When is right to monetize your blog?

[clinky]

I haven't begun to monetize my blog properly (only selling ad space in the side bar, not doing paid reviews/posts yet). I would like to earn some more from my blog, but really don't want to lower the quality of my content.

I think paid reviews are probably the best way to keep my quality of posting up as I can provide design tips and insight.

However, I'm thinking about waiting a while to really grow my visitor numbers before monetizing properly. Is this a bad idea?

[KiwiPulse]

Begin by adding Google Adsense. One thing I learned in blogging is that you have to follow your own way. Yes its important to follow big blog that give us advices but don't copy them because you are not at their level. People that following them try to do like them and not adding Google Adsense which can bring them some income why the blog is growing. Also I suggest you to earn more authority. If I decide to buy a review on a blog, I want to make sure the blog have at least some traffic that can help my blog. So its important to focus in traffic and also your rank for example Alexa and Technorati. It gonna helps you a lot in the future for your sell speech. :lurk-2:

[sukosaki]

You should start right away. Adsense is good for while you build your reader base. After that you will know more about other ways to monetize and you can go from there.

Your blog is valuable real estate, don't forget that!

[clinky]

Thanks guys. Alexa should hopefully keep improving us I'm already down to 183,something... Does Wordpress only charge for putting adsense on the site if you use their free hosting service?

[MarketLeverage]

If you want to monetize your site right away, I wouldn't start off with a ton of ads. Intrusive ads are a turn-off to some readers.

If you want to wait until you have a few readers before you had add ads, that would be a good idea too.

[PaulR]

I would say whenever you are comfortable with your blog's progress. There is no real time table for something like this.

[Charon]

Don't forget to use multiple forms of income. I am trying to monetize every possible thing.

[clinky]

Yeah I'm considering starting with paid reviews (I've had some requests), keep the sidebar banner ads and use a few affiliate links. Gotta do a bit more research on each of these now!