Irritated About Blog Monetization
I don’t know John Chow or Shoemoney, and until recently I had never heard of either of them.
Anyway, I just read a post on John Chows blog that irritated the hell out of me.
It was called “When You Should Put Ads On Your Blog“. In it Chow argues that a new blog should be monetized from the “get go”.
Something that he didn’t actually do on his blog - but yet - he posts a strong opinion about it without really thinking about the evidence that may support or not support such a position.
Shoemoney for his part (now don’t get me wrong, I’ve read a few of Shoemoney’s posts now and can see he is very good at certain traffic/monetization exploits) also wrote about this in a post called “If You Don’t Place Ads On Your Blog Now You’ll Hate Yourself Later“. [edit update: apparently shoemoney does not suggest you should put ads on your blog before traffic - the post on his blog has been reported as a guest post]
And both Chow and Shoemoney cite themselves, as well as Techcrunch, and Engadget as reference points for WHY monetizing a blog from the beginning is a good idea. The fact that these guys and their reference points are already social proofed up the wazoo seems to have escaped them.
Let me say clearly: monetizing a blog that you spend time writing and promoting - with the intention of turning into an authority blog - from the start is a HORRIBLE idea.
And there are many good reasons for this - most of them I covered in my recent post entitled “Why Direct Response Blogging Is The Answer” - a post which made the front page of Sphinn, got Brian Clarks (author of copyblogger) attention, Woody Maxim (millionaire ex adult webmaster) posted about it, along with numerous shout outs that were emailed to me.
So read my post and then reconsider your blog market entry monetization strategy!
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October 14th, 2007 at 3:53 pm
What about Seth Godin’s blog? I did some research on top marketing blogs and Seth Godin was posted EVERYWHERE! I was like NOWAY! It was not at all what I expected to see. One rnadom dude whom I’d never even heard of making an obscene amount of money and moteriety for that matter with a silly marketing blog. I recently wrote an article about it. Maybe it just jealousy? I don’t know, but I’ll tell you one thing once I wrote my thoughts I read the blog and couldn’t eat my words fast enough. If you get a chance check it out:
http://monetizationweekly.com/?p=92
October 14th, 2007 at 9:34 pm
Michelle, I’m not sure I understand your point.
Seth Godins Blog is not monetized with ads in any way - his blog is a good example of the strategy I’m suggesting people follow… and Seth himself has posted messages similar to mine (though less detailed and less step-by-step) in the past.
October 15th, 2007 at 2:02 am
SBJ,
The post on shoemoney’s blog was a guest post. I’ve heard him suggest several times don’t put ads on your site till you’ve built traffic.
October 15th, 2007 at 3:00 am
Thanks for clarifying that doolally.
I was surprised considering the quality of his analysis in other places.
October 15th, 2007 at 4:27 am
Way to go John.
Who else are you going to call out for their inconsistency and “do as I say, not as I do” tactics?
I love it!