Anyone interested in monetising their blog would do well to read this timely piece from Brian Clark at Copyblogger. Brian Clark, like me, isn’t a big fan of advertising:

Ironically, the original blog monetization strategy of choice — advertisements — is the one that continues to be the most frustrating for most bloggers. I’m more convinced than ever that the traditional approach to web advertising is a bad deal for sponsors, and a terrible deal for publishers.

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Whether you want to call it a blog or not, social media content production results in an influence platform, not a passive advertising doormat. I’m not saying you can’t make money from sticking 125×125 ads in your sidebar, I’m just saying you’re walking away from the lion’s share of revenue and ignoring the bigger picture.

He goes on to list four better ways to make money through your blog – direct sales, affiliate marketing, integrated sponsorships and ‘network marketing’ (the last I find a little suspect). All extremely good ideas, and in line with my thinking. Of course, I am not intending to make any money through my blog (at least not right now), so all I can do is shout from the sidelines.

The problem with advertising is that it distracts readers from what you are writing. When people come to my blog, I want them to read what I write here. I want them to follow the links I’ve put up. I want to interest, amuse, entertain and provide value. If I put adverts next to my writing – particularly the attention-grabbing video and audio ads which are becoming ever more common – I’ve just distracted your from my writing and lessened the impact of my site. If I put up plain and non-intrusive adverts, nobody will click on them and I won’t make any money. It’s largely a lose-lose situation.

On the other hand, affiliation is something I have a lot of support for. That’s where, for instance, I could tell you that the WALL•E 2-Disc DVD is well worth buying and includes a fascinating documentary called ‘The PIXAR Story’, and if you click the link and buy the DVD, I’ll get a little bit of money for it. That way we’re all happy – you’ve found out about a great product, Amazon has made a sale, I’ve got a little bit of money and the pride of having helped you. We’ve also built our relationship and you’ve become more likely to listen to my recommendations in the future. That’s a win-win.

There are even better ways to make money, too. Iain Dale may not directly make very much from advertising, but he uses his blog as a platform for increasing his media profile and bringing more value to his paid speaking engagements and journalistic work. Jessica Hagy doesn’t have any direct advertising at all on Indexed, but she’s published a book of her marvellous Venn diagrams, and sells tee shirts with them on to make money. John Gruber makes thousands of dollars a month by having his RSS feed sponsored – and the companies and products which sponsor him see big jumps in their sales thanks to it.

Bottom line is this: there’s plenty of better ways to use your blog to make money than simply slapping an advert or two on the front page. All it takes, in the words of Peter Pan, is faith and trust – and a little bit of pixie dust.