The average website is not getting a lot of pageviews. That’s a shame, because the content creators who built those websites probably had a lot to offer. How do I know this? I found an article which pointed out that YouTube accounts for about 11% of all web traffic. This means that whenever someone is visiting a web page, there’s an 11% chance that they’re on YouTube. Curious about what that meant about the state of the internet, I decided to search up how much web traffic YouTube was getting every money. About 72 billion pageviews. This means that the entire internet consists of about 720 billion monthly pageviews. Assuming there are 1 to 2 billion sites online, you’re looking at between 360 and 720 pageviews per month. This is great news, when you realize that the value of the Ecommerce industry is about $6 trillion annually. The average site is making about $500 per month, if you do the math. With less than 1,000 views per month. This means a few things about the internet, and how we can use it to make money online. Let me give you some “sauce”.
The traffic pie is not evenly distributed
This is seemingly, but not actually biggest problem facing most bloggers and content creators. Most people aren’t getting a lot of traffic. The people at the bottom are struggling, and the people at the top seem to get all the revenue. They also get all the good ad networks, sponsorships, and affiliate deals. It’s really terrible, when you think about it. But that’s not the biggest issue for aspiring web entrepreneurs.
Most content is off topic
There’s lots of interesting content online, but a lot of it is created with the aim of getting famous and/or getting views. This means that a lot of people are not connecting their content to any kind of ecommerce material. Most people don’t even get to the point of monetizing their content. That takes months or years if you’re living solely off ad revenue. To have a hope of making money online, you need to make a foray into the world of ecommerce and increase that RPM.
What are the solutions?
There are two. You can run up a lot of views, and you can increase how much you get paid per view. From what I can tell, the easiest thing to do is increase how much you’re getting paid per view. This is because most people don’t sell anything along with their content. They just write into the ether and are surprised when they don’t make money. Writing into the ether is good too. The more passable content you have, the bigger your footprint. The odds that you’re Shakespeare aren’t high. In a system as vast as the internet, quantity is what will set you apart with regards to traffic as a solo blogger. But the real way to increase your income is to increase how much you get paid per view. If most of the big boys are pulling RPMs in the high hundred and thousands while the rest of us suffer with numbers in the 10s, then RPM is the differentiator.
You want to focus on ecommerce
It’s obvious that advertising can’t be the main source of revenue for most online businesses. If the average web business is only pulling about 1000 views per month at the high end, that would make an online business pulling 100,000 views per month excellent. The biggest online businesses are multi-billion-dollar companies. There’s no way top companies are earning only $4,000 per month ($40 RPM on 100,000 views). No way. Based on this math, an RPM of $400 is likely more normal. This makes sense, when you think of how much of the web is pointless content that isn’t connected to a product or service. You can create content, but you want to make sure there’s an ecommerce aspect to what you’re doing if you want to make money. This can include selling your own digital products.
You want to run a Saas, sell digital products/courses, or run service-based business
Preferably something high-ticket. You want to be making a lot of money with each sale that you bring in, since sales will be preciously scarce. This means that whatever you write has to be targeted and on topic. You’re not writing with the hopes of getting advertising revenue or creating a fanbase. You want to inform people and get them to try your software or service along the way. The good thing about this business model is that your profit margins should be nearly 100%. Just use AWS if you’re building a Saas. If you’re in the high ticket realm, you can blog freely. It shouldn’t take you a lot of traffic to succeed. Take it from someone who’s spent exactly a year starting a normal blog. You want to be selling a high-value product from the outset.
You sell luxury products
Perfumes, colognes, fine wines. I don’t really know. If you sell pricey stuff, you can make a good living online working as an independent unit. A blog would serve your brand well. Articles that are on target for the correct keywords have the potential to print money. You just need to make sure you actually have quality products. You don’t want to have to spend too much time marketing if you have stuff that’s worth talking about.
You offer bespoke services
If you run a law firm, digital marketing agency, or some kind of medical office, the average website can serve you well. You just need to make sure that you’re writing targeted blog posts that are both informative and accurate. Having even the slightest bit of authority in a niche is excellent when you stand to earn hundreds or thousands of dollars per new client.
You sell merch on your blog
I’m going to be coming up with merch for Rising Current soon. I do want to write more though. I’m hungry for all the traffic I can get. A world in which it’s scarce makes it all the more valuable. But merch is an easy way for any blogger to make money. Think about it. Your audience is your audience. They’re interested in what you’re writing about. They’re bound to buy a certain amount of clothing that they feel represents them. Why not put your message out there, and see who’s willing to shop with you? It’s easy money, and most bloggers don’t do it for some reason. Probably because not enough people run regular blogs anymore.
Making money online isn’t easy. It’s a long journey to create something that is sustainable. But it doesn’t need to be so difficult, if you realize that getting huge amounts of traffic isn’t the norm. To make a living online, you need to make yourself valuable. That’s how you win. You either do it by creating a crapton of value, a crapton of content, or something in between. It’s simple, but not easy.
Thanks for paying attention.
