To continue from the last post Can You Make A Living Just From Blogging?, I want to talk about monetizing your blog. There are many theories on the subject, and it’s my turn to chime in on the debate.

Should You Be Monetizing Your Blogs?
There was a time when blogging was never considered an advertising medium whatsoever. In fact, there is a large population in the blogosphere that believe blogging for money is an insult to their art. I can understand that view of course, but the reality is that humans want money, need money, and prove time and time again, they will even go as far as killing for money. It was inevitable, and I give credence to the fact that if there is a way to make money, people will line up to pay for the resources to do it.

I am not ashamed to state that when I began pubishing on the internet, my ultimate goal was to make money (enough money to make it my full time job). It has been a blessing to say the very least. What I discovered through out this process and journey, is that I enjoy writing. I discovered that making money via the internet can be fun. I never imagined that working 8 hours a day (at anything) could be fun! So I’ve made it clear that I am barefaced, unabashed, and quite brazen about making online income for myself and my famliy.

When Should You Start Monetizing Your Blogs?
There are different opinions, and sometimes theologies, regarding this question. Some bloggers say never, some say only after 6 months of consistent posting, while others say right away. My opinion is that it makes no difference at all. Some bloggers, webmasters, and SEO specialists, believe that a web site or blog that has advertising via contexual ads, banners, affiliate links, and ecommerce checkout scripts, can hurt initial search engine rankings. I’ve even read articles written by bloggers who believe that having affiliate links and ad script code in their template code will ensure their blog’s sentence in the dreaded so-called Google sandbox will be longer. I emphatically state that line of thought to be invalid.

If you are serious when it comes to professional blogging, you undertsand that what the search engines want is high quality and original content. Their algorithms, and bots, want to see this kind of content added to a web site, or blog, frequently. (I discuss Schedule of Writing in the previous post) When you understand this you realize that all the theories of what works in the search engines don’t add up to diddly. If you publish content as mentioned above, you will rise up in the search engines with impunity.

So in conclusion, my advice is to do whatever you want. Monetize your blog right out of the gate, or don’t. Either way, it won’t make any difference 6 months later. You will succeed or fail based on your content anyway. I present ads as soon as I launch a new blog just for layout purposes. I know that monetizing my blog won’t make any real money for months, but at least the banners and ads offer choices to my visitors, and at the same time, enhance the look and feel of the raw template.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, June 11th, 2006 at 1:07 pm and is filed under Monetizing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.