Is advertising really the only profit model for personal websites?

Last week, I submitted an article titled "How I Got Baidu's First Page Ranking" to Lu Songsong's blog. With Lu Songsong's affirmation, I also gained support from many webmaster friends. Regarding website construction, my friends gave me a lot of good suggestions, but they are also concerned about the profitability of the website. Yes, it is undeniable that I built this website to make money, which is not shameful, but how to make money from a personal website and how to achieve profitability is a big problem. What else can we do besides advertising?

Today's article will continue to revolve around website construction and website profitability. This is just my personal opinion. Friends are welcome to discuss and brainstorm together to discover more profit models.

The website profit model has always been the most troublesome issue for webmasters. Most websites directly post advertisements, either Taobao advertisements or affiliate advertisements. There are also websites with high PR values ​​and Baidu weights that directly sell friendly links. That's all correct. As for money, only what you earn is yours, but how to earn it, what method to earn it, besides the conventional mode, are there other methods?
Let me first talk about the practices of several websites that I have seen.

Transformers Community (www.tfclub.com) is a website about Transformers movies and toys. The website has been established for many years and there are no advertisements. Except for a significant increase in website traffic around the release of the Transformers series of movies, the website traffic is usually average. But the website has been supported for many years. What is its profit model? As far as I know, the webmaster has a Taobao store specializing in Transformers toys. I recommended it to my friend to buy one two days ago. He has more than 20,000 real followers on Sina Weibo. They have also held the "Transformers China Annual Conference" for several consecutive years and have a certain relationship with Hasbro. In addition, their articles can be seen reposted many times in Baidu Transformers Bar, and the webmaster also maintains a good relationship with many Transformers fans. This is alliance change.

The value of Bianmeng does not lie in how much traffic his website has, but in the fact that he has found his own position. Transformers Alliance is more like a "fan club" of Transformers in China, and the webmaster is more like an opinion leader, and Transformers fans trust him very much. Including me, if I want to buy Transformers toys, his Taobao store will definitely be my first choice. That's influence. The website plays more of a "medium" role. The real profit model, on the one hand, comes from the value generated by influence. People trust this website and go to his store first when buying toys. On the other hand, it comes from the Transformers China Annual Conference, which will receive some sponsorship. Finally, there is cooperation in film. If I were the boss of an advertising company responsible for the promotion of the movie "Transformers" before and after its release in China, who would I look for to cooperate with for the remaining 100,000 yuan in addition to regular advertising? It would definitely be Transformers.
This is a typical website that does not make profits from advertising. Their value lies in their influence and fan base.

Let’s talk about another website. Everyone has heard of the website of Brother Robin , and I am also a client of Brother Robin. I bought the domain name and space for my 36 big data website from Bird Brother. I will buy from him later. He has a technical website dedicated to guiding people in building WordPress websites , and has also launched his own original templates. His website does not make profits mainly through advertising, but more from the sale of agency space and domain names. Brother Bird has a very good service attitude. He helped me with some of the technical aspects of my website. Lu Songsong has previously written an article discussing Bird Brother’s profit model, so I won’t go into detail here.

Let’s look at technology websites like 36Kr and Huxiu. Most of 36Kr’s revenue comes from sponsorship from investment institutions and manufacturers. Huxiu’s revenue does not come from advertising, but from public relations fees. Personally, I am more optimistic about 36Kr. Its model should be benign and can develop in a circular way. Of course, this is quite difficult. If you want to achieve the same success as 36Kr, you must first become 36Kr.

There are also several atypical websites that do not rely on advertising to make profits. For example, "Internet Stuff" and "Cloud Technology". Internet Stuff derives more income from Weibo posts and the fan effect; Cloud Technology's main income comes from WeChat self-media advertising, rather than website advertising.

Having said so much, let’s get back to the website’s profit model. In the Web 2.0 era, the profit model of websites comes more from influence, fan effect and social sharing. The website, on the other hand, plays a more important role in gathering fans and is one part of the profit model, but not the whole.

You want to ask me what is the profit model of 36 Big Data? Maybe I really can't answer you right away. But what I can tell you here is that 36 Big Data is not worried about the profit model issue at present. The website had only been built for three months when an investor contacted us. At the time, I didn’t think it through, and I couldn’t cheat others. As for the future profit model, we now have it all planned out. We don't make money from fans and readers. Think about it, who has money, individual users or manufacturers? If not, I can help publish and sell books on big data. People ask me every day what books to read to get started with big data. Therefore, now and in the future, 36 Big Data will not sell advertisements. Right now, the key for us is to create good content.

Another point to mention is the "fit". The Bianmeng community sells Transformers toys, and Bird Brother’s website recommends the host to buy them. The two are highly compatible and not abrupt. Fans are receptive and willing to pay. If you, a website with fresh pictures, recommend me to buy adult products, will I trust it?

I don’t recommend putting too many advertisements on your website in the early stages of building it. The reason is simple: too many advertisements will affect the user’s reading experience. In addition, in the early stage of building a website, there are not many readers. Even if you put ads, how much money can you make? Do you really need those few hundred dollars?

Think of the website as a place to aggregate content. If you really want to make money, Weibo and WeChat are good places. Do you know how much we were offered for publishing a soft article on WeChat? I might as well tell you that it was 1,000 yuan. Then if I post a few articles every month, won’t I be able to make back the money? However, we did not accept it because our WeChat public account is mainly used to promote data-related content. It is not appropriate to promote mobile games. We have to be responsible to our fans. Keep your sights high. When your website can be built with just a few hundred dollars, its value is only a few hundred dollars.

All right. This concludes our discussion of the website’s profit model. Here are a few problems that all webmasters will encounter.

Should we consider Baidu weight and PR value when adding friendly links?

Let me tell you a little story first. When I was planning mobile applications, I would open Tencent CDC every day, but I didn’t read the content carefully. Why? Because I use it as a navigation station. Among Tencent CDC's friendly links, there are links from interactive websites such as Alibaba, Alipay, and Sohu. I have to remember so many URLs, so I simply remember the most complete one and use it as a navigation.

The highest level of friendship links is to make them into navigation!

Similar website navigation is very important, and many navigation sites either do not collect comprehensive information or collect it in a messy way. The increase in friendly links means giving users more choices. Many people like to look at other people’s Baidu weight and friendly links when making friendly links, for fear of affecting their own website weight, so it is not easy for many new websites to find friendly links. In this way, the role of friendly links seems to have become something to measure Baidu's weight and PR value, completely ignoring its essential role.

I would like to ask you, can Baidu's weight and PR value be increased overnight? You can go to the webmaster's home and have a look. How many years have those websites with a PR value and Baidu weight of 9 been in business? I don't care much about the PR value of friendly links. As long as someone asks me to make friendly links, I will give it to them. Of course, sometimes someone will email me to ask me to make friendly links, but after doing so, they find that my website's weight is not as high as his, and then cancel it. When asked the reason, he said my weight was not as high as his. Well, if you don’t play with me, I won’t even bother to play with you. I would rather add some websites that are highly consistent with the content of my website. When friendship links are sold for money by others, how much value do you think they have? I would rather please my readers than please search engines. PR value and Baidu weight are more like levels in a game. It takes time to level up, and it cannot be achieved in a few days.