Editors note: standard integrations with Ezoic do not support infinite scroll. Additionally, most ad ops professionals agree that infinite scroll reduces revenue, both short and long-term. For more information, please visit our blog post on ad dilution and viewability.
As media publishers, we are always looking for creative ways to increase a website’s revenue.
There is a direct correlation between increasing the revenue on a website with an increase in the website’s sale valuation.
However, oftentimes media publishers leave many “easy wins” on the table.
In this write-up, I will cover 3 major easy wins that will ultimately increase the exit valuation of your website ensuring you are prepared in case you want to sell your website.
But before we get into the details, let’s talk about how websites are valued in the open market.
How are websites valued?
Typical content sites are valued based on multiple of their profits.
For example, a website earning $2,000/mo from display ads using Ezoic, affiliate marketing, and digital product sales would be valued at 30-35 times monthly profits. This equates to a value of roughly $60,000 to $70,000 on the marketplaces.
Therefore, every dollar you add to your bottom line has an increase in the value of 30-35 times when you go to sell.
In other words, you can leverage your efforts by 30 times for every dollar of profit you add to your bottom line! What a win!
How do we go about adding more profit? Let’s discuss some easy-win strategies.
Three easy win strategies to increase your website’s valuations
I cover 3 easy wins that can be implemented on your content site to increase your bottom line and thus your site’s valuation.
Implement video advertisements
Most media publishers shy away from video-based advertisements due to them being intrusive.
However, large publishers like Forbes and CNN have been using video advertisements for a while now.
A proper video advertisement provider, like Ezoic, can customize a video to be auto-muted and placed out of the major viewpoint of a user (i.e., on the bottom right of the page).
Example
Here is an example of a scrolling video advertisement on a desktop:
Takeaways
- Video ads can add a revenue stream to your site
- Video ads can be non-intrusive if set up properly
Implement infinite scroll
Infinite scroll is a high-impact easy win. The concept of infinite scroll is that once the reader is done reading one article, another article shows up automatically, and this continues.
The benefits of this are many-fold for your website:
- High time on page
- Increased display advertisement RPMs since more ads are shown
- Lower bounce rates
Many large publishers in the industry use infinite scrolls such as Bustle and Search Engine Journal.
Infinite scroll is beneficial if you’ve monetized with a display ad provider that supports it, and/or you have affiliate links. Regardless of your monetization strategy, infinite scroll technology will increase your revenues and user experience.
If you are running a WordPress site, you can use the plugin, Ajax Load More, or use specific themes that allow it, such as Bimber Theme.
Takeaways
- Infinite scroll can be implemented site-wide and lead to an increase in your bottom line immediately
- Infinite scroll will lead to more time on site and lower bounce rates since it provides a better user experience
Add more images to maximize RPMs
Programmatic display advertising providers find “empty” spots within the content to insert advertisements.
Having large blocks of text and minimal images does not give these networks enough spacing to place ads. Also, increasing spacing allows ads to be placed higher up on the page (i.e., above the fold) thus leading to higher RPMs.
Applying the 80/20 principle here, you can do the following:
- Identify the top 10 high traffic pages from Google Analytics
- Add 3-5 images within the text
- Monitor RPMs
Example
See the screenshot from our advertisement RPMs after adding more images to the top 10 high-traffic articles. The RPMs increased from $11 to $16 overnight. This is an easy win!
Takeaways
- Adding more spacing via images allows the networks to place ads more strategically
- Images also provide more dynamic content thus leads to a better user experience
- Note: add relevant images that add value to your content, not random images
Implement these easy wins for increased website valuations
Many media publishers do not plan to sell their websites, or they do not know that selling a site is an option.
However, there is nothing wrong with ensuring you are always maximizing your profit potential with minimal impact on the visitor user experience. This allows you to be prepared in situations where you may need to sell a website.
These strategies above are both easy and quick to implement and will lead to more profit.
Whether you decide to sell or not, more profit is always good.
