Blog Tip - Don't Monetize your Blog too Early!

[Bloggeries]

Please visit the original post at Don't Monetize your Blog too Early!

[LennyP]

I completelt disagree that you need to wait until you have enough visitors to monetize your blog. Advertising is a way of life and it not going to turn people off. Would you not watch a new show because it has commercials? Would you stop watching a show if you realize the entire show is a commercial. People can tell when your site is made to display ads or it happens to have ads just like they can tell if something is an infomercial. Modestly incorporating ads into strong content will not hurt you.

[gosfgiants]

Originally Posted by LennyP

I completelt disagree that you need to wait until you have enough visitors to monetize your blog. Advertising is a way of life and it not going to turn people off. Would you not watch a new show because it has commercials? Would you stop watching a show if you realize the entire show is a commercial. People can tell when your site is made to display ads or it happens to have ads just like they can tell if something is an infomercial. Modestly incorporating ads into strong content will not hurt you.

I agree. Plus I remember problogger who has one of the best blogs around said that when he took off the advertising it didn't increase his traffic at all. As long as your blog isn't cluttered with a dozen different ads and your blog loads within a reasonable time you should be ok. I find load time more important then ad clutter. if your blog loads fairly quickly no one is gonna care too much about how many ads there is, or at least thats how i feel when i surf...

[TechieGuy]

I don't think advertising too early will affect your visitor numbers, unless you go overboard. I've been to sites that seem to have ads pretty covering the entire site, making it difficult to read.

I think starting out with small advertising that blends in with your pages should be a good start, and then as your visitors numbers grow, then add more.

Just as long as you don't go overboard.

[Zhuli]

Would you listen to a reader's advice ? My own two cents...

I visit a lot of blogs everyday and bookmark quite a bit. Purely out of interest. Anyway, I won't ever return to a blog if :

1) There are to many ads or pop-ups : I noticed that a lot of Blogger start off with a great template & design, put in their ads, sign up to every social networking and just wait for people to show up. Hello...? Content, anyone ???

2) The posts are Payperpost or other similar system. I'm currently reading a great blog. The woman started off with a great main topic, really got me addicted. It's been two weeks that she just stopped creative writing and only post payperpost. I hate it. I'm feeling used. She gained my readership and now I have to stand here listening to her blablaing about some product. I won't be on the blog anymore, trust me.

3) Rarely people admit they put too much ads. But 75% of them do, in my own experience. You think it won't bother your reader - it does.

I don't have any ads whatsoever on my blog, it's a personal choice. I hate ads. I respect people who try to make money with their blog, but set a limit and stick to it. This whole money-making blogs are really getting too much.

[Kamigoroshi]

Setting up ads on your blog is like setting up a business because it is. You're selling a product and the thing people fail to ask themselves is "what can my blog offer to my readers that would profit me as well?"

The one thing that most blogger make a mistake in especially when they put ads on their blogs too early is that they do NOT have a reputation. When you stumble on a blog, people tend to shy away from ads, unless they have a damn good reason for it - like say content that's worth their attention. You don't have that if you're a young blog with no reputation.

Don't get me started on pay per posts. How can anyone take you seriously when you're being paid to blog about it? It's different from being paid to review something in newspapers or magazines because you actually are supposed to specialize in it (I worked as a game and movie reviewer at one point so I know what I'm talking about). Payperpost sends you all over the place without any credibility. You lose readers and your credibility to take it on.

[Zhuli]

Kamigoroshi (can I just call you "God killer" ? This is so cool ! For these who dont understand, head to Kamigoroshi's blog, you'll get it ! ),

You perfectly summed up my ideas. I actually don't mind the fact that people are trying to make money out of blogging. But this is sometimes getting ridiculous. You can't just set up a blog, put the ads, and then fill up with content just fro the sake of it. I know it sounds like easy money but really, readers aren't stupid.

I browse Blogmad and you wouldn't believe how many blogs are just a window for asdsense or similar and have nothing, nada, niente.

As for Payperpost... well, I agree with you 100%. I used to be part of a French website called Ciao.fr who would do paid reviews. We only posted reviews and got paid for them. It was a pretty useful website to pick up a new movie etc. But it was clearly a review website. Not some kind of personnal-money-making-payperpost blog.

[chrissie]

What is payperpost? It doesnt sound like something I am comfortable putting on my blog, in fact, I am trying to revamp the whole ad thing right now as well. I love how direct you are Zhu, "I feel used". It is so true how quickly bloggers lose credibility by jumping the gun too fast. And it is so disappointing when you can latch onto some good content, which is rare, and then it vanishes. I hate that.

But this pay per post thing, I am asking purely out of curiosity, I find I am getting bloggled every day at what people will do (lol dont mind me, its late lol)

[Zhuli]

Payperpost is widely used now. You basically get paid to blabla for like ten lines about X product. Some blogger are honest enough to have a "payperpost" category. Sometimes, it's relevant to what they're talking about. For example, I blog about travel and I happen to write a payperpost about Lonely Planet Guides (which I love !). Just an example, I don't actually do it.

But now, some people just fill up their blog with payperpost. I feel bad putting a link here to a blog, but I can show you in PM.

[Kamigoroshi]

Zhuli: Haha, I feel a little embarrassed with the translation. It felt like so long ago that I stuck with that name. At least most people don't understand Japanese and most people (unlike yourself) don't bother going through my about page to find out what that means.

Readers aren't stupid. For the most part, a lot of people just want to read something worth their time. I myself am trying to find good personal blogs which have declined rapidly every since blogging became a household name.

The very presence of PPP severely deminishes that quality.

Chrissie: PPP relies on your page rank and your alexa rank. The higher ranked you are, the more likely you can be paid for reviews (called ops) you can acquire. As a indirect effect, a lot of blogs start trying to backlink to each other and cooking up scams in order to increase the number of backlinks to their blogs all for the sake of increasing their ranks. That alone makes blogs like that less than worth reading.

Backlinking isn't based on 15 minutes of fame or scams that get people to link to you. If your blog is worth reading then by all means, it's worth linking.

People do this because they see big paid bloggers like Darren Rowse or John Chow making the big bucks through ads. The truth is that they put a lot effort into it because it's become their business. Out of all the ad driven blogs out there, theirs are but a few successful stories from people that have a reason and a plan to put the ads. For the most part, other people are just buying into something that would never work for them for the wrong reasons.