{"id":520,"date":"2022-01-12T16:45:00","date_gmt":"2022-01-12T16:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.seohost.net\/blog\/?p=520"},"modified":"2025-06-21T19:03:47","modified_gmt":"2025-06-21T19:03:47","slug":"heres-why-you-should-avoid-using-paywalls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.seohost.net\/blog\/heres-why-you-should-avoid-using-paywalls\/","title":{"rendered":"Here&#8217;s Why You Should Avoid Using Paywalls"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>Please subscribe to continue reading.&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nearly all of us have encountered that simple phrase at least once. And for most, it&#8217;s among the most frustrating things one could read. After finding what we thought was the perfect answer to our question on the search engine results page, we instead encountered a publisher reaching desperately for our wallet.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While we acknowledge that content monetization in today&#8217;s digital landscape is a challenge, especially for journalists, we have never been a fan of paywalls. To us, they commit a cardinal sin of content marketing. They interrupt the browsing experience, impeding and frustrating your user in the process.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yet, for some reason, more and more publications seem prone to using them \u2014 ironically, we recently encountered a paywall <strong><em>on an article explaining why paywalls don&#8217;t work.&nbsp;<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What&#8217;s especially baffling is that it&#8217;s not as though the low success rate of paywalls is an unknown quantity. Their core business model is fundamentally flawed, based on an overestimation of how valuable a website&#8217;s content actually <em>is. <\/em>And in most cases, the number of readers driven away by this tactic in no way justifies the trickle of revenue it might generate.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Consider the following:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>When <em>The Times <\/em>implemented mandatory registration in 2010, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/media\/2010\/jul\/20\/times-paywall-readership\">it lost nearly 90% of its online readership<\/a>.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Analyst Deloitte recently predicted that subscription fatigue may soon become a significant problem.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Research for Nieman Lab found that even people who support paywalls <a href=\"https:\/\/www.niemanlab.org\/2019\/06\/even-people-who-like-paying-for-news-usually-only-pay-for-one-subscription\/\">rarely subscribe to more than one publication<\/a>.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>Current Affairs <\/em>suggests that the prevalence of paywalls in journalism has been a major contributing factor in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.currentaffairs.org\/2020\/08\/the-truth-is-paywalled-but-the-lies-are-free\/\">current epidemic of digital misinformation<\/a>.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>There are some websites that can get away with paywalls. <em>The Harvard Business Review, <\/em>for instance, consistently publishes high-value thought leadership content that cannot be found anywhere else. Yet even <em>HBR <\/em>doesn&#8217;t slam a hard paywall into the face of its audience, opting instead for a metered paywall:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Visitors receive a limited number of articles per month for free.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Registering for a free account slightly increases this number.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Paying users can choose between digital, digital and print, or a premium plan that provides access to all regular content along with access to exclusive case studies.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Most websites are not <em>HBR. <\/em>They do not have the recognized authority, viewership, or expertise to support a business model like this. Rather than considering a subscription, their audience is far likelier to see what competing sites have to offer.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In short, for most publications, paywalls are akin to self-sabotage. There are other options for content monetization, such as premium content and affiliate marketing. And if, after reading all of this, you still think a paywall might be your best bet?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At least apply it even-handedly, rather than locking off your entire website.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Please subscribe to continue reading.&nbsp; Nearly all of us have encountered that simple phrase at least once. And for most, it&#8217;s among the most frustrating things one could read. After finding what we thought was the perfect answer to our question on the search engine results page, we instead encountered a publisher reaching desperately for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":521,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seohost.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seohost.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seohost.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seohost.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seohost.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=520"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.seohost.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":669,"href":"https:\/\/www.seohost.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520\/revisions\/669"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seohost.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seohost.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seohost.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seohost.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}