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What your traffic is worth. Each post answers one question a site owner asks about their numbers, with a calculator you can run on your own.
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What is a newsletter subscriber worth over their lifetime?
Four emails a month, 30% opening, 10% of openers clicking at R5 a click and 2% leaving a month make one subscriber worth R15.50 over three years - and a list of 1,000 worth R15,504. Work out yours with a free calculator.
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Local business: how many website visitors does it take to make a sale?
If 2% of visitors enquire and a quarter of enquiries buy, a local business needs 200 visitors for one sale - and at R2,500 a sale each visitor is worth R12.50. Work out yours with a free calculator.
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Is a free tool worth building for traffic, or should you write posts?
A R15,000 free tool at 600 visits a month beats the 10 posts the same money buys by 20% over two years - R1.16 a visitor against R1.40 - but only above 500 visits a month. Work out yours with a free calculator.
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How long does it take to recover from a Google update?
A 30% drop on a 10,000-visit site, four months' wait and 70% won back over six months costs 35,250 visits - about R5,640 - and leaves 900 visits a month missing for good. Work out yours with a free calculator.
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Does posting more often grow your traffic?
Doubling from 4 to 8 posts a month only adds 40% more visits if the faster posts get 35 visits each instead of 50 - and nothing at all below 25. Work out your break-even with a free calculator.
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Do commenters come back more?
A reader who comments is worth 1.87 silent readers - but only about 1% comment. Tripling comments from 1% to 3% adds 209 returning visitors a month to a 10,000-visitor site, about 10%. Work out yours with a free calculator.
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Paid ads or content: what does a visitor cost?
R3,000 a month for two years buys 14,400 visits from ads at R5 a click - or 22,183 from two R1,500 posts a month, R3.25 a visitor. Content passes ads in month 10 and keeps 2,150 visits a month after the money stops. Work out yours with a free calculator.
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Is a social visitor worth less than one from search?
At 1.3 pages and a 4% return rate for social against 1.8 pages and 8% for search, one search visitor is worth 1.5 social visitors over a year - R194 against R129 per 1,000 at an R90 RPM. Work out yours with a free calculator.
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How risky is your top 5 pages' traffic?
With 45% of 10,000 visits from five pages and 20% from the biggest one, a 50% drop on that one page costs 1,000 visits and R2,160 a year - and at 2% growth it takes until month 6 to get back. Work out your own concentration risk with a free calculator.
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Do mobile visitors earn your site less?
At 1.5 pages and a $3 RPM on phones against 2 pages and $5 on computers, one computer visit earns as much as 2.2 phone visits. With 65% of visits on phones, a rising phone share cuts earnings 5% in two years at the same traffic. Work out yours with a free calculator.
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What is my website worth?
Websites sell for a multiple of monthly profit. R3,500 profit a month at 36 times is R126,000 - about R6.30 per monthly visitor on 20,000 visits. Keeping it three years can earn more. Work out yours with a free calculator.
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What should you charge for a sponsored post?
On 10,000 visits a month a sponsored post reaches about 1,600 readers - R400 at R250 per 1,000 views, but four hours of your time is worth R1,600. Below about 40,000 visits, price on your time. Work out yours with a free calculator.
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How many clicks does one affiliate sale take?
If 1% of affiliate clicks buy and 3% of visitors click, one sale takes 100 clicks and about 3,333 visits. On 5,000 visits a month and an R800 product at 8% that is R96 a month - R1,000 needs 52,000 visits. Work out yours with a free calculator.
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How many ads per page earn the most?
Going from 3 to 5 ads a page on 10,000 visits a month adds about R150 a month - but costs nearly one page view in five. Past 5 ads you lose both earnings and readers. Find your own peak with a free calculator.
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Refresh an old post or write a new one - which grows traffic faster?
Refreshing a post with 600 visits a month for a 30% lift adds about 4,300 visits over two years in 3 hours of work. A new post that ranks adds about 5,550, but takes 8 hours and only passes the refresh in month 14. Work out yours with a free calculator.
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What is one more internal link per post worth?
On 5,000 visits a month at 1.6 pages a visit, one more internal link per post that 3% of readers click adds about 250 page views a month - roughly R20 in ads, R700 over two years. The bigger win is readers who stay. Work out yours with a free calculator.
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How much of your website traffic is bots?
Imperva measured 49.6% of all internet traffic as bots in 2023. If half of a raw count of 10,000 visits is bots, you have 5,000 real people - worth about R820 a month, not R1,650. Work out yours with a free calculator.
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How many newsletter subscribers will my site have in a year?
A site with 5,000 visits a month, growing 3% a month, where 1% sign up and 2% of the list leaves each month, has about 640 subscribers after a year and 1,420 after two. Work out yours with a free calculator.
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What does the December traffic dip cost your website?
A site with 5,000 visits a month that drops 30% in December loses 1,500 visits - 2.5% of its year, about R250 at $10 per 1,000 visits. The bigger risk is misreading January's bounce-back as growth. Work out yours with a free calculator.
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What is one blog post worth over three years?
A post that ranks in 6 months, peaks at 150 visits a month and loses 20% a year brings about 3,940 visits over three years - about R650 at $10 per 1,000 visits. Work out what yours is worth with a free calculator.
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How much traffic does it take to replace a salary?
To pay a R25,000 a month salary plus R250 of hosting at $10 per 1,000 visits, a site needs about 153,000 visits a month - 5,000 a day. From 1,000 visits growing 5% a month, that is month 104. Work out yours with a free calculator.
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When will my site pay for its own hosting?
At 500 visits a month growing 5%, and $10 per 1,000 visits, a site covers R250 a month of hosting in month 23 and pays back the shortfall by month 39. Work out yours with a free calculator.
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Ads, affiliate or your own product - which earns most per 1,000 visitors?
With typical numbers, 1,000 visitors earn $10 from display ads, $2.40 from affiliate links and $78.30 from a $29 product of your own - which passes ads in month 5. Work out yours with a free calculator.
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Email list or search traffic: which is worth more to your website?
One email subscriber is worth about 3.7 visits from Google - but with typical numbers, 2,000 search visits a month earn $689 over two years against $22.50 from a 500-person list. Work out yours with a free calculator.
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How many blog posts until Google sends real traffic?
At 4 posts a month, with 1 in 10 ranking and 150 visits each, a new site takes 21 months and 84 posts to reach 1,000 Google visits a month - at 8 posts a month, 12 months. Work out yours with a free calculator.
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What does a slow page load cost your website?
At 5,000 visits a month, 2.5 pages a visit and a $5 RPM, a site loading in 4 seconds earns $62.50 a month in ads - at 2 seconds it would earn about $68.41, roughly $84 more over a year. Work out yours with a free calculator.
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What does your bounce rate cost your website?
At 5,000 visits a month and a $5 RPM, a 60% bounce rate earns $45 a month in ads - bringing it down to 45% adds $7.50 a month, about $90 a year, from the same visitors. Work out yours with a free calculator.
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What is a returning visitor worth to your website?
At 2.4 pages a visit and a $5 RPM, 1,000 returning visits earn about $12 in ads against $10 for new ones - and lifting returning visitors from 30% to 40% adds about $120 a year on a 5,000-visit site. Work out yours with a free calculator.
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How many months until your website gets 10,000 visitors a month?
From 1,000 visits a month and 5% growth, about four years on growth alone - or 31 months if you add four posts a month. Work out your own timeline with a free calculator.
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How many visitors does your website need to make $1,000 a month?
From about 40,000 to 286,000 visits a month, depending on your niche and how many pages each visitor reads. Work out your own number with a free calculator.
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How many page views do you need to make your first $100 a month?
Between 8,000 and 57,000 page views a month, depending on your niche. Work out your own number with a free calculator, and see how long your traffic takes to get there.