly within any current browser and operating system; therefore visitors can “come as they are” from their mobile devices, Wii, PSP, and others. Use of the Anti-Splog API automatically terminates accounts used for spamming, ensuring that the site quality remains high.

HomeschoolBlogger.com has, in essence, succeeded in creating an international virtual neighborhood of homeschooling families, a neighborhood supported entirely by advertising revenue, enabling users to enjoy the perks at no cost to them. As the billion-dollar homeschool market continues to grow, the potential for profitable expansion—for everyone—appears to be unlimited.

Interested buyers should contact the owners of HomeschoolBlogger.com, Gena and Paul Suarez, or the company’s Director of Marketing, Julie Nott, directly for more details (publisher@TheHomeschoolMagazine.com). HomesteadBlogger.com, a user-friendly, customized network for the homesteading community, is also for sale.

Via EPR Network
More Education press releases