How “Blog Monetization” Is Just Completely Wrong

65 | Posted In Make Money by David

A guy wants to open up a store. He is tired of his regular job and wants to do something different.

He reads a lot about stores. And then jumps right into setting up a store. He puts the shelves in there. He buys one of those big glowing “OPEN” signs. He makes everything all pretty. He looks forward to those hoardes of people who will, of course, come by to check out his pretty store.

Let’s say he even gets people to come in. He has the place all decked out. And he’s happy that he’s getting a little bit of foot traffic each day.

Then, one day, he sits down. And he asks…. “HOW AM I GOING TO MONETIZE THIS STORE?”

W.T.F?!

“Monetize” Means You’re Doing It Wrong

When Steve Jobs and Wozniak started Apple, they didn’t ask themselves “How am I going to monetize Apple?” They didn’t build computers, THEN try to figure out how to “monetize”.

When Sam Walton started up Wal-Mart, he didn’t open up his first store then ask himself how he was going to monetize.

“Blog monetization” is a buzzword phrase in this space. And, as a blogger in this space, I’m basically forced to play along. It is the language of the marketplace, after all.

But, the language we use often has a huge impact on our actions. He who controls the language controls the conversation.

The truth is that the idea of “monetizing a blog” is complete and total bullshit…

Because it means that you start a blog, do all this work to build something up, then figure out how to make money with it. It means that money is an afterthought. It means you didn’t give an ounce of thought into your business plan before you started the blog.

So, in many cases, you’ve built this… thing. It isn’t making a dime, and because you didn’t build it as a business, it might not even be possible. There might not even be a demand there.

Monetization is for business light-weights. It is for the unserious. It is children’s playtime. It is for hobbyists.

Professionals run businesses. They are building a business. They don’t “monetize” because they were building a business from day one. They had a plan. They execute it.

Blog monetizers work day jobs. Business owners end up hiring them.

Blog monetizers waste a lot of time on things which don’t matter all that much (like Twitter for hours per day). They waste time on low ROI activities. They dream about making a full-time income from their blogs. But, chances are, they won’t make it. Because they’re trying to “monetize”. They’re not building a business.

So, I’m not saying any of this to rip into you. I know a lot of my readers are trying to “monetize”.

But, I’d be doing you a disservice if I pussy-footed around this “blog monetization” thing and didn’t tell you the cold hard truth. There are a ton of other blogs on this topic who will do that for you. If you’re a dreamer, go read those guys. Once you realize you’re on a dead-end, remember, I’ll be here.

I’m a blogger, yes. But, I’m a business owner. I’m running a business. I’m better than “monetization”.

I think you are, too. But, it starts with you deciding you are.

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  • http://www.adamsaverian.com Adam Saverian

    It appears, and tell me if I’m wrong, that the distinction here is between those who are offering something for users to purchase at launch, and those who wait until they’ve built and audience to monetize. Is that correct? Or is your distinction between those who have a business plan at launch and those who don’t. The reason I ask is because one’s business plan might include building an audience first and then offering to sell them something 2, 3, or 6 months later. 

    Are you suggesting offering products or services immediately, or, are you suggesting having a plan in place about what products and services you might sell in the future? @adamsaverian:twitter @davidrisley:twitter

  • http://live-your-love.com/ Brankica | How to blog

    This just reminds me of those who recommend blogging as a business model. It is a part of it but too many people are selling “fairy dust” that you can make a full time living by having a single blog. 

    Sure there are a few people that did it, but even they are not just living off their blogs…

    Thanks so much for talking about this…maybe someone will realize what it takes :)

  • Anonymous

    Monica, I was looking for a place to jump in. This is spot-on:
     ”[I]f it doesn’t support your business, why are you doing it in the first place?”

    That is the crux of the entire monetization issue, in my opinion. You see, when I first heard of blogging, it was in the context of sharing AdSense revenue with the platform owner. Presumably, while I was posting for pennies, Darren was Dialing for dollars. I had no idea that there were people who wrote blogs on their own domains and monetized them with advertising, affiliate sales and infoproducts.

    When it came to my attention, the first thing that came to my mind is, “I can’t do that! I’m on a revenue-sharing site and I can’t even get 20 people to read my posts!” As a result, when that sharing site went down and I started my own self-hosted blog, I never got the stars (or fairy dust) in my eyes. However, I made the same mistake other people made with their self-hosted blogs: I “played around” with various money-making ideas. But, with no plan and no clear direction, those efforts were doomed. Not so much doomed as a waste of my time, as I knew in my heart nobody was going to click on those money-making links.

    The noise from people whose business is to sell the dream of blog monetization will blithely drown out the sensible question you posed. Worse, are the people like me, who came into the blogosphere wearing the wrong uniforms. Only recently have I learned the distinction of being a “ProBlogger” and having a blog as a tool for supporting your business.

    Monetization, like David mentioned in a comment, is just a word. It is the concept of purpose, as exposed by your excellent question, with which we must concern ourselves.

    Newcomers, entrenched veterans and lost souls: ask yourself “WHY?”

    Cheers,

    Mitch

  • http://expatlifecoach.com John Falchetto

    Awesome post David. I can’t say, yes this is the big difference between the pros and the amateurs.
    I come from a brick and mortar business background, only started blogging one year ago. I have a business, my blog is just part of it.

  • David Tiefenthaler

    Holy smokes.  Get after it.  I never read posts like this anywhere else.  You just got a new fan.

  • http://mtcentral.blogspot.com/ Jade Sitjar

    But I still want to monetize and at the same time make it a part of my business. Is it still possible?

  • http://www.free-range-humans.com/ Marianne Cantwell

    Kick ass post. Trust me, Monetisation is not just a Silicon Valley phenomenon, we see plenty of people with this misconception doing the rounds in London ‘startup’ circles. Usually, they get all twitchy when you raise to concept of oh I don’t know, ACTUALLY selling something. LOVE this, thanks Dave!

  • Anonymous

    m? b?st fri?nd’s brother is making $ 81 per h?ur working
    from home. h? was ?ut ?f his j?b f?r eight m?nths but this september his salary
    w?s $ 7500 only by w?rking ?n th? c?mputer f?r ? f?w h?urs a day.

    for more info go to ? ? S H S H ? R ? . ? ? ?

  • http://pnoy.me/9O Tim Salomon

    The key to effectively monetize your site or product is to offer products that people want to buy all the time and that is what I do.

  • http://truspeaks.com TruSpeaks

    I don’t often comment, but this is an excellent post.

  • http://www.losethebabyweight.net lose the baby weight

    Same principal applies to calling yourself an Internet marketer.

    No one calls themselves a Yellow Pages marketer…a Radio marketer…a tv marketer.

    A person doesn’t own those advertising mediums.

    Watch the weird looks on others when you call yourself one of those.

    Now back to running a serious business and blogging.

    Blogging is just another message delivery method to sell whatever it is you sell.

  • http://greatbeautydeals.com age defying beauty products

    You are right David. the concept of “blog monetization” should be stopped.

  • Easy

    People start things for different reasons David, there’s no hard and fast rule for starting a career in blogging. A lot of people start out purely as a hobby, then realizing the potential might decide to start offering products…I do not entirely agree with you. Blogging could be a self service first, then a business. or the other way around. A lot of people have other skills besides just telling who cares to listen “what they think about whatever”.(Like the developers of twitter and facebook- they could have knocked your emails down with “how to write codes” articles but instead they created something YOU are benefiting from. Because for the truly creative, the creation comes first, the money will follow).

     The issue YOU should be addressing here is how not to bore people with your “make money blogging” articles and webinars – feeding us the same thing over and over just because you really don’t know how to do anything else. 

  • http://sometimesithink-krissy.blogspot.com krissy knox

    Excellent point, David. It’s best to have a business plan in place, and products, or at least some ideas for products, if possible, before we even start a blog.  We should of course carefully plan out what niche we would like our blog to be in – that goes without saying.  And we should run our blogging and everything we choose to do that goes along with it as a business.  Actually, in that case the blogging wouldn’t even necessarily be the focus of the business. I get what you’re saying!  Thanks for another spectacular post, but most of all thank you for your innovative way of thinking, and getting our heads screwed on straight!

  • http://www.mactonweb.com/ Web design London

    I do agree, however I got into this without any previous knowledge of online commerce and just started with a topic I am very familiar with-Marketing.  I dove in and now I have some knowledge, some content and have learned a TON.

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