It always amazes me the different ideas and things that people come up with.
If you take a creative person and free them from the shackles of limitations, they are free to dream up an infinite array of ideas.
Unfortunately, there are some limitations for entrepreneurs and bloggers, the biggest ones being technological and emotional.
Nobody wants to spend endless hours blogging or developing a website only to find out later that the project was a complete failure.
Over time, certain types of websites have proven to be profitable, and they typically have a lot of existing support in the form of frameworks and themes.
It doesn’t make sense for an inspired entrepreneur to try and reinvent the wheel, but rather to find their niche.
The Way This Page is Organized:
Below is a list of the different types of websites that you can create, along with an analysis of their potential profit and their difficulty to build for an individual or small business.
Auction and Seller Portal Websites
These are sites where users come and register to both buy and sell items. Likely, Ebay comes to mind, but there are actually many more websites that allow users to sell products, such as Etsy, which is focused around people creating and selling crafted goods. There are even niche sites like TCGPlayer that allow players to sell their collectible TCG (Trading Card Game) cards.
Potential Profitability:
Ebay and some of the other auction sites are extremely popular and profitable. I think we would all have loved to have invested in some of these sites before they became so massive and popular.
Difficulty to Create:
These sites are generally pretty easy to use for the buyers and sellers, but actually trying to build one these sites out is likely to be extremely difficult and require a substantial investment. For this reason, it’s going to be very difficult for your auction site to be able to compete against the titans in the online auction space. There is still a potential to create small niche auction site, but if you attempt to compete against a site like Ebay, your business is likely going to get ripped to shreds.
Authority Websites
These are websites that focus on one relatively broad topic and have a huge amount of content on those subjects. The idea behind these is, if you want medical information, you probably know that WebMD has quality content on virtually every medical topic. There are many authority websites around covering almost every topic that you can think up.
Potential Profitability:
Since these sites generally have mostly text and image content, producing a page of content has a relatively low cost. There’s also many different advertising technologies and affiliate programs that allow these sites to earn money. Two critical issues are the niche of the site and how much traffic it gets. There are certainly some extremely profitable authority sites around, but that varies greatly from site to site.
Difficulty to Create:
For the most part, there’s really nothing that stops an individual from attempting to create an authority site. The biggest problem most people encounter when trying to build one is that it’s difficult to get traffic and SEO is difficult for most people. There are excellent frameworks that help out for developing the site, and there’s nothing extremely technical about these sites. An individual can definitely make one, but you really need to invest a ton of time researching and creating content.
Business and Corporate Sites
These are sites that help consumers, and other businesses find out more about what a company does or provides information about the products it sells. They also help distribute software updates for products and may help customers get technical assistance.
Potential Profitability:
Since these sites are generally filled with text and image content, the content is relatively cost effective to produce. Since that content helps to convert their customers into buyers, has a one time cost, and helps to bring in more traffic to their site, the sites can be extremely beneficial to the business, but it really depends on the type of business and the size of it.
Difficulty to Create:
Well, you probably don’t own a large corporation now do you so it’s going to be virtually impossible to create one of these.
Coupon Websites
These are basically blogs where people post deals, contests, freebies, and other
Potential Profitability:
These sites are usually trash and are usually just a way to trick people into clicking an affiliate link.
Difficulty to Create:
Well, it’s basically a spam blog so it can be somewhat tricky to get these to rank well in Google, which is probably the only way the site is going to get any traffic.
Dating and Networking Sites
So most people have heard of dating websites, but they don’t realize that people also use various sites to network in an attempt to try to connect with other people. As an example, HARO is a website where experts can network with journalists in the media.
Potential Profitability:
I don’t think much needs to be said. Obviously, these sites can be very profitable. Even blogs that talk about dating can be as well.
Difficulty to Create:
It’s challenging to build and market these sites as they generally require a custom site to be developed. You’re really asking for trouble if you try to create one of these yourself, but you might be able to find an untapped niche and build a blog.
Directory Sites
Directory sites used to be the way that most people found content on the web. That’s not the case these days, and most people who do use directories are looking for businesses in the various B2B directories. There’s software around to maintain these sites, but, I honestly think you would need to develop your own software to be able to have a really great site.
Potential Profitability:
Well since these sites are pretty much dead, I can’t consider them to be very profitable, but I admit that some directories require you to pay to get listed and it’s possible to make money that way.
Difficulty to Create:
If you go the route of using established directory site software, these sites are super easy to setup since there’s little to no content writing.
E-Commerce:
From massive stores like Amazon to small niche stores that sell nothing but ridiculous looking light up sneakers, online stores are an exciting type of online website for entrepreneurs, since it’s basically a store with no physical presence. Some stores do something called drop shipping and don’t even have their own inventory.
Potential Profitability:
I have to be realistic about this and factor in the reality that many of the top e-commerce sites are also seller portals these days.
Difficulty to Create:
It’s true that it can be relatively easy to start a small store that only sells a handful of products and use a drop shipper to fulfill the orders but even that is a lot harder than most people realize. Scaling this up would be pretty difficult because of the extremely competitive nature of online shopping.
Forums:
Before social media, many people used to talk on forums instead. These sites are relatively easy to set up, but they have to be maintained and have good moderation. They also kind of market themselves since people who are looking for forums generally search for them.
Potential Profitability:
Since some forums have paid members areas and there are some that have massive traffic and run ads.
Difficulty to Create:
If you decide to use one of the many well-established platforms for your forum, the setup work is quite trivial. Now one thing that can be difficult is getting people to come to your forum and actually talk.
Games and Gaming Websites
Nothing is more popular for kids and young adults than wasting their lives away playing games. Not only are there popular websites that host free games, but there are huge gaming database sites that list every single secret and piece of information that a player would ever want to know.
Potential Profitability:
It really depends on the game and the site. Some games become hugely popular, and there are dozens of spin-off sites that talk about strategies or have courses that help players learn the secrets of the game. Actually, developing games for people to play can be quite expensive.
Difficulty to Create:
It would be pretty difficult for an individual to break into the gaming space but one could realistically create a popular gaming blog. There’s a bunch of blogs that discuss advanced poker strategies as one example, so I’ll definitely think there’s opportunities around. The difficulty varies wildly depending on what you are trying to do.
Image and Photo Sharing Websites
People love sharing pictures online and need a way to be able to easily share them, which is why free image hosting sites are very popular. There are also sites that feature funny and entertain pictures, like the famous site ICanHasCheeseburger which grew to be extremely popular.
Potential Profitability:
Because of the popularity of image sharing sites and the fact that bandwidth is quite cheap these days, these sites can easily generate a reasonable profit from advertising, but it’s relatively small compared to the ad revenue of the popular viral picture sites.
Difficulty to Create:
The main problem with trying to build an image sharing site is that these sites are challenging to market it early on, but if you can get the ball rolling, they have a tendency to go viral to a certain extent. The main problem for the viral image blogs is dealing with image copyright laws. Simply put, you can’t just put any random image you found on the internet on your blog. You really have to get users to submit their own photos, and because of the challenge of doing that, it’s much more difficult than it sounds to get people to submit photos to your site that will go viral.
Job Boards and Freelancing Sites
There are many jobs seeker websites online like Monster and Indeed. These sites have dramatically changed the way people find work.
Potential Profitability:
These sites can be pretty profitable if they become popular. Some sites started out as small freelancing sites and were able to become pretty popular, most of them do end up failing though.
Difficulty to Create:
The main issue that somebody who wants to build one of these sites is getting both job seekers and employers on their site while dealing with the many fake job scams that are around. There also needs to be a substantial investment made to develop the software to run the website. Now there are some smaller niche job sites around, but they’re pretty limited to specific industries.
Membership Sites and Online Education Sites
These sites can be extremely useful to people who are trying to learn specific things or want access to a library of knowledge for a low monthly fee.
Potential Profitability:
The amount of money these sites can potentially make varies wildly, but the site Udemy boasts having 24,000,000 students, making it one of the biggest and most popular places for online courses. There are also many smaller membership sites that charge a fee to access the information they contain. Since the cost to develop the course is typically only a one time cost, as soon as the costs have been recovered, the rest of the sales are pure profit. Membership sites and online courses are some of the most popular things for internet marketers to create.
Difficulty to Create:
In the world of the internet and online businesses, Membership sites are one of the easier businesses to create. Now, obviously building a massive portal for online courses is much more difficult, but that’s not something most individuals are attempting to do. With that said, I’m not suggesting that building a membership site isn’t a lot of work, but they are frameworks available to do most of the heavy lifting.
News/Media Websites
Many people go online and check the news every day. Some of these sites also have very popular communities of people who spend endless hours leaving comments and reading the comment section. Many of the political news sites have opted to disable comments on their site because of this, but that isn’t true for all media sites. There are far more to these sites than just news though, there are actually many mainstream media sites covering various topics from sports to music.
Potential Profitability:
These sites can become hugely popular, and because they draw in huge audiences, the advertising revenue can be quite large.
Difficulty to Create:
Obviously, these sites are going to be extremely difficult for most people to produce but there are niche media sites that a small team of people could easily handle. Honestly, I just don’t see trying to run even a tiny media site working out for an individual. I don’t know, I guess travel sites fall into the category of a media site, and that’s definitely do-able for an individual.
Niche Sites
These are smaller websites that focus on a relatively narrow topic but can also cover slightly broader ones like fitness. What differentiates niches sites from media sites is that the content is typically evergreen in nature meaning that the information doesn’t change over time and isn’t usually newsworthy. You may also confuse niche sites with authority websites as the lines between them are sometimes blurry. The only real difference is the narrowness of the subject matter and the size of the site. Niche sites also do not typically try to leverage their authority to build an audience, it’s just a site that provides information on one specific topic.
Potential Profitability:
These sites can actually be extremely profitable if built correctly and are similar to authority sites but are smaller. Because these sites want to keep their costs as low as possible, they typically use WordPress and keep their site pretty basic. Since these sites usually do not generate enough visitors to make a significant amount of money from advertising (unlike authority sites), they generally make most of their profit from affiliate commissions. Due to the narrowness of the subject matter of these sites and the fact that they typically do not attract many repeat visitors.
Difficulty to Create:
Niche sites are actually one of the easiest types of sites to build but one big mistake people make is not understanding that they need to focus exclusively on their niche. Another big mistake is picking the wrong niche. Some niches are way too competitive or don’t have very many options to earn commissions from affiliate marketing. So if you choose a good niche, then these sites are easy to build for an individual.
Payment Processors
To buy anything online, you’re going to have to have a way to pay for it, and that’s where payment processors come into play. Most people would probably immediately think of Paypal, but there are many other processors online.
Potential Profitability:
Well, your business earns a percentage of every single transaction that goes through the system so they can be extremely profitable.
Difficulty to Create:
Individuals are not going to be able to build a payment processing website. Sorry, it’s way too hard, and I just don’t think it’s possible.
Personal Blogs
Some people really enjoy visiting the personal blogs of celebrities and actors. These sites can also be a great way to help ordinary people network with others and potentially land a job somewhere.
Potential Profitability:
Honestly, I don’t even see celebrities trying to make money off their personal blogs, so just understand that these sites do not make any money.
Difficulty to Create:
These sites are absolutely the easiest to make, you can sign up at Blogger and start blogging in less than a minute.
Podcasting Sites
These sites are starting to become more and more popular as the way people consume media is changing over time. They’re basically the equivalent to an independent radio station on the internet.
Potential Profitability:
It can be pretty challenging to generate a decent income from these sites as it’s difficult to find advertisers that want to buy ads in your podcast. Some money can be made from affiliate marketing or selling courses, and I know some of them do make money, but honestly, most of them do not.
Difficulty to Create:
Podcasting is highly specialized and to produce a quality podcast you need specialized equipment and knowledge of using audio editing software. There’s also the problem of developing entertaining shows that bring people back to your site, so it’s not super hard, but it can be a challenge for many.
Question and Answer Sites
These sites are absolutely invaluable for finding answers to difficult technical questions or finding advice about something that is not well known.
Potential Profitability:
The only real way to generate income from these sites is advertising, they require custom software to be developed to operate them, and there needs to be an active moderation team to prevent the site from being spammed to death. I know there are a few big sites out there like Quora but I think that the vast majority of these sites would fail.
Difficulty to Create:
You certainly could start a niche question and answer site but I think it would be very difficult to market it.
Resume / Designer Portfolio Websites
These are small sites that people build, usually in an attempt to get clients or a better job.
Potential Profitability:
I’m not suggesting that these sites are not helpful in helping people improve their income level, but the site itself doesn’t actually generate any money.
Difficulty to Create:
These are super easy to develop unless you are trying to overdo your site as many web designers do. Excluding web designers, these are the absolute easiest to build, but I recommend that you just hire a web designer to create one for you. It doesn’t get any easier than hiring a designer.
Review and Product Comparison Websites
Shoppers are much savvier buyers than they were twenty years ago and spend countless hours reading information about products before they make a buying decision. These websites help by providing quality reviews and cross comparisons of the different options in the marketplace.
Potential Profitability:
Since these sites are basically selling products without actually having them in their inventory, they are profitable, but there are some things to consider. They are relatively hard to market because they are acting as a middle man between the customer and the various retailers. These sites get a full battery of options they can use to generate revenue, including affiliate networks and advertising networks. Since some of these sites are quite popular and the costs are relatively low.
Difficulty to Create:
The main thing to understand here is that it is illegal to do fake reviews of products in most countries. So if you want a review site, you really need to be actually buying the products and testing them out yourself (you can just Ebay them when you’re done.) You want the review to be really authentic so you should take and post tons of pictures of it to prove that you actually tested it or preferably make a video. Alternatively, you could make cross-comparisons of two or more products and avoid making any suggestions that you personally tested the product. These sites are pretty easy to produce for an individual but there are some legal things to know, and it’s a relatively competitive space. These sites are a lot of work, but for many people who create them, it’s absolutely worth it.
Search Engines
Any time people need access to information, the answer to their question is just one search away.
Potential Profitability:
Google seems to be pretty much unstoppable so obviously these sites can be extremely lucrative.
Difficulty to Create:
You are not going to defeat a company the size of Google. The only way this would work is if you had an army of employees, the internet fundamentally shifted directions, and your business was somehow able to be in front of that shift to take advantage of it. Do not even attempt it unless it’s some kind of niche search engine for song lyrics or something.
Small Business Brochure Websites
These are websites that display the services that a small business offers. These are pretty similar to portfolio websites but display a menu of services instead of a gallery of work. This allows potential customers to review their options before going to the physical location of the restaurant or hire an auto mechanic. Many times, small businesses will blend these two types of sites together.
Potential Profitability:
Since these sites are very cost-effective to build and are basically an advertisement for the business. Simply put, it’s a website that helps generate more sales for the business, why wouldn’t you want one?
Difficulty to Create:
These sites are also very easy for an individual to produce but I highly recommend hiring a web designer so that it looks professional.
Social Media Sites
People love to sit around and spend vast amounts of time talking to each other over the internet while they rack up advertising dollars for somebody else.
Potential Profitability:
It’s not surprising that these sites are hugely profitable if they become extremely popular.
Difficulty to Create:
Well, it would be a tiny bit easier to develop and market a social media site than trying to beat a company like Google.
Video Sharing and Hosting Sites
People sitting around and wasting their lives away watching videos on the internet has never been more popular before!
Potential Profitability:
Well these sites are both costly to build and creating video content is notoriously expensive to do, but for the large sites that can make it work, they’re insanely profitable. There is also some video sharing sites that just embed videos from other sites so they are “piggybacking” off not only some other company’s technical infrastructure but they are legally profiting from somebody else’s videos. Obviously, YouTube is extremely profitable and generates a huge amount of advertising revenue for Google.
Difficulty to Create:
Well if you manage to get your video sharing site to go viral this could work, but building a website that allows people to upload their own videos and expecting that to go well is basically business suicide.
Wikis / Knowledge bases
These are websites like Wikipedia that allows users to find an endless amount of education information.
Potential Profitability:
Wikipedia is a pretty bad example of a profitable wiki since it doesn’t generate any revenue from advertising, but many other wikis and knowledge bases do. So, these sites are basically an authority site, but they are in an encyclopedic format. Since these are relatively easy to build and often times users will contribute the bulk of the content.
Difficulty to Create:
If you’re trying to create your own niche or gaming wiki, then this might pan out for you, but if you’re going to attempt to create your own internet encyclopedia, I’m going to have to advise that you don’t attempt that.