Why Your Blog Still Holds Value

Hello Reader,

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Inspired by a question I got in my workshop last week (if you missed it, I'm considering re-running in in late spring), I thought I'd depart from my planned newsletter this week and talk about monetizing content on your website.

What this means is leveraging your website—usually a blog—as a secondary or even primary revenue stream. Back in the day we'd call this blogging as a business, but these days it's generally the more trendy content creator catch-all that's used. Typically, these kinds of blogs monetize in a few different ways, including:

• Advertising. There are any number of ads networks bloggers can join and the earnings are based on views or clicks. (Curious what kind of revenue you can make with ads? Google has that info available for their ad network.)
• Sponsored content. In this scenario, companies pay the blogger to showcase their product.
• Affiliate revenue. Affiliate income is generated by people clicking links to purchase products or services.
• Patreon/Tip Jars/Etc. While these are somewhat different, the idea is that readers can support the blog financially. In the case of Patreon, people get access to a community, special content, or other exclusives as a benefit.

There are other streams of incomes that blogs often have, but those are the biggies. My own business blog has definitely benefited from affiliate revenue over the years. Currently my most profitable recommendation is actually the app I use to send the very email you're reading, Kit. (Hey, you can sign up using my affiliate link!)

However, this kind of monetization relies on organic traffic. And SEO (search engine optimization) has changed a lot, and many high quality blogs as a business have been hit hard by a series of updates. There's some history here that's important to acknowledge.

At one point, it was honestly relatively easy to start a monetized website or blog—the mattress reviewers, for example, made bank (I know, so random) doing this. Startups paid big bucks to affiliates, and it was easy to join these programs. Many sites were making over five figures each month with basic, keyword-rich content. Over time, those basic sites fell by the wayside as companies tightened up their affiliate contracts, traffic dried up, and consumers got a bit more savvy. But high quality monetized blogs continued to do well.

And then a couple of years ago, there were a number of big shifts that came together to create a lot of chaos:

• Google implemented AI overviews, which have a low click rate to websites
• The modern algorithm started valuing topical authority (e.g. the website with the most accurate and comprehensive information)
• Google also started penalizing sites that were ad-heavy due to poor user experience
• And simultaneously ad networks and affiliates reduced their investment in this kind of media

Basically, we saw a big dip in the revenue that many monetized websites were experiencing. Candidly, my revenue from affiliate type content definitely went down—but it was not my core revenue stream, so I was less concerned.

One might think that leveraging your blog content as a revenue stream may be dead—but like so many things declared DOA, that's not the whole picture.

There are still opportunities for people who want to add monetized blogs to their business mix. Here are five I like right now.

1. Reader-Supported Models. Think paid newsletters and similar exclusive content that your readers can pay a small fee for access to. Patreon is a popular option for this. For example, a food-related website could offer an exclusive recipe or demo just for Patrons.
2. Deep-Dive Content. While "listical" style posts are not doing great, longer form content, deep dives, and more niche or specific information that people can't find else is still doing well (often better than ever) and can be monetized with ads or affiliate links.
3. "Impulse Buy" Digital Products. I actually love this option as a way to backfill lost ad revenue for sites that previously did well with ads or affiliates. This has been my approach and my blog post titles ebook has been selling well. Someone more ambitious could create a suite of digital products that could help replace lost ad revenue. Be sure to price it at the "impulse buy" level to make it a no-brainer decision.
4. Strategic Partnerships. While companies are a bit more reserved with blog sponsorships these days, opportunities are still out there! I regularly get unsolicited offers to sponsor content on my blog or newsletters, and I'm not particularly high profile, I'm just known as someone who creates good quality, original (key point) content.
5. YouTube. I'm not a big fan of pivoting to another algorithm, however, I know enough people who've been able to replace some lost blog revenue with YouTube monetization that I would be irresponsible if I didn't mention this. (Again, be cautious counting on this, because it is something that takes time to build and it's not retiring in Cabo kind of money.)

Realistically, if you previously did well with content monetization you're going to need to take a multi-pronged approach to do so. If you're brand-new, there could be interesting opportunities ahead for you if you take a topical authority (remember, that's the site with the most authoritative content) approach to your content strategy, which will rely less on volume and more on quality and thoughtful monetization.

Now, I know there's a good chance you're in no way interested in ever turning your content into a revenue stream, but even so, I hope this look behind the curtain is helpful in your understanding of how all of this is working on the internet at the moment—and why some of your favorite content creators may be making some big shifts right now.

Talk soon,

Sarah