How to Appraise Website Content

The contents of your website--articles, images, video, programs--are some of its most valuable assets. Your high quality content is what drives traffic to your website every month, and what keeps visitors returning. If you want to accurately appraise your website's value, content is an important factor to consider. Besides text, graphics, and video, content also includes anything you sell from your website, such as downloads or ebooks. The steps below will show you how to estimate what your content is worth.

First, estimate the total number of hours used to create images, audio, and video. Figure the time spent uploading your files and miscellaneous programming as well. Estimate the cost per hour of your time, and multiply those two numbers. For example, if you put 300 hours into making graphics and non-text content for your website, and your time is worth $40 per hour, then the graphics are worth at least $12,000. Add in the cost of acquiring graphics from outside firms too.

Estimate the value of your written content by using a fixed rate per word. Exclude text written for navigation purposes. SEO content of average quality is worth approximately $0.05 per word. Sophisticated, humorous, and technical writing is worth about $0.10-$0.15 per word.

For example, suppose you have 20,000 words of average SEO content, and 30,000 words of expertly written technical articles. Then the text value is approximately

(.05)(20000)+(.15)(30000) = $5,500.

Calculate the net worth of media downloads that you sell on your website. For example, if you sell 30 different website templates, and each one is worth about $120, then the total value is $3,600. If you sell an ebook that is worth $300 in terms of what it cost you to produce, then its value is at least $300.

Compute the totals from above to determine the aggregate value of your website's content. Use this number when calculating the total worth of your blog or website. See the article Website Valuation Methods for more detail on estimating a website's total worth.

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