Putting Website Expectations into Perspective

Dec 4, 2008 by Paul White

Being a web developer, I have had the honor of working on some very exciting projects.  I am frequently contacted by people looking to have a website developed.  Often times people don't have a concept for what I do, or what it takes to build a website.  Building a website involves writing thousands of lines of code to manage complex objects.  It can take several days or several months to build a website depending on how complex the project is.  Clients often have unrealistic expectations of what kind of return they will get from their website.  Often people have watched too much TV or read too many articles on the founders of MySpace, YouTube, or some other large website that made millions.  They come to me thinking they can do it too.  Allow me to put things into perspective. 

If you build it they won't just come

Just because you build a website does not mean people can find it, or are even interested in it.  You need to ensure that the site is built with good SEO practices, and you have set forth a plan for marketing it.  Do not expect to post some new content and get a surge of traffic.  It will take some time for the search engines to find your article and then send you traffic for it.

Your site will not hit critical mass tomorrow, next month, or next year.

Unless you get plugged by some major news outlet, the chances of your website hitting critical mass are slim to none.  The only times I have seen news coverage over a website is after the site is already a success.  Most news outlets will avoid providing coverage for startups as it would be considered free advertising.

You can not buy traffic.

There are plenty of paid traffic sites, that guarantee to give you X visitors / day if you pay their fee.  But often these visitors are not interested in your site at all.  Some of these visitors are even paid to visit your website.  The best way to grow your traffic is to increase the number of loyal readers.  This takes years, of posting quality content your readers care about.

You can't buy your way to the top of the search engines.

Even though many of the search engines have their own pay per click systems in which you can buy advertising on search results ( right column ).  Google does not allow pay for rank.  If you are every contacted by someone offering to sell you links on their website, or asking to buy links from your website, don't do it.  This is against the google's policy.  If they catch you, they will black list your site from their index.  Advertising is one thing,  Paid links is another.  Focus yourself on quality content rather than get rich quick schemes to grow traffic.

If you are serious about your website's future, I recommend you do some research on SEO.  If this means you have to completely redesign you website, then do it.  The returns will not be immediate, but months from now, you will notice a difference.

Google Adsense will not put a Ferrari in your driveway.

In the early days of google adsense. There were stories of people with simple blogs making thousands of dollars each month just from their google ads.  Even though it is possible to make this much with google it takes a huge amount of traffic, and your site must target higher paying keywords. ( real estate for example ).  Google is great for smaller sites with low traffic, as when you are small its hard to sell direct advertising, but if you get larger, you would be better off selling your advertising direct.

Hits doesn't mean anything.

I laugh when I hear people bragging about their website and how they got 5 million hits last month.  Hits is related to the number of requests your server handled. 1 page on your site could be 1 Hit, or it could be 100s of hits. It all depends on how many photos, graphics, and other information you are referencing in your code.  There are two values that are important, first Unique Visitors, then Page Views.  Your focus should be on increasing your Unique visitors.  Now if you came to me and said you are getting 5 million unique visitors / month I would be impressed.

Why is Google Adsense not best when you get larger?

Google is a middle man.  Like most middle men they are taking a cut of your advertising revenue.  When you are starting off with low traffic, its hard to sell advertising.  Once you get bigger, its worth it to go direct with your advertising.  Some webmasters have discovered that Google caps your earnings once your site grows over a certain size.  Google wants to make sure there is enough money to go around to all its publishers.  This is why its a good idea to get your own advertisers, or even run both local ads, and google ads within the same site.
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