Since Lao K and I started my first personal homepage in 2001, I have been on the Internet for more than eight years without realizing it. During this period, I have experienced the ups and downs of the development of the Internet. Now, although I am devoting myself to running the IDC brand Yanhuang Network, I am slightly away from the life of an individual webmaster. However, because I still have a few small websites, I always insist that I am still a webmaster. Recently, I often work in the webmaster circle and get to know big people. There are different types of webmasters, big and small. Below I will boldly conduct a little analysis of the current status of grassroots webmasters. If there is any shortcoming, I hope you will understand it.
Personally, I think the current grassroots webmaster group can now be divided into three levels.
Level 1: Entry-level webmaster. Most of these webmasters have just gotten involved with the Internet and have developed a strong interest in the Internet. After seeing the rise of many successful websites, they also want to join the webmaster camp and have a website of their own. However, webmasters at this level generally do not have high expectations for websites. Most of them buy a small space to build their own website out of hobbies. They usually update it when they have nothing to do and send it to their friends around them to show their own. Ability, I don’t have much expectations for online profit, I always feel that a little income is the best, and it doesn’t matter if I don’t have it. The overall mentality of webmasters at this level is relatively good, and they can treat their hobbies with a relaxed mood.
The second level: amateur webmaster. Most of these webmasters have been involved in the Internet for a while. The website has a certain popularity and traffic and has a certain amount of income. Therefore, they regard the website as one of their sources of income. They have been studying hard for a long time how to make their website better. Okay, how can we get more income through advertising or alliances? They have very high requirements for space or servers, and they absolutely do not allow a little problem to affect site access. Many webmasters even work hard on their websites until midnight just to get more. Enrich website content with more articles or pictures that attract netizens. They can be said to be the hardest working grassroots webmasters among the three levels. In order to better learn from well-known and successful sites, such webmasters are often keen to participate in various webmaster gatherings and webmaster lectures, learn from and communicate with their peers, and strengthen communication to find out their current problems. It can be said that this type of webmaster is currently the largest proportion of grassroots webmasters. Most webmasters are relatively good, but a small number of webmasters are often troubled and disappointed because of poor long-term income of the website, which affects their original work. Station brings a relaxed state of mind and fun.
The third level: professional webmaster. Most of these webmasters have been involved in the Internet for a long time, already have a relatively stable website operation model, have stable website visitors and high traffic, maintain a long-term and stable source of website income, and are relatively willing to invest in network servers. Basically, independent servers are used, and those with larger traffic will choose to distribute load balancing in various places. They all have a relatively stable website update model and method. They update and maintain the sites they operate regularly and according to their habits every day. They usually communicate with other website experts frequently and learn from each other's strengths to improve their own weaknesses. Website income is generally the main source of income for such webmasters. They are also regular customers of major alliances and advertisers, and have good reputation and attention. Since website income is relatively stable and the profit model of site development is clear, such webmasters have a more relaxed attitude. Many webmasters are willing to communicate, and some of them often attend various webmaster gatherings and webmaster lectures as guests to share their experiences. Share it with everyone, and naturally have high visibility and popularity in the webmaster circle.
After analyzing the current situation of grassroots webmasters, I think amateur webmasters account for the largest proportion of webmasters in the country. So I think we should analyze the website’s path to profitability based on the success of professional webmasters. Let’s talk about this Before that, let me share something with you. A few days ago, I accidentally met a grassroots webmaster in the group. He is the webmaster of an architectural design community. At that time, he came to me for advice on how to choose a suitable space. I first I visited his community and found that there were only a few dozen people online, and the volume of posts was not high, maybe a few hundred posts a day. Relatively speaking, it felt like it was a fledgling community, so I recommended a cheaper ordinary space because I felt there was no need to spend money on it. How much investment was put into developing products such as servers. Unexpectedly, he told me that he had been working on this website for a year and a half, and that this community had earned him more than 35,000 yuan. This surprised me, so I talked to him. He had an in-depth exchange and found out that he had a very innovative idea, adopting a joint-stock system. The entire website had 10,000 shares at 10 yuan per share. He sold a total of 30% of the shares and received an investment of 30,000 yuan. Now he uses The notebook was purchased with more than 5,000 yuan in annual advertising fees from the merchant. He also told me that the people he targeted were white-collar workers and wealthy people. Basically, their monthly salary was more than 3,000 yuan, so they were relatively willing to invest in the community. It can be seen that this webmaster has a very good financial background. Mentality, he also has a positive attitude towards the operation of the website, and he also has very good planning prospects for the current website in the future. Through his current community platform, he already has 38 professional QQ groups and has a large number of professional architectural design hobbies. Or, they can be combined with them to develop e-commerce business later. Here is a brief mention of the role of QQ groups. In fact, QQ groups are very easy to gather popularity. For example, our webmaster lectures combine QQ groups with SNS linkage, allowing webmasters in the group to participate in the SNS discussions of the webmaster lectures, and unify them in It is good to use SNS registered IDs in the group, which not only facilitates management but also strengthens everyone's cohesion. Since the group has gathered many industry experts with rich network resources, he also plans to build a professional talent network for construction professionals, and let the talent network be promoted in conjunction with the community. He will also organize professional people in the group to train and expand the talent network. It has great influence. Job seekers can upload 5-10M attachments, which are their excellent works. There is also a special work exhibition hall where job seekers can upload renderings or DWG drawings. This can increase the employment rate and achieve good results, so The prospects are very promising.
I don’t know what everyone feels from this matter. I personally feel that it is a subdivision of majors. First of all, he is an enthusiast engaged in architectural design and knows very much about architectural design. Therefore, he has rich resources when building a community. It is every grassroots priority to adapt to local conditions. What webmasters need to consider most is that I suggest you try to build a site that is most suitable for you and that you are most familiar with. Don't build a site that is large and comprehensive and unfamiliar to you. If you don't know the direction, you will easily get lost. Not only this, I also talked a lot with the founder of PHP168 a while ago, including his participation in the webmaster lecture organized by me, and he also pointed out that industry websites will be the general direction of future site development, such as steel network, chemical industry network and other niche industry sites. All have very high incomes, and some are even listed on the market. You can think about the future of industry websites will continue to be bright, but we grassroots webmasters can grasp which industry and which point in the industry to dig deeper to achieve success. Therefore, qualified webmasters must first consider becoming a subdivided and professional industry website.
In addition, the development of e-commerce is also unstoppable. This is obvious to everyone. In the early stage, we were fortunate to have Pei Dapeng, the founder of SHOPEX, our Anhui fellow, to talk to the webmaster about the current rapid development of e-commerce. From the SHOPEX branch system, there are currently more than 33 The popularity of using online store systems can be seen from the total number of users of 10,000. Looking at Taobao's transaction volume in 2008, it has surpassed the sales of the largest comprehensive retailer in China, accounting for 1% of the country's total retail sales. The entire 1% is already the largest in the country. There are still 99% business opportunities waiting for everyone to fight for, so he loudly called on webmasters to seize the opportunity to join in e-commerce. Indeed, the trend of e-commerce has become a general trend. Many webmasters will ask what should I do if I have no supply of goods. I remember that in one training session, Jiang Yao, a classmate from Zhubajie, taught webmasters a good method. The simplest way is to find the supply of goods on Taobao, and then use your own operations to In the basket-carrying business, copying pictures from Taobao and selling them at a higher price is also a relatively convenient profit model without any risk. It will be much easier to wait until you have regular customers before going to the manufacturer to negotiate supply. Some webmasters can use their own sites to strengthen the site's product keyword promotion, and become "Taobao customers" to allow netizens to order products from other online stores on their own sites to earn a share. This is also a very easy profit model, so It is recommended that grassroots webmasters consider more e-commerce site profit models.
Let’s talk about games, especially web games. With the rise of well-known web game operators such as Jiuwei Interactive and 51WAN, web games have become the most popular game model in China. Not long ago, the well-known community program Dongwang The founder of the forum, Beach Boy, chatted for a while and learned that the games he currently operates, such as Business Tycoon, already have nearly 200 sets of servers and millions of game players. It is shameful that the game has developed so rapidly in less than a year, and they are now The revenue is also very impressive, and it is heading towards the annual transaction volume of 100 million yuan. Compared with the revenue of the previous community programs, it is many times higher. It can be seen that the industrial economy of the current web game has been very amazing, and the resulting site profits The modes will also come in various forms. I have a friend who is an independent server user of our company. When we first met him, we just created a community in a small space and named it "China Web Game Forum". At that time, I didn't even know what a web game was. , I didn’t expect that web games would have such great potential. It has been about a year since I met him. Now his community has tens of thousands of online visits every day, and because the target is clear, it has a good amount of advertising and income. It is also quite impressive, and he caught such a new thing at that time and finally achieved success. We grassroots webmasters must be good at discovering new things with potential and exploring them to find a site profit model that is more suitable for their own development.
Finally, let’s talk about the film, television and audio-visual aspects that I least want to mention. Why? Maybe everyone knows that our Yanhuang Online predecessor is Firefly Film and Television Community, which first started with forums. The first website I built in 2001, Tianyi Network, also Mainly based on film and television entertainment, the traffic was quite considerable at that time, because there were too few free movies. Now with the rapid development of the Internet, there are more and more free resources, and copyright awareness is becoming more and more important. Many All audio and video websites are facing a crisis of survival, including us. In order to comply with the requirements of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, we were forced to close the BT section, which caused the website traffic to plummet and is not as good as before. Now I think we can be regarded as a loser in the development of film and television sites. However, the website still has many old members who have been supporting it for many years, and the traffic is maintained at tens of thousands of IPs a day, so it can still maintain the website's expenses and development. Logically speaking, film and television websites have no way to make money due to copyright issues. However, with the rise of resource sites such as GVOD and QVOD, and in conjunction with well-known film and television programs such as Max, many free film and television websites have begun to emerge in large numbers, and many of them are still good. Income, so I still bring it up to share with you. In addition, another good profit idea is to build a live broadcast site, because there is no copyright, and especially sports programs are very popular. The most important thing is that everyone must install a player in order to watch live broadcasts. , and playback clients including UTV and Fengxing all pay according to the number of installations, so it is conceivable that the number of installations is considerable and the income is also very good. This is recommended for capable webmasters.
After talking so much, I don’t know if these suggestions can bring help and inspiration to all grassroots webmasters. Of course, I believe there are still more good website profit ideas that have not been shared, so I hope you can do more in the future. Communicate with me, and I will be happy to discuss with you brothers how to make a website profitable, and jointly enter the camp of professional webmasters.