First Things First: Why? A good question to ask yourself when first considering whether to put advertisements on your blog or website is, why are you advertising in the first place? Some of the major reasons that we’ve heard of (at meet-ups, conferences and from other publishers) follow. 1. Quality Content Costs Money. The most [...]
First Things First: Why?
A good question to ask yourself when first considering whether to put advertisements on your blog or website is, why are you advertising in the first place? Some of the major reasons that we’ve heard of (at meet-ups, conferences and from other publishers) follow.
1. Quality Content Costs Money.
The most common argument. When a website owner creates and manages content, they’re providing a service; and they have to spend time continually maintaining it. No surprise then that they want to be compensated for that time. Unless the owner is marketing a salable product, this almost inevitably leads them to consider advertising as their chief source of revenue. Erin Kissane recently reflected on this, the content conundrum, after taking part in SXSW’s publishing panel:
Content isn’t free. If it’s good, it’s very expensive to make. We can subsidize its production and maintenance in any number of ways, but we have to start being honest — with ourselves, our clients and sometimes our readers — about its true cost.… Publishing requires resources: planning, big doses of both creativity and disciplined analysis, writing, editing, design, project management, production, ad sales and so on. It doesn’t usually require a separate person for each of those tasks, but it still tends to be a lot of work — more than most readers and clients tend to imagine.
Jeffrey Zeldman, who manages Happy Cog, the consultancy that publishes A List Apart, corroborates this in his post “Content Wants to Be Paid For.”
Read full article on Smashing Magazine.
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