Do I have to monetize? This is a common question I see. And it’s a pretty good one! Whether or not a blogger has to monetize in order to be successful is highly debated.
Answer: absolutely not!
Society tends to define success by how much money you’re making. In reality, the amount of success you have with your blog should be directly related to how happy you are with where your blog stands. Are you meeting your goals? Are you happy with the content you’re producing? Does blogging in general just make you feel good? If the answers to those questions were, “Yes!” then congratulations! You are a successful blogger.
So why do people monetize?
Mostly because they can and they want to. Many people hold the belief that if you’re good at something you enjoy and you can make money doing it, then it’s something you should at least consider. Just because you don’t do it doesn’t make you wrong. But that doesn’t mean the people who do monetize are wrong, either. It’s all about different goals and comfort zones.
Monetizing doesn’t mean you have to make a ton of cash, either. Many bloggers stick a few advertisements on their blogs and just earn enough to pay for the costs of running the site (self-hosting fees, purchasing new themes, buying anything they might want to use to improve photography, etc.). Others are able to actually use their blog as a second income. (I’ve known bloggers to make upwards of $100k a year from blogging.)
Relying on your blogging income to support your family indefinitely is extremely risky, though. Blogging income is something that can disappear overnight, depending on what parts of blogging are producing the income. For instance, do you get most of your money from ads or do you use your blog to promote books you’ve written? The latter will produce better results and be more reliable.
When it’s all said and done, though, monetizing is a huge pain. For some, it’s worth it. For others, not so much. So if you don’t want to do it, then the answer is simply not to. The end. 🙂
Do you monetize? Why or why not? Leave your answer in the comments!
