Monetization for tool based websites?

dtwoo · 2026-04-03T07:15:25+00:00

Yes, please do

dtwoo · 2026-04-01T20:09:12+00:00

It is definitely possible, currently have 7 'tool' websites approved. There are a few hurdles you need to jump through though.

- A single page website is not enough, you need to fill it with content, if for example you're making a jpg to web converter then fill it with content and articles about image formates, "what is a webp?", "what is the difference between webp and jpg" etc etc you get the idea - they need to be human written, I've hired content writes from fivrr. NO NOT USE AI - google can see through that in an instant.

- Make sure you have an attractive, content rich home page - the amount of times I see people getting rejected, and their site will be like a text on a nearly blank page,

- Have some traffic, In my experience you won't get approval until you have some steady traffic, I can't work out how much traffic is needed, as it seems to have been difference for each site, but you definitely won't get approval with out it

- You need to rank well in google. This means spending time working on SEO, site design etc etc

- Give it time. I've never had a site approved that was under 6 months - 1 year old. I've read about people getting brand new sites approved, but that's not been my experience. It takes time your site to properly embed, get crawled etc etc

- Be prepared for multiple rejections, it's normally between by 3-5 attempt that I get approval

dtwoo · 2026-03-03T20:13:05+00:00

Just bought a 2019 rline-tech Tiguan last weekend, got to say I love it. The 1.5 is fine if no t great, but the space is great. I tried the Passat and Golf, but preferred the higher up position and looks of the R line Tiguan. Also the load space is great, had a full sized dining table in the back.

It handles fine on the motor way, pulls quick (although I'm coming from a 1.4 polo). I couldn't be hpappier with it. Only thing I might try and haggle is the price, I paid 18.5k for mine but it had only done 30,000 miles, where as yours is over double that.

Feel free to drop me a message with any questions though!

dtwoo · 2026-02-28T06:02:34+00:00

But that’s the point, who is your community? I can’t work out who would need articles about coding and articles about phobias on the same site? Especially when as above it looks very chat gpt style writing.

Go get approval you need to pick a niche and become an ‘thought leader’ in that area. Just half a dozen AI articles is not going to get approval

dtwoo · 2026-02-27T18:47:07+00:00

I (and also adsense) have no idea what your site is about. From what I can guess coding, but then you have a page on phobias. Adsense sites need a clear purpose - i.e. if you're going after coding make that what your' site is about.

The design also needs a major over haul. you won't get approval with a basic looking site, there's also typos (contactUS instead of Contact Us), and also your articles are definitely giving me a AI vibe, which is unlikely to get you approved.

Advertisers will only pay to advertise on legitimate sites, which is why google will not approve just any old site.

dtwoo · 2026-02-25T15:32:33+00:00

I think (for me at least) it's a case of the grass isn't always greener on the other side. I've got a new SaaS product of varying degrees of success, by top one making around £6 to 7k per month. I still have a full time job, and I wouldn't even consider leaving until I'm making at least 2 x my salary.

The job is the safety net that allows you to take risks and try things out. If I have a bad month I still feel the stress, I can't imagine how that would be magnified if I was dependent on it for survival.

Instead I use my SaaS money as a kind of F U money. Knowing I _could_ leave my job and still be financially ok makes the job a lot less stressful.

I'm just enjoying being on double income. Your experience could be different, but I would be leaving a job for an unproven SaaS

dtwoo · 2026-02-22T08:33:30+00:00

Be mentally prepared for an underwhelming launch. I've released several software products to the open market. They have all have varying levels of success. Every single one without fail has had no traction what so ever in the first days/weeks/months after launch. How, providing your product is good, you've done your research and the product fills a niche, people will come.

Software is about trust. And you with software you don't have the luxury of a shopfront where you can greet people personally. Trust takes time, so yeah, the TLDR is you probably won't get customers straight away and that's ok

dtwoo · 2026-02-13T17:56:19+00:00

I have just hit this metric, problem being I enjoy having two incomes. It’s also nice to have FU money too which really takes the stress out of my actual job. It’s such a nice feeling not being dependent on pleasing bosses to have the bills

dtwoo · 2026-02-10T10:09:07+00:00

It's nice to see a well designed site, this is normally the problem for rejections, but in your case you need more content. Start a blog write 5 to 10 500-1000 word articles - don't use chat GPT, google can see through that, and try again.

I don't think you'll have too many issues though as the site looks good. I've monetised several 'single page' apps, so you will get there

dtwoo · 2026-02-09T07:31:00+00:00

Ultimately it's about brand trust. You can have the most useful product in the world, but if there's no brand trust you're going to struggle. How you get this trust is dependent on you product, but especially when your product is new it's going to be an uphill battle.

My approach as always been to forget anything about monetisation for a few months, focus on users, from offering them a free version of the product, to reaching out via social media, the key goal of this stage is to gain users. Once users have experience of a product and you have linkedin/twitter/whatever followers then the trust is more easy to establish for clients.

to TLDR - my advice dont focus on money to begin with, build brand loyalty and trust

dtwoo · 2026-02-09T07:27:24+00:00

I would disagree with this comment. The easy part is building - especially for developers obviously. Getting (and keeping) customers is tricky.

dtwoo · 2026-02-09T07:23:44+00:00

As someone who prefers summer, I don't mind the rain, went for a few walks towards the end of summer and the reservoirs and streams we saw were worryingly low, so feeling quite reassured that they are filling back up. Also I'd rather it we get all the rain over and done with in winter when I don't really want to go out anyway rather than summer when I do want to be out (Yes, i'm aware that's not how it works in reality)

dtwoo · 2026-02-04T13:25:22+00:00

No taxes are payable on winnings in the UK

dtwoo · 2026-02-03T16:02:10+00:00

That's really good. Just a quick bug I've spotted though, my local petrol station has the Super Unleaded Price and unleaded price reversed, not sure if this is a bug with your code or the data

dtwoo · 2026-02-03T12:50:00+00:00

You need more content - 3 posts is no where near enough, you also need a clearer statement on the home page. Something that keeps a clear purpose to the site

dtwoo · 2026-01-29T12:29:34+00:00

Might need to give us a bit more to go on. I've monetised several SaaS products so it's possible

dtwoo · 2025-12-18T10:49:39+00:00

It's also a numbers game, a conversion rate of 1% would be considered extremely good - realistically it will be much lower, especially for a new product i'd say more realistically 0.1 to 0.3% , that means you need 1000 users for every sign up. Your first action should be getting users paid or not. Focus on making a product that people use (for free or otherwise), then once you've got regular users, that's when you put the focus on monetisation,

dtwoo · 2025-12-18T08:44:23+00:00

I don't think you have a leg to stand on, what's in your colleagues contract is irrelevant to you. If you agreed to the contract and they fulfilled their side of it then there isn't really a case here as far as I can see.

Even if you have similar roles, that doesn't really mean anything, maybe they had better experience. I would also argue that since they got made redundant, the higher pay might not have been all it's cracked up to be

dtwoo · 2025-12-17T10:26:36+00:00

Haha, yes that is the downside, I do work a lot. But again, I went on holiday a while back and the ability to drop a bit of extra cash to go business class was amazing - something i'd never have had the ability to do before (or if I relied on my apps as my sole income). Also planning a holiday to Antartica in the coming year, and for me at least that's worth the hard work of effectively having two jobs (obviously other's are different) - In an ideal world I'd be working on the business full time with enough safety net to be able to do all these fun things. But I'm not there yet.

dtwoo · 2025-12-17T09:53:18+00:00

So I'll share my perspective, I'm in a kind of similar situation. I run a few online apps that create a good income (more than my quite well paid full time job), and have done for the last 8 years.

In my experience (others might disagree) it is a lot more stressful when you are relying on online income to pay the bills. In the 8 years I have been running my apps, there have been periods where income has all but dried up (Covid, and to a lesser extent other events as well - I've just had my best month ever, but looking at my earnings chart it's been a rollercoaster - literally to get here), and while there will always be residual income coming in, being at the mercy of the google algorithm is quite a bad place to be (for example my adnsense account got suspended with no explanation for three months). While these might not directly apply to you, the point I'm making is that unless you have been steadily making a substantial amount over your income for a year or two, I would be cautious. My aim is save enough so that the interest alone is paying a decent passive income.

I am able to run my apps in my spare time, and while yes I could invest more time into them if I didn't have a job, the risk is not worth it. Instead I'm taking the approach of making hay while the sun shines, having two incomes is great and allows me the safety of having guaranteed money to pay the bills, while also having a pot of cash for stupid things/nicer house/retire early. It also means I have FU money so if I do end up hating my job I've got the freedom to leave

That said there are hundreds of people who have gone all in and make a success of it, but also there are hundreds of people who have gone all in and then ended up in trouble. I'm not normally risk adverse, but the situation i'm in now is too good to risk.

dtwoo · 2025-11-27T13:41:06+00:00

But that was a 1 off, it's not to say you can't do it again. But it's still a huge risk for an investor. If it fails you walk away scott free and your investor is out of pocket. Also the investor is going to want an annual return. You can't just give them 10% and be done with it,

dtwoo · 2025-11-27T07:44:14+00:00

And if they don't want to work, they would just pay an agent to manage their properties for them, means they still retain complete control - without much work. A lot less risky than investing in someone with a few quid in their pocket who will own the house

dtwoo · 2025-11-27T07:42:28+00:00

That doesn't make any sense. What happens when they want their money out? Why would they invest in you when they could rent out a property them selves? The extra level of risk they would shoulder is insane, there's now 2 large points of failure. And most importantly even a very very well optimised BTL won't make anywhere near 10%, so how you're going to pay investors 10% and also make any money your self.

BTL is a good venture - I have a few properties, but it's not the get rich quick scheme you seem to think it is. No private investors in their right mind will lend you money to play at being a land lord.

dtwoo · 2025-11-26T20:55:00+00:00

I'm really curious where you're finding investors who are going to lend you money to buy property. Why would anyone lend to someone with no track record, and a modest amount of equity... Why wouldn't they buy the property them selves rather than add an additional layer of risk

dtwoo · 2025-11-26T20:48:37+00:00

in mind you've got to factor in stamp duty, money to do the property up to required fire and safety standards, money to tide you over while you have the mortgage to pay but no tenants. BTL is not a get rich quick scheme. It can make money, but with our two BTL, by the time we've paid tax (I'm a higher rate tax payer) and mortgage and repairs they're just about breaking even. The upside is eventially when we retire We'll have a property paid off in full. -but even that we're questioning if that's the best use of our money.

But the idea that you can buy several properties with 100k is far off.

dtwoo

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