A random Twitter note passed by last night: "10 Ways to Monetize Your Blog in 2009!" My response: "I don’t want to monetize my blog. I want to monetize my business. I want my blog to make me trustworthy." That got more reaction than I expected from the folks on Twitter, which was nice.
Now, I know that people do make money from blogs and are continually trying to do so. If it’s your business, then, well that’s your business.
So few people make a living from blogs- and so few actually want to. I think of blogs as "loss leaders," like the flowers at the front of a supermarket. Give away content to generate interest in your real business (or your career, for personal blogs).
Monetize? I don’t always rant against buzzwords. "Monetize" is fine. But the people who are going to make money off their blogs probably already know who they are.
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Replies. mp3
Hey, nice to see you updating your blog here, Doug… ;-)
I agree – I know many marketers look at blogging as a way to make extra money through click through ads, etc. But are they offering value to the reader? Are the ads generic just to make money, or do they make the reader’s life better?
I feel that a blog is your voice with people who trust you – it’s a thin line to tread between monetizing and trust breaking.
Danny– thanks for coming by. Google does a decent job of making ads contextual, but for a blog like mine- and most blogs out there period- any meager income you get is not worth befouling my sacred pages.
I do have a couple of posts that get steady Google traffic- so I slapped Adsense ads on them to see what happen. Not much ROI to be honest (though my traffic, even on those pages, is modest).
yes, certainly if you have another business. but, many have blogs with the full, only intent of monetizing them. and that’s not a bad thing, but a service or value has to be provided to the reader.
your thoughts???
Rob,
I’m in agreement- while i may not have leaned too much on that point in my post, there are blogs that are intended to be revenue generators. I am more concerned with people thinking they can make money off their blogs when:
a) there’s now way in hell they’ll get the traffic and clicks to make a dent, and
b) there are so many benefits to blogs outside of “monetizing” – particularly building trust for your business or employer that results in new customers (or getting a cool new job, which in my case I link to think the blog helped)