The Pursuit of Making Money OnlineWhen and How to Monetize Your Blog
Blogging, Marketing August 16th, 2007
These are the million dollar questions of todays blogging community. Our topic for today sparks a lot of interest in our industry whether it be via the forums, post comments, emails, or even at keynote speaker conferences - and we’ve all asked it ourselves at one point in time or another. When is the right time to start monetizing your blog? And if the time is right now, how should you monetize it to reap the highest rewards that the internet has to offer?
When to Monetize
This is something that can be debated over and over, but I truly believe that you can and in most cases should start to monetize your blog or website from the the very beginning. However, you need to be extremely careful about the type of advertisements you display. Different advertisements give off different vibes (some good, some bad) so you need to make sure that the advertisements you’re displaying are both relevant to the visitor and mesh well with your blog design, or you will have very disappointing results.
Whether your blog receives 50 or 5,000 visitors per day, there is a common pattern involved. If your advertisements are targeted toward your audience you have pretty solid chance at making some real money. If your advertisements aren’t targeted, you will make next to nothing. You’ll also find that different forms of advertisements will perform better than others, which I will tell you about next.
How to Monetize
Here are some popular methods of blog monetization to get you started. This list is in no particular order, and I’m trying to be as unbiased as possible, so please bare with me until the end of this post (then you will see my honest advice).
1. Going Contextual. This is seemingly still the most popular form of blog advertisement circulating in the blogosphere. The biggest player in this market is undoubtedly Google Adsense, though there are many, many others as well. I’ve run many successful campaigns using contextual publishing, and their piece of the pie is still growing at a rapid pace.
2. Affiliate Programs. Affiliate programs are all around us, though most surfers never notice them for what they actually are. With proper masking, you can recommend products to your visitors, and they won’t even recognize the commi$$ion that you’ve just made. Furthermore, if you whole-heartedly believe in the product it’s a win/win situation. There are many excellent affiliate programs out there, just be sure that the products you choose could be of real value to your visitor demographic.
3. Consulting. You’ll notice a pattern when surfing many of the more recognizable blogs in various industries. The blog authors are generally available for consultation. This can be a very lucrative source of income assuming you have the expertise that others may be looking for.
4. Please Donate. This technique is sometimes frowned upon, but often misunderstood. Not every blogger likes to plaster their perfect design with advertisements. Some prefer to take donations. The WordPress “Buy Me a Beer” plugin comes to mind. After all, bloggers deserve a beer after a hard day of typing - correct?
5. Text Links. Selling text links is nothing new, in fact it’s been around for a very long time. The only difference is that now there are middle men who can do the leg work for you. Depending upon some key factors such as your PR and Alexa Rating, you can do quite well from selling text link advertisements alone.
No matter what sort of traffic your blog pulls in, advertising placement is crucial. Think about it. If you have an advertisement at the very top of your blog, many visitors will skim right past it due to banner blindness. Likewise, if you have an advertisement running in the bottom corner most will never even see it. For advertisements to be truly effective, they have to be within your visitor’s area of focus.
My Advice
You want my honest advice? Don’t put all of your eggs into one single basket. Use multiple methods of monetization. For blogs, I highly recommend affiliate programs, text links, and consulting (assuming you have the skill). If you have enough traffic, directly selling advertising space is also a very real option. I advise to stay away from contextual advertising when possible. I say this because not only does it look unprofessional, but I feel that the market has seen better days for this form of advertising as it pertains to the serious blogger.
A blog page on an online home business website is one of the best ways to increase the traffic inflow. Organization websites discuss topics related to there service and products where as banks website blog page discuss about banking issues i.e. tax credit, bad credit loans, chase credit card etc. Different professional have there personal blog pages to increase there awareness i.e. a banker may have blog related to credit card in which the topic under discussion could be secured loans, business credit cards etc.
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August 16th, 2007 at 7:11 pm
You make some really good points in this post. Especially keeping in mind who your audience is and that they could take offense or not respond well, if you have certain types of advertising displayed.
August 16th, 2007 at 8:13 pm
Hey thanks for the write up Paul. Ask and you shall receive.
Did you always have a core focus on subject matter on your blog even when you started out?
August 16th, 2007 at 10:31 pm
I agree with your write-up. However, I’d almost suggest not monetizing too heavily from the beginning because it simply reduces your credibility.
August 17th, 2007 at 9:36 am
Shea - Thank you for the kind words.
Ejoe - No problem. Any time you (or anyone else) would like me to cover a particular topic just let me know :).
Patrick - Monetizing heavily from the beginning is deffinately a very common mistake. Greed is a powerful drug and will reduce credibility much faster than one can gain it!
August 17th, 2007 at 1:57 pm
Nice article.
I’ve thought about trying to slowing monetize my blog, but I’m still not exactly sure how. I really don’t want to use the adsense blocks in the middle of my articles like you see a lot of today and I would rather not have ads more or less surrounding my articles. I’d like to keep them in a very non obtrusive position but, the whole point is to get clicks, so putting them out of the way of your most popular content is a little dumb because it’s like you’re just asking no one to click them.
As far as monetizing from the very beginning, I suppose there is nothing wrong with that as long as the publisher realizes that there is about a 100% percent chance they will make nothing. Without visitors to click the ads and bite on the affiliate offers, there’s no money to be made. I think that’s the main reason why a lot of people just recommend to wait on monetizing and build up traffic first, because without traffic, you’re pretty much dead in the water (I think that’s how the saying goes?)
This gives me an idea for an article on my site. Stay tuned.
August 18th, 2007 at 8:03 am
I stopped doing the donation thing, but I do employ the other methods you mentioned. Consulting with newer blogs that want to be established quickly is a good idea!
August 18th, 2007 at 2:20 pm
A good follow up post might be about where to post your ads on your blog so you don’t scare people away (especially if they are new).
I agree with you Paul, don’t rely on one source!
August 19th, 2007 at 5:50 pm
I’ve stayed away from the donation thing, but I can see a new blogger using this device. Once a blog has reached a certain traffic level and lower Alexa score, then textual ads are the best way to monetize the site. PPC just doesn’t seem to do that well on the majority of blogs.
August 20th, 2007 at 10:56 am
Deron - Thanks, and I’ll be sure to check it out :).
Cooliojones - It can be very lucrative. I am a consultant by trade, so my blog is essentially one more way to a) get my name out there and b) find prospective clients.
Sara - That is an excellent idea. I will write about ad positioning in the very near future!
Matt - Thanks for stopping by, and I completely agree with you.
August 20th, 2007 at 11:27 am
I’ve been struggling to get my blogs monetized more effectively and have come to the conclusion that, no matter what you use - Adsense, CPA, Aff. links etc. it all comes down to traffic. A blog getting 10,000 visitors will get 10x more than one getting 1000. I concentrate on the traffic now
August 21st, 2007 at 8:14 am
Very nice article - good tip for not putting all your eggs in one basket. It can be a little hard to branch into affiliate programs and things when you’re just starting out and your visitors are low however. I haven’t heard of the Consulting technique before - have you tried this and if so have you had success? If I understand you right - you are asking for help/tips from successful bloggers on how to make your blog better? Or are YOU the one offering tips, for a price?
August 21st, 2007 at 12:00 pm
Great post, very informative and organized! Thanks!
August 22nd, 2007 at 8:08 am
This is really useful advice for someone like me that is just starting. I was told not to put to many adds. I think I am going to set my own pace. I will for surely be back for more tips.
August 23rd, 2007 at 8:48 am
Clive - Much of it does come down to traffic. Much of it also depends on how targeted your traffic is. Blogs will make money with time, and I feel that having as established traffic base to draw from will help you immensely over the long haul.
Minty - I do offer consulting through my blog. Think of it as a way to reach out to new and prospective clients. A blog is an amazing avenue to sell yourself.
Jess - Thanks!
Sportsdork36 - I would agree with keeping ads to a minimum not only in the beginning, but in the end game as well. People are definately turned off by too many ads. On the internet, often times… less is more.
September 1st, 2007 at 9:49 pm
Watch out for textlinkads now though, google is penalizing sites using them.
November 25th, 2007 at 8:15 am
I would start monetizing earlier but then I think its a good idea to build up some traffic before starting to plaster ads all over the place. Right now I’m relying solely on Adsense and it’s been doing okay so far. Lately I’ve been more interested in ad-toll though, which is a promising new service that pays you direct( well, almost.. they take a 25% cut but you get the rest).