You often here negative stories of paywalls indeed the term itself has some negative connotations but most of these are hype and old school media reaction.
Myth 1 – Paywalls lose Google traffic
This is a common myth, if the good content is behind the paywall then Google can’t find it and users will not find results in Google. Software like Your Members allow people to place teaser information, part of the article or summaries of an article. In addition Google provides a mechanism called First Click Free, this allows Google to crawl sites which provide membership content on the understanding if a user clicks to an article from Google they will be allowed to see that complete article (before being asked to purchase more articles) The combination of the two means far from losing visitors to Google many sites gain visitors.
Myth 2 – Paywalls confuse users
A common myth, is if people are presented with a login screen they simply click away. This is true but a paywall is not simply a login screen, its a point at which you sell to your customer. A Paywall is only a turn off if the product is unappealing or if its not been presented to the customer the right way, these are exactly the same problems all websites have not just Paywalls!
Myth 3 – People won’t pay for content
This myth is true, people tend not to pay for content they can get for free elsewhere. If your selling news that the BBC gives away then you will struggle, but if you’ve got quality content of real interest to people, they will pay. When people were recently asked why they purchased a subscription to the UK The Times website the vast majority replied for easy access to the in depth articles and editorials. Virtually none had signed up for access to the general news. People pay for unique information via websites, books or any other medium content sells.
Myth 4 – Paywalls are an all or nothing solutions
Whilst a couple of big news outlets initially made this mistake, it’s now far more common to only protect some of your content. That was you can tempt people in with a quick overview and the charge them for the full in depth analysis, or allow them to access some of your content or course but charge them for later parts. You effectively use your website as a shop window, tempting people inside to where the high value good are.
Myth 5 – Paywalls don’t make money
Whilst some early newspaper paywalls were significant failures, these days may thousands of websites makes significant income from keeping their premium content behind a paywall. What’s more, with the relatively low cost of Your Members most people don’t have to get many customers to start turning a profit.
