Since Google’s HCU Update in September 2023 and the Core Update in March 2024, Pure Information Content Sites Have Been Losing Their Shine.However, there is one type of website that Google still favors: utility websites.
Unlike pure information content sites, utility websites offer more than just information—they provide functional features. Online tool-based websites are a great example of this.
In this article, we’ll explore a few tool-based websites that might inspire you with new ideas.
1.Vivaldi Color Lab
This website is actually an app, but it also offers a web-based version. In addition to the app, Vivaldi Color Lab has a blog that is specifically optimized for a wide range of color-related keywords. This strategy has yielded significant results. Despite the website’s domain rating (DR) being only 1.5, it attracts over 20,000 organic visitors each month.According to Ahrefs data, Vivaldi Color Lab was “rewarded” in the March core update. This is likely because it is not just a pure information site but an interactive online tool with strong utility.
This Website Was Created Quite Casually—They Simply Moved the App’s Page Directly to the Web, without much fuss. If you also have a tool-based app but don’t yet have a website, or you have a website but no content, you can learn from their zero-cost approach!
2.Mathster
This website experienced a sudden surge in traffic after the March 2024 core update, primarily due to a simple web-based Tetris game. Moreover, other pages on Mathster also saw a significant traffic boost following the update on March 6.
Interestingly, this Tetris game had been on the website for a long time, but it only started ranking higher after March 6.
The Tetris game page is actually quite simple:
If your company has many casual games that can be played online, I think this might be a good opportunity.
3. MPG Calculator
Despite widespread advertising, MPG Calculator has not been affected by recent updates. The website’s domain rating (DR) is only 5, indicating that its success isn’t strongly tied to authority or backlinks.
43% of its organic traffic comes from the calculator’s homepage. I found that the total number of pages on this site is only 22.
Similar websites are very easy to create—even if you don’t know how to code. AI tools like ChatGPT can help you write the code for these calculator tools.
Now, Imagine You Own a Dozen Small Tool Websites
Many of these tool websites haven’t been affected by the recent Google updates, which means that building such websites might be a good choice right now.
Imagine if you owned a dozen of these small tool websites—could this lead to a comfortable income? While this type of website may not have high monetization potential, the cost of creating and maintaining them is also quite low!
We can also do a simple calculation of the potential earnings. Suppose you have a small tool website with 30,000 monthly organic visits, and the ad RPM (revenue per thousand impressions) is $10. This would give you a monthly income of $300. With a dozen such simple tool websites, your monthly income could reach $5,000. Finally, you might even be able to sell these websites for around 20 times their monthly revenue. (This is just an example calculation; your website might not attract much traffic, and the ad RPM could be as low as $2.)
Tool websites are a great alternative to the traditional “niche site” model. If you have experience in creating niche websites, building and managing a few tool websites might not be too challenging. Or, if you have some coding skills, creating these small websites should be easy for you. If some of you are good at operations but not programming, or vice versa, you could consider teaming up.
Although the overall competition in the tool website space is intense—many people have been doing this for years—there is also high user demand, and you can always choose less competitive niches. So, there are still opportunities!
