To Monetize, Or Not To Monetize
Blogging June 15th, 2007
There is one question that I get quite a bit from fans of this blog. They always want to know, “Why don’t you monetize your site, don’t you want to make money online?” The answer in short is yes, I do want to make money online. On the other hand I just don’t think that a blog is the best way to make money online. Blogging is very time consuming and the return on time invested would be horribly low starting out. This is why I have a huge directory project underway. The thing that I really need to focus on right now, instead of how to make money off of my blog, is how to create value for my readers. I really want to focus on quality content at this point more than anything. I think this is where so many bloggers make their turn for the worst. I don’t mind looking at an ad or two because we all know hosting costs money, but please refrain from the over monetizing early on.
Most start-up bloggers take notice of the six figure bloggers and think, man if I could only make that type of money. The thing about these bloggers some people may not realize is that they worked their asses off to get where they are today. While you were taking a lunch break these people were blogging. Keep in mind these folks were not always six figure bloggers. They had to start somewhere and most of them started out working for free on something they had a true passion for.
If you really want to be a successful blogger you need to find your true passion and blog about it. If you do this you will never really have to “work” on your blog. This also helps the content a great deal and keeps you focused on things that matter instead of just making a dollar, euro, yen or whatever.
The whole point here is that you should sit back and analyze your blog before you make an attempt at monetizing. If my main focus was monetizing you wouldn’t be reading this post. That said, find your reader base and find out what your blog is all about. What is your focus? What do your readers like? Grow your reader base first, then worry about monetizing. If you learn anything here at all, please understand this. Over monetized blogs that don’t make any sense and don’t follow any order, don’t attract readers.
June 15th, 2007 at 8:37 pm
You could also look at it from another way. No ads + good content = links to your site. So you could get a higher Pagerank then sell links.
June 15th, 2007 at 9:38 pm
I agree Billy. Two very keen observations.
June 16th, 2007 at 11:19 am
Another thing about passion and blogs. I believe that too many people think that blogging about their personal life will both give them their 15 minutes of fame, plus a respectable income. Ummm…no. Everybody please, keep your journal private, and put some real content on the blog. I don’t want to know about life from your cat’s perspective, even if it’s your true passion. Really.
June 16th, 2007 at 10:22 pm
There are very few people that can pull that off. It has been done, on rare occasions.
June 17th, 2007 at 5:48 pm
Selling links is not as easy as it sounds, and not a long-term monetization strategy unless syndicated (and the syndicates are targeted by the major serahc engine(s) for link moderating as well).
However, there are many ways to monetize a blog besides AdSense or link selling.
June 17th, 2007 at 5:50 pm
Oh and before you ask, no I won’t list ways to successfully monetize a blog. Once so disclosed, the methods are abused and become less valuable.
Blogging is the new “home based side business” and it simply can’t be profitable long term. The economy can’t tolerate that as it is currently set up. Change takes time.
June 17th, 2007 at 9:32 pm
I agree with you there on monetization, John. You can sell links at a premium but how many and for how long? You will need more than this to stay afloat. The thing with showing people how to monetize is that most won’t take action. I agree that there is only so much the system can handle. It will be interesting to see how this develops in the years to come.