Jan 12 2008
The Rules of Monetization
If you read enough pro blogs, you might get the impression that there are certain rules that must be adhered to if you are going to make money from your blog, and that the only goal with blogging is to make bucketloads of money. But quite honestly, that is not the goal of most bloggers, at least not most of the bloggers I know (of). Most bloggers get into it because they have something to say or just want to get their voice out there. Over time, they hear of the possibility of making money with a blog, and I’m sure it goes through everyone’s mind at one point or another.
I read a post yesterday about monetizing a blog. You can read it here. In the article, Lightening asked lots of questions and had some very intelligent comments about monetizing (or monetising, since she’s Australian), going pro and whether or not monetizing is a good idea for smaller, personal blogs.
I’m not a problogger. I never intended to be, and I still don’t want to be. Blogging is a hobby, and the second it starts to feel like a job it won’t be a fun hobby anymore. Also, I know my personality. I’m just not very entrepreneurial, so working hard to find a new and exciting way to present my blog in such a way that people will just want to click on all my ads and make me rich beyond my wildest dreams is just not something I want to put any effort into. I just want to babble on incessantly about whatever comes to mind.
That being said, I do have an affiliate program. They can be a decent way to make a bit of extra money, but I had another goal mind. When I talk about certain things that I love, I want to share them with you in whatever way I can, and leaving you with something to put in a search engine isn’t quite what I had in mind. I mean, let’s say your BFF calls up and starts raving about this awesome new thing they just got and how much they love it. Then when you express your interest in obtaining AwesomeNewThing, they tell you that they bought it at a store and if you look around you can find one too. Ok. Um, which store? That’s all I’m trying to prevent. If I mention something that you might be interested in, I certainly hope it would be handy that I provide a link for you to check it out immediately. If I make money from it, that’s great. Then I can buy more of the sort of stuff I mention (usually CDs and movies). I’m not looking to pay my rent from this, just to provide a service and perhaps get a little pocket change.
I have always hated sales, especially sales with the dreaded SALES GOALS. The one commissioned/goal-oriented retail job that I had only worked out because I worked mostly on weekends, where I could have a much higher chance of a good hours to sales ratio. But other than that, I hated that I had to use certain techniques that, while effective, were aimed solely at parting this customer with their hard-earned cash. I don’t have any conversion goals on my affiliate marketing. I just want to spread the love for the stuff I mention and make it easy for you all to check it out further. Any income from it is just a bonus.
There are no rules to monetize your blog. There are certainly techniques that have a high success rate, but there are no hard and fast rules. The only rule is to do whatever feels right to you, because it’s your blog. If you do want further advice on what techniques will work for you, it is super easy to do a search on the subject, or just surf fellow bloggers’ blogrolls, because most of us, whether we want to monetize or not, have at least one pro in our rolls.
Other Posts Like Me:
- Personal Blogging Crusader
- About Pages for Personal Bloggers
- What Makes a Blog Personal?
- 10 Ways to Get Inspired to Blog
- Blogging Pet Peeves: Auto-Play Music
4 Comments to “The Rules of Monetization”
Talk to Me
I love getting comments, but due to the amount of spam I get, I have to moderate all comments.
Hi Kirsten,
Great post!!! I agree, it’s important as bloggers to do what feels right to us. That’s the great advantage of blogging after all isn’t it. Love your explanation of affiliates. That’s about how I regard them too. Not that I’ve been using them well of late but I have in the past. It’s not about the money so much as putting together what is helpful for the reader. :-) Thanks for wading in on the topic. I enjoy reading other people’s viewpoints.
Be careful… I’ve seen this lead to blogs full of linking widgets, tracking cookies, ad schemes, etc. My usual first impression has something to do with the world’s oldest profession. If done tastefully, it can lead to goodness all the way around. The problem is that once the bug has bitten, it’s very hard to escape it and you get drawn further into the dark side.
I figure that if I start doing things because that’s what I’m supposed to do, then it’s no longer my blog. What good is it having my own little corner of the internet if I can’t do what I want with it? If I want to be told what to do, I’ll go to work or go visit my mother (sorry, Mom!). It is possible to make money blogging, but we don’t all necessarily want to do that.
Mike - I’m only using amazon.com at this time, and I’m really not motivated enough to go beserk with this. I also would never recommend something that I personally would not want to click on or purchase, and I hate tons of ads in the sidebar, between posts, etc, so you won’t see those here. I’ve found that finding all the amazon links is very time consuming, so it’s not something that I want to expand too much by using lots of other programs either. I do have a life outside of blogging, you know!