Today’s post is a guest post by Hayley of The Tiny Twig. She recently wrote an eBook called The No Brainer Blog that gives you simple, easy to understand steps on how to grow your blog. Do you have a blog you’d like to tune up a little? Monetize? Gain audience and community? Hayley gives you insight on how to do that for just $7.99. It’s a great book with tons of information and great graphics. I highly recommend it.
When Hayley offered to guest post, I asked if she could write about monetization. Since I’m just now started to tackle this concept, I’m sensitive to the subject. I want to do it…frankly, I need to do it…but I want to do it well. I love her response.
Making money from your blog is not scary. Your favorite blogger making money from their blog is not scary. Blogging well takes a huge amount of time, and there is absolutely no shame in making back the money you have invested (and more, if you’d like).
However, blogging more than any other medium depends highly on reader engagement and interaction. You want to make sure that your revenue streams do not disrupt your readers’ experience. I think if you are wise with your influence and wise with your voice, your readers will cheer you on in making money rather than being turned off by it.
Blogging has always been a magnet for the “haters”. Blogging started in its truest form as simply words on a screen. Blogs were highly democratized with zero barrier to entry, but the writing was definitely the star of the show. Would you believe that the addition of pictures to posts initially drew ire from loyal blog purists? We wouldn’t think twice about including a picture in a post now, and our readers even demand it!
I believe the same should be true for monetization. I know that, in order for my favorite bloggers to keep writing good content, they need to create a sustainable plan. Unless they are the heirs of a fortune or have someone bankrolling their existence, that will include earning money for the time they spend writing, editing, designing, and planning their blog. I want them to keep producing content that I love, so I should also encourage them to make wise decisions business-wise.
That said, I think monetizing your blog can first and foremost be about providing more for your readers. Instead of in-text ads, which offer nothing to my readers, I choose to use affiliate marketing (which present my readers with products they may be unaware of) or write eBooks (which provide them additional content). Sidebar ads, when done well, can point your readers to blogs that they may also enjoy. If you know your readership and you keep them in mind, monetizing your blog can actually add to your reader’s experience!
As a reader, definitely know that bloggers monetizing their sites actually allows them to create better and more content for you. We should be encouraging bloggers to make money wisely so that they’ll continue to blog. No one wants their friends (and really, that’s what we gain in the blogging community!) to be working for pennies and no one wants their friends to burn out.
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Hayley Morgan wrote newly released eBook The No Brainer Blog. The eBook helps women cast a vision, define their voice, and refine their blog space to ultimately propel their blog to be successful on their terms.
Hayley also writes at The Tiny Twig, a lifestyle blog inspiring women to create lives of more passion and less fuss. She recently hosted The Influence Conference and is launching The Influence Network in January 2013. You can follow her on Twitter, “like” her Facebook page, or follow her days on Instagram for the latest updates, resources she loves, and a peek into her life with 3 (almost 4!) boys..
Do you have a blog? Have you ever wondered how to take it up a notch?
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I have been wondering how to take our blog up a notch! All the time, in fact! There’s such a delicate balance between the quality of the blog and the revenue side. I haven’t come close to figuring it out. I’d love to host giveaways, for example, but have no idea where to start. Your ebook looks great, Haley!
Robin from Frugal Family Times´s last blog post ..Bacon Jalapeno Poppers with 5-Minute Bread Dough
I do have a blog, and I’ve wondered how to take it up a notch. But I didn’t start blogging because I am an expert in something and I feel like I don’t have much to offer in the way of e-books or general knowledge. It’s just a personal blog. Which is what, I’m learning, many of the successful bloggers (as defined by numbers of followers and money generated) started out as. So I wonder, how did they stay authentic while still writing to an audience? Because the minute I start to feel myself thinking I should take myself up a notch (because I would love to be able to quit my FT job outside the home and make money from doing something I enjoy doing, blogging) I immediately begin to feel like if I were to write to an audience – instead of for me, to get my story down and to have community – I would be selling out. I’m sure this must be an issue for others. After reading this, I think that it could be done. So, thanks for the insight. Something for me to think about.