Great Way to Get Blog Readers: Make Them Pay!

The thing I love about blogging is that so many experts are giving out great information free of charge. (And I mean experts that know what they’re doing, not the “gurus” who just want to scam you…)

I was hoping that with all this free (but useful) information, the fake “gurus” and their get-rich-quick scams would slowly get filtered out and forgotten.

But now I’m wondering if a new Wordpress plugin designed to turn your blog into a paid-membership website might cause some problems.

First of all, the plugin costs $25, so it’s one of the rare plugins you have to pay for. But then it makes it so if anyone wants to read your blog, they have to pony up and open their PayPal wallet…

If this company was venture-backed and had a huge marketing budget, they’d probably make a big stink like PayPerPost and (more recently) the BuyBlogComments comment spamming service. I just can’t imagine the true bloggers condoning these members-only blogs.

Fortunately, I don’t think any smart people will pay to read a blog, so I don’t see this making a huge impact. The useful blogs already out there will certainly remain free, because those smart people are happy to help others.

But the gurus on the other hand…

The “gurus” might just start getting into blogging if they can profit. The $97 ebook phenomenon might slow down, only to see a surge of $37/month membership blogs. This in turn will give blogging a bad name, much like the internet marketing industry as a whole.

I don’t want to read the “Make $16,298 overnight on autopilot just by stuffing a few envelopes” blog, but a total newbie might. And they might just get suckered in because of the marketing principle that says something like charging a price makes your product seem more valuable and/or exclusive, and in turn more people will go for it than if you were giving it out for free.

(You know those companies that charge $75 for a plain cotton t-shirt? It’s the same principle.)

Anyway, that price tag, coupled with a long sales letter, might just attract some followers. And once they get roped in, it will take a while for the experts and helpful forum members to get these innocent newbies back on track.

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