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.