This is kind of a continuation of “How To Come Up With Content For a Blog” and since I like to promote blogging and expression of ideas and free speech and virtually try to brainwash everyone to start a blog of some sort, it’s an added bonus when your blog can generate revenue.

So instead of typing out my approach to friends each time a friend launches a site or blog, I’ll simply throw them this page and hopefully they can self discover their way to some incentives.

For starters, lisatong.com isn’t my high earner - TheChineseSoupLady.com is.  This is because of date, we (my sister and I are joint editors and authors) are averaging well over 35,000 page views per month - which actually on the bigger scale of web traffic is PEANUTS.  TechCrunch, one of my favourite technology blogs generates 6.5 million page views a month with 4.4 million subscribed readers!!  That’s 185 times better than our performance, but keep in mind that they are a full-fledged business with a huge following and definitely a bigger balance sheet.  So where do the little people begin?  Here’s how I did it by pretty much floundering in the dark (and reading some of the helpful advice around):

1. Google Adsense - the easiest and fastest way to start getting some site revenue.   They’ve become progressively pickier with who they approve, but worth a shot.
2. Amazon Associates - another common platform for advertising and is paid out in click throughs and purchases.  If you often rave about technology or books or other products, this is a good platform for you.
3. Sponsored Reviews - get paid to write about websites or products.  You can decide what you want to write and how.  I average about 6-7 reviews a year at $40 USD per 300-400 words.  Of course, they get a cut.
4. Text Link Ads - another interesting source of revenue.  You can be selective on which links you want on your site and it’s paid per month.  The revenue here comes and goes pending their clients and whether your content fits their marketing strategy.  Not much in terms of fish biting in the “parenting” category.
5. Foodbuzz - Featured publisher route is the way you want to go and only applicable to food/drinks related sites.  We average around $2 USD per month! LOL.
6. LinkShare - A middle man company that links up bloggers and advertisers.  They have some pretty big vendors (like Toys R Us), but are very specific in who they approve.  Still worth a shot.
7. Third party media companies - We’re going with BurstMedia right now, but there are a gazillion of these middle-men out there.  However, many require a minimum of page views per month (probably 30,000), so if you don’t have the traffic, it’ll be hard to be eligible.  Payout is pretty good with some ads giving $5-6 USD per eCPM. 

Read up on SEO and eCPM if your goal is to align yourself and get into the lingo.  Most companies pay out in either paypal or cheques (with minimal values reached).  Again, for a hobby, our soup site is faring extremely well and I personally love making, drinking and talking about soups.  My personal site is just getting by,  but I don’t let that drive my desire to post or blog or share, the income is just bonus.  So a few tips to get you started and hopefully recover the hosting costs - but the web front can also just be the launch pad of other businesses, so don’t undermine the power of the web.  Happy blogging.