Could You Play the Waiting Game in the Website Business?

For any business including the website business there is a serious game being played by the owners of such businesses. This is the waiting game. This is the game where the owner waits for his business to become profitable. With the many pitfalls in running a business many owners usually quit too early in the game just when they are about to win.

What is the Website Business?

To those still unfamiliar with what is a Website Business, it is the business of creating and maintaining a website to generate a profit from it being online. It is different from an online e-commerce business.

The primarily selling point of the websites are their contents which could be texts, images, videos, audio and other digital products which they freely provide to the visitors of the website. E-commerce websites in turn are primarily online stores that sell all kinds of products including physical ones.

Monetization Options

If the Website Business is all about giving free information to their website visitors then how do website businesses earn money? The simple answer is through all forms of advertising.

The answer though is more complex than simply stating that all website business income is derived from advertising. The simple reason for this is that website advertising income takes on many forms. These are some forms of website advertising income:

1. Direct Advertising:

This is best exemplified by all the advertising banners you see on websites. Companies pay online advertising companies like Google Adsense, Ezoic, Mediavine and so on. Many website businesses usually start monetizing their website through ads from these companies.

Website owners split the ad income with these companies. For example if you tie up with Google Adsense the revenue split is 68 to 32. This means that you keep 68% of the advertising revenue while Google takes the other 32%.

In contrast your ad revenue split with Mediavine is 75 to 25. This means that you get to keep 75% from the ad revenue while Mediavine takes the other 25%. If you also reach a certain threshold Mediavine increases your ad profit to 80%

Take note that if you are just starting out with your website business monetizing and is considering ad income you need to know that there are thresholds that you must first achieve before these online ad companies would let you partner with them.

For example there would be online ad companies that would require 10,000 pageviews a month before even considering your application for a partnership. Google Adsense is the most beginner friendly of them and most website businesses do actually start with them.

2. Affiliate Marketing:

Similar to direct advertising but uses links instead of advertising banners. You earn a commission whenever your website visitor buys the product linked to the affiliate link you put in your website.

Online affiliate marketing companies also have their rules. For example if you enrolled in the Amazon Affiliate program you need to make regular sales otherwise they would drop you from their roster. If you have an unstable number of website visitors this could not be suited for you.

3. Sell Your Own Products:

You can lastly sell your own products especially if the online ad companies and affiliate marketing companies turned you down for a partnership:

Sell Adspace:
You can directly solicit companies and ask them if they want to advertise in your website in exchange for a fee. This involves marketing and especially suited for websites designed for low visitor traffic.

For example you could have a website specifically devoted to a certain model of an antique car. This website would not attract a lot of traffic because there are not many people interested in a certain model of antique car. However to those interested your website can just be their lifeline.

You could attract a small but loyal following of website visitors. You can start approaching businesses that service this small number of customers and ask them if they are interested to buy advertising space in your website.

Sell Services as well as Digital and Physical Products:
This can be exemplified by a writer’s website. There are many writers who primarily want to sell their writing services and products rather than depend upon online ad revenues. Simply put there are many people who have a negative impression about putting online ads in their website.

An ad free website is more pleasing to look at and also looks more serious. This is what these writers are aiming for. They want to be taken seriously as writers and not as businesspeople as frequently conjured by the images of ads in a website.

For example you are a writer. You can advertise your writing services as well as samples of your work. You can even sell digital products done by writers such as online articles and short stories. If you are serious enough you can have your own e-commerce page in your website where you sell physical books, drawing, charts and so on.

These kinds of business websites are meant more to sell another product rather than the websites themselves. For these website owners their website are just a means to sell their products and also a means to advertise their own products and services.

What is the Much Dreaded Waiting Game?

As previously discussed the “waiting game” is the decision website owners play in their heads as to when to give up on their website business or continue to invest their time and money keeping their websites available online.

If you are a beginner in the website business and have done your research prior to launching your website then you should know that most website business take several months to a year of online operation before having significant visitor traffic.

No individual visitor traffic statistic is set in stone for websites but mostly half a year or six months would pass before a website would get significant visitor traffic boost. Normally a year would pass before the visitor traffic of a website will suddenly take off.

1000 pageviews per month during your first few months is considered “promising” as many websites fail even to reach this target even after long periods of operation. If you are not getting this much pageviews you should go over your website and evaluate why your pageviews are so low. It could be a sign of failure also.

But it is up to you. Luck plays a major part in this business just like any business. You might be getting less than a thousand pageviews a month but any of your website visitor can change all of that. For example you can get lucky where one of your new website visitors have thousands of online contacts.

This one website visitor can share the link to your website to all his social media contacts and they could in turn visit your website based on the recommendation of this one website visitor. This pattern could repeat itself over and over again with each new website visitor.

This is the story of famous writer Jeff Goins. According to him, he blogged for several months even though he was not getting significant visitor traffic in his blog. Then on the eleventh month of his blogging something happened which changed his life.

On the eleventh month a new visitor on his blog shared one of his articles to 200 of his online contacts. Some of these 200 contacts then also shared Jeff Goins article and it created a snowball effect. This simple sharing action made Goins popular online.

Eventually Goins was able to trace the person responsible for making him famous and thanked him. The story of Goins is just one example of how long a waiting game can be played out before the semblance of success can even start to show.

Can you Speed up the Process of Website Visitor Acquisition?

Website businesses are just like any business. A business can become successful without using marketing but most definitely benefit from marketing campaigns. If you have the money you can conduct marketing campaigns by paying online ad companies.

Properly planned online marketing ads can help your website business gain online exposure. If you are interested in conducting an ad marketing campaign for your website then you can get more information online by simply typing such Google keywords as “planning your online ad campaign” and similar keywords.

What You Should Really Be Doing According to Experts

Content, Content, Content. Content is king. During the initial days of the internet many online strategist emphasize the adherence to SEO (search engine optimization) techniques as the cornerstone for the success of a website.

SEO strategies such as keyword stuffing, adherence to a specific number of word content, following specific HTML formats are just some of the things these so-called online strategist teach. Ranking number one seems to be the “be all and end all” of website business success.

But search engine operators like Google have wisened up. Now they are primarily concerned about the content of a website and what it could do to the people that visit them. If you are still following the strategy of producing a lot of “thin” content online in the hopes of maximizing your presence online then I have bad news for you.

Google and the other search engine operators have been clamping down on website businesses that precisely do this bad thing. Search engines now reward website businesses that genuinely provide useful information to their website visitors instead of just concentrating on SEO strategies.

Is There Such a Thing as a High Earning Niche?

Most people online who are experienced in the website business already will tell you that there is no such thing. Let us look at one example: SurvivalMag or Survival Magazine. As of January 2021 as far as the records I can see online they have a regular monthly website visitor count of more than 100,000.

The website has been around for more than 5 years though I cannot precisely lock down when the website became available online. With more than 100,000 visitors per month it is no wonder that the online ad company or network that they use is Mediavine which is only available to website businesses with several thousands of visitors per month.

If you spent a bit of time in their website you would discover that almost all their articles are about product reviews which are affiliate marketing friendly. However their product reviews are exhaustive and do explain just the brand but the actual product itself.

This website is running contrary to the norm by many experts that filling your website with product review articles alone would be off-putting to your website visitors. This website clearly proves that product review articles when done right could be very effective in getting website visitors. Once again: Content is king.

If you intend to create a website business where a major part of monetization is thru affiliate marketing then this website would be a good example to follow. You can check the affiliate links and you would find out that they have partnered with many affiliate marketing companies and not just Amazon.

The company or the person that owns the website also owns other websites with different niches. So instead of thinking that there are such things as successful niches one should think that websites can become successful due to many factors and no one is guaranteed a success formula in building successful websites.

What seems to work for many is diversification. There will come a time when a website would become too bloated with repetitive information because simply put all the information needed to be said on a niche would have been said already.

But this is yet in the future. For the beginner website business owner your main concern is to be the authority or expert in your particular niche. The battle is actually heating up as many website owners know now that website content is mainly the key for ranking in search engines.

What Do you Do in the Meantime?

Do not leave your regular day job just yet! It is a foolhardy thing to just leave a secure paying job or business just because you know or have heard of people making full-time income with their website businesses. br>
Setting up a website business can be very alluring because of its promised riches and freedom. You should beware! Just like any business a website business can fail. One good thing about website businesses is that they can be started cheap and in your free time.

My advice is to take a chance at a website business. Your costs could be as cheap as $100 a year for website hosting and nothing else. The other investment is time which you could easily spare some by sacrificing a bit of your leisure time.

Continue regularly updating your website even if the future of your website business looks bleak. Remember the statistics. It could take months even years before your website becomes profitable enough for you to make it your main income source.

Conclusion

A website business is primarily a long game and one needs patience and a positive outlook to even have the hope to stay in the business. Besides this one must also be willing to do the hardwork of creating regular high quality content if one wants their website business to be acceptable to search engine operators.

One good thing is that website businesses can be started very cheap and with one’s extra time off from their main source of income. It is important to remember that you should never lose heart and always remember that even one visitor can make a big impact in your website business. This could happen anytime.