When should you monetize your blog?
Experts continue to argue this point. Whether you should start monetizing your blog from the beginning, or whether you should wait and get a good audience first. Then you can monetize your site. I thought this was becoming too big of an issue with newer blogs, so I should put my opinions out.
Bloggers when they start are very indecisive. They don’t know when they want to monetize their site, so I will just put down some of the advantages and disadvantages of each option. Then put in my opinion.
Before we get into that, I want to take care of some vocabulary:
*Too many ads – When you have ads taking over the content. (Example). Note: He put this many ads after he was popular. Not from the start.
*Early Stages – New blog brand new. 3 months old blog = Brand New.
*Later on the road – 8 months and older.
Monetizing from the Start
Advantages
- Trust and Credibility
Believe it or not, some people don’t take your blog seriously, if you don’t have any ads because a moderately monetized site indicates an established blog. Also your readers know what to expect from the start rather than down the road. When you have ads on the earlier stage, and you get advertisers, it builds credibility and trust with them. Those companies can later recommend you. - Self-Motivation
Motivation is one of those things that keeps you going as a blogger. Many bloggers get motivated by different things, but some get motivated by revenue. They keep blogging to see if they can make even more than what they make with the blog at the beginning stage.
Disadvantages
- Social Media is not for you
As I mentioned in my post about promoting a blog, Social media was one of my #1 strategy. But you have to be careful, if you load your site with too many ads, then you won’t find social media to work in your favor. But moderate ads, won’t hurt your social media campaign. - Some are unhappy
You can’t really satisfy everyone. Some people might take your blog seriously because you have ads because they are thinking your blog is more established, while others get annoyed. They think you are blogging just to make money. Thats why they won’t consider you. (Once again, I think this is only when you have too many ads).
Monetizing Down the Road
Advantages
- Better Payout
When you have a new blog, you can’t charge high fees to display ads on your blog, but with an established blog you can definitely ask for a higher spot rate. - You know what option to take
Analyzing your blog traffic for a good amount of time, you know who is your audience, and what they want. Then you can go right ahead and pick out the best products for your blog, and maximize your revenue. (You have to do this by trial and error if you start early)
Disadvantages
- Compatibility Issues
When you had your first blog design, it wasn’t for the ads. Therefore, if you try adding ads in it. It might not look good. Therefore you might end up having to get a completely new design. - Some Readers are Pissed
Some readers feel that since now you have your blog established, now you only care about making more and more money. They are annoyed by the new ads integration. Like I said, you can’t keep everyone happy. Just go with whoever is the majority. Or just go with what you think is best for you after all it is your blog. (Usually this will only happen, if you put too many ads on the site)
Which method did Balkhis take?
I took the monetizing early method because personally, I don’t believe in the theory that monetizing early ruin the quality of your blog. I had good content on the site from the start. My ads weren’t over powering the content. I only had 125×125 buttons on one side, and 468 x 60 banner. Thats all. Nothing that was very annoying. As my audience grew, I switched different affiliate offers around. It was done through trial and error. Balkhis is a growing blog. No where near the top, but We have made good progress with this blog. If you are not putting too many ads on your site then you should be good to go from the start.
Hey, I am Syed Balkhi, The guy who is behind Balkhis Inc. I entered the industry back in 2002 not knowing a single thing. I barely spoke English at that time. In the past six years, my language barrier has been eliminated. Aside from English, now I also speak html, and php. Along with the languages I have also managed to master a few arts. Art of web-designing started when I first entered. Messing around with photoshop, I learned how to create my first web design. Now I founded a web designing firm Uzzz Productions. After running numerous amount of websites in various niche, I have mastered the art of web-development. Now I am compiling a resource of what I already know, and what I am learning on this blog. This resource is to help me if I ever need a guide to look back to, and it is help my fellow webmasters.
Great post. I chose to monetize as early as possible too.
i choose to monetize the blog in earlier stages. I just try not to flood the blog with ads. I know it pisses readers and it is more likely to make them run from my blog…
I waited a bit to monetize the blog and then did not go overboard on it. There were some other actions I took about the same time with the blog to really start gearing it up and it seems to have helped as it is gaining traffic steadily.
It really does piss off your readers so you never to be careful.
I have done both and the only thing I really noticed is that the blogs that I don’t advertise on from the start don’t start earning from the start.
I haven’t noticed that I make more later by not starting to advertise until I have 100 visitors a day, so over the past year I have started to just put ads on my blogs from day one. As time goes on I do get a bit more focused with the ads I chose.
Hey fellow 9ruler, I’ve come here to check out the site site. I think that’s a pretty important question and I’ve chosen to start monetizing rather late in the developpment of the blog. Keep it up, it’s an interesting read.
Hey thanks for the visit
Glad to be in 9rule.
[...] posted about when is the right time to start monetizing your blog. Although his concepts are pretty much simple, but it’s well worth my time reading [...]
You may not need to monetize early, but you should at least pay attention to where your potential money is going. You don’t have to take away from the content. Both are very important to a great blog IMO.
I always try try to build some search engine traffic at first and then try to monetize it
I agree with you, all the ups are for monetizing early, all in all, we work our asses off and need to get paid, I have tried it both ways and I learned quickly that monetizing early did not have a huge bearing on my sales, and waiting only makes me wonder how much money I may have lost.
I had touched upon this topic sometime back. Personally I believe that there’s nothing wrong in monetizing early via non-intrusive ads. However, it should not be like 80% ads and 20% content. A number of fraud adsense schemes have created a few thousands of misled budding bloggers who think they can make money overnight via ads in their blogs. The content is taken backseat in such cases…
As you rightly said, if the content is intact why not monetize?
Cheers,
Ajith
Ajith very nice points made… I can’t agree with you any more there.
Good points. Monetizing your blog in first stage has both advantage and disadvantages. Surely established blog can demand higher ad revenue. To make impression for visitors we can put ads in blog in beginning.
Everyone works for just getting return of work.
So if you are getting some amount by ads on blog you will do more work.
i posted google adsense ads on my blog immediately.
mostly because i wanted my readers to get used to the idea of ads there. as opposed to posting ads several weeks or months later, where there’s the very real possibility that they’ll get turned off.
Thanks for the tips. As for me, I placed ads in my blog after a month of operating after learning that it is already getting good traffic. I think it is best to put ads once your blog is already getting enough and considerable traffic.
This is really nice post, btw, do you know how to put ads on wordpress.com blog ?
I choose to monetize as early as possible too. It does piss off the readers.
I would agree that monetizing should be done early on, if there is income there is inspiration.
I also believe in monetizing early as long as you don’t put any popup ads or any ads that your members would find annoying. Try to just use Google Ads because they aren’t really annoying.
Their’s definately pros and cons for both parties. I opted for monitizing early, but that was probably not the wisest idea, but I got greedy
And like you said, you can’t please everybody, if people are going to complain because you suddenly put ads up, there probably just jealous because they know they can’t make any money off of theirs. Thanks for the tips, and I wanted to mention, I really like the layout of your blog. This way I can see more hten just 3-5 pages, and yet it’s not to long to scroll down on. Great Idea, and I may implement it on my blog.
Jonathan Muller
Yep m?netizing should be done early…
[...] When Should You Monetize Your Blog- Syed Balkhi, a native of Pakistan runs a blog called Balkhis. His post outlines when exactly to monetize your blog so you can start making money from it. Once again the extreme diversity in the blogosphere creates a culture unseen from anywhere around the world. [...]
Great post, You should always have a proper planning and adequate authority for your blog before monetization process.