Blogging for profit?
Ok, not everyone wants to monetise their blog – some people equate money and blogging as some kind of dirty word almost. Some people still like to write for the hell of it and couldn’t really give a rats arse for any kind of monetary payback. Their payback is the reward that comes from getting people involved or simply venting their spleen on a topic near and dear to them.
Its not for me to pour scorn on any money hating anti capitalistic mindset, we can all rant and rave about market inequalities and the evils of money until the cows come home, yet nothing changes the reality of life, which is, we all need the stuff and to have a productive life, we tend to get out and find ways of acquiring it. The easier that task the better no? why work for the man, when you don’t have to, or at least not as hard maybe.
Earning yourself a passive income stream
Blogging and monetising that writing is an excellent way of creating passive streams of income. Passive streams of income are like bank accounts with lots of dosh in them. You get interest monthly and you don’t have to do very much for it.
Getting affiliate cheques every month is quite a pleasant feeling, trust me. 
Blogging for profit isn’t like traditional methods of selling ones labour. You can actually own the means of production, which is you, yourself and sell yourself as that product. Decide upon how much you charge, how much you are paid, when you take your breaks. IOW, it really has the potential to free you from traditional forms of work. Your traffic and authority levels can truly give you what you need. All you have to do is do the leg work and build something of value.
Blog Optimisation Experimentation and Cultivating your Niche
So, having tentatively established that there isn’t anything really evil about making money from your blog/s I just wanted to share some of the programs Ive used and see if I could get a little feedback from people with regard to their own experiences.
We all know that there are lots of ways of monetising ones blog. I’ve blogged on quite a few programs and have shared some of my experiences and gave opinions too. I’ve dabbled with paid reviews, and have recently added the buy me a beer plugin too, just to see if anyone actually uses the thing. After all it cost me $0.00 and took me 22 seconds to install. If I get one beer bought for me, I’m quids in
It is very much early days for me. Many of my past web monetisation efforts have been in affiliate market sectors outside of the blogosphere. This is kinda cool though really, because Ive learnt a great deal about what it takes to get traffic and getting people to click through to stuff and funneling them along various paths which is absolutely central to any monetisation aim. I’m continually experimenting with the blogs I use and the methods I employ too, you have to, why wouldn’t you even, call it BO (Blog Optimisation) without any stink.
It’s a well known fact that some markets are definitely more lucrative than others. People also tend to guard their niches with their lives, as a saturated niche becomes that much harder to play in and compete with.
Every niche is different. Different people interact in different ways dependant upon what they are after. If you can ID those behaviours and tap them in to what you do and how and why you do it, then that’s a very good start in understanding what they are all about; as obvious as it is to say, it needs to be said nonetheless knowing your readership and giving them what they want is a key component in successfully monetising your blogging efforts. Sure, you can’t be all things to all men, but you can certainly be the populist and appeal to your greatest constituency.
Blog Monetization feedback
I put up a little poll recently and some of my readers have clicked on the ‘other’ option. Perhaps I should have added other options that covered the various sponsored blog type options that exist. Sponsored Reviews , Pay Per Post, ReviewMe then there is the buy-me-a beer thing that seems to have gotten people chin wagging all over the shop, ebay and Amazon, auctionAds, Azoogle and a few more I’ve probably forgotten about already.
I don’t have one to hand, but it would be kind of useful to have a list of all the various programs out there today and hear of peoples experiences with them. None of those check out my affiliate link type posts please, I’ll delete those in a heartbeat, but if you do have some experience of a program that you’ve used and are really happy with or sad with even! Then I’d love to hear all about it.
Maybe a quick Pros and Cons type comment even.
Cheers
Google Adsense all the way! lol
For some reason, I just think you cannot beat adsense. It might be harder to make money in the seo/affiliate industry because everyone knows what it is – but in other niches it is great.
Oh I think adsense can be beaten every time. If you can find the right kinds of products and business relationships that fit with your niche then you will be quids in. The key as ever is that thing called traffic
without any of that, you might as well wrap up and go home 
Thats a cool looking site there in your link ace trader. Great idea.
I am a big fan of Google.So most of my eggs are with them.
Hi Dharm
Agreed, Google is a cool program, I’m not knocking it for one minute.
The right answer is, text link ads. They are minimally junky and in my experience between 4 and 400 times as lucrative as adsense (depending on your site’s traffic). It’s been unreal. I still recommend adsense so all the eggs ain’t in one basket, but tla is way more that adsense if your PR is 6 – 8.
Hello Medicine Man
Personally, I think tla’s are a little bit of a high risk strategy, especially if you are dependant upon Google traffic. Why? Well, one of those Googlers, Matt Cutts to be specific, has said that Google aren’t too keen on people selling text links on their blogs and even went as far to say that they’d take action against websites that don’t use nofollow.
To lose ranking juice or PR passing ability on the back of a short term buck gain would in my view be folly.
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/text-links-and-pagerank/
and the more aggresive stance here
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/how-to-report-paid-links/
I’m not saying that Google should be able to dictate how people sell ad inventory on their sites, its just something to think about should someone decide to take that route.
Cheers
google should really stop tryng to take over that world and stick to being what they really are which is a search engine. The internet is for everyone and yes there should be rules but for rules there should be a specific authority not the one who sends you the most organic traffic
Shaz – I guess Google should do lots of things – Ultimately they have garnered a lot of leverage and power from their position. That money buys influence and control. I agree, they should be reined in somehow, hell I’m sure that people who work there probably think the same too.
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For me, it’s always core affiliate programs.
Any particular reason why that is Frank? Does the same apply to all your sites, or is more aligned to the success you’ve had in a particular niche? Just curious.
Nothing matches Google Adsense. Text Link Ads is good since it offers fixed income, but you never know when it will get you in soup.
For a small player, there is no viable alternative to Adsense right now!
Peace and howdy?? I agreed with Robwatts, traffic is the most important. if we join whatever affiliate but with less traffic so that’s all not mean much to us too. Whatever we choose or do, traffic be a priority first, then after that come adsense, bidvertiser, kontera or whatever
DBefore you can start making money or even start to think making money from blogging you must pick a niche for your blog where you have some significant expertise, but make sure it’s a big enough niche that you can build significant traffic. Don’t pick a niche just because you think it will make you money. I see many bloggers try to do that, and it’s almost invariably a
recipe for failure.
I have had the best luck with amazon’s affiliate program for monetizing sites and creating passive income. Of course it really depends on the niche you are in, you aren’t going to make a ton on $5 books no matter how many you sell.