Considering Monetizing- Actually Read This
I’ve said in the past I said I would never monetize this site- I believe it cheapens what one has to say when they blog for the sole purpose of money. Let me explain what I’m thinking.
My on year plan with DreamHost expires in a little over a week. I paid like $30 after discounts (saving around $90) for that. It was good, although there was much downtime, slowness, etc… but like I said, I paid very little. As of right now, with DreamHost’s plan that increases BW and space, I have 4.8TB of BW per cycle and like 250 GB of disk space.
Will I ever use all that? No. Will they let me if I need to? Doubt it.
I have a bunch of domains hosted with them, and they’re registered with them too. It would be an issue to transfer them out, but if it was in the name of much better hosting, I’m all for doing it. The luxury of automatic WordPress upgrades is nice, but I can cope with doing manual upgrades.
Any hosting plans I look at are all in the $20-$40/month range. I’m not going to pay that. If I’m going to drop $20 every month, it’ll be for The Movie Network so I can watch Dexter. I’m kidding, but it seems a little expensive, and check out that show 
However, if I could recoup the hosting costs through some form of advertisements on the upcoming redesign, how would the readers react? I’m not looking for personal profit, as any money left over from paying the hosting bills would go back into the site, or back to the readers somehow.
Advertisements that in no way intrude on content, but still keep the site running fast could be good right? I was thinking about an image ad idea, like the 125*125 option found around the web, but for me to be happy with that, I’d have to personally design them for the advertiser. I wouldn’t mind that, however. TextLinkAds could be anohter option, but I think I’ll stay away from those after what happened to David Airey.
As a reader, I want your input. If you think anything, I literally want a comment, email, or whatever you can do to tell me about it. This isn’t for my personal bank balance, this is for hosting costs that will be coming up, and future things like contests, maybe some marketing and I like the idea of giving some to a top commenter.
Leave a comment
Freebies
October 1st, 2007 at 12:01 PM
As long as the 125 ads aren’t absurdly gaudy (which I doubt they’d be if you were the one designing them), then I say go that route.
I personally use the TLA, but David Airey’s tale has me a bit worried about continuing with them. I’ll certainlly be dropping them if more similar stories start popping up on the net.
Martin
October 1st, 2007 at 1:17 PM
I say throw it on the sidebar because people rarely look at it. I never really notice a sidebar, maybe because they are full of advertisements.
Put it under the content, either above or below this footer down here.
Put one under your search. People might pay bid bucks for that.
Also, a banner on top of the content might be pushing it, but I am used to seeing banners there.
Henry
October 1st, 2007 at 2:58 PM
I’m not entirely sure. Maybe be sneaky and add it at the bottom of the posts in your RSS feed like TUAW (The Unofficial Apple Weblog) do.
Nathan
October 1st, 2007 at 3:00 PM
Have you looked into what andy @a2-blog.com did? Let people sponsor posts. I’m not sure how well that went… but he got a few interested people I’m sure. How would people react to that do you think?
Connor Wilson
October 1st, 2007 at 3:41 PM
I’m definitely not touching my RSS feeds, but like Martin said, the space below the search is pretty good real estate. Unfortunately the new design isn’t laid out like this one, that room isn’t there.
So far, it look like 2-4 sidebar image ads. 125*125 seems to be a standard size, but something smaller could work better for me.
Sponsoring posts is a route I’ll never go, as well
Adnan
October 1st, 2007 at 3:59 PM
Hey Connor - I think it’s great that you’re opening up to advertising, because they are a great income earner, and I don’t think they need necessarily claim the life of the blog owner.
If I were you, I’d leave a little bit of space somewhere for some text ads. Have around 5 spaces, and price them very low, say at like $10-20 per month. At that price with a PR5, you’d be bound to sell all of them netting you at most $100/month. IMO that’s very decent for someone who just wants to pay for hosting charges (I pay $10/month at the mo for hosting).
Good luck and no matter how plastered your site is with ads, I’m sure your faithful readers will keep reading
(But don’t go all JohnChow on us!)
Henry
October 1st, 2007 at 4:48 PM
Connor, what’s wrong with changing your RSS feed? Is it because your is done via Word Press so you can’t?
Even so i would look into it.
Mike
October 1st, 2007 at 6:43 PM
It has been mentioned a few posts above just sell a few links for $10 a month and pretty soon you will be out of the red and into the green. Sell something like 5 links for 2 months and then you will easily have $100 plus to cover your costs. This way if you do not want to advertise all the time you dont have to. And if you need some money you can quickly pop up a few ads.
Ryan
October 1st, 2007 at 8:09 PM
I wouldn’t mind at all if this blog were monotized. And text link ads seems alright to me. I have it on my site, but can’t seem to find the ads, oddly enough. Just today I was paid 4 dollars by TLA and have no clue where it came from.
Personally I think what would really work for you would be something towards the effect of the Buy me a Beer plugin. I’m sure plenty of your readers would gladly donate when they could (although I’m not sure you are legal drinking age so maybe a Pay-my-bills plugin would be more appropriate).
p.s. - $20 a month for hosting? Yeesh. You should have a look at Midphase.
Connor Wilson
October 1st, 2007 at 8:34 PM
Ryan, I’ve looked at MidPhase, and it’s a little “entry level” for me. First, for $12 you get 3 MySQL databases and no Ruby. I need unlimited DBs and would like to go back to learning Ruby again.
In the design I have currently as “the one”, I can fit 4 90*90 image averts in the sidebar (one of the sidebars
) without interfering with things I want above the fold.
For the images, I would design them myself unless the advertiser has a pretty image already. Sites like ColourLovers and FreelanceSwitch are guilty of having cool looking adverts, so stuff like that is cool with me.
Mike
October 1st, 2007 at 9:11 PM
Connor, check out bluehost.com. Naresh may be able to help you out as well you make want to talk to him about it. He has some great plans with some decent prices.
You could easily sell textlinks for $10/month on a forum like NP or DP etc.
Ryan
October 1st, 2007 at 9:42 PM
Hmm… I got the Devpack upgrade which has unlimited MySQL databases for an extra $40 a year, but I guess if they don’t have Ruby and thats’ something you need than its’ a different story.
Mike
October 2nd, 2007 at 12:03 AM
How that company can only offer one database is beyond me.. that makes no sense in todays hosting market!
Vincent
October 2nd, 2007 at 3:39 AM
I belive a small image as ads is ok. Not a big banner. I personally don’t like text-link-ad, as it can sometime get you annoyed with the preview pop up.
David Airey
October 2nd, 2007 at 4:27 AM
That’s funny that Ryan got $4 from TLA. I received a random $2 from them, even though I stopped running their ads in August.
As for the links I showed, one reason why I’ve been penalised by Google could be that they were bad neighbourhoods i.e. involved in dodgey behaviour link-wise.
As long as you add rel=”nofollow” to your paid links, you don’t violate Google’s TOS.
Acopic Web Design
October 2nd, 2007 at 4:51 AM
Yeah - the space below the search looks like a winner to me.
Oh, and yes - I would steer clear of textlinkads as well. I think Google is definately onto them as I’ve purchased a few small links recently and seen a drop in my listings. Turn off the ad and the next day I was back up. This is happening with a few other people I know also.
David
October 2nd, 2007 at 8:35 AM
Hey man, don’t sweat it. Anyone who gets upset because you want/need to earn a little money for your hard work is a bit uptight if you ask me.
Monetizing is not a bad thing as long as it isn’t the focus of the site (and I know it wouldn’t be).
You spend a lot of time on this, why would it ever be wrong to get some money in return for your hard work.
I for one will be the first to click on any of the ads you have as a simple way to say thanks for a great blog.
David
naresh
October 2nd, 2007 at 10:39 PM
Please send me a email with your specs. I can provide you hosting. 303 588 2376 if you would like to call or text
Owen
October 3rd, 2007 at 4:28 AM
I don’t care as long as the RSS feed isn’t touched, I don’t normally come onto the site except to comment.
vincent
October 3rd, 2007 at 7:37 AM
There is a new type of advertising, called TNX
you can found more info in tnx.net
Henry
October 4th, 2007 at 1:29 PM
Whatever, this blog will always be great
Jamie
October 4th, 2007 at 10:48 PM
As a new reader, it won’t change my opinion of the blog much. Creating personalised adverts is much friendlier than using an advert company, it will look better, and probably get more clicks.
Web Hosts Report
October 6th, 2007 at 1:43 AM
First off - don’t feel bad monetizing your site to cover the cost of hosting. You should be able to cover that without compromising the quality of your site or overtly assaulting your visitors. People will be cool about it.
I would highly recommend text link ads (not necessarily the company, but you could easily sell them direct) and cover hosting costs while providing a great value to your advertiser. You should be able to sell those in a minute if you’re serious about it.
Finally, hosting. I run a web host reporting site where we actually setup accounts on all the hosts and evaluate performance. I’m not trying to shamelessly pimp my site out to everybody here, just setting the background for a recommendation: Host Gator is a great value that seems to match your needs well. cPanel setup, unlimited domains, unlimited MySQL dbs, for under $10 per month (no long term contract at that price, cheaper prices if you pay up front). They also offer ruby on rails and PHP 4 or 5 - your choice.
If you’re not interested in a virtual dedicated, it’s one of the better shared hosting options available. Anyway, I’m totally enjoying your blog and just wanted to throw that out info out there for you. Hope it helps a bit.
Rob Schultz
October 8th, 2007 at 8:33 PM
I’ve certainly been toying with this idea as well. I say go for it. I’ll keep coming back. Your content is top notch.
Everyday Weekender
October 12th, 2007 at 5:38 PM
yeah that sucks for him.. but he managed to reverse the google decision!
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