“Is an article worth writing?” — I used to judge this only by search volume: write the high-volume ones, skip the low-volume ones. Result: I wrote plenty of “traffic words” but almost no conversions. Later I started treating content like an investment: traffic value plus conversion value minus production cost — if the result is positive, write it; negative, skip it.
The content cost formula
Content value equals traffic value (search volume × click-through rate × per-visit value) plus conversion value (conversion rate × per-customer value) minus production cost (writing + optimization + maintenance). Judgment comes in four steps: first estimate traffic — the word’s search volume and estimated clicks; then estimate value — how much a single visitor is worth, referencing historical conversion; then estimate cost — how many work-hours to write it; finally compute the return ratio — value greater than cost means worth writing.
Grade value by this formula: high value is high traffic plus high conversion, write first; medium value has one of the two, allocate by resources; low value is mediocre on both, defer; negative value is cost exceeding return, don’t write.
There are three common errors. Counting only traffic without conversion — wrote traffic words, no business. Counting only value without cost — high-value words you can’t pull off. Ignoring maintenance cost — write and forget, quickly outdated. Writing an article is also an investment; you have to calculate the return. With these three ledgers clear, topic selection stops being a gut call.
Putting the formula on a table
Talking about the formula is too abstract; put it on a table and it becomes calculable. Fill four items for each candidate word, add them up, compare:
| Item | How to estimate | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly search volume | Tool volume × estimated CTR | 1000 × 3% = 30 visits |
| Per-visit value | Historical conversion ÷ visitor count | $5 / visit |
| Production cost | Writing + optimization + yearly maintenance hours | About 8 hours |
| Net value | Traffic value + conversion value − cost | Write if positive |
Different stages have different priorities
New sites and mature sites calculate differently:
- New sites: first write “low-cost, easy-to-rank” words; don’t go straight for high-value big words.
- Growth stage: put resources into “mid-value, conversion-validated” words, amplifying output.
- Plateau stage: go back and clean out “negative-value” content — merge what should merge, delete what should delete, freeing energy.
A real example of the math
One word: 2,000 monthly searches, 2% CTR, $5 per-visit value — brings about $200 of value monthly; writing it takes 6 hours, maintenance averaged to 1 hour/month, cost about $90. Net value $110, worth writing. Another word has bigger volume but per-visit value of only $0.50; the net value comes out negative, so leave it for now. Once the math is done, which to write is obvious at a glance.
Maintenance cost is easiest to forget
Many people only count the one-time writing cost, forgetting content goes stale. Tutorials need updates every six months, data pieces need checking quarterly, product pieces change with versions. Spreading these “follow-up maintenance” over each month is the real cost. An article that looks cheap to write but is expensive to maintain long-term may not be worthwhile overall.
Schedule by ROI, not by feel
Rank all candidate words by net value from high to low; resources always go to the top few first. When the impulse “this topic feels good” strikes, drop it into the table and calculate first — most of the time the numbers talk you out of it. Topic selection stops being a gut call and becomes a continuously updated investment list.
Set a hard line for “worth writing”
The math exists to make trade-offs, not to play with. Suggest setting a hard line for the team: words below a certain net-value threshold default to not writing, unless there’s special strategic meaning (like moat words). This line forces everyone to concentrate resources on words that actually produce output, rather than being seduced by long-tail volume into writing a pile of articles nobody converts and that consume maintenance energy.
Where to set the line depends on the team stage: with tight resources, raise the line — better to write fewer but have each count; with loose resources, relax it a bit, trading count for coverage. The key is that the line gets written down and agreed on; don’t slide back to gut calls every topic session. Once the line is set, rejecting a word has a basis, no explanation needed each time. Post this line at the very front of the topic workflow — more effective than any verbal requirement. The bigger the team and the more writers, the more important this line is; otherwise everyone writes by their own standard. Passing topics through this line first saves not one argument but long-term alignment of direction.
