Monetizing Your Blog: Don’t Try Too Hard

Although the vast majority of bloggers don’t ever dream of making any money for their creative work, there are just as many bloggers who immediately jump into the whole process, bent on making millions, maybe even signing an eventual book deal, and then living a life of independent bliss. While this does sound like a wonderful world, just as with acting or professional sports, the chances of “hitting it big” are slim to none. As such, I’ve always been of a mind that you should place quality work first, before you even thinking of monetizing. Here are a few hints for those of you who are interested in making the transition from hobby to business.

Don’t even think about monetizing until you have a substantial amount of traffic

Of course, many bloggers begin the Monetizing process very early in the game, but that’s only a good idea if you are interested in making some couch change every month. Since most blog revenue comes from ads, if your blog isn’t “cool” or respected enough, your readers will become impatient with the ads. Although many bloggers may feel otherwise, wait until you have a base of a few thousand unique viewers a month. The best way to accrue that many viewers is to promote your blog aggressively after getting it to the point in which your blog truly provides value to a specific audience of readers.

Focus on your creative output and your audience, not what will make you the most money-This is how successful people succeed, both personally and financially

As noted in a recent Chronicle of Higher Education written by a professor at the London School of Economics, single-minded profit-seeking usually never results in high profits. And research demonstrates this paradox. Dr. John Kay explains:

“ The profit-seeking paradox arises because businesses that are built to last are built by people who are passionate about businesses and about meeting the needs of their customers rather than by people who are passionate about money. You don’t have to listen to Bill Gates or Steve Jobs for very long to realize that it is the activity itself that fires their enthusiasm. ‘Aiming thus at something else, they find profit along the way’”bucket loads of it. ”

Once monetizing becomes an option, diversify your monetizing sources

Plenty of bloggers new to monetizing make the mistake of believing services like Google AdSense are the only viable ways of making money online. The fact of the matter is that there are tons more options than you may have initially thought. Do your research, read blogging books and articles, and be completely informed as to which method(s) would work best for your specific blog. One of the most insightful articles that I’ve read that gives a very clear and concise summary of the different monetizing possibilities was featured on Conversion Rater a few years ago. It includes an intro to display advertising, as well as affiliate links, targeted advertising, and selling your content, among other methods.

If you have a general interest blog, it will be much tougher to monetize. Specialized niche blogging is much more viably lucrative

Although many people have the same interests, and most of us aspire to be political or celebrity bloggers, or to merely be important commentators in certain popular fields, if you are seriously wanting to turn a profit from your blog, you will have to start small. And that means becoming an expert in a very specialized field, and subsequently blogging about that field. Another name for this practice is niche blogging. And niche blogging is where the money is. That isn’t to say that you couldn’t possibly make money blogging on a very general topic; it’ll be just that much more difficult.

In the final analysis, making money online through your blogging is not an impossible dream. At the same time, if you focus too much on the profit motive, you’ll end up feeling too pressured to keep up, and the enjoyment of blogging can slowly dissipate. The best advice is to try your best, but to keep reasonable expectations as you venture into the wonderful, crazy world of web – Monetizing.