So You Want To Paywall?

There are three inevitabilities in life. Death, taxes, and big tech companies dumping on the little guy. As zero-click searches reach an all-time high and content is stolen and repurposed for the gain of the almighty tech loser, there’s only one viable solution.

To paywall.

To create a value exchange that reduces reliance on third-party platforms. To become as self-sufficient as possible. Like an off-grid cabin or your mum’s basement, a paywall gives you a sense of security you just cannot put a price on.

As we’re all finding, any kind of reliance on these guys doesn’t put us in a good position. They do not want to send us traffic.

TL;DR

1. Subscriber revenue is intrinsically more valuable to a business because it is predictable. Subscription and advertiser revenue are not created equal.
2. Don’t paywall everything. Use dynamic/metered paywalls and leave high-reach, generally lower-quality platforms like Google Discover free for email signups.
3. Subscription success relies on your USP – whether that’s exclusive data, deep, niche insights, or a certain vibe – you have to stand out.
4. The customer experience and understanding of your audience matter. Create habit-forming connections and products. Become an essential part of their life.

But What About Our Traffic?

Your traffic will decline. But guess what? You’re already hemorrhaging clicks and have been for some time. And traffic doesn’t pay the bills.

The only way to sustain rankings over time is with high-quality engagement data. Navboost stores and uses 13 months of data to identify good vs bad clicks, click quality, the last longest click, and on-page interactions to establish the most relevant content. All at a query level.

Paywalls are not your friend when it comes to user engagement. Not for the masses. But for a small cohort of people who like you enough to pay, your engagement data will be excellent.

In an ultra-personalized world, you will still do well to the people who really matter.

We have data that pretty perfectly highlights the impact of a paywall on rankings. Over the course of three to four months in traditional search, your rankings start to steadily drop before settling in severe mediocrity. You’ve got to fight for every click. With great content, marketing, savviness. Everything.

In Google Discover – a highly personalized, click and engagement driven platform – this is even more pronounced. While Discover’s clickless traffic is lower quality, there will be a small cohort of highly engaged users that develop over time, you can target with a paywall.

Unpaywall for the masses, build your owned channels, and paywall for the highly engaged. The platform will take care of the…