We all want to make money on our blogs. I’ve run dozens and dozens of blogs where the ultimate goal was to make money. And I had quite a bit of success. But, one of the things that I learned early on was that I needed–and I stress that word needed–to have multiple streams of revenue.

Many people think that if they throw Adsense up on their website, they’ll make thousands. I’ve done work with people that do this, but for the most part, Adsense is an archaic and outdated business. You can use it for some supplemental income, but for the most part, it’s not going to mean much for you.
Therefore, how should you monetize your blog?


Naturally, I am an advocate for display advertising. But, you need other things. And this is where an example is really important. A colleague of mine runs a website about watches. He writes about watches and takes pictures of new ones to show them. He was getting about 5,000 visitors a day which, in that niche, was pretty competitive. He was approached by some watch resellers and asked if he wanted to sell advertising.
He did. So, advertising soon popped up on the site with ads for Fossil and WeWood. But, what he realized was that he was sort of hitting a wall. Yeah, he was making some money, but he wanted to make more. And he realized that if other people were making money advertising on his site and then selling watches, why shouldn’t he?

That’s where affiliate marketing came in.
He was able to get access to a bunch of different watch affiliate programs and he tripled his revenue. He was still able to sell advertising–he wanted the diversity–but he also had big calls to action that went to his own watch store.

The thing that is important to understand about affiliate marketing is that it pays the most, but it requires the most work from the customer. Advertising, if it’s CPM based, generates revenue all the time. But, if you run an affiliate business where the person needs to buy the actual watch, you’re going to make more per person, but the amount of people that buy will be reduced.

Affiliate marketing is a great way to diversify your revenue generating, but don’t leave it at that either. I like to have four or five and sometimes even six different ways to make money. On a basketball site I do marketing for, we have a store, a ticket store, sponsored posts, advertising and a fantasy league. The store is affiliate marketing. The ticket store is a mix of affiliate marketing and cost per click. The sponsored posts are flat fees. The advertising grows as more traffic comes. And the fantasy league pays for every person that deposits money.

The point I’m making is…I’ve got five different ways that the site makes money. If each aspect makes a few thousand a month (the advertising might make more to start with), then you’re making $10K+ a month. And that will always grow.

In the end, diversify your income and look into affiliate marketing. It definitely pays off.