They say that nowadays, people go to the Internet when they are bored. They play games, they check other people out, and sometimes we go online to read about some stuff. This is extremely true with women. As a matter of fact, 76% of all the women interviewed in the study admitted to be using social media and the Internet for personal reasons. Though not a bit surprising, this data has led to a number of website specializing on its women users. One such site is Pinterest. Pinterest started as a site where women can share stories, recipes, and projects with other women. Today, it’s now one of the biggest and most popular social media platforms.
Pinterest is not the only website to have seen the potential in targeting the population of women Internet users. Another website who took on this challenge is the website we are reviewing today. This website however, is a magazine site that provides a number of articles aimed towards women. What’s exciting about this website is that it is around 4 years old and has over 9700 articles uploaded. Another thing to note is that unlike all the other sites we have reviewed so far, this website actually has a well-managed social media presence. Let’s try to figure out what’s good with this website.
Basic Information
| Business Type | Niche | Platform | Age of the business |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blogging | Women Blog | WordPress | 4 years |
As what was mentioned above, this website is geared towards women. This might sound a little bit too constricting niche wise but I believe this is a very good decision. It might end up being to general but it all boils down to the kind of articles you publish. With over 9700 articles uploaded, you can be sure that at least 10% of that are ranking well. It took them 4 years to get to where they are right now but judging from the traffic and financials, it’s all worth it in my opinion.
If you try and visit the website, you will be greeted with a number of different articles ranging from basic tips and tricks articles to listicles. The categories vary so much but the most popular ones include parenting, lifestyle, and relationships. In terms of quality, the articles aren’t that complicated and they seem like your everyday typical article. Still, there are some good articles here and there so that will still work. The articles are around 400-600 words long and are broken down into 2-3 pages. This will be explained more in detail in a while.
As what I have mentioned above, the website is around 4 years old and it can already be considered an authority site. Google gave it a 4/10 PR score which is good. It has around 150,000 page views a month with more than half of that number as unique visits.
The website uses WordPress which is a user-friendly platform. This means they have total control of everything that is happening on the website. From the ads to the content they post. WordPress, if used to its maximum potential, may be all you need to have a good start.
Traffic
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Being a PR 4/10 site, the website is expected to receive massive traffic from the sheer number of articles it has. According to Google Analytics, the visitor count sits at around 150,000 which is not bad considering the fact that their niche is very general. The average page per session is 1.7 which, personally, is rather low considering they have over 9,700 articles on the site. This can easily be addressed by creating links connecting various articles. This can be a bit tedious but you can really see a big jump in average page per session just by doing this. This metric is even skewed to a certain extent because they arranged the articles to make up 2 pages. Now, this is not illegal but this way of presenting content might not work with everybody. This is why people rarely read more from the website. It’s because the website owner makes it a chore to do so.
Next metric that gets skewed is the average session duration. At this point, we should take the data with a grain of salt because the website owner decided to upload one article into 2 pages. This means the content will be shorter per page thus the low average session duration. Lastly, the bounce rate is relatively fine but I still believe this metric is affected by the 2-page format so I won’t put too much emphasis on this metric.
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According to Google Analytics, 64% (77,343) of the total traffic that the website gets come from the United States. Meanwhile, 15% (18781) and 10% (12,415) of the traffic comes from the UK and India respectively.
Up to 66% of the traffic the website gets come from organic search which means people visit the site from doing a search on their favorite search engine. Meanwhile, 18% of the traffic come from people who have saved the website at one point as a bookmark or from people who regularly go to the site to read. These are the kinds of visitors who are really loyal with the website. Lastly, we have to laud the 12% traffic that comes from social media. This is the only website we have reviewed that actually has a solid social media presence. The percentage might not seem like much but without social media, this website would have missed 19,963 views which is still a lot.
Financials
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| Month | Revenue | Costs | Profit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 14 | $1,450 | $100 | $1,350 |
| May 14 | $1,450 | $100 | $1,350 |
| Jun 14 | $1,450 | $100 | $1,350 |
| Jul 14 | $1,450 | $100 | $1,350 |
| Aug 14 | $1,450 | $100 | $1,350 |
| Sep 14 | $1,450 | $100 | $1,350 |
| Oct 14 | $1,450 | $100 | $1,350 |
| Nov 14 | $1,450 | $100 | $1,350 |
| Dec 14 | $1,450 | $100 | $1,350 |
| Jan 15 | $1,450 | $100 | $1,350 |
| Feb 15 | $1,450 | $100 | $1,350 |
| Mar 15 | $1,450 | $100 | $1,350 |
According to the website owner, the website has 3 income streams that generate revenue. The first (and arguably biggest income generator) is AdSense. Adsense is the Ad placement service by Google. In a nutshell, the website earns from every ad that gets shown in their website. With traffic reaching almost 150k, the website is bound to earn a lot of money from Adsense. Remember what I told you about the 2-page article technique? This is to give the website more money. One view means the website only earns from you that time but by putting a Page 2 on their articles, they earn from your visit a second time. Again, this is not illegal but this may not sit well with most of your readers. Personally, I try to avoid the 2-page technique unless needed (when articles are 1000-2000 words or longer).
Next income stream is from in-image ads hosted by GumGum. It works just like Adsense but they focus more on ads on images. Lastly, the website earns money every time an article is shared through Po.st ads.
I believe there are still a lot of ways to monetize this site but the website owner might have considered it as too much work.
Conclusion
This website can be considered as one of the sites I have reviewed here but it committed one of the worst sins for me. I will explain it in detail below.
Pros
- The niche is general but the website really found a way to ensure that they still get a good share of the traffic by creating thousands of articles.
- The income stream is varied so this ensures that the website really earns money. The total earnings per year is not to be scoffed at either.
- The social media presence for this website is very good considering they did little to enforce it. Social media is a good way to get more people to the site so they are really doing a good job with ensuring their articles get read by more people.
Cons
- The website abuses its traffic by offering their articles into 2 pages. While this may give the website more money, it may cause some visitors to think twice about reading another article on the site.
- The articles are average in quality at the very best. It might get people to read one but they won’t really be likely to read a second one. Keeping a high standard in your articles will ensure that you will have repeat customers, more shares, and more revenue.
