Friday, June 17, 2011

Monetizing Your Blog…Entrepreneurial or Selling Out?



Have you ever thought about monetizing your blog or does the thought of mixing art and advertising turn your stomach? I work at Google, a little known company you may have heard about that owns Blogger amongst other things, and they certainly encourage ads. However, my blog is my personal webspace, and I’m not sure whether allowing advertisements on it is a good idea or not. 

The obvious pro is that you could make money, but probably not very much. The con is that it may affect how you’re perceived by your readership and it may mess with the artistic flow of your website. Of the many blogs I peruse I admit that most don’t seem to display ads, but I’m not sure if that’s because they choose not to use them or that they don’t know that blogger allows for easy monetizing. 

So what do you think? Is allowing ads on your blog kosher or does it make something stink in the land of Denmark? I’m somewhat on the fence regarding this issue myself so I’d love to know your thoughts, thanks! 


9 comments:

  1. Why not stamp your forehead with an ad?

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  2. I have thought about doing it with my blog. In the end though it is kind of selling out which goes against what I want to do with it.

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  3. I'll take the middle line: if the ads don't take away from the visual experience, they don't bother me.

    To take Suze's metaphor: no forehead stamping, but a temporary tattoo on the shoulder might be possible.

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  4. I don't do it. Like you said, you won't make much money (in general) and the blogs I've visited that do have ads bug me a bit. They tend to be too up front. I don't want to have to wade through a bunch of ads for people's content.

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  5. All very good points, particularly Hektor and Michelle's. I think the term "selling out" prob gets thrown around too much (myself included), but if it interferes with art, then ads should prob take a back seat. Thanks for the great input everybody!

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  6. I'm not a huge fan of monetized blogs and have no plan to monetize mine. However, I won't avoid a blog just because it has ads.

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  7. I've heard there isn't a lot of money to be made and I'm personally not a fan of ads anyway so I've chosen not to monetize.

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