Most bloggers give their content away for free. It’s what we do. It’s the nature of the beast.

But is it a smart strategy?

Yes and no.

As an attraction strategy to draw an audience in, giving away free content makes complete sense. It’s the carrot at the end of the line. It’s the hook you use to provide additional services or sell additional products.

Wait…you mean you don’t offer anything extra? You’re focused on monetizing with AdSense and Google searches? It’s an obvious strategy, in the sense that everyone’s doing it, it’s relatively easy to setup, and we’ve heard plenty of success stories of people many thousands and thousands of dollars. But does it really make sense? There has to be more right?

There’s an old saying: Those that can, do – those that can’t, teach.

Not anymore.

My friends Brian Clark and Tony Clark (not related, or so they tell me) have just launched their new business: Teaching Sells.

And to kickstart things they’ve released a free report on how to really making money on the Internet. Forget monetizing free content. Virtual teaching environments is where it’s at – leveraging your expertise, your knowledge and your free content to get people to pay you money for your work.

I read the report last night. It’s great. Well-written (no surprise), easy to get through, lighthearted but serious. And nicely illustrated (again, no surprise, if you’ve ever read Tony Clark’s blog: Success from the Nest.)

Go check out the report now.
(Note: I don’t make any money by sending you over there.)

The report will help you understand how you’ve been bamboozled into putting in a ton of effort to try and eke out some dollars via AdSense and Google. It’s a compelling argument. Having said that, I’m not opposed to monetizing free content. There is value there, and I’ve seen successful businesses built on that model. But it’s certainly far from easy.

Thinking about that old saying about teaching, I have a new saying to propose:

“Those that can, teach – those that can’t work their butts off to monetize free content aimlessly with minimal success.”

I’m sure Teaching Sells will be a huge success. You won’t find two more trustworthy and focused guys out there. And they know what they’re doing.

(And yes, the headline is a gross exaggeration but I can’t help myself.)