Monetizing New Blogs - Is It Really Worth It?

by Matt on Apr.13, 2007, under Blogging

Nate wrote this excellent post a few days earlier weighing the pros and cons of monetizing young blogs. As you may have noticed I still haven’t placed any permanent ads on Take More Risks. Much like Nate, my income from CPC ads didn’t justify the negative impact that the ads were having on my site’s image.

I couldn’t help thinking that if the ads discouraged bloggers from backlinking to my work then I would actually be losing money. How much is a link worth after all? $10? $20? My Adsense earnings over a two week period didn’t even reach $3.

I think it’s crucial that you gain a strong readership with many backlinks from reputable sites in your niche before even completing monetization. Shoemoney, for instance, generally monetizes a site once it reaches 1000 uniques/day.

I don’t think it’s wise to base this decision on unique visits alone, it might be the case that your site is well optimised for the search engines but few people are actually citing your work. You should factor in the quality and desirability of your content as well. If no one is linking to your site then all it takes is a search engine algorithm update for everything to fall on its ass.

You need to be in a position where your blog has enough varied recognition across your niche so that it can maintain it’s popularity for a many months to come. Placing ads from day one will discourage reputable bloggers in your niche from linking to your work.

Remember backlinks from such authority sites will form the backbone on which the success of your SEO campaign rests upon. Paid reviews will only get you so far and are arguably worthless until authority sites begin to link to your work.

In the meantime, develop content that will appeal to your audience and forget about the few measly beans you can make from Adsense. Your earning potential will sky-rocket if you continue to give your readership what they want.

As for the future of Take More Risks, I feel like I need to update this blog more consistently before I can even begin to justify monetization. My aim is to get back to the average of 1 post a day that I was at before the Mid-March slump.

7 comments for this entry:

Nate Whitehill
April 13th, 2007 on 10:17 am
Great article, and as you know - I TOTALLY agree!

P.S - thanks for the linkage!
Michael Haislip
April 13th, 2007 on 5:23 pm
When you train your visitors to not expect ads, what happens when ads suddenly appear after months of commercial-free content?

The fact is, from a usability standpoint, ads have become a standard, expected page element. Nobody except the pickiest bastard cares if there are ads on a page. It is expected. Most major websites have ads, and they are the ones that set the design trends and the people’s expectations.

Secondly, what happens if you suddenly receive a burst of traffic, say a link from a bigger site or a digg. How much money do you miss out on?

Finally, most of your posts have been about making money online. Even if your ads only generate $1.00 a week, that’s still making money, and that still shows that you are willing to lead by example.

In short, you have to think of ads as value-added content: “here, reader, take at look at this other stuff that may be valuable to you.” If you don’t believe in what you’re selling (ad space), then it will eventually show in your work.
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April 14th, 2007 on 3:59 am
I’m wrestling with this question myself. Right now, 1000 uniques a day seems like a very very far away place.
Jason
April 16th, 2007 on 2:03 pm
Nice work! I like your articles. Believe me. I just like you to update often.
Shane
April 17th, 2007 on 1:45 am
Posting consistency is important. And so is networking. I’m working on a post on this right now. Everything else is secondary to those two things.
David Chin
April 18th, 2007 on 3:41 pm
It really depends on the nature of your blog. My camera blogs, for instance, get linked to from forums. If the article is good and informative, readers generally don’t care about the ads (as long as they’re not overly intrusive).
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