I was reading this thread and it brought about a very interesting question: when is the right time to monetize your blog? I did a little bit of research and I wrote an article on my blog about it. Feel free to read it, comment on it, stumble it, redd it, whatever you'd like. But, definitely feel free to read it. Thanks! Article Is Here
Some people do it as soon as they make it. Others like to get a following before they do. I think it depends on the topic of the site.
I monetize my website, but i have NO advertising on my blog. since most people reading my blog are other webmasters trying to learn how to make money online, i think jamming a bunch of popups or adsense ads up their ass would be insulting.. that's why my blog is 99.8% ad-free .. and 9 out of 10 dentists agree that #10 is a jerk...
Hey MafiaMaster, quite a nice article you have written. Thought I may offer my 2 cents worth of thoughts. There are 2 schools of thought and obviously one belonging to them who monetize them immediately and the other who don't. Frankly, it really depends on the type of ads and the kind of response you are targeting plus the objectives of your website and whether you are building multiple niche mini-sites or a flagship site. I tend to subscribe to the idea that if you are providing something of value, it could be a product that complements well with your content, you can monetize it anytime for a mini-site. But if you are building a main flagship site and your intention is to grow it into an authority site, you may defer the monetization a little bit later. This is really in view of the amount of time you have to maintain and manage your sites.
You can start to moneytize it right away. It might be getting a small sum of money at the beginning but it will increasing with the traffic of your site. just dont overso it at the beginning orelse it will look like MFA blog. Anyway dont forget Add content regularly and only quality one. you will be fine.
I agree with you completely, tradeya about the adding regular content. However, I also think that while you are trying to build your site, it is important to keep people on your site for longer than it is to make ten cents or even a dollar for a click.
I don't see the logic in waiting. Even if you are getting few visitors they can still generate revenue. No matter how little, it's still more than doing nothing. I also think new and one time visitors are more likely to click ads than frequent visitors who become "ad blind". Get'em while they are there. It's like saying we aren't going to open the store today until we have fifty people in line at the door.
Nah, that's not the same thing. When your goal is to SELL something, you want to have it monetized. But when your goal is to bring back new readers to your blog and keep them to your blog, you need to think about how you want to do that. Most blogs don't make much of their money from adsense. A lot of their money comes from writing reviews and if you think about it, what matters MOST is the RSS feed.
If a couple Adsense ads are going to turn off visitors enough to effect the success of a blog then I think there is a more fundamental problem with the appeal and stickiness of the content. It'd be nice to blame advertising on a blogs poor performance but I think thats a bit of a cop out. A bad tv program still won't fly even if you eliminate the commercials. The content eithor clicks or it doesn't. That's the bottom line.
No, no, you're not getting my point...It's not that those readers won't come back because of those ads, but it's because they won't remember the site. If I went to your blog and clicked an ad right away, I would probably never come back to your site again. So, now you've gained maybe a quarter, but you lost me as a reader for good, unless I find your blog again somehow. Now, if you were to not have your ads on the site, it would give me time to look around the site, to stay ON the site, and then I would become hooked and remember it. Then if I clicked an ad, well, I'll know the site.
If your blog has engaging content. Why would the leave right away? It seems you are trying to rationalize lacking content.
They leave right away because they click an ad. The ideal situation would be: They come to the blog, they read some articles, see an ad, click, leave, but have remembered the blog so come back the next day. Unfortunately, that's not the realistic situation. People normally click an ad relatively fast if they're going to click an ad. The longer they are on the blog, like you said, the less likely they will click an ad. Engaging content is key, you're right, but if they CLICK an ad, they are leaving right away.
It has nothing to do with how appealing an ad is in comparison to a blog. The point is this, as a BLOGGER, we're trying to keep people coming back to the site. Until the person has seen enough, they're not going to remember it. I don't remember half the blogs I see because I don't take the time to read a few articles. I'll read one article and then go on and do something else. If ads are there, sure, we may make a couple dollars a month, but what is worth more? A couple dollars a month or having those same 'ad clickers' subscribing to the blog. Even the big bloggers like ShoeMoney and John Chow stress the importance of keeping bloggers on the site. Sure, they both have ads on their site, but if you ask ShoeMoney when he puts ads on the site, he'll say after he is getting 1000 unique visitors to his site. Why? Because having return visitors is more important than one click on an adsense ad.
I monetized right from the start. I'm not having very good results, but making little money is certainly better than making no money. There are ads on almost every site, so I don't think people are going to avoid mine just because of the ads. I didn't turn it into Vegas.
Yes, it is important to keep he bloggers on the site. But I still don't see how ads can have the amount impact on people leaving as you think. I think the reasoning of that is a bit skewed. A great blog will keep'em on and coming back regardless of ads.