I have summarized the following:

1. The costs of a WordPress site
2. Whether it is possible to turn a profit on a blog

The costs incurred are the same for blogs and corporate sites.

What Are the Costs of WordPress?

The costs associated with running a site are:

1. Rental server fees
2. Domain fees

I believe that the labor and expenses involved in writing articles are separate issues, so they are not included here.

As for maintenance, even if you keep everything updated automatically, it is rare for a site to suddenly stop working, so the need for maintenance is minimal.

Cost of Rental Servers

The market rate is about 1,000 yen per month for an annual contract.

This can vary depending on the rental server company and the duration of the contract.

I use ConoHa WING, which costs about 680 yen per month for a 3-year contract.

During the rental server contract, you receive one free custom domain, so the domain fee effectively becomes free.

Costs Associated with Domains

The domain refers to the beginning part of the URL.

In this blog, it refers to the laratech.jp part.

The price of a domain varies depending on the string type, such as .jp or .com, with more popular and familiar domains tending to be more expensive.

If you contract a domain separately, it will cost around 1,000 to 1,500 yen per year.

With ConoHa WING, this domain fee is free during the rental server contract.

Reasons You Need a Domain

The value of a blog is accumulated in the "credibility of the domain" based on the content.

Gaining recognition from search engines that your domain is one that "distributes high-quality content" is key to successfully running a blog.

For instance, if your domain is brand new, its evaluation by search engines will be low, making it difficult to appear in search results.

However, if a domain is recognized by search engines, it will quickly appear at the top of search results.

Owning your domain and nurturing it well is the direction for successful blog management.

Is It Possible to Turn a Profit?

In conclusion, it is possible to turn a profit.

As mentioned earlier, the costs are about 670 yen per month.

As long as you can generate more sales than this, it is entirely possible.

Thanks to the low cost of rental servers, starting a blog has a low barrier and is an easy side job to try out.

The More Valuable Your Product, the Better

While this content is aimed at businesses, the potential for revenue increases with higher-priced products.

For example, if you run a programming school, you could generate around 600,000 yen in sales per unit, meaning if you secure just one order per year, you can turn a profit.

Beginners Should Aim for Revenue Through PV First

For those experiencing blogging for the first time, selling high-priced products through affiliate marketing can be quite challenging.

Currently, high-priced products are being surrounded by SEO-savvy individuals who have writers create articles for them, resulting in significant labor costs.

For instance, job change affiliate marketing and FX account opening affiliate marketing fall into this category.

It would be best to avoid highly competitive genres and write helpful articles to earn page views (PV), from which you can generate revenue. This is the most grounded strategy for me.

I have summarized my blog monetization strategies in the following article:

→ Is It Possible to Turn a Profit on Your Blog? Methods and Concepts for Monetization

By the way, on my blog, the price per PV is about 0.1 to 0.2 yen, so if I can earn around 5,000 to 10,000 PV, I can turn a profit.

Once You Get the Hang of It, Use Amazon Affiliate to Introduce Products

Mixing this method allows you to increase revenue even with fewer PV.

The trick is to write articles with different angles when introducing a single product:

1. "Studying with Readable Code"
2. "Programming Learning Book Rankings"
3. "How to Write Highly Readable Code"

By changing the perspective, you can achieve effective results.

Conclusion

The typical annual contract costs around 1,000 yen per month.

With a 3-year contract at ConoHa WING, it costs about 680 yen.

To turn a profit, beginners should first aim to generate PV, with 5,000 PV being a good target.

Including Amazon Affiliates can help increase revenue even with fewer PV.

High-priced products are possible if they are self-produced by a company, but if they are individual ASP products, it can be tough as professionals have them covered.

Of course, you won't know until you try, but based on my experience, this is the summary.

Thank you for reading!

I hope you find this helpful.