Confessions of a Six Figure Professional Blogger

Should Bloggers Feel Guilty For Making Money?

December 23, 2008 | Blogging, Feature

Obviously, I like to make money as a blogger (and I do). I also love to show others how to do it. But, one theme I have been seeing several bloggers make is that they feel a bit bad about selling anything on their blog. As if it cheapens the site. But, is there legitimacy to this position?

Last week, I had a guest post on ProBlogger about merging the worlds of internet marketing and blogging. The article was received very well, but there were also a few comments from people who seemed to think that selling on a blog somehow cheapens it. Here on David Risley dot com, reader Jesse Liebman posted the following comment:

I’ve struggled with how to provide good content, have affiliates and adsense, and not seem spammy. I almost feel guilty having adsense on my site because as a blog reader I go to a site and say, well he just made half a cent off of me.

So, the question here is this: Should you, as a blogger, feel guilty for trying to make money with your blog?

I have several points to make here.

A Look at Mindset

What brings traffic to your blog is one thing: VALUE. If you provide real value to your readers, they will come back and they will promote your blog for you. This means that you want to give them a lot of your best material and do it completely aside from monetary aims.

Now, if you’re providing real value to your audience, is it then wrong to desire to make a little money as a return on your time? Should your audience not expect that you get a little benefit for all the hard work you put into your blog?

I think the balance lies in this: be helpful and be charitable, but you don’t need to give away the farm. You do need to help people on your blog and not demand any money for it (because you probably won’t get it that way). However, I think it is perfectly reasonable to desire to make some money for all your hard work.

Finding a Balance

Obviously, there is a balance with how aggressive you can get with advertising and not appear as a spammy blog. That balance will be different depending on your blog’s audience.

You always want to remain respectful of your audience and not overload them. This is one reason that I think Adsense works is because the ads are not overly intrusive. That depends, though, on where you place the ads and how many ad blocks you use. If you, as a reader, would be annoyed by the ads, then that’s probably a good indicator that you’re overdoing it.

A lot of blogs (including this one) make use of the 125×125 banner grid. I believe this is a good way of generating some revenue and still remaining respectful to your audience.

But, the real key to finding the right balance is…

Providing Relevant Value

The best advertising is that where your audience doesn’t really feel like they’re being advertised to at all. The key to do this is to provide real value to your audience and make it relevant.

For example, if I or another blogger provided an information product of some variety that was very tightly related to my blog (or, even better, directly authored by the blogger), then that is a revenue generator that doesn’t seem like an ad. It is about as relevant as anything could possibly be and it is a direct extension of the blog’s content.

Another example would be to provide a product recommendation that is truly worthy of your audience’s time. If you truly believe in the product and back it up, then that is actual blog content that provides value, but also could lead to some affiliate commission revenue for you as the blogger.

Providing links to affiliate products in your blog posts is another way to go about this.

A couple weeks ago, I blogged right here about the Become a Blogger launch. It was highly relevant to this blog. I truly believe in it because Yaro and Gideon are stand-up guys and know their stuff. At the same time, if anybody signed up through my affiliate link, I would make a commission while also feeling like I really helped that person get moving in their blogging career. This is an example of making some money by providing relevant value.

Do I feel the slightest bit guilty when I refer people to Yaro’s program? Not at all! I honestly feel like I just helped them.

So, Why the Guilt Trip?

If you, as a blogger, are providing real value to your readers, why would one feel guilty about trying to make a little money while you’re at it?

If you’re just getting greedy and littering your site with ads with no thought about relevancy or pissing off your audience, well then yeah you’re doing it wrong and probably should feel a bit guilty. If you have a feeling of guilt about it, perhaps you’re just doing it wrong or are not providing enough value to your reader.

The most successful bloggers, the guys making really good money, they provide a LOT of value. They have popular sites and they write – A LOT. When you deliver that kind of value, I think it is a reasonable expectation that you make some money for your time. If you’re not finding ways of providing some return on your investment of time, then you’re doing yourself a disservice, not your audience.

So, what is your thought on this? Do you feel guilty when placing a banner ad on your site or an affiliate link? Do you feel as if generating any revenue from your blog cheapens it? Let me know!

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  • I don't feel guilty at all because I will only promote something that I know has real value and will be helpful to the reader.

    As you've pointed out, when you feel as though you have actually helped someone and referred them to something that they actually want or need, there is no need to feel bad about it.
  • I write a blog for a comparatively small market - people who read about the lighting industry. The value vs. garbage vs. spam conflict is ever present, especially because I am making no money on my blog to date. Right now I am trying to build reputation by posting worthwhile content daily, and sometimes this is a challenge (ie, slow industry weeks, repetitive stories, etc). While I want to continue to build readership and everything I do works towards that goal, I work hard in everything I do, and I never gain capital that I didn't "earn," per se. Integrity should be important.
  • as an amateur blogger, i guess, making money on my blog is worth thing to do, because that's the only way i tried to help others blog who read my blog can follow my steps. So felling guilty is not on my dictionary, and for those who doesn't want to monetize their blogs, its okey.
  • You make a great point David about the guilt trip. I guess my comments stemmed from reading blogs that only use affiliate advertisement in the sidebars. These do seem intrusive. Though I'm not sure how successful they are?

    A great topic might be how to choose affiliates for your blog according to your niche. I write about social media so for me I get readers that are in that technical realm, I get beginners who are not, and I get straight business men who have heard about social media.

    I think if you place adsense bars in the right place no one will care. It's when you have those sites that they're on both sidebars and in the middle content. That's simply ugly.

    I'd be curious to hear your take on affiliate advertisement for blogs looking to make money.
  • i don't feel guilty making money from my websites. the content provided is of value therefore i need to sustain it through selling advertising.

    i also run a pay-per-view service, where some potential users are immediately turned off when they learn a fee has to be paid to access the useful contacts for their business. that kind of reaction does not bother me at all since like them am running a business, therefore the info provided is of premium value as that would result in huge revenue on their side compared to the monthly subscription i charge.

    am not running a charitable organisation but a business entity, which all revolves around money.

    bills have to be paid using money at the end of each month.

    as you've pointed out in your article, as long as you provide VALUE, its acceptable to make an income from it.
  • I don't know how that person can read ProBlogger and hate people selling stuff from blogs..... Darren does it all of the time with new books that are coming out.
  • Theres nothing to feel guilt. Why? Because you're just doing your job. Just give the client the satisfaction they want to their product. "Pay for what is Right".
  • No one should feel guilty about making money. I would much rather support and use an affiliate link from a blogger that I enjoy reading than directly from a company that I have no relationship with. I don't mind "sharing the wealth". I get a useful product and the blogger gets some money for recommending it.

    Companies don't feel bad about putting commercials on during my favorite show. You shouldn't either!
  • With ad-blockers being so prevalent these days, how do bloggers make money off advertising if their ads are blocked?
  • I totally agree that guilt will only occur if you are not offering value, however if you are not offering value, then your visitors will decrease, which will lead to a loss of revenue anyway. Classic self regulated market!
  • On the guilt side, I think only a lack of integrity creates issues.

    On the user experience side, I think there's lots of patterns and practices that work well, and lots of antipatterns to avoid.
  • I do not think anyone should ever feel bad about making money. You probably had to spend money yourself and now others are spending money themselves. It is just how the world goes around and it has to be done.
  • if you provide a valuable service, you deserve to get paid for it. period. a bloggers time is money, just like anyone else's - no need to feel guilty for wanting to profit off of your unique ability to do whatever it is you're doing...

    i am coming from a more established point of view now, although i started small, i always intended to make "blogging" and maintaining online properties my full-time career. i never felt guilty for selling advertising or promoting affiliate links because i was (am) selective and make absolutely sure that even the ads/affiliate links also provided value to my visitors. that helped me reach my goal 2 years ago, and enabled me recently to start even more sites to provide even more value to my readers :-)

    (and hopefully make even more money)
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