Much like Nic I’ve been thinking a lot lately about monetising blogs. As a theoretical case study I followed the instructions doled out by Chris M over at his blog Imod. He gave some pretty specific instructions on how to make money using an iPhone related domain. These instructions can be found here.
As such I started my great experiment and called the domain iPhoneNews.co.za. Now I’ve done minimal work on it and written something tiny like 11 rather mediocre posts. I’ve also got no incoming links from other sites and only rely on Google for incoming hits. Now I’m getting something tiny like 20-30 unique visitors a day so frankly the potential for clicks on the Google ads up there is tiny.
Now on this blog I get something closer to ten times the lowest amount of unique visitors and I wonder: Am I missing out on some money? My total earnings to date (less than a month since I’m yet to get a second invoice from my hosting company) are about $2.33 from the iPhoneNews site. This leads me to believe that I’m capable of roughly ten times that based on the amount of visitors I get on this site.
Now the question I’ve been asking myself is why haven’t I already put adverts on this site? My biggest concern is that I hate the look of Google Ads. I feel that it automatically cheapens any website and makes it look tacky.
I am however wondering why I’m not taking advantage of what could be free money and as such will be adding Google ads to my page. I haven’t worked out when or where I will put it on the site but I should do it when I have time. I think at the end of the day if I was writing these “articles” for a publication I would get paid so why not make some money off my intellectual capital.
Before I do this I open up to my loyal readers and ask your opinion? Do you think I should make some money and put ads on this site or does it cheapen my brand?
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Who is this Nic, he sounds like a fool, you can not make money off a blog! no one cares! Goodluck and do something constructive in your life instead of this. Nic sounds worse!
The views of Samuel are not necessarily representative of “The Outlet” and all related persons
Saul I honestly think you should not monetise your blog. You say it was created as an “Outlet”, as a place to vent and to have as your own. If you turn it into a money making scheme it becomes business rather than pleasure. I’m a great advocate of keeping the two seperate!! But that’s just my opinion…
Thanks for the link Saul – I think Nadia has a great point. The minute you shift your focus from what it originally was the blog could lose its essence. That shift could really end a great outlet!
I think you are already benefiting from this blog in terms of networking, that will turn in to revenue down the line for sure.
Of course it’s tacky, but hey, if high profile bloggers can live off the sponsored advertising on their blogs, why not give it a try?
It woud be more of a problem if there was a risk of your biases shifting in the advertiser’s favour, but I don’t think that’s very likely with adwords.
Then again, Nadia and Nic also make valid points. The main thing to think about is whether it’ll have any impact on the quality of your writing.
I honestly believe that it will have an impact both on Saul’s priorities and his writing. The truth is it will become about how many hits he has rather than writing what is on his mind. Thanks Warren and Nic for acknowledging how right I am
Saul, don’t let your genes get the better of you!! 
Well I reached a middle ground… I’ve added one tiny little ad unit until I find something to replace it!
Thanks for the link back, how is your iPhone website going?
@ Chris M: Poorly