A dilemma solved

There's an idea I've been struggling with for some time -- monetizing the blog.

Extra income is always welcome, I'm sure you'd all agree. I did some research on the topic, and while I don't have the traffic to justify ads and links to shopping sites, I'm also not looking to replace an engineer's salary via the innerwebs.

But I had made it a goal this year to monetize my blog. How many times have you heard the adage "do something you love, and you'll never have to work a day in your life"? Of course, there's the flip side of that one that says making a job out of something you love is the fastest way to lose the love for it.

I can't count the number of spam comments I've gotten (thank you blogspot for providing the ability to censor the comments before they post) selling search engine optimization. Almost enough to make me think I'm in the wrong line of work... if I thought for a second that kind of spam worked. I've had spikes in traffic when I've posted on certain topics (*ahem* Skechers *cough* ). I know this, and can monitor my own traffic, thankyouverymuch.

But I have not, nor will I ever, tailor my content for the purpose of increasing random search hits, just to pad a number of hits in order to justify making money from people who stumble onto my blatherings.

I guess I just see it as selling out. Sure, the extra money would be nice, but I'm not going to bend my ethics to do so.

But then I read a post by Jason Robillard earlier this week. Based on Seth Godin's book Linchpin, he proposes that people base their decisions on what allows them to give more. I made comment about how this helped me to decide on this dilemma -- whether to monetize or not. Is this blog my art? It is a creative outlet, in many respects, and I've freely given it to the world (and oh, aren't we all so much richer for it?).

But there's also another dilemma...

I mentioned Lucky Cause Sports in my last post, and how, up to now, it's been self-funded by my own household. We have had to reschedule one event already, and due to some issues with my car eating up a good chunk of that household income in the last week, there's some risk of the event in May needing to be moved (won't be able to pay for the permits in the needed time frame).

And it hit me. The giving is Lucky Cause Sports, which will do far more good for people I'll never meet than the one's and zero's I store on some server somewhere for all to peruse. So if I moetize the blog, will that allow me to help with LCS more? Yes, it will.

It won't happen today, but at some point, you may see some links along the margins. They'll never cost any one anything, and everything will be above board. Just know that the reason they'll be there is to support a great cause or ten.