I’ve started a blog with a few friends over at theweeklyshiner.com, and integrated within that are Google AdSense ads. The only problem is, AdSense takes everything on the site too literally and, frankly, comes up with some ridiculous ads for the various pages of my site. Where AdSense would work for a blog like this that – for the most part at least – puts up serious content, it can’t work on a blog that jokes about hockey teams, or Tucker Carlson running for the presidency. You simply end up with ads that have no relevance to the content, and thus have low conversion rates. So what’s a website aiming to monetize to do?
Well, for one, we can (once we gain popularity) offer a freemium version of The Shiner while keeping exclusive content for the payers. But this seems like a difficult option, as I’m at pains to determine just what to exclude from the main site and offer to paying users. We can also, to help supplement cash, open a shop and start selling swag. There’s no way, however, that a website like this can ever completely prop itself up on gear sales. So either way, this leads me to wonder what I am going to do, or what I can offer, that will allow us to survive beyond ad revenue. Which brings me to this article from TechCrunch, where I’m stealing and adapting this point to inform my own current predicament:
This discussion certainly isn’t over. We’re going through a major sea change. It happened to music, it happened to consumer services, it’s happening to newspapers and publishing, and it will happen to business software. The business models are changing. It means software businesses will need to be innovative and adaptable, but ultimately you’ll survive if people want what you have to offer, regardless of the price tag.
In other words, a web start-up is going to have to work really hard to convert those users into a revenue stream. The rub, however, is that your exposure is much more than you could have hoped for anywhere else during any other previous decade. The potential for making money is there. So, while I’m being forced to work harder to monetize my news site, I sort of enjoy it. There’s a challenge in this all to come up with new ways to bring people into your brand while providing something people want to pay for, consistently. How about you guys out there? Anyone got a bright idea?
By the way, I don’t want to come off as someone solely concentrated on money. I’m doing The Shiner because I love the process of writing news and satire. This is just an issue that’s been stuck in my brain for some months…
I hear blackmail and kidnapping can really bring in the money.