To Monetize Or Not To Monetize?

by John R. SedivycloseAuthor: John R. Sedivy Name: John R. Sedivy
Email: john@capecodbranding.com
Site: http://www.capecodbranding.com
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Introduction
On New Year’s Day I began a discussion concerning our change in focus to personal development for entrepreneurs, our decision to monetize our blog, and migration of our blog from the WordPress server to our private server. Today’s article will focus on the monetization aspect, and in doing so will provide you with how we weighed in on this decision, the steps we have taken, and where we plan on going in the future concerning monetization. My hope is that you will find this useful in your decision to potentially monetize your blog and if you choose to do so the factors you need to consider.

To Monetize Or Not To Monetize
In a couple recent articles, the first “How Do I Increase Web Traffic?” and the second, “Happy New Year!”, I had discussed our increasing popularity which has been reflected by our greatly increasing web traffic which has also been sustainable. So now the first question became, “now that we have the attention of a wide and growing audience, what do we do with it?” There were two options:

1. Leave the blog as is and use it for strictly informative purposes
2. Monetize the blog

The first option, perhaps the most altruistic would be to not change anything and not to attempt to make a  profit off the blog. Since nothing would change, there would not be a chance of upsetting the apple cart, losing readership, or the risk of cheapening our blog with methods such as advertising. On the other hand, a decision of not monetizing our blog would leave this as strictly a hobby and would therefore limit the growth of the blog and the quality of the content. So in short, a decision to not monetize would be the path of least resistance, and less risky, however we would also risk the chance of something good happening as well – nothing ventured, nothing gained.

The other option, to monetize our blog, would be the more risky of the two options, but could also produce great benefit to ourselves and our audience. What would our readers think if attempts to generate revenue from the blog, such as advertisements, donate buttons, and affiliate programs began to appear? Would this turn off our readers and therefore drive them away? In the end we arrived at the conclusion that monetization, and the potential generation of profits from the blog would allow us to focus more attention on the blog, roll profits back into blog development, and increase the overall quality – and of course the corresponding user experience. So there you have it, a decision was made to monetize.

Monetization Considerations
I would like to start off by saying that we owe our monetization strategy in large part to Steve Pavlina, specifically his article titled “How To Make Money From Your Blog”. This article serves as a comprehensive how-to and given the straightforward writing style and transparency into his earnings concerning monetization, gives insight into what you can reasonable expect given certain levels of web traffic. I must note however that we literally just launched our monetization on January 1, 2009 and therefore cannot attest to the results. However, my expectations are high given the results we have received from Steve’s other articles. So now that credit has been given where it is due we can move on to our strategy and what we have done to date.

In monetizing, above all else we wanted to pursue strategies that were consistent with our brand, regardless of the traffic levels that they may bring in or the money to be made. If the strategy was not consistent with our brand we would not pursue it. In the above referenced article “How To Make Money From Your Blog”, six streams of income are referenced. Of the six streams we decided to pursue the following three:

1. Google AdSense
2. Donations
3. Affiliate Programs

These are not necessarily the three best streams of income, however they are ideal for our overall strategy and where we would like the blog to go strategically. I will address the three selected approaches in greater detail.

Google AdSense
The selection of Google AdSense was really a no brainer. It is the largest and most widely used advertising, and according to general consensus on the Internet it is the biggest and fastest way to generate revenue from a blog. Although Google AdSense does not allow you to select the ads that will be displayed on your website – what they give you is what you get, you can increase the chances of receiving desired ads by steering your content. For example, on this website we tend to focus on high end products and brands such as Apple, Starbucks, and Barnes and Noble. As a  result our ads have been mainly higher end, such as Villanova University, BMW, etc., although there are some exceptions and a few lower end ads sneak in, however my guess is that over time that this will correct itself as we generate more content.

The key is with Google AdSense, if you do not want a specific advertisement on your site, do not write about it. When we mention a few of our favorite brands such as Apple, Starbucks, and Barnes and Noble, we steer clear of mentioning their direct competitors for two reasons. First it is negative and we choose to only accentuate the positive in this forum. Second , if we write about competitors that increases the chance they will appear on our site, which is undesirable. Bottom line – steer your content towards positive writing that is aligned with your tastes.

Google AdSense is also easy to implement, and once implemented is easy to use. It allows you to set up one account for use of AdSense , AdWords, Analytics, etc. Income generation for AdSense is pay per click, and fluctuates per advertiser.

To Be Continued…
In the next article I will further discuss monetization, specifically donations and affiliate programs.

Select a monetization strategy that aligns with your style and objectives!

-John R. Sedivy of Cape Cod Branding

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