Should You Monetize a Small Personal Blog?

  Image by Karsten Paulick from Pixabay

I've been writing blogs since 2011 and admittedly have made little or no money doing so.  I never had the intention of getting rich by blogging, but I did hope to make enough money to pay for my domain and web hosting. When you are not selling a product or service there are very few ways of earning money from your endeavors. 

The most popular option for monetizing a blog is through the placement of ads on your blog.  The most widely used of these is AdSense from Google. It is quite easy to apply for AdSense and be accepted.  There are no minimum traffic requirements for AdSense, but Google is very strict and unforgiving.  I had AdSense on one of my blogs in 2011, but it was disabled after a friend of mine unknowingly started to click on my ads daily.  I appealed the decision in 2011 and was immediately denied.  Ten years later I tried again and was once again immediately denied.  When you appeal, Google states that it may take 2 weeks for a decision, but their decision came within a couple of hours.  I'm sure they didn't even read my appeal.

I was upset with the loss of Google AdSense but in reality, since I didn't have traffic numbers in the thousands every month, I wouldn't have made anything more than a few cents. For AdSense and similar ad campaigns that rely on clicks to pay, you would need at least 1000 clicks per month to earn a dollar! There are alternatives to AdSense and other similar companies, but they rely on thousands of visitors a month.

Using affiliate advertising, such as Amazon or eBay, is also very popular for smaller blogs.  I have used Amazon ads on one of my blogs for quite some time.  The ads look very pleasing on my blog, but once again I haven't earned a cent. Infolinks is another popular way to monetize a smaller blog and is quite easy to set up.  I am using Infolinks, but have not reached the minimum payout threshold of $50 yet. The more you post, the better the chances of earning money are.

Finally, if you want to "earn" some money to help allay the costs of maintaining your blogs, you can beg! By this I mean you can come right out and ask people for donations through sites such as PayPal or Ko-Fi.  I have the buttons for both of these sites on my blogs.  I have received several donations from the use of these sites, but nothing to brag about.

It is easy monetizing smaller personal blogs, but it often is not productive.  Unless you have unique content or a unique niche you're going to have trouble drawing a substantial amount of traffic, which results in revenue. As with anything involved in blogging you have to be a prolific writer, but that alone will not guarantee success. I've put many, many hours into my blogs with little to show for it.

If you want to write a blog and not have to worry about domains, hosting, and monetization I would suggest you join and write on Medium.com. For $5 a month you can read and write as much as you want and actually earn money for your efforts. I have been writing on Medium for a couple of years and usually earn enough money to cover my monthly membership fee, plus enough money for a coffee and donut.  The more you put into your writing the more you will get out of it.  You're not going to get rich here, but it's better than breaking your neck over maintaining a blog, unless, like me, you like the challenge.  Check out this link for more information. But anyway, good luck in whatever you do.