2019

Thoughts on Monetizing Your Blog

stargrace August 1, 2019 2Comments

I’m going to start this post off by saying that there’s a pretty hefty stigma concerning monetizing your blog. A lot of people don’t believe in it, don’t want it, and don’t appreciate those who do. That’s perfectly OK, we’re all allowed to do as we wish with our little areas of the internet – but this post is for those who DO want to monetize so I’d appreciate any comments left being useful to that line of thought.

I have no issue posting advertisements on my site. I’ve done it for years, and it helps pay for things like hosting costs and domain names. Writing is a hobby for me and if I don’t make any money off of it that’s OK too, but I’d rather have those costs taken care of.

One important thing I learned from the get-go was to be reachable. You can find an email address on my mail sidebar for contact information so that any prospective advertisers can reach me. I get a handful of emails every month with requests, and I answer every one of them. I don’t always say yes, but I’ll get into details about that a bit later on. So if you’re looking for people to reach out to you, make sure they can.

Consistency is another key factor. You’ll want to be making regular posts, showing up in google searches, and all that good stuff. I don’t do anything special for this in regards to my own site, but it may be something you want to focus on.

You don’t HAVE to say yes – but it sure doesn’t hurt to listen to the pitch. Over the years I’ve heard a few different ones, but the most common I get is:

A post they write (sometimes they’ll pay more if you write the post), with a link or two to their product/site (gambling sites are pretty common), that’s relevant to your site (in my case, gaming). You leave it up as a regular post, sometimes for a set duration, and basically just forget about it. I’ve received anywhere from $75-250USD per post. I have a set amount of money that I’ll accept in these cases, and I turn them down if they’re not willing to meet my fee. I used to feel bad about accepting these paid advertisements – but honestly, it hasn’t affected my traffic and I haven’t seen any negative effects. In my top years I would have 1-2 a month, with lots of posts spacing them out.

I used to get requests for sidebar advertisements, or a page with a listed donor / sponsor, but these have become pretty far and few between over the years.

Occasionally I’ll get a request to test a product or to check something out. One year it was a VPN service, and I have no problems writing a review about something. I make sure to mention that I’ve gotten the product for free (even though it is not currently law here in Canada) just for honesty sake. Again, it’s just an advertised or sponsored post here and there that doesn’t interrupt the natural flow of my site – you’ll have to figure out what works for you, and try to blend it seamlessly.

We feel bad about a lot of stuff in life, and we tend to be really harsh critics of ourselves. I used to try to hide any advertisements that I was getting towards my blog, but honestly, I’m proud that I’ve managed to make a bit of side cash from it. As long as I’m not passing viruses or negative vibes to any readers (be sure to check out the links yourself, safely, before any linking occurs!) a post here and there is hardly a cause for concern.

Blaugust – What’s in a Name

stargrace July 29, 2019 2Comments

It is almost August, and with it comes Blaugust. I’ve signed up as a mentor, and I’ll be making some posts throughout the month for those beginner bloggers, those thinking about starting, or even veterans who are not sure what they want to do. Hopefully someone finds them useful, and if not at least I’ve had a good time posting and working towards my personal goal of posting every day for 2019.

Onward!

This site used to be called MmoQuests, and I kept that name for a very long time (12 years or so). It was the first rendition of my blog, and I chose the name based on what I was writing about at the time, which happened to be EverQuest / EverQuest II – along with many many quests. As the years went on I started to feel that the name of the site was no longer relevant. It started to bother me. I would avoid blogging, and I wasn’t feeling inspired.

I made the decision last year to change to NomadicGamersEh – bringing my love of all kinds of gaming to the forefront (as well as the fact that me and my family are Canadian gamers). I felt MUCH better about the site, and I didn’t feel constrained to write about quests, or mmos. I know it was just a name and I could always write about whatever I wanted, but it felt like an invisible wall pressing down on me. I knew I’d have to make my way back to search functions, tell my audience (what little I have) about the change, get other sites to update their links but I was pretty sure the end result would be worth it.

I have no regrets about changing the name. Since the change I’ve been writing more often, and I don’t feel the old restrictions. I spend a lot of time writing about knitting and fiber arts, even though it says ‘gamers’ in the title. I feel like my site can grow with me, especially as my children grow up. Whether it was all in my head or not I just wasn’t feeling happy about the site, and even though change is pretty scary, I’m really glad I took that jump forward.

If your blog isn’t exciting you any more try to pinpoint why. Do you feel that invisible wall stopping you from making a post because you don’t feel like you have anything relevant to say? Maybe it’s just time to make a little change.