Should you monetize your blog or not? Every blogger has an opinion on this issue. Some people are fanatical about the latest trends and are quick to try the latest techniques, others implement a more basic strategy, some decide not to monetize their blogs at all. Then you have the bloggers who are never happy with their monetization strategies and are on a constant quest for new ways to earn their cash. These are only a few of the many views- there must be dozens of different opinions on this topic, and if you’re new to the idea of blogging for money, it’s easy to quickly get confused as to the right and wrong ways to do things.
I wanted to write my opinion and then share with some other bloggers thoughts on this topic as well. If you are a new blogger these insights should help you decide for yourself. It is important to keep in mind that all blogs are different and your niche will sometimes determine which strategy will work best. For some adsense is the answer and for others that will not work at all.
Here is my opinion in a nut shell. I am a proponent of making money blogging. We all know that blogging takes a lot of time and effort and why not make some money for your effort. Years ago making money from blogging was frowned upon. Popular sentiment today leans toward celebrating and respecting bloggers that are actually able to make money blogging. I actually cannot think of one single reason not to make money from your blog. Can you convince me otherwise?
Here some other posts that offer some perspective on this topic:
To Monetize or Not to Monetize – Cape Cod Branding
To Monetize or not Monetize your Blog – Jack Humphrey
Blogging for money displaces your focus – Jamie Harropp
Is your blog leaving money on the table? – Caroline Middlebrook
What do you think?
Is Twittley better than Tweetmeme? I guess that answer depends on what you are evaluating the Twitter services on. From a bloggers perspective, I can say that Twittley is better than Tweetmeme and I will tell you why. First, let me start off by explaining what Twittley and Tweetmeme are. They are both Twitter tools that combine an element of social bookmarking with the power of Twitter. Both services provide buttons that bloggers could add at the top or bottom of their blog posts and the readers could click the button and tweet your post. At this point in time, Tweetmeme is the biggest and most recognizable service of this kind. In my opinion, this will change in the next several months. The reason is that there is a better tool and the name is Twittley.
Why is Twittley better than Tweetmeme for bloggers? Here are three main reasons to support my opinion:
These are the three main reasons why I switched over and replaced the Tweetmeme button with the Twittley button.
Have you made the switch yet? Are you using Tweetmeme or Twittley?
When I was playing around with different themes last week, I was also researching various plugins and widgets. I was surprised at how difficult it was to find a quality Twitter widget for my blog. I tried out a couple but they only displayed my tweets and nothing else. Finally, I came across what I think is the best Twitter widget out there right now. The widget is available at Feedjit.com/twit . To see the widget in in action, take a look at my footer.
This is post # 100 and I thought it would make sense to take a look back at some of the most popular and most informative posts so far. I have broken this down to the top 5 posts in each of the four categories that I blog about:
It is hard to believe that I am writing post # 99 and already 4 months into this blog. I am in the middle of creating a special one hundredth post for tomorrow that will highlight the best blog posts so far. I figured in this post, I would talk about the progress of this blog up until now.
Over all, I am very pleased at how this blog is coming along and am motivated to keeping with it. Don’t forget to check back in tomorrow to check out the 100th post.
