Profitability of sites and services
This article will be useful to anyone who wants to do their own business on websites and services. Here are examples of profitability and average site traffic after one year of operation. The main purpose of the article is to give an approximate idea of the complexity of the development of projects for those who have decided to make their first startup.
The article assumes that the reader has already gone deep into the profitability of iT projects and represents where and how you can earn.
Surely you have heard stories from friends that they easily earn one average salary from your country from their websites (hereinafter referred to as salary *). At the same time, the site’s age is calculated in weeks, and your friend’s experience in creating such projects tends to zero.
It was from this situation that I started to deal with sites and services. After reading a couple of dozen forums, I found that you can make good money on websites. In addition, I liked the topic of process automation and the idea of creating services for a large number of people. And comments on the forums promised income level "1 visitor brings exactly 1 ruble."
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Having worked for 7 years, I can say that stories about fabulous wealth are not true. Perhaps, once upon a time, there were ultrahigh payments from contextual advertising on the Internet, but they are no longer there. Perhaps, once upon a time, sites easily overcame the mark of 100 visitors a day a couple of weeks after creation. But now, no explosive growth and super-profits anymore. Of course, there is a chance to get into the golden percentage and make a super-popular resource. But this probability tends to zero.
Further I will describe only two types of sites where you can earn. The first is content sites. As the name suggests, visitors come to such sites to receive content (text, pictures, video, audio). Usually on such sites, the main source of income is advertising (often contextual advertising from Google / Yandex). Much less often content sites earn paid access to closed sections. The second type of sites is services. For example, a site-service for generating domain names, a service SEO-page analyzer, etc. Such sites may charge for use. Shop sites will not be considered separately, because at the start everything that is said about service sites applies to them. And rarely does an online store as its first startup.
Consider the statements in order:
Each of these points is imbued with the harsh reality, proven experimentally.
In order for the content site to reach the level of 100 visitors per day, it takes at least 1 year of work to fill it up at a rate of 4 to 6 new articles per week.
Site attendance depends on the subject. If you make a blog with the theme “hodgepodge”, then the site will pick up its hundred only in 2-3 years. The choice of popular subjects will reduce this time to 1-2 years.
So that everything does not seem so gloomy, I will say that there is a way to make a content site with explosive popularity. It is only necessary to get into the trend and hope for the absence of competitors (but this is fantastic). For example, you can make a regional fan site a popular newly-made video game. There will be a lot of fans, the site will quickly overcome the 100 visitors per day. This can happen in a matter of weeks or months due to the fact that there are no competitors yet. But this method worked until 2010. And now there is a whole army of site-developers who are chasing trends. Yes, and admit to yourself honestly, to make the site uninteresting to you topics just for the sake of money - it's boring.
Attendance of service sites is growing almost an order of magnitude worse than that of blogs due to lack of content, because search engines have nothing to cling to - few words on the site. And 80% of visitors to content sites come from search engines. Therefore, service sites suggest constant cash injections into advertising and hope for organic distribution of links to the service.
Due to the low attendance of sites and sluggish growth you should not hope for income in the first 2-3 years of the site’s life. Even attendance of 500 people per day will not give any amount of profit (you can't even buy a pie for this monthly profit).
My most popular project accepts 4 thousand unique users per day. For 6 years of work, he earned a little less than half of 1 s / n on contextual advertising. It is worth mentioning that I did not try to load the site with advertising. Appearance is still more important than income.
Comparable to 1 s / n income from content sites now begins with a attendance of 25 thousand people per day. And in order to grow to such indicators you need many, many years of work, thousands of articles and advertising. Or be damn lucky.
Previously, site creators did not even think about advertising their resources, because there were no competitors. In such conditions, attendance grew by leaps and bounds. Now it's the other way around. There was a tough competition for traffic. Now any startup without advertising is a total loss of money. Advertising budget should be several times more than the cost of developing a startup. And this amount is enough only to understand the payback time of the site.
I have a startup in which all profits come only from B2B (business to business) interaction. In this startup, the cost of attracting one client is 1 s / n . Are you ready to spend 1 average monthly salary only to attract one customer? And in another way it will not work out to unleash a startup.
If you have no experience at all on creating websites / services, then:
The salary of average programmers is 3 times higher than the average salary in the country. Is it possible to hire this? For most startups, this is absolutely unreal. Because all the money will go to only one employee, and nothing remains for advertising. As he wrote earlier: "The advertising budget should be several times more than the cost of developing a startup."
To give life to your startup, you must be a programmer. Design and layout can be ordered on the side. But programming takes up most of the budget, so there is no alternative.
When I first started working on websites, I could not find true information about the level of attendance and income. Therefore, I took for granted the statements on the forums and was extremely disappointed with the results. I hope this article will help newcomers to evaluate the budget, time and effort to start their business.
I thank everyone who read the article to the end. Please write in the comments how much you earn per month on your websites in the format: “content site / online service - number of visitors per day - profit per month, expressed in number of salary ”. You can write about several sites / services. I'll start first:
Content site - 250 visitors per day - profit 0.0005 salary per month
Content site - 4,000 visitors per day - profit 0.002 salary per month
Online service - 160 visitors per day - profit 0.015 salary per month
* Decided to measure the yield in the average wage in the country, not to be tied to the currency. I hope this will extend the time of relevance of examples from the article.
For 2019, 1 salary in the Russian Federation is approximately 39,000 rubles according to statistics from ROSSTAT
The article assumes that the reader has already gone deep into the profitability of iT projects and represents where and how you can earn.
Surely you have heard stories from friends that they easily earn one average salary from your country from their websites (hereinafter referred to as salary *). At the same time, the site’s age is calculated in weeks, and your friend’s experience in creating such projects tends to zero.
It was from this situation that I started to deal with sites and services. After reading a couple of dozen forums, I found that you can make good money on websites. In addition, I liked the topic of process automation and the idea of creating services for a large number of people. And comments on the forums promised income level "1 visitor brings exactly 1 ruble."
')
Having worked for 7 years, I can say that stories about fabulous wealth are not true. Perhaps, once upon a time, there were ultrahigh payments from contextual advertising on the Internet, but they are no longer there. Perhaps, once upon a time, sites easily overcame the mark of 100 visitors a day a couple of weeks after creation. But now, no explosive growth and super-profits anymore. Of course, there is a chance to get into the golden percentage and make a super-popular resource. But this probability tends to zero.
Further I will describe only two types of sites where you can earn. The first is content sites. As the name suggests, visitors come to such sites to receive content (text, pictures, video, audio). Usually on such sites, the main source of income is advertising (often contextual advertising from Google / Yandex). Much less often content sites earn paid access to closed sections. The second type of sites is services. For example, a site-service for generating domain names, a service SEO-page analyzer, etc. Such sites may charge for use. Shop sites will not be considered separately, because at the start everything that is said about service sites applies to them. And rarely does an online store as its first startup.
Consider the statements in order:
- A site with 100 visitors per day is a great site.
- Content sites do not generate income.
- It is impossible to make a cheap startup.
- Do it yourself to save.
Each of these points is imbued with the harsh reality, proven experimentally.
A site with a attendance of 100 people per day is a great site.
In order for the content site to reach the level of 100 visitors per day, it takes at least 1 year of work to fill it up at a rate of 4 to 6 new articles per week.
Site attendance depends on the subject. If you make a blog with the theme “hodgepodge”, then the site will pick up its hundred only in 2-3 years. The choice of popular subjects will reduce this time to 1-2 years.
So that everything does not seem so gloomy, I will say that there is a way to make a content site with explosive popularity. It is only necessary to get into the trend and hope for the absence of competitors (but this is fantastic). For example, you can make a regional fan site a popular newly-made video game. There will be a lot of fans, the site will quickly overcome the 100 visitors per day. This can happen in a matter of weeks or months due to the fact that there are no competitors yet. But this method worked until 2010. And now there is a whole army of site-developers who are chasing trends. Yes, and admit to yourself honestly, to make the site uninteresting to you topics just for the sake of money - it's boring.
Attendance of service sites is growing almost an order of magnitude worse than that of blogs due to lack of content, because search engines have nothing to cling to - few words on the site. And 80% of visitors to content sites come from search engines. Therefore, service sites suggest constant cash injections into advertising and hope for organic distribution of links to the service.
Content sites do not generate revenue
Due to the low attendance of sites and sluggish growth you should not hope for income in the first 2-3 years of the site’s life. Even attendance of 500 people per day will not give any amount of profit (you can't even buy a pie for this monthly profit).
My most popular project accepts 4 thousand unique users per day. For 6 years of work, he earned a little less than half of 1 s / n on contextual advertising. It is worth mentioning that I did not try to load the site with advertising. Appearance is still more important than income.
Comparable to 1 s / n income from content sites now begins with a attendance of 25 thousand people per day. And in order to grow to such indicators you need many, many years of work, thousands of articles and advertising. Or be damn lucky.
It’s impossible to make a cheap startup
Previously, site creators did not even think about advertising their resources, because there were no competitors. In such conditions, attendance grew by leaps and bounds. Now it's the other way around. There was a tough competition for traffic. Now any startup without advertising is a total loss of money. Advertising budget should be several times more than the cost of developing a startup. And this amount is enough only to understand the payback time of the site.
From life. Once an acquaintance decided to make an online service as his first startup. A few months after the launch, he asked me how much it cost to “promote” a similar project. I decided not to injure him and called the amount reduced by 2 times. He said that he would have to pay about 10-12 salary per advertisement. And this is enough to just feel a little bit of the market. But the false mitigation of the harsh reality did not help. A few days later, an acquaintance closed the startup and even deleted his personal account from the social network.To date, the budget for startup advertising should be several times larger than the development budget. And this advertising will be enough only to assess the profitability of a startup, to attract the first customers and to understand the payback time.
I have a startup in which all profits come only from B2B (business to business) interaction. In this startup, the cost of attracting one client is 1 s / n . Are you ready to spend 1 average monthly salary only to attract one customer? And in another way it will not work out to unleash a startup.
Hint. If you think that the cost of advertising is too high, then you can always compare with the profitability of another business. For example, if you rent commercial real estate, its cost at best will pay off in about 8 years. If the cost of advertising your iT business will be beaten off in less than 8 years, then such a startup is quite likely to exist.
Do it yourself to save
If you have no experience at all on creating websites / services, then:
- Go to the site with jobs and candidates.
- Find a programmer for the project.
- Look at the cost of his work.
- Close the site and try to maintain composure.
The salary of average programmers is 3 times higher than the average salary in the country. Is it possible to hire this? For most startups, this is absolutely unreal. Because all the money will go to only one employee, and nothing remains for advertising. As he wrote earlier: "The advertising budget should be several times more than the cost of developing a startup."
To give life to your startup, you must be a programmer. Design and layout can be ordered on the side. But programming takes up most of the budget, so there is no alternative.
findings
When I first started working on websites, I could not find true information about the level of attendance and income. Therefore, I took for granted the statements on the forums and was extremely disappointed with the results. I hope this article will help newcomers to evaluate the budget, time and effort to start their business.
I thank everyone who read the article to the end. Please write in the comments how much you earn per month on your websites in the format: “content site / online service - number of visitors per day - profit per month, expressed in number of salary ”. You can write about several sites / services. I'll start first:
Content site - 250 visitors per day - profit 0.0005 salary per month
Content site - 4,000 visitors per day - profit 0.002 salary per month
Online service - 160 visitors per day - profit 0.015 salary per month
* Decided to measure the yield in the average wage in the country, not to be tied to the currency. I hope this will extend the time of relevance of examples from the article.
For 2019, 1 salary in the Russian Federation is approximately 39,000 rubles according to statistics from ROSSTAT
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/445280/
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