Geeky Stuff Life

Blog Monetization: For ze Good or ze Evil?

Mostly Lisa Backend advertising only $100,000. Any takers?

One of the hot topics discussed at the first Vancouver Tazzu WordPress Camp was blog monetization. Guest speaker, John Chow, talked a lot about how much money he makes from ads on his blog… a staggering $100,000 a month. Yep! His side bar ads go for $500-1000 a piece. That’s some serious monetization!

And anyone who is a serious blogger will know that good, original content does not just happen. It takes hours and hours of time and resources. Time and resources that you are probably taking out of your work and play time. I think every blogger gets to the point where they want some a wee bit of monetary compensation for their blogging time. But… any blogger who also places blog design, content, and their readers ahead of monetary gain will find it really hard to slap up a load of spammy, crappy, ugly ads all over their beautiful blog.

As you can see, I don’t use Google Adsense. Why? Cuz Googly Ads look crappy and they annoy me personally, and let’s be honest, I’m the person who spends the most time on this blog. Gah! So sick of my face. It’s huge. Also, Google Ads don’t make any money if people don’t click the ads, so you have to embed them right into your posts. For me, it’s just not worth it. I want my readers to come here and be entertained, not to be sold Viagra. We all get enough of that junk in our inboxes to last a life time.

So what are the options? Well, I’ve opted for sponsored sidebar ads. I only put up ads of sites I respect or feel are of an interest to my readers. I don’t feel that they are intrusive or take away from my blog so I’m happy. And so far my sponsors have received a of link love so they are happy.

Another option is OIO Publisher, a direct sales platform, which John Chow swears by. Basically the company finds the advertisers and you just choose the ads you want, customize the size and position of the ad and badabing you’ve earned some $$$. Unfortunately the plugin costs $37 dollars, but hopefully you will make that money back pronto. You can view a live demo of the OIOpublisher Direct Pro WP Plugin. I will take it for a test ride in the next week and let you know how it works out.

I’d love to hear what you think on this topic. Does monetization ruin a blog’s integrity? Are Google Ads the spawn of Satan? Or are you like, yeah money! If you are a blogger that has monetized your blog, it would be great to hear about your successes, failures, and experiences. I courage you write a blog post about it or leave a comment.

PS. Contact me re: $100,000 adspace asap. Kevin Rose has already offered $105,000 to Digg my butt.

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  • Christina Warren
    May 6, 2008 at 7:25 PM

    I’ll give you 100,000 for advertising on your ass. Well, maybe 100,000 Yen — dollars, can’t do it — sorry.

    I know what you mean though — we’ve talked about it before. I made a whopping $3 from my AdSense travels (I had it up very, very briefly, to be fair) and that was with it like, looking all integrated and shit. Not worth it. Now Filmgirl.tv…yeah, I’ll me trying to monetize the crap out of that.

    I think what you have now is tasteful (well, other than you — you are a whore — but you know… KIDDING for anyone who doesn’t understand my term of endearment) and undistracting.

    And hey, even SCOBLE has ads on his blog now. If King Douche of Douchedom can do it…we all can!

  • 5 Ways to Save Face with Facebook : cyberbuzz
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    […] Lisa had this photo (left) on the front of her blog this week. She used it to start a discussion on the ethics of blog monetization. I think the picture was a joke, if you have $100k, contact her and find […]

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    May 7, 2008 at 8:40 AM

    […] hope not, because on top of having a great sense of humour Lisa’s got some excellent insights on her post and be sure to read through the comments (over 50 of them) for thoughts about ads on blogs. John […]

  • mcpaige
    May 7, 2008 at 4:22 PM

    From bus girl to this ! Wow :)

  • Mostly Lisa
    May 7, 2008 at 11:49 PM

    thanks for everyone’s awesome comments, i’m gonna write a follow-up post on this topic and include your views, concerns, etc.

    for now, i’m just gonna respond to questions…

    @Steve McGrath — i don’t judge a blog by it’s ads. for me a blog is all about content. if the content is good, i’ll read it with Google ads or without.

    @Pasquale — the best ones!

    @Investing — hmm. yes. i think your are looking too far into the meaning of it all. i’m mostly selling silliness really.

    @Motion Groove — making money off blogging is certainly a cool thing. creative, fun, meaningful, and cool. money to pay the bills on top of that? Ace.

    @Casa — i do host the blog myself.

    @Kevin — it is indeed my bum. as if i’d steal someone else’s bum and stick an fake ad on it. geez. i never thought of monetizing my butt. it was just a joke, but for the right price i maaay consider it. contact me

  • Turulcsirip - Simon Benjamin
    May 8, 2008 at 10:48 PM

    […] hirdetesi “platform” http://www.mostlylisa.com/2008/05/02/blog-monetization-for-the-good-or-ze-evil/ « előző | Simon Benjamin — 2008. 05. 09. […]

  • Basic Thinking Blog | 50 Designideen fürs Blog
    May 9, 2008 at 11:11 AM

    […] ja, und das ist auch mal eine Methode, auf Blogwerbung aufmerksam zu machen, ad your butt sozusagen:)) Artikelzusatzinfos 1. Tags: Blog […]

  • Apoorv Khatreja
    May 10, 2008 at 5:28 AM

    Just wondering.. What adspace exactly are you selling over here? I mean how would this kind of ad get anybody more exposure/money?

  • Chris Hutchcroft
    May 12, 2008 at 5:42 AM

    I’ve messed with Google Ads but more for using them, not having them on my sites. I like the idea of having control over the content on a site, including ads. The funny thing is that most of the ad generators I’ve seen get blocked by AdBlock on Firefox, but the hosted ones within the site content do not. Perhaps charging a premium for that alone would be worth the sponsored ads.

    If your blog is getting regular traffic, it should start to make some money, and some ‘tastefully located’ ads would be the way. You spend a lot of time and effort to make this a quality site.

    PS I’m just reading this post now, and was thinking ‘I just saw that blue butt somewhere the other day’. It was in 24 last week! I hope you make some coin off of that.

  • Benji
    May 12, 2008 at 6:15 PM

    Hmmm… thats some firm, Ad infrastructure!

  • Matt
    May 14, 2008 at 10:06 AM

    Is that a 100.000 Zimbabwe dollars?

    If so, I’m in and I up the ante to 1.000.000 Zimbabwe dollars =]

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  • jonson roth
    May 16, 2008 at 12:46 PM

    Sex in advertising? No, don’t say it’s so. Well, if you’ve got it, flaunt it. That idea someone had above was a good one: divided up your buttspace into little blocks. Obviously, more than one pixel – say 16×16 (favicon-sized). So you’d have a bunch of favicon-style graphics all over your bikini at, maybe, $50 per month. I’ve approximated that you can probably fit in about 160 ads on the pic above. So that’s about $8,000/mth. It’s a start. Of course, if you go to Tim Hortons and over-indulge, you’ll have more space on your bottom :)

  • Daniel Larsson
    May 18, 2008 at 10:15 PM

    Lovely butt, though for $100k+ I’d say you can get a lot of Hawaiian Tropic ladies to flaunt their stuff and get more ‘sexsposure’

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    May 27, 2008 at 3:54 PM

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  • salivate
    June 18, 2008 at 7:00 AM

    Is that really your posterior? Looks like a stock shot to me.

  • Mostly Lisa
    June 18, 2008 at 12:09 PM

    @salivate — it sure is! =0

  • Kevin
    June 18, 2008 at 12:59 PM

    So who took the photo?

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