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Blog Monetization: Why Monetize Your Blog?
By SherryD | December 29, 2009
Topics: blog monetization |
6 Comments »
Blogging has become the pastime of people around the world. It provides an easy platform with which to keep up with friends and family, share your viewpoint with others and even have an impact on the global community. In addition, your blog has the potential of becoming a source of supplemental income and financial support when blog monetization strategies are used.
Of course the first ingredient in this scenario is having a blog. Blogs were the first of all online journals. Here articles can be posted as frequently as desired. Posts are listed in reverse chronological order with the latest post being the first one presented to the reader. These days, however, there is a fair bit more to blogging than when it was started.
The Dilemma – Why Monetize Your Blog?
Many people have mixed feelings when it comes to blogging. While it is an enjoyable activity, and many are dedicated to blogging, it does require a significant investment of time. At the same time, blogging can be a great outlet for anyone who spends the majority of their time at home such as a stay-at-home-parent or someone who is suffers from an incapacity of some nature. With the amount of time many people invest in their blogs, it is small wonder that some enterprising individual eventually questioned whether or not this communications medium could be monetized.
If you are developing a following and have not employed blog monetization previously, some readers may resent its addition. Some argue that monetization should only be added once the blog has at least a small following. Others are of the opinion that at least a small addition of monetization should be present to acclimatize followers to its presence.
Many followers do not understand that it is possible to earn an income from a blog without changing its overall look and appeal. After all, you won’t be actively soliciting sales from them. Instead, you will be making opportunities available to them that could be found elsewhere on the Internet as well. The difference is that with you, they know who they are dealing with and can rely on the fact that you will only be featuring items from advertisers and products that you trust.
Making The Decision
Adding blog monetization to an established blog can be a difficult decision to make even though it may bring the blog owner financial gain. However, if you have loyal readers, most will accept the new order and continue to visit. Now most blogs do not achieve five-figure profits unless a great deal of time and commitment is put into them and even then it takes a long time to build up, but it can be done if you stay focused on your goal. This is one of those rare opportunities where people are given the opportunity to earn an income while doing something that they love.
The hard part is behind you once you’ve made the decision to monetize your blog. From that point, your efforts will be focused on finding the most reliable and appropriate ways to put monetization in place. At the same time, you will have to continue to keep your audience happy with interaction and the content they have come to rely on. While there may be some complaints as there frequently are whenever change is involved, the majority of your readers are there for you and the information that you share, so a mass exodus is unlikely.
Additional Considerations
You’ve made the decision and are actively looking for ways that your blog will be able to generate an income for you. This is not always an easy process as it may require some tweaking of the blog layout, addition or deletion of some plugins, finding and investigating various opportunities that are a good fit for your blog and its readers, and of course signing up for those opportunities. If it all starts to seem like too much, here are some pointers to keep you on target:
- If you have your own domain, testing of a new blog layout can be done in a sub-domain or sub-folder so that you are able to make the needed changes outside of the main blog without disturbing your readers with constant changes and testing.
- Try to maintain the look, feel and integrity of your blog. This will inspire confidence in your following. Warn them if major changes or outages are coming so they are prepared.
- Take care to investigate the products you sponsor to ensure that they are a good fit for your topic. Avoid products, which give even the appearance of not being above board, even if the possible pay out is significant. Remember it is your reputation that buyers will focus on should they decide to purchase.
There is nothing wrong with deciding to monetize your blog and providing yourself with a potential source of income while doing something you feel is worthwhile. Why shouldn’t you make money doing something you love to do? Done properly, it will have the added benefits of increasing traffic to your blog and further enhancing your influence in similar online circles. Ultimately, it makes perfect sense to employ blog monetization if you spend a lot of time blogging and have built up a following.
To Your Success,
SherryD
http://www.wbobr.com
6 Responses to “Blog Monetization: Why Monetize Your Blog?”
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January 19th, 2010 at 2:34 pm
I don’t think now any of the readers would find it annoying to see ads on any blog until unless they tend to slow down the page. What one has to make sure is don’t drop on content as you’ve mentioned already because readers are also your potential customers so you’ve to make sure you don’t invest too much time in thinking or finding strategies to increase your revenue that you forget your customers. And for me personally, as a reader too I don’t find it annoying to see Ad’s space on any blogs…they are getting it paid because they have worked so hard to create a reputation on the Internet which is not so easy to get.
And I forgot to mention the most important thing, in all of this there’s just one thing which attracts everything from readers to advertisers – CONTENT. So don’t drop on that.
January 30th, 2010 at 1:37 pm
I agree with the general thoughts in this post. however, i think that a blog should have a few backlinks and traffic before you monetize it. I have just found that blogs which are monetized the day they are created are not indexed that fast. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe not, but i just recall my experience in the matter.
What is SEO?´s last blog ..Search Engine Optimization like it’s never been explained before!
February 28th, 2010 at 10:26 am
I somehow agree with the Blog Monetization, but I personally think that it should be limited to some amount, that is because these annoying ads. really frustrate the readers of the blogs and many time general topic of the blog has been neutralized by them. Well this is my experience, I hope you guy to participate and share your experience with us.
Cheers.
February 28th, 2010 at 12:42 pm
I totally agree with this post. As far as concern blogging makes great value for sharing ideas. And it gives people to make real money by directing legitimate methods.However there are certain blogs which can direct people into the wrong way. But comments make them into the right track.
February 28th, 2010 at 8:53 pm
I agree with this post. Blogging makes great value for sharing ideas. But I personally think that it should be limited to some amount, that is because these annoying ads. Frustrate the readers of the blogs & lots of time general topic of the blog has been neutralized by them & people to make real money by directing legitimate methods. Well this is my experience, I hope you guy to participate & share your experience with us.
March 1st, 2010 at 1:41 am
Some great points made. The consensus appears to be that there are many ways to monetize a blog, but doing so should not detract from the ability of visitors to read the content presented. In other words, put the visitor experience first and monetization second.