One way to evaluate a content website is to determine the return on investment (ROI) based on the number of words published. This is a good metric because the biggest cost of a content site is the investment cost of content. This concept is explained in detail in this Word Count ROI article and analysis.
I’m a big fan of calculators to make calculations easier. I tend to create my calculators for myself, but put them here because other people find them helpful.
The calculator below calculates your revenue per 1,000 words and 1 million words. It then offers the option to determine the ROI.
IMPORTANT: Use the free WP Word Count plugin to calculate total word count on any WordPress powered site. If you want word count per month, upgrade to the premium version.
PLEASE NOTE: Your ROI will change depending on the time period you use. For example, you can use the following calculator for a given month, series of months, a full year or your website’s lifetime.
The benefit comes when you track the ROI over time to help assess the value of your site. For example, in a perfect world, your revenue per 1,000 words over the course of a year will increase each year. Why? Because older content will continue earning as you publish new content. That said, if you escalate your content investment each year, the ROI may go down which is okay because you’re investing into higher returns for the future.
Jon Dykstra is a six figure niche site creator with 10+ years of experience. His willingness to openly share his wins and losses in the email newsletter he publishes has made him a go-to source of guidance and motivation for many. His popular “Niche site profits” course has helped thousands follow his footsteps in creating simple niche sites that earn big.
Hey Jon, I’ve been listening to your podcasts over the weekend – slowing getting through them. I’m really resonating with your content as we have similar mindsets on content marketing and making revenue. This podcast and associated blog post really interested me, as it’s not something I’ve ever properly reported on in my month end and annual reports… but now really want to!
I particularly like the idea of aiming for 80K annual revenue per million words if possible. I already applied the metric to some of my websites, projecting data and I seem to be on track with some depending on what time you stretch things over.
Obviously as you’ve mentioned, the ROI and reporting can get skewed when reporting over different periods of time and in my opinion can provide results that don’t stack up comparatively when comparing various websites in a personal portfolio.
E.g I have a website that’s 3 years old so the earnings per word has stacked each year. When I compare that to a website that is 2 years old, it comes our favourably to the newer one – but the reality is actually little different if trying to decide which website is best to invest more resources into – based on things like EPMV for example.
I guess what I am getting at, is would there be any chance of seeing how you report and tally things up each month end? Do you have a reporting dashboard you use? (blurring out the obvious details of course!) – like an Excel template?
It’s something I am developing for my own website portfolio at the moment, but just wanted to see if you had any more steer – particularly on your reporting processes with your own business.
I am new to your podcast and blog so sorry if you have shared anything like this before and I’ve missed it.
hey Marc,
thanks for the great comment. I could provide a spreadsheet but it’s ridiculously simple. I just list out revenue sources and expenses in different worksheets within the file. I have a revenue sheet for each site and tally it all up. I use this more informally. My accountant gets all the figures from statements.
Thanks for responding! I’ve joined up to the forum so hope to chat more there. All the best, Marc