Alexa James' Blogger: PB123: How Much Traffic Should a Blog Have Before Monetizing

When is a Good Time to Monetize Your Blog

Welcome to episode 123. Today I am answering a question that I get asked a lot. The question is how early should I monetize my blog?

I know a lot of you are starting or relaunching blogs or starting second blogs. I want to outline a couple of different approaches that I see bloggers taking, and then give you some suggestions on how I would start to monetize my blog if I was starting again today.

Currently, there is a $100 off special on tickets to the ProBlogger Event in Australia happening on the 9th and 10th of September. This discount ends on midnight of July 1st.

Here are a couple of the recent questions I have received about the topic of when to monetize.

“How much traffic should you have to offer advertisements on your blog?” or “How early should consider monetizing my blog?”

In Today’s Episode: 2 Main Approaches for When to Monetize a Blog

Wait – Some people think you shouldn’t waste your time by monetizing too early before you have traffic
- Takes traffic
- Will take time to implement
- Ads may put some people off
Do It From Day 1 – There are reasons to wait, but I always monetize right away
- It’ll earn you a little bit from day 1 – even if it is a little bit, you are earning something, and if you get a traffic spike that money will go up
- It gets readers used to ads – I’m a little skeptical about how many people are really put off by advertising on blogs. I’ve also seen pushback from readers when bloggers put advertising up even later on. People who don’t like ads, just don’t like ads.
- You’ll learn about monetizing blogs – You’ll also learn a lot through trial and error. By putting AdSense up, you will learn things like which ads perform better and best placement, size, etc. This will position you well for other advertising options later on.

A Couple More Thoughts on Blog Monetization

Firstly, don’t invest too much time into too early – do so in a low level way, some methods will take more energy and time, look for easy ways to monetize
Some monetization methods will probably be out of the question early on – sponsors won’t work from day 1 because you need traffic
Some ad networks let you sign up early. AdSense does have some requirements.
Do affiliate marketing – this is the monetization method with one of the lowest barriers to entry. For example, Amazon’s Associate Program can have you up and running with ads in minutes.

If I were starting today, I would probably start with affiliate marketing. Depending on the topic of the blog, I would probably look beyond Amazon at eBooks, courses, and software affiliate programs where the commissions are higher. I would not only be doing this to make money, I would be testing out the following things:

Test out promoting different types of products
Test different price points
Test different marketing (banners, reviews, emails etc)

Don’t obsess about monetization too early. Profitable blogs are built on a number of pillars:

Great content
Traffic (promotion, guest content, SEO, social)
Engaged Readers (building community, building email list, social)
Appropriate Monetization Strategies

Consider monetization early – but work on other factors as well. I did this on dPS and it set up the foundations so I could start to:

Try other affiliate marketing (eBooks, courses mainly)
Reach out directly to advertisers for sponsorships
Develop my own products (eBooks at first, courses, software, printables later)

How did you go with today’s episode?

I would love to hear what approach you took. When did you monetize? What strategies did you use? If you are a new blogger, what is your intention. I’d love to hear your methods and experiences.

Enjoy this podcast? Sign up to our ProBloggerPLUS newsletter to get notified of all new tutorials and podcasts below.

Click Here to Subscribe to ProBloggerPLUS for Free

Never miss an episode – Subscribe to the ProBlogger podcast on iTunes