Online comparison websites have gained massive popularity over the course of the last decade. Their main purpose is to help the customers to easily compare things (depending on the nice), save them a lot of time and provide a more convenient experience. Having a list of, let’s say the prices of products, in one place is a huge advantage. There is no need to open multiple tabs in the browser and compare it by yourself. Besides being very useful to readers, online comparison sites often offer very lucrative business opportunities.
There are numerous ways to monetize these websites, from affiliate deals to selling advertising space. A good thing about them is that you usually don’t spend a lot of resources doing or updating the content. Of course, it is not going to be easy to rank well in the search engines and it might take some time.
Just an idea is not going to be enough to launch this type of business though. Besides the long research, technical expertise is needed as well. Here are some of the most important things you should know before making a final decision about launching a comparison website.
Choose a Niche
Potential earnings are mostly going to depend on a niche you select. Picking the right one, which is not over-saturated on the internet, could be the key to success. Targeting customers by their geographical location is of vital importance as well – higher revenue potential comes from economically strong countries. Doing research is an important thing. Take an hour or two and browse the internet. See if your idea is already online or what is your competition missing. Our suggestion is to make a business plan after selecting a niche and check out the numbers.
Affiliate Deals
Stats say that 85% of comparison websites are making the most of their revenue through affiliate share deals. If you are not familiar with affiliate marketing, you basically sign a deal with other business. You advertise their product and get a commission for every sale made through your website. There are different types of deals, of course, so make sure to take only those which suits your business the most. Keep in mind that industry leaders in your niche might require some good website traffic numbers before offering you a deal.
Setting Up The Website
This is the most complicated part of starting an online comparison website. You will have to set up a comparison engine, so your portal could work properly. Expert technical skills are needed here, so hiring a programmer is probably the best thing you could do. A programmer should be able to implement your ideas into the site’s backend, set up other preferences and get your website into an operational state. We really love how CasinoBiggestBonus.com did the comparison part on their homepage. You can simply scroll down and see all bonuses in one place, with a detailed explanation of how they work. It is very friendly for customers and it brings them huge value – all great offers are summed up in one place, being only a couple of clicks away.
If this is something you can not afford at the moment, consider paying for less expensive but less efficient comparison scripts. A majority of these scripts are coded in PHP, so the integration process is much easier. The biggest disadvantage of this method is that you won’t be able to make all ideas happen, as the space for editing is low. There are also many useful WordPress plugins available to everyone, so make sure to do a search and pick what is useful.
