frugal underground

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Blogging is one of the most trendy ways to make money online these days. The question is, though, is it effective? Meaning, for the time you put into it, are you getting as good of a return as you could somewhere else?

I’m not sure. That’s saying something considering that I’m a blog developer.

Don’t get me wrong; I believe that blogging is a tremendously useful marketing tool, but mostly for someone who already has something to sell. It could be a product, a book, or services, but blogging helps multiply efforts to get a reputation as an expert.

Similarly, I believe that blogging offers many benefits beyond money. One is the reality that blogging about something on a regular basis forces you to learn new things and process information in useful ways, and that’s a skill that can help anyone in any job. You could probably even argue that the benefits would be worth paying for.

It starts to get a little murky, though, when you look at blogging as a direct path to money. There are really only a few ways to make money directly from your blog (”monetize it”). There’s advertising (either working with advertisers or going through a service like AdSense). There’s affiliate programs (where you make a commission by encouraging your visitors to buy something). There’s sponsored posts (where you write about a product, service, or site in exchange for a fee). Or you can write for a network (they take care of monetizing the blog and you provide the content for a fee).

As far as I know, those are your options. So the question is, are they good options? Yes and no. Yes, because some people really do make good money with those options. No, because the vast majority of bloggers make an absolute pittance. When you consider the time put in for the money pulled out, it’s much less than minimum wage.

On the other hand, sometimes it’s worth making less than minimum wage if you get other benefits. Besides the afore-mentioned educational benefits, blogging is flexible and allows you to, say, write while staying home with the kids. Try doing that with a traditional job!

It’s really a question of comparisons: how does the effort required and money returned compare to other alternatives? If you’re single or don’t have kids, it’s probably going to make more sense to spend your time elsewhere. That doesn’t mean blogging isn’t a possibility, just that you should consider creating a full-fledged business and blogging to help promote it.

If you’re looking for a small supplementary income that can be made in short spurts of free time, blogging might be a good choice.

In closing, I’ll tell you that this isn’t just an academic question for me. I’m thinking of starting a new blog on Christian wifehood (but a little edgier than that might sound) and am having a hard time justifying the time it would take for the money it would make. That said, it’s something that I care about for reasons other than money, so I might just do it anyway. Would anyone want to write for such a blog?

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