Yesterday, I started to explore the different ways to make more money with this blog.
Today, I’d like to continue with this by exploring different options that are available both on and offline.
1. Google Adsense
The first, and easiest way to make money with a website is to use Google Adsense. It’s the easiest method for a new site as all you have to do is paste some code into your site, and you’re off to the races. If visitors come to your site, there’s a chance they will leave via the ads that are displayed from Google. You get a percentage of the bid that the advertiser is willing to pay for click. Depending on the niche of your site, Google Adsense can be an easy way to make money. You don’t have to find the advertisers yourself, as google does all the billing and then every month or so you get a cheque from Google.
The downside of Google Adsense, is that there’s a good chance that when the reader clicks, you get pennies per click but the user has left your site for good. You’ve been paid for the reader to leave. But it’s my opinion that Google Adsense is a good place to start. If you’re getting paid for example a quarter per click, there’s a good chance that the advertiser is making even more money than you, otherwise they wouldn’t be advertising on Google, and through them, your site as well.
2. Direct Ad Sales.
This is my favorite, and currently what’s paying my rent. This requires much more effort and is the hardest to attract. I think it would be very hard to find direct sales to work on this site but you never know. The benefit, and I think the fun is the negotiating. As long as you can prove to the advertiser that your site offers a targeted audience that would be interested in their service or product, you should have no problem finding sponsors. How much to charge? If you’ve used google adsense and make say, $200 monthly, shoot for$400 or more with the direct ads. Remember, Google only gives you a percentage with adsense. With direct ads you get to keep all the money. If it took 1000 clicks to make your $200, you approach the vendor and tell them that you can offer them 1000 targeted clicks (or more if your site is growing) for just $400 month. One cool thing about direct ad sales is that you don’t need to worry about getting paid for clicks. If you’re an authority site that’s popular, some vendors or advertisers just want a presence on the site, so their brand is seen online on the right sites. If you’ve got sports site, contact sports companies and sell your direct ads. The worse they can say is no.
3. Subscriptions.
It’s been said “The money’s in the list”. If you can grow a email list, this can be a good way to make money with your site as well. You have to respect the subscriber though. You worked hard to get the subscribers so the signal to noise has to be the right mix but it’s an other resource for income. I might try it later, but right now I’m too new and have too few subscribers. Most offer a free ebook/giveaway in exchange for your email address.
4. Affiliate Programs
This is becoming more and more popular as a reliable way to make income from your siteFor this site, I could use credit cards affiliate programs, or debt reduction sites, or even insurance. Anything financial, I suppose. Bank Accounts. Most financial institutions. I know I can (and do) promote credit card companies and get a commission for everybody approved application. This is what I had planned with this site and if you check the archives my first few posts are nothing but that. But there’s no real value from just listing credit card after credit card and lots of sites already do this. It’s my opinion that writing useful content is the best way to attract readers. I can worry about pimpin’ credit cards at a later date. But, this is an option. This time last year I made almost $1000 by recommending digital cameras from a photo site from Amazon.com using their affiliate programs. This was from a site that was barely 2 months old. There are lots of affiliate programs to join. Commission Junction, Shareasale, and Amazon are three good places to look for products that you could promote with your site
5. Compare Prices/List Deals.
Hey, it worked for me. I compare prices all day long, and feed myself with it. I could do that with credit cards and financial offers as a way to build out this site too. But for now, I’m concentrating on selling my stuff on ebay and writing posts. The other stuff will come in due time. But, if you’ve got a site about baseball, why not write about deals on baseball equiment and compare prices too? All stores are different, and have different shipping and pricing offers. If you’re interested in your topic, finding deals on stuff should be so easy for you to do.
6. Sell your own product. I’d love to do this, but I’d have to create one first. For this site, the product would have to be related to get out of debt, or credit or related to personal finance in some way. Maybe down the road I can sell/promote a product on how I got to debt. Maybe a membership site. Some people like to have coaching and I could offer coaching. I’d have to have a rock solid disclaimer though, as advising about how to spend money/pay off debt could backfire in these litigious times. I’m no expert right now, but 1000 days from now I’m going to have 2.5 years experience under my belt. Who knows. It’s something to consider, but right now my focus has to be on creating value with this site, not making money. The benefit of creating and selling your own product is you own all the profits. The disadvantage of this is that you actually have to create and promote the product.
7.Sell the site. Even if this site didn’t make any money (like now), I could still sell it and realize more than the nine bucks I’ve got into the domain name. The disadvantage right now is that a: this site is new and b: there’s a whole lot of ‘me’ in this site, which would make it hard to sell, if I wanted to pursue other interests. Think about your favorite sites, or even newspapers that you visit, chances are it’s the content you come for and specific writers you enjoy. Even with facebook, it’s your friends that create the content that keep you coming back.
There’s 7 ways that I could try to make money, or you could try too.
Sacrifice of the Day
It’s more cables. Deal with it. 
Actually, this is a really good sturdy, THX certified Monster Component Cable. I’m going to miss this (and wonder if I should hang onto it), but if I find I need a cable I can always go back onto ebay and buy it, So off it goes.
Updates. Not much to report for today. I sold my other set of Monster Speaker Cables for $13, which is kindof low. I’m still trying to get my sea legs around the shipping aspect. I sold all my tennis string as shipping included, but I kindof took a bath on the shipping. So I though I’d start to charge for stuff, but the estimator through eBay was kindof high at $20 for shipping. I haven’t sent these yet. (that’s the next project) but it seems like the estimate was kindof high. I guess after a while you get a feel of what stuff is going to cost to ship and then when I’m there I’ll just start to charge a flat rate. But for now, I’ll use the eBay estimator
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