So, recently I was looking around at a bunch of blogs in my niche as they reported their earnings for the last month and I noticed my earnings here are very low compared to my traffic, and position in the niche, and what I realized is that it is easy to see why.

Most of the people I compete against in this niche do things that I don’t.

1.) Most make money online blogs push affiliate products.
Sure, I have promoted a few affiliate links over the course of this site’s life, but I always try to at least mark them in some way, and avoid them as much as possible. My reasons for not promoting affiliate links or products heavily is because I don’t want the meaning behind my thoughts or opinions to be misconstrued as a money making tactic.

As much as I would love to be rich, my first goal is to be honest and helpful to my readership.

2.) Most make money online blogs push text link advertisements
Text links used to be a great source of revenue, but with Google being smart and cracking down on sites that sell text links, I haven’t been in any rush to try to monetize in this way. I think text links are an unsustainable way of making revenue off of a blog, and should only be done carefully.

3.) Most make money online blogs sell services
Yes, I have a consulting page on this site, but the idea behind that was to help people with one on one training. I have had a few people ask for help but I haven’t charged anyone for consulting as of yet.

I could push harder in this respect, but I am not in a position where I need to be money greedy and can give away a fair bit of advice for free. I have been working at this a long time, and most people that contact me really just want someone to bounce ideas, thoughts, aspirations or plans off of, and I enjoy participating in such interactions.

4.) Most make money online blogs use ugly advertising systems.
I have tried them all, and there is nothing worse than going to a blog and getting an interstitial, pop-up or an in content link that is an advertisement rather than a link to another real page.

They make many bloggers a fair bit of money but feel spammy, scammy or just dirty. Most of these advertising services rely on readers not having the knowledge required to avoid them, and aren’t good for community building and the user experience. Never trade user experience for short term cash or your blog will hit a glass ceiling that is hard to go above.

Conclusion

I think too many make money online bloggers aren’t looking out for the well being of their audience. They are in it to make themselves a quick buck, no matter who suffers or sacrifices for it. The strange and scary part is that the more people they trick, and the more money they make, the more popular they become.

It is a weird snowball effect that requires duping a large number of people that are hoping to learn more about making money online into clicking an advertisement or buying a product and in doing so, it gives credence to the original author, thus bringing more interest to the blog.

I enjoy teaching, training, and helping others, and in doing so, I have built up a nice community of great readers and commenters. The hard part is to not get jealous of what others have done, and just enjoy what I am doing.

Originally posted on June 4, 2008 @ 10:53 pm