If you have read some of my other number crunching articles related to blogging, than you’ll like this one.
The question I would like to find an answer for today is: How much is a blog article worth? That seems like a question that every blogger should consider at one point or another, yet I have not found anyone that has published an answer to this burning question. Therefore, I will attempt to find the answer.
According the Technorati, the leading blog authority, my blog was worth $41,000 as of last month. This number is calculated based on the potential income of my blog, which is based on Technorati’s blog authority.
When calculating the value of the business, a banker looks at the potential income generated by the business to estimate the value of the business by calculating the value based on its ability to produce a 20-30% return. For example, if a business produces 20k in profits (not income), then it is worth about 100k. It can get a lot more complicated with assets, liabilities and accounting tricks for tax planning, but this is the basic idea.
With this is mind, if my blog is worth $41,000, then my annual profitable income should be about (41k x 20%) =$8,200. This is not yet what my blog is generating, primarily because this projection was based on the peak of my blog authority last month, but none the less this is my starting number.
This number also assumes that I have properly marketed and monetized my blog, at least as good at the average blogger – which I have no way of knowing or estimating. But, for the sake of argument, let’s assume that I have properly marketed and monetized my blog.
Value of Each Page View
If we use the Technorati’s number, we can calculate the value of each page view on my blog. With the help of Google Analytics, I can find the number of pages that were viewed last month and use that number of calculate the value of each page view.
Each page view is worth = $41,000 / 30,000 page views = $1.36
Value of Each Page
Then, with the number of articles on my blog, I can calculate the number average number of pages that each article is being displayed.
Each article is displaying 30,000 page views / 180 articles = 166 pages
Value of Each Article
With the value of each page view and the number of pages each article is displaying, I can calculate the value of each article.
Value of an article = $1.36 x 166 pages = $225.76 dollars
There is it, I just increased the value of this blog by $225 by writing this article about the value of each article. Talk about getting paid for nothing!
But, what is the profitable value of each article? If I use the 20% profit/value ratio as mentioned above to estimate the value of a business, then over the lifetime of a blog each article should produce a profit of;
Profitable value of an article = $225.76 * 20% = $45.15 dollars
Therefore if you want to earn $100/day, than you need to write 2-3 articles per day. If you want to earn $200/day, than you need to write 4-5 articles per day, and if you want to earn $300/day, than you need to write 7-9 articles per day. Readers of your blog would quickly become overwhelmed with 7-9 article per day, which is why many full-time bloggers have multiple blogs. Darron at ProBlogger said in his book that he has had as many as 20 blogs at one time.
Another way to look at the profitable value of an article is to consider the average article to remain relevant for 5 years, than its profitable value would be;
Profitable value of each article = $225.76 / 5 years = $45.15
All these numbers look a little high to me, but who am I to second guess the leader in blog authority, Technorati. Keep in mind that these numbers may not reflect your blogging income for many reasons and full-time bloggers probably earn much more for each article because of their reputation and large readership.
None the less, I hope you find these numbers as fascinating as I do.