Personal Blogs: To Monetize or not?
With John Chow’s posted April earnings being around $12,000- only from his blog, people are starting to notice. People who noticed are starting to take action. Your personal blog, usually under your name can be a sacred thing, depending how often you update it. So the question is: Should I monetize? And how?
First off, let me get this out of the way: Not everyone can/will be John Chow. When he monetized his blog, he made a couple hundred dollars that month (Sep. ‘06 I believe) and now he’s making much more than a great living from just blogging.
When should I monetize?
The first thing you should be thinking about is: Why did you start your personal blog in the first place, and what do you offer? For example, a designer’s portfolio and blog (much similar to the way this used to be) would you put Adsense or other contextual ads? No, definitely not.
You should look at it this way: Are you trying to make a quick buck off your readers or are you trying to get them to read, some back or subscribe? Your intentions should be clear to you, and if you want to monetize, then do it.
So the answer to the questions is obvious. You should monetize when you feel you’re ready. Right out of the gate, no visitors, no readers, etc… is a horrible time to monetize! Too many blogs get left in the space matter of the blogosphere by throwing huge Adsense units in the middle of posts when no one’s reading anyways.
Build a readership. Build traffic. When you have something advertisers actually want, then go for it. Mixing CPC, CPM and private ads can work for you, but take a not out of John’s book, and adapt these qualities:
- Perseverance
- Adversity
- Commitment
- Determination
Those are pretty much the keys to successfully monetizing a blog or personal website. Oh an another thing, the content better be damn good. Don’t expect to make money for no reason. You have to actually have something desirable that advertisers want. Traffic, Pagerank, RSS readers, content, updates.
If you’re monetizing your blog, in the early stages keep the content flow above average for your site. For example, if you post a couple times a week and introduce some ads, then post everyday. Not only is this good for your traffic and readership, but looks good to potential advertisers.
If you do monetize, and at the right time, you still may lose readers. Ease into it, so it doesn’t look like you’re selling out. That’s the main reason why I’ll never monetize this site. It would be too much ’selling out’ for me. Now, I do have a ReviewMe and TLA account, but as you cans see there’s no TLA here and I’ve never done a sponsored post. Hell, I’ve never made a dime off this site (excluding design and client work…) and would like to keep it that way. That’s just me though.
The main lesson you can get out of this, is if you’re thinking about monetizing your personal blog, wait a bit, and then do it. Nothing bad could come out of it, right? Oh, and PPC ads like YPN and Adsense are the worst for personal blogs. Low conversions and it really is selling out. For real. Would you rather the user read your post or click off to some other mildly related site never to return?
Leave a comment
Razor
May 5th, 2007 at 6:54 AM
well i could sure use 12k a month xD
Connor Wilson
May 5th, 2007 at 9:15 AM
Yeah I wouldn’t mind it either. I could probably put it to good use
Josh Buckley
May 5th, 2007 at 10:53 AM
I’m having a shot at monetizing my blog now
Razor
May 5th, 2007 at 11:50 AM
Your better off monotizing menewsha
Connor Wilson
May 5th, 2007 at 1:03 PM
He has monetized Menewsha, Razor. Contribution items at $2.50 or so a pop
Razor
May 6th, 2007 at 9:33 AM
o, strange i nvr saw any adverts on it lol
Connor Wilson
May 6th, 2007 at 10:00 AM
That’s the thing, he’s monetizing it very subtly. Works awesome too
Ronald Huereca
May 6th, 2007 at 8:33 PM
Connor,
Although I agree that monetizing a blog is a good idea, one has to wonder when a blogger has crossed the line from producing quality content to being “sponsored”.
I’ve talked to several people this week that have expressed disgust at JohnChow’s monetization techniques.
Connor Wilson
May 6th, 2007 at 9:47 PM
That’s exactly what I’m saying, Ron. To me John Chow is an inspiration because he’s making a ton of money online, but the way he does it is kind of a ‘whore-yourself-out’ method.
As mentioned in the post, I’ll never monetize this blog. Quality comes over money here.
webee
May 7th, 2007 at 2:11 AM
hi connor,
i think personal bloggs should never monetize. it’s hard to put a price on what you think…. (that’s what personal bloggs are all about, isn’t it?
)
webee
[is a design blog]
Connor Wilson
May 7th, 2007 at 7:42 AM
Thats another thing, webee, but some people see the success that can be had and start their own blog just for the money. In the end what they have to say never gets heard because no one is going to go to a blog with no posts, no good posts and tons of ads.
Alan Liew
June 15th, 2007 at 8:39 AM
I think personal blog should be monetized to make some money blogging. This motivate bloggers to continue to blog online.
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