We’re now in the second half of 2019, and I think I’ve finally locked myself into a solid monetization model for this website. In addition to ads and affiliate links, I’ll now be handling membership through Patreon.
Membership Struggles
For a long time, I’ve fought with different ways to monetize the site. In fact, over the last year or so, I’ve tried two different membership plugins. While they worked fine, I didn’t love having to convince people to sign up through my patch job of a membership site.
In addition, membership was a maintenance nightmare. Not only did I have to establish rules for which posts were protected and which weren’t, but I also had to find ways to funnel people to their accounts. As someone who just wants a website that works without all the hassle, I found maintaining the membership site to be a huge pain.
Then, I found out about a plugin which would allow me to do what I was already doing but through Patreon instead. In other words, no maintaining my own members, no handling my own money, and no extra website overhead needed. It just works!
Introducing Patreon
In the past, I had a Patreon, but I didn’t have enough of a following to make it work. In addition, it felt like a lot of work at the time to maintain that, the blog, and social media, so I gave it up. Of course, now I’m back, and I have tiers and goals for everyone.
Tiers
At the time of writing, I had setup three main tiers:
- For Fame! – $1
- For Glory! – $5
- For Honor! – $11
If you’re familiar with how the membership site used to function, the first two tiers probably make a lot of sense. In particular, I have a cheap tier (For Fame!) which gets your name placed on my Wall of Fame.
Meanwhile, if you want access to the premium content on the blog, you’ll need to purchase a membership to the For Glory! tier. In this tier, Patreon will create an account for you on my site which will be used to grant access to Patron-only content.
Finally, I’ve created a sort of open-ended tier with folks who want sneak previews of upcoming articles. For instance, at the time of writing, I had a sneak preview of the RSA Encryption article. In the future, I’m hoping to use that tier for more intimate topics. For instance, I’d like to host polls and other discussion threads for only my closest Patrons.
Goals
If you were around for the membership site era, then you may recall that I had a table of goals that I wanted to achieve. For instance, after 10 subscriptions, I was going to upgrade one of my security plugins. Well, now that table has been transitioned to Patreon.
In general, you can expect all of the same goals. For instance, I want to eventually host my own hackathon, so if that’s something you’d be interested, tell your friends!
If there are any goals you’d like me to add to the list, go for it! I haven’t really thought about them since I created that table, so I could absolutely use the help.
A Look Ahead
For now, I’m quite content with where the site is at, and I think I’m going to stop modifying it for awhile. After all, there’s not much left for me to experiment with except maybe different ad communities. With that said, I’m happy with where I’m at. Now, I can focus on writing which is something I love to do.
In addition, you can always hop on my mailing list or continue browsing the site. The following articles are great place to start!
- What is a Programming Language? (Warning: Controversial!)
- My First Ad Revenue Paycheck
- Is the Work Finally Paying Off?
Once again, thanks again for the support. If you know anyone who could benefit from my work, let them know about it!
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