Like many part time / hobby webmasters, my goal is to make my hobby (blogging) self sustaining. I’d love to make A LOT of money doing this, but in reality, I’d just like to make some money — enough to cover costs. Up until recently, I have been able to keep the costs ridiculously low. But since I moved hosts, the costs have crept up.

In an effort to recoup some of the costs, I rejigged the ads (Adsense) and the payout has been better, but I’d like to generate a little more revenue (like I’m sure many people would like). I considered a number of methods of making a little more money from this site and as I studied the multiple options to me I came upon one very important realization: most ‘monetized’ websites are monotonous.

Monotonous websites have a banner or adsense ad on top, text link ads on the side(s), adsense in the navigation menu and pressed into the content, and affiliate links to anything that is even remotely related to the content of the page. Boring, and it looks bad. Although I’d like to make a little more money, I also want to make sure this site stays clean and cruft free — you won’t be seeing an banner or ‘punch the monkey’ ads here. I also don’t want to resort to writing about ‘products’ in an effort to get traffic in ‘niches’. In effect, I’d like to increase the money without increasing the monotony.

Below you will find what I believe are four of the best ways to make money for a typical blogger that do not involve monotony. But first, some clarification of terms:

Monotony:
1. Uniformity or lack of variation in pitch, intonation, or inflection.
2. Tedious sameness or repetitiousness: the monotony of daily routine.

Monotony is one of those good words: it sounds like its meaning…. boring. In the blogosphere it is important to not be boring or monotonous, no one wants to read the same tired schlock that everyone else puts out (I’m thinking of link bloggers). It also important to appear different, have a unique skin / theme / header graphic.

Monetize:
1. To convert into money.
2. To convert from securities into currency that can be used to purchase goods and services.

Monetize is also important to many webmasters as it deals with how to turn ‘the product’ (the website) into money. I personally, find too many websites filled with ads. Filled to the brim. Its boring. They are monotonous.

The Question

How can I monetize but not monotonoize? Or put another way, how can I make money without becoming a banner ad, affiliate linking, ebook pandering whore?

Assumptions

First, lets assume you don’t write about a ‘product’ or within a ‘niche’. By this I mean you site isn’t focused on Digital Cameras, cell phones, “mesothelioma lawyers” or any of the phrases / keyword found on this list. Its great if your passion does happen to be digital camera’s and you do write effectively about them, but this article probably isn’t for you.

Second, we’ll assume that your site provides original content. By this I mean that your site contains new information that people might actually read — not just a listing of annotated daily bookmarks [LOL u gotta chek this site out!]. In other words, what is on your site is what you have written.

My Answer

Income from blogging on a well monetized and un-monotonized site consists of four possibilities. They are listed in order of potential income for a small blog (this isn’t for your engadget’s and lifehackers).

1. Market Yourself - You have managed to create a website — congratulations, its not easy! Sell your skills and knowledge to local contacts, your family, and friends. Offer to create websites for them (the hard part) so they can fill them with the content (the easy part). Host their website and manage their email. Also take care to make sure that your website looks good and isn’t boring or monotonous. This increases your odds of impressing potential clients.

Earning money from your website doesn’t mean that revenues are generated at your site. If you run a good looking site with no ‘on site’ advertising of any kind, you can still make a tidy sum. Personally, I think this is the easiest way to make money. You are the expert, sell your expertise. (Be careful not to become that relative who picks up the summer job pimping knives though!)

2. Sponsorship - If Nascar can paint its cars with logo’s, why can’t you? Ok, Nascar is a really bad example (can you imagine the blogging equivalent of a Nascar car? Why it might look like this). Here is a good example: sponsored links. Sell a small portion of your site to advertisers, clearly label it, profit. If you want someone else to manage it, consider a text link ad brokering service (Text Link Ads [full disclosure, affiliate link])

3. Contextual advertising - Use adsense / YPN / MSN sparingly and good things may happen. While the first two items dealt almost exclusively with making money, this item also requires keen attention to monotony. I personally am much more likely to click on an ad that is well placed and presented. I believe that the best ads are within the text and match the form and function of the website. This isn’t the place to discuss how to use adsense, but it is certainly of paramount importance to place ads correctly. See the list of references below.

The number one thing not to do is to plaster your site with ads. To me, this indicates that you are ‘dragnet’ fishing for dollars simply hoping that by putting up a huge net of advertisements, someone will accidentally click on one. While this approach may work right now, in the future (getting nearer all the time), things like adblock and filterset G will become more and more prevalant, web surfers and browsers will become more and more aware of these tactics and their ability to generate revenue will decline. This leaves you, the dragnet fishing webmaster, without the necessary skills needed to implement advertising that is effective and follows the form and function of your website. My philosophy is one well placed ad per page.

4. Ask for donations - Karma works in strange ways. I think there are two camps of Internet users, 1) those ignorant of webmastery and adsense stuffed sites who will click blindly on any interesting looking link, and, 2) those aware of spammy tactics and can differentiate between real content and fake. The latter group of users use firefox with adblock and filterset G to render most advertising methods null. Asking for donations works well for the web saavy group. If they like what you write, they may throw some scratch your way. See how Mark Jaquith has laid out his donations page.

Other methods of making money include affiliate programs, ebooks, courses, seminars, speaking, writing for other blogs, selling your blog, and selling Tshirts. With the right site and theme any and all might work, however if you are hobby blogger or are just starting out I think you’ll want to steer clear of them.

For example, while selling your blog may generate some income, it also removes you from your ‘baby’ or hobby as well as a future revenue stream. Who builds models only to sell them? Also, don’t write for both yourself and someone else because ultimately you will be saving your best material for someone else’s site. And why write for another person when you can do if for yourself, be your own boss?

In short, money can be made via your hobby without you monotonizing your site and pimping every pixel. It just takes a little bit of style, common sense, and restraint. Also, you need to be able to work your contacts and (ironically) pimp your self, not your website.