March 25, 2019 at 20:06Profitability of sites and services
This article will be useful to anyone who wants to create their own business on websites and services. Here are examples of profitability and average site traffic after a year of operation. The main goal 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 delved a little into the topic of profitability of iT projects and presents how and how to make money.
Surely you've heard stories from friends that they are from their sites easily earn a high salary in your country (hereinafter referred to as c / n *). At the same time, the age of the site is calculated in weeks, and the experience of creating such projects with your friend tends to zero.
It was from this situation that I began to engage in 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 theme of process automation and the idea of creating services for a large number of people. And the comments on the forums promised the income of the 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 on the Internet there were super-high payouts from contextual advertising, but they are no longer there. Perhaps, once upon a time, sites easily overcame the mark of 100 visitors per day a couple of weeks after creation. But now there is no explosive growth and superprofits 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 on which you can earn. The first is content sites. As the name implies, visitors come to such sites to receive content (text, pictures, video, audio). Typically, on such sites, the main source of income is advertising (often contextual advertising from Google / Yandex). Much less often, content sites earn on paid access to private sections. The second type of sites is services. For example, a website service for generating domain names, a SEO page analyzer service, etc. Such sites may charge for use. I will not consider the sites of the stores separately, because at the start, everything that will be said about the service sites is applicable to them. And rarely does anyone do an online store as their first startup.
Consider the statements in order:
Each of these points is saturated with harsh reality, verified experimentally.
For a content site to grow to the level of 100 visitors per day, a minimum of 1 year of work is required to fill it with a pace of 4 to 6 new articles per week.
Site traffic depends on the topic. If you make a blog with the theme of "hodgepodge", then the site will gain its hundreds in only 2-3 years. Choosing a popular topic 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. You just need 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 of a popular newly made video game. There will be many fans, the site will quickly overcome the bar of 100 visitors per day. This can happen in a matter of weeks-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 dealers who are chasing trends. And honestly admit to yourself that making a site uninteresting for you just for the sake of money is boring.
The attendance of website services is growing by almost an order of magnitude worse than that of blogs due to lack of content, because search engines have nothing to cling to - there are few words on the site. And 80% of visitors to content sites come from search engines. Therefore, service sites involve constant cash infusions into advertising and the hope of organic distribution of links to the service.
Due to low site traffic and sluggish growth, you should not rely on income in the first 2-3 years of the site’s life. Even attendance of 500 people a 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 on contextual advertising a little less than half 1 s / n . It is worth mentioning that I did not try to load the site with advertising. Appearance is still more important than income.
Comparable income from 1 s / n from content sites now begins with an attendance of 25 thousand people a day. And to grow to such indicators, you need many, many years of work, thousands of articles and advertising. Either 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 the opposite is true. There was fierce competition for traffic. Now, any startup without ads is a sheer loss of money. The advertising budget should be several times greater than the cost of developing a startup. And this amount is only enough to understand the payback time of the site.
I have a startup in which all the profit comes 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 client? But in another way, it will not work to spin up a startup.
If you have absolutely no experience in creating sites / services, then:
The salary of middle-level programmers is 3 times higher than the average salary in the country. Is it possible to hire one? For most startups, this is completely unrealistic. Because all the money will go to only one employee, and nothing will remain on advertising. As he wrote earlier: “The advertising budget should be several times greater 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 to engage in sites, I could not find truthful information about the level of attendance and income. Therefore, I took at face value statements on the forums and was extremely disappointed with the results. I hope this article will help beginners to assess 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 sites in the format: “content site / online service - number of visitors per day - profit per month, expressed in the amount of salary ”. You can write about several sites / services. I'll start first:
Content site - 250 visitors a day - a gain of 0.0005 s / f per month
Content Site - 4000 visitors per day - profit 0.002 s / nmonthly
line service - 160 visitors a day - profit 0.015 s / n in a month
* I decided to measure the yield in the average wage in the country, so as not to be pegged to the currency. I hope this extends the relevance of the 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 delved a little into the topic of profitability of iT projects and presents how and how to make money.
Surely you've heard stories from friends that they are from their sites easily earn a high salary in your country (hereinafter referred to as c / n *). At the same time, the age of the site is calculated in weeks, and the experience of creating such projects with your friend tends to zero.
It was from this situation that I began to engage in 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 theme of process automation and the idea of creating services for a large number of people. And the comments on the forums promised the income of the 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 on the Internet there were super-high payouts from contextual advertising, but they are no longer there. Perhaps, once upon a time, sites easily overcame the mark of 100 visitors per day a couple of weeks after creation. But now there is no explosive growth and superprofits 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 on which you can earn. The first is content sites. As the name implies, visitors come to such sites to receive content (text, pictures, video, audio). Typically, on such sites, the main source of income is advertising (often contextual advertising from Google / Yandex). Much less often, content sites earn on paid access to private sections. The second type of sites is services. For example, a website service for generating domain names, a SEO page analyzer service, etc. Such sites may charge for use. I will not consider the sites of the stores separately, because at the start, everything that will be said about the service sites is applicable to them. And rarely does anyone do an online store as their first startup.
Consider the statements in order:
- A site with 100 people a day is a big site.
- Content sites do not generate revenue.
- It is impossible to make a cheap startup.
- Do it yourself to save money.
Each of these points is saturated with harsh reality, verified experimentally.
A site with 100 people a day is a big site
For a content site to grow to the level of 100 visitors per day, a minimum of 1 year of work is required to fill it with a pace of 4 to 6 new articles per week.
Site traffic depends on the topic. If you make a blog with the theme of "hodgepodge", then the site will gain its hundreds in only 2-3 years. Choosing a popular topic 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. You just need 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 of a popular newly made video game. There will be many fans, the site will quickly overcome the bar of 100 visitors per day. This can happen in a matter of weeks-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 dealers who are chasing trends. And honestly admit to yourself that making a site uninteresting for you just for the sake of money is boring.
The attendance of website services is growing by almost an order of magnitude worse than that of blogs due to lack of content, because search engines have nothing to cling to - there are few words on the site. And 80% of visitors to content sites come from search engines. Therefore, service sites involve constant cash infusions into advertising and the hope of organic distribution of links to the service.
Content sites do not generate revenue
Due to low site traffic and sluggish growth, you should not rely on income in the first 2-3 years of the site’s life. Even attendance of 500 people a 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 on contextual advertising a little less than half 1 s / n . It is worth mentioning that I did not try to load the site with advertising. Appearance is still more important than income.
Comparable income from 1 s / n from content sites now begins with an attendance of 25 thousand people a day. And to grow to such indicators, you need many, many years of work, thousands of articles and advertising. Either be damn lucky.
Unable 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 the opposite is true. There was fierce competition for traffic. Now, any startup without ads is a sheer loss of money. The advertising budget should be several times greater than the cost of developing a startup. And this amount is only enough to understand the payback time of the site.
From life. Once a friend decided to make an online service as his first startup. A few months after the launch, he asked me how much the “promotion” of such a project costs. I decided not to injure him and called the amount cut in 2 times. He said that he would have to pay for ads about 10-12 s / n . And this is enough to just a little touch the market. But a false mitigation of harsh reality did not help. A few days later, a friend 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 is only enough to assess the profitability of a startup to attract first customers and to understand the payback time.
I have a startup in which all the profit comes 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 client? But in another way, it will not work to spin up 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 property, its value in the best case will pay off in about 8 years. If the cost of advertising your iT business fights off faster than in 8 years, then such a startup has a good chance of existence.
Do it yourself to save
If you have absolutely no experience in creating sites / services, then:
- Go to the site with vacancies 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 middle-level programmers is 3 times higher than the average salary in the country. Is it possible to hire one? For most startups, this is completely unrealistic. Because all the money will go to only one employee, and nothing will remain on advertising. As he wrote earlier: “The advertising budget should be several times greater 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.
conclusions
When I first started to engage in sites, I could not find truthful information about the level of attendance and income. Therefore, I took at face value statements on the forums and was extremely disappointed with the results. I hope this article will help beginners to assess 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 sites in the format: “content site / online service - number of visitors per day - profit per month, expressed in the amount of salary ”. You can write about several sites / services. I'll start first:
Content site - 250 visitors a day - a gain of 0.0005 s / f per month
Content Site - 4000 visitors per day - profit 0.002 s / nmonthly
line service - 160 visitors a day - profit 0.015 s / n in a month
* I decided to measure the yield in the average wage in the country, so as not to be pegged to the currency. I hope this extends the relevance of the examples from the article.
For 2019, 1 salary in the Russian Federation is approximately 39,000 rubles according to statistics from ROSSTAT