Web Content : A Case Study of Monetization of an Online Home-Based Business

This case study is for college students in an e-commerce or business strategy class who are interested in studying the role of social media, search engines, Google Analytics, Google AdSense, and mobile technology in building and maintaining a successful conventional website. The aim of the case is to demonstrate the value of Web content as a product and the use of online strategies for the monetization of such content. John Uyi is an online sole proprietor who runs four unrelated websites: Cultureak.com, a cultural website; Mathak.com, a math tutorial website; Animalak.com, a website for farm animals; and Travelak.com, a travel website. He aims to interest his viewers in advertising on the Cultureak website, clicking on the advertisements there, and/or purchasing his books, movies, and motivational and language CDs. Based on his analytics report, John later added a Bible reading program to attract more clickers. Despite John seeing a tremendous increase in page-views for Cultureak, its income has only reached about $350 monthly. John wonders what he needs to do to increase his revenue to about $2000 monthly