But what if we tell you that these concerns are unwarranted?

On the surface, it appears to be a catch-22 situation, but industry experts disagree. In addition to a strong SEO strategy, industry experts recommend that a publisher paywall about 30% of their platform's content if they want their revenue strategy to work effectively.

In this article, we will address common publisher concerns about this topic one by one, leaving you with a clear understanding of how you can balance both revenue streams to maximise your revenue. First and foremost, let's call a spade a spade.

Paywalls have no effect on bounce rates.

The paywall has no effect on bounce rate; this is a myth. In fact, there is no link between paywalls and bounce rates. Any digital marketer will tell you that it takes less than 5 seconds for a user to abandon your content if it is not convincing.

Bounce rate is less affected by paywalls and more affected by content and matching users' search intent with that content. In an ideal world, a paywall would not appear until after the first two paragraphs of content. This implies that bounce rates can be caused by factors other than paywalls.

Here are some of the most common reasons for a high bounce rate on premium content:

Having said that, here are some simple tricks for dealing with bounce rates:

1. Improve content quality and user experience

A well-researched premium article is less likely to result in higher bounce rates. To provide a good user experience, make sure your pages are mobile-friendly, easy to read, and free of unnecessary pop-ups.

Another thing to think about with content is what you'll show a user when they arrive at a gated content piece. How will you persuade them that subscribing to your content will benefit them? An executive summary visible at the top of the content page, also known as a "lead in," is a good option. This is your opportunity to explain what will be found in the article, and it is equivalent to the most convincing first interaction a user has with your platform.

2. Match the user's search intent with quality content

Several times, in order to drive maximum traffic, the headlines promoted through organic and inorganic channels do not match the user's interests. To avoid this, it is always beneficial to provide information that is expected from premium content, and when done without sacrificing quality, it can actually work wonders for your platform's user-to-payer conversion ratio.

3. Use micropayments to capture interest and serve intent

The easiest way to understand a user's interest and propensity to pay is through micropayments. With micropayments, you can give your paying user conversion funnel a much-needed boost. You can convert 100% of your premium content visitors into payers by giving them the option to pay a lower amount and sample your content. For some of our partners, we've seen incredible growth in user-to-payer conversions.

Understanding Google's position on paywalls and how it ranks content

Google does not like being held accountable for decisions about how content is displayed in search results. Google has never taken a stance or preferred one type of content over another.

However, whether your content is free or paid, you must adhere to Google's guidelines. This guide goes over the technical requirements for structured data and the precautions you should take if you decide to let Google crawl your paywalled content so that it shows up in organic search results.

A subnote makes it clear that this rule should only be followed if a publisher wants their content to be crawled and indexed.

This guide only applies to content that you want crawled and indexed

Many blogs on the Internet now recommend how you should allow search engines and spiders to access content behind a paywall, but we have some bad news for you. When you make your high-quality content available to crawlers, you make it vulnerable to subscription bypassing - a term that makes publishers all over the world cringe.

Indeed, a simple Google search for "How to bypass a paywall?" yields hundreds of techniques, tutorials, and even add-ons that teach users how to circumvent any paywall with a simple code or a few clicks. This is one of many revenue leaks we've discovered while working with news publishers at ConsCent. That is why we created the industry's best paywall solution for media companies. No one can get around a ConsCent paywall.

So, how do I strike a balance between SEO and paywalls?

Use a 70:30 formula.

What is the 70:30 principle?

The 70:30 Formula is designed to help publishers diversify their revenue streams by allocating 70% of their content to SEO optimisation, running ad campaigns, and putting rest 30% behind paywall to build a stronger reader revenue pipeline.

Tell us why a news organisation would put up a paywall. The goal of paywalled content is not to increase website traffic or to rank higher in Google. The real reason for putting up a paywall is to charge a fee for premium digital content, which is usually of higher quality or more desirable than free content.

Consider it similar to investing in mutual funds. You never invest all of your money in one transaction. You broaden your horizons. Similarly, paywalling is a completely different revenue stream that, when done correctly, provides a return on investment over time.

In fact, you can use your free content to drive traffic to your premium content, increasing conversion over time. Another distinct advantage of premium content is that it provides customers with more in-depth knowledge, research, or opinion on a specific topic than free or "crowdsourced" content. In other words, as the content platform's SEO and link building strategies mature. The results will improve with a proper engagement and retention strategy in place.

Pradeep Gairola, VP and Business Head, Digital, The Hindu on paywall and SEO

Still not sure. Talk to our experts to get a free customised revenue generation plan for your content platform.

The correlation between advertising revenue and reader revenue

Your ad revenue gets impacted every time you restrict access to your content to only registered payers or subscribers. Correct. But, research from Comscore shows that scarcity can drive up CPMs since supply decreases but demand stays the same, which raises prices. And paywalled content can effectively create scarcity, reducing opportunities to reach micro-payers and high-value subscribers while raising CPMs.

That said, paid subscribers or logged-in user data is much more valuable. Apart from their demographic, geographic, and psychographic data, publishers have a chance to even track and analyse which articles and videos a user engages with the most. to build a unique user profile for each of them.

This data is becoming even more valuable as online identifiers become scarcer given the demise of third-party cookies.

Nandagopal Rajan, Editor New Media and Head of Reader Revenue, The Indian Express

Increasingly, publishers are using multiple methods for reader monetisation beyond subscriptions and ads. For instance, solutions like ConsCent have seen a big push over the last year to get users to log in via Universal Login and Interoperable Wallet, which saves them from not only multiple logins on various platforms, but also paying as they go from one partner platform to another without sharing their credit card details.

The data also gives the publisher an insight into a user’s interest in the type of content as well as their intent to pay for it. There are still trade-offs between subscription and ad revenues.

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