When I talk about my blog to people I often get asked a simple question “Do I make any money from the blog”?
For those of you who have been keeping score, you’ll know the answer is a resounding NO. But it’s actually more complex than that.
I never intended the great cubicle escape to be an instant overnight million dollar website (even though it would be very cool). I actually want to use the great cubicle escape as an online diary.
This leads me to a compelling question. Can I monetise the great cubicle escape blog without annoying everyone?
This question seems to break down into three parts:
- Should I advertise?
- What to advertise?
- How to advertise?
Let’s look into the first issue, Should I advertise?
One popular school of thought suggests that I should have put advertising on the blog from the start. The other school suggests that it’s best to build a readership then run relevant ads based on what content is popular. For example, lots of people enjoyed the article series on the “Passive Income System” ( they are the most popular posts) then maybe I could offer some products around that topic. Perhaps I could have advertised a book from Amazon or something like that?
What people see as a money grab, others see as lost revenue. One of the major factors that prevented me from advertising from day one was that I had ABSOLUTLY no idea what I was doing, let alone how to advertise.
So really the question “Should I advertise?” is really up to my readers?
If you have a comment on this I’d love to read it.
Let’s say I do decide to advertise something relevant, the “What to advertise” actually becomes the hardest question.
I really have no idea how people’s brains work when it comes to purchasing. Tell me if you know this scenario. As consumers we say “yea, I’d buy that” when presented with something we like in a purchasing survey. However we all know it’s not what really happens when someone actually asks us to reach into our pocket and hand over money, which is a products true test. Funny eh, well no actually, I think we basically lie, maybe not consciously but we lie and that’s the simple truth. Makes it very hard to predict what to sell to someone else if even they don’t know what they want. Could be a matter of suck it and see?
So it comes back to what to sell and honestly I don’t know…
How to advertise is a lot easier to tackle than I originally thought.
Would you believe banner ads are still widely in use, just check the popular blogs like engaget or lifehacker seems it’s paying their bills? They have banners everywhere and thousands of readers a day don’t complain. (Yes it’s super 90’s but still works, so they say) this might be the route I take.
As always I’m open for comments, let me know your thoughts.
Would you be put-off by ads?
