Monetizing Blogs?

[orion_joel]

Well i have two blogs, and i guess an initial thought i had when i first put them online was that i would like to be able to make some money from at least one if not both of them in the future. Maybe not right now or even in 6 months but some time in the future.

The problem i have is that what i want from both blogs, and the options i am looking at don't really align to well.

For example my personal blog (link in signature) is just that a personal blog, which i dont really want to splash with anything to far out, but also dont want to slap cheap adsense block or other CPC on, however this is leaving me at a loss for what other options i have.

The same deal with my other blog, the intended audience i would hope is mature and based in reality, however i think the topic would attract people that may not always have the best thought pattern at how they can help and may click ads thinking they are helping me when in fact it may just lead to click fraud problems and get me banned using CPC options.

What are some ways other's have added revenue sources to their blogs, which does not distract from the blog to much, and preferably doesn't rely on the income coming from someone clicking on an ad?

[vangogh]

I placed a few ads (affliate banners) on my site, though I can't say they've done much so far. You can sell CPM ads which don't require clicks, but typically you need to have enough traffic before it becomes desirable to advertise on your blog and before you can charge much.

Performancing recently started an ad network called Perfomancing Ads (http://performancingads.com/learn/publishers) to help advertisers and publishers connect. You can either find advertisers on your own or let Performancing find them, though if they do the work they'll take a cut of the ad price (I think the split is 60% for you and 40% for them). If you do the legwork you keep 100% I think.

Here's a nice list of 101 ways to monetize your blog (http://www.insidecrm.com/features/101-ways-monetize-blog122007/) that should generate an idea or two.

I think the best ways to monetize a blog are to think beyond advertising (unless you do pull a considerable amount of traffic). If you offer a service the blog can help with lead generation. If you sell a product the blog can be the top of your sales conversion funnel.

[orion_joel]

Hmmm, definitely something to think about. At this point i am sitting pretty much on less then 100 visitors a month. So i think i need to spend a bit more time building traffic before i even consider trying to build revenue from advertising.

[vangogh]

Yeah, advertising will probably need more traffic before paying off. Then again if you have a group of people all interested in the same things that could still be a valuable market to someone.

I think advertising and affiliate links work best when targeted well to your audience. But again there are other ways to monetize beyond advertising that may prove more profitable.