Affiliate Marketing Commissions

Affiliate marketing commissions are of course the number one concern for those who are already involved in, or who want to be part of the Internet profit making business of affiliate or colleague marketing. For the most popular websites in the Internet, profits each month can reach as high as fifty thousand dollars, but the average affiliate marketing commissions are not more than five hundred dollars. There are many intricate pieces to the puzzle that make up affiliate commissions and making high monthly income from colleague networks is becoming an exacting science. Hundreds of thousands and perhaps millions of savvy Internet entrepreneurs are involved each day in devising new ways to drum up and create business. The pursuit for profit making through colleague marketing is not for the faint of heart nor for those who believe that once a network is created it's time to sit back and watch the profits roll in.

An affiliate marketing network is a large group of websites that share a common theme. The theme may be websites that are somehow related to debt, or they might be related to travel, or sports or politics or any other shared interest. They will include websites as well as blogs and articles on Internet magazines that share a common interest in a specific subject. As a visitor enters the Internet and begins looking for information on a specific area of interest, he may be carried along a vast string of interrelated websites, some carrying only information, others touting products for retail sale, but all having some commonality of subject matter. What may appear to some as a haphazard clicking one's way through an Internet maze can be a very well thought out and profit making guided tour designed well ahead of the day the visitor begins his tour. And as the visitor moves from site to site, affiliate marketing commissions are being generated for each and every colleague whose site is visited along the way.

Affiliate marketing commissions are not a one size fits all proposition. Rather, each network and each colleague's commissions are based on the product being presented. For example, a retail clothing network whose affiliates are selling single items of clothing will probably be a pay per click entity while a network whose main theme is financial services may be a commission-based program only paying for loans that are actually secured. A travel based network may be more interested in building client list for a future email campaign and so is based on a pay per action basis. This means that only when a visitor fills out a data field such as name, email address, phone number and other information is a commission paid. The Bible is clear that Jesus has promised that He will one day return and take all believers with Him to heaven. "And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself; that where I am there ye may be also." (John 14:3) Our responsibility in this is to be prepared spiritually for His return.

Here is a fictional example of how affiliate marketing commissions might be generated on a colleague network. A stay at home mom is looking for a way to make some extramoney with her passion to design costume jewelry. She types in the keywords "at home jewelry based businesses" and is taken to a search page that is filled with blogs, companies and articles on making money at home designing costume jewelry. The woman clicks on a blog that a designer has started and reads articles about how his Internet business originated. Along the right hand side of the article column are links to other jewelry designers, jewelry making suppliers, and retail sellers of costume jewelry. The woman spends an entire afternoon clicking on various links that are provided at each website she visits, and they are all related to costume jewelry. The woman's questions are slowly answered, the ideas for her own business are beginning to emerge, and during her hours of moving from link to link, the woman has made money for all the websites she has visited. 

This example was a pay per click affiliate marketing commissions network. Each time the woman clicked on a different website, she placed seventeen cents in the coffers of each website that sponsored a link she routinely visited. Pay per click commissions can run from one cent to tens of dollars, depending on the network and the colleagues on that program. When a person has a number of websites that can be placed on multiple networks, the opportunity for making more money rises exponentially. But affiliate marketing commissions are also based on other actions besides a simple mouse click.

For example, the pay per action commission is paid only when a visitor pays for a data field being filled. Many companies are hungry for email list building information, and are not necessarily pressing for a sale at the time. A network based on these types of affiliate marketing commissions may include financial, educational, loan and perhaps travel industry members. Customer information can be almost as vital to these industries as the sale itself. Depending on the network a filled data field may be worth more than a simple pay per click and so the commission rates can be higher. And of course there are the straight commission networks that pay much higher rewards for actions that lead to high dollar transactions. Rewards for an ad that leads to a large mortgage loan may bring a host website hundreds of dollars in commission fees.

Affiliate Internet Marketing Tip

Anyone in search of an affiliate Internet marketing tip need look no further than the nearest online commerce website. Information and guidance on this type of web promotional activity is widely available. There are sites and resources that can take a hopeful online entrepreneur through each step of becoming a successful marketing affiliate. Affiliates work with Internet businesses to promote products and services to online shoppers. Many webmasters are in search of ways to make their successful sites more profitable. At the same time, there are many e-commerce sites that look for ways to attract new business. One of the best ways to achieve this is to place ads and links in carefully selected locations on the web. Networks that specialize in online marketing connect webmasters with appropriate affiliates. If things work as planned, both the merchant and the webmaster will earn revenue. Merchants gain new customers who would never have found them had it not been for the exposure that the merchant gained from placing an ad on an affiliate's website. Webmasters earn commissions on any merchandise that a linking customer might purchase from the merchant. A good affiliate Internet marketing tip can help a novice marketer make the most of these programs. In addition to sales commissions, webmasters might also be reimbursed every time an Internet visitor simply links to a merchant site, although in some cases these fees will be very low. Some programs will only pay referral fees when a certain number of links have occurred.

From the affiliate's point of view, building and maintaining a quality website and taking the necessary steps to direct traffic to that site are the main responsibilities. One valuable affiliate Internet marketing tip is to take advantage of the promotional tools that are offered by the program that a webmaster is a member of. These promotional tools might include banners, button ads, and links. The availability of these tools will mean that the webmaster does not need to come up with any advertising material on their own. Some webmasters report that banner ads are less likely to encourage visitors to link to another site. Experimentation with the type of promotional tool is the most effective is probably a good idea. One factor that makes affiliate marketing function properly is the user identification and tracking cookies that record the activity of a web visitor. Special software will record any purchases that a linked shopper might make. Should this same customer make repeated purchases, webmasters will continue to receive commissions. Of course, if tracking cookies are the medium that is used to trace activity, this may not be an effective way to record continuing sales since many consumers regularly clear their computers of tracking cookies. Once a cookie is no longer active, there is no way to continue to trace linking and buying behavior. Checking how commissions are traced and recorded is another valuable affiliate Internet marketing tip.

Of course, cookie removal is not the only problem that can impact an affiliate's earnings. Another helpful affiliate Internet marketing tip would be to take the time to talk to folks who have already walked this road. Benefiting from their advice might mean a quicker journey to regular income and success as an online marketer. A wise entrepreneur will understand just who the target audience of their website is. Knowing the needs, interests, and habits of the typical visitor can aide in the selection of an online merchant partner. Once ads and banners have been published, a webmaster's job is far from done. Web visitors will not be likely to return repeatedly to a site that rarely changes or that offers little beneficial content. For this reason, successful affiliates will constantly change, update and ad to an existing site. Product reviews, informative articles, and interesting blogs can be a great way to create a community of likeminded and regular visitors. As the saying goes, if you build it, they will come. Keeping this fact in mind is a valuable affiliate Internet marketing tip. Making sure that commission payments are fair and that all commissions earned are credited is equally important. This can be particularly difficult when merchants also process offers by phone. A potential marketer should discuss these issues with the advertising network before signing any agreements.

When considering how to approach building an income as an online marketer, it is never a good idea to spread things too thin. Carefully choosing just how many products or merchant sites can be marketed is a wise affiliate Internet marketing tip. In general, it is a good idea to start off small at the beginning, and add new challenges as skill and experience increases. Finding a way to succeed in this area of commerce without creating frustration and stress can be a real balancing act. The Bible talks about the peace that God provides for believers. "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." (John 14:27)

Making a good selection of an e-commerce partner is another affiliate Internet marketing tip. Before consenting to sign on with a particular merchant, it is a good idea to visit the merchant's website. If the site shows a less than professional structure or is hard to navigate, it can be a turn off to potential customers. Without buying customers there will be few commissions on sales for affiliates. However a hopeful online marketer decides to proceed, seeking tips and advice from those experienced in the field is a good idea.

Affiliate Marketing Services

Online entrepreneurs who join forces with affiliate marketing services can earn regular monthly incomes through referral fees and sales commissions. A service of this nature will unite interested webmasters with businesses and e-commerce merchants that are looking for a way to inform consumers of a website or product. A major benefit of this type of online promotional activity is that an associate will not generally need to provide any money up front. Signing on with affiliate marketing services can usually be done free of charge. The main ingredient that affiliates must bring to the table is a functioning website that can demonstrate a proven track record for attracting Internet traffic. Marketing of this nature will involve the placements of advertising on participating websites. These ads will refer visitors to other sites including merchant web pages or e-commerce sites. Included in these ads will be links that a visitor can click if they wish to check out the advertised merchant site. Merchants benefit from increased traffic. The benefit to affiliates will depend on what actions a linking visitor takes. If this visitor opts to make a purchase while at the merchant's web page, the affiliate will earn a commission on that sale. In some cases, affiliates also earn referral fees when visitors link to a merchant site. Payment is made based on the performance of the marketing program.

One key to establishing a strong presence on the Internet is getting the word out about a particular website. The World Wide Web is a crowded place. Finding ways to stand out is important. Successful affiliate marketing services can help online businesses connect with Internet traffic. In most cases, an affiliate's website will be chosen on the basis of some relation that the web page has to the merchandise that is offered by an e-commerce site. Programs that unite webmasters and merchants can provide an important and profitable service for both parties. These marketers function as a team for the benefit of all. Reputable affiliate marketing services will recruit webmasters who wish to turn a quality website into an income earning venture. These services will also recruit companies, organizations, and merchants who are looking for ways to market merchandise and connect with potential customers. When these two pieces of a promotional puzzle are brought together, increased sales and consistent income can be the result. Most networks allow merchants and associates to have real time access to sales data and information on commissions earned. These programs will also handle making payments to affiliates. Payments are commonly made on a monthly basis. Ads and banners and other promotional materials will also be made available to associated websites by the network service.

The qualities that affiliate marketing services look for when recruiting new associates can vary. Obviously, affiliates with websites that can draw steady traffic are a needed commodity. In addition to this qualification, the types of individuals who frequent a website should be considered. Merchants will want to join forces with webmasters whose pages appeal to consumers who are in the market for the merchandise that the merchant sells. Obviously a manufacturer of sports related clothing and memorabilia will want to advertise on sites that their customers are likely to frequent. That being the case, a webmaster that has created a website that is dedicated to romance novels might not be the best fit for the sports merchant no matter how compelling that site might be. A sports trivia site, however, would be much more likely to direct potential customers in the merchant's direction. Once a related site has been found, the quality of the web pages should also be considered. Is the content interesting enough to keep visitors around long enough to notice the merchant's ad and link to it? Does the content change on a regular basis, keeping visitors coming back for more? What kind of search engine ranking does the potential affiliate's website offer? Skilled affiliate marketing services can usually provide answers to those questions and help businesses find a good online marketing match.

Affiliates have little responsibility other than to maintain a website and continue to create content that will interest visitors. Generally speaking, the better the site, the more visitors it will attract. Obviously, the more visitors who opt to click on to a linked ad, the higher the number of referred buyers will shop at a participating merchant's web page and the more revenue an associate will earn. Some affiliate marketing services will handle basic customer service issues as well as monitoring tracking and linking behavior. The object of online marketing is to spread the word about a particular company or product. The Bible talks about the way that God hears the prayers of believers. "I cried unto the Lord with my voice, and he heard me out of his holy hill. Selah." (Psalm 3:4)

All in all, there are benefits in belonging to affiliate marketing services for each participant. For affiliates, consistent revenue can be earned without developing new products or maintaining an inventory. Merchants will be introduced to customers who may not have discovered the vendor's merchandise without the affiliate's referral. Once an ad has been placed, associates can simply wait for commissions to come in. Most programs will offer help lines and support to both affiliates and merchants. In addition program managers will also maintain online databases that inform associates and merchants of any linked sales or commissions that are owed.

Advertising An Affiliate Marketing Program

Anyone who is advertising an affiliate marketing program can do so in a number of ways that may effectively increase both web traffic and revenues. The best and most organized affiliate marketing program will struggle to earn a profit if no one knows about it. Getting the word out about helpful websites and marketable products is what advertising an affiliate marketing program is all about. Marketers have used such tools as search engine optimization and linked emails to connect with potential buyers. The way that affiliate programs work is relatively easy to understand. Affiliates are webmasters and entrepreneurs who offer space on their own websites that contain links to other sites. These links will lead to e-commerce sites that offer products that relate to the linking website. Placing ads on these related sites can be a great way to fish for likely customers. E-commerce sites are matched up with the appropriate webmasters by marketing networks. The obvious benefit for the merchant is an increase in sales. But what is the benefit for the affiliate? Whenever Internet visitors links from an ad to a merchant's web page and makes a purchase, the affiliating webmaster will earn a sales commission. The best way to succeed with this type of on line promotional venture is to get information out to likely customers.

Professional services that help entrepreneurs with advertising an affiliate marketing program can be extremely effective. These agencies can aide on line marketers with a number of needs. Such needs could include developing a strategy for success, effectively handling any design issues, creating a website, promotional efforts, and maintenance issues. By meeting with an interested client, these agencies can help individuals zero in on a particular niche as well as the type of network that would provide the best fit. Some programs will supply all of the needed promotional material such as ads and banners. However, if this is not the case, a professional service can help clients create quality promotional materials that will fit well with their particular website. In addition to design services, help with such issues as copy writing will generally be available. After this, professional marketers will then get to work on setting a promotions program into motion. Tracking progress and results is another service that is usually offered. The costs of such programs could range from a one time up front fee to a subscription that is paid on a monthly basis. Through the help of these services entrepreneurs and merchants can obtain help in advertising an affiliate marketing program. By working with a professional agency, affiliates and merchants can make sure that all of their efforts are put to the best use possible.

There are many choices available when it comes to advertising an affiliate marketing program. It is best to always make sure that an affiliate's website is attractive and easy to navigate. Visitors will rapidly click away from a site that is unorganized or difficult to figure out. All the advertising efforts in the world cannot overcome serious faults such as these. The same is true of an e-commerce site. Only a very dedicated customer will stick around if the basic structure of the website is shoddy. And if customers are not sticking around, they are not making purchases. It goes without saying that if customers are not buying, no one is making any money. Affiliates who wish to turn a profit will want to carefully check out a merchant e-commerce site before entering into any kind of agreement. Whenever a domain name is brand new, it can take time for that name to become well known on the Internet. Skillfully advertising an affiliate marketing program can go a long way toward addressing this problem. Becoming part of more than one affiliate program through the same website can dramatically increase an affiliate's profits. Discovering a niche can be effective as well. Choosing a niche that is in demand and will sell well on e-commerce sites is crucial to on line marketing success. Of course, it is important that the products that are marketed are of high quality as well as popular.

In addition to advertising an affiliate marketing program, there are many software products that are available to on line entrepreneurs. Anyone who is willing to work hard and apply proven techniques can generally be confident of success in this area of on line advertising. These software products can research the kinds of products that are likely to perform well in an affiliate marketing situation. A careful examination of trends as well as providing accurate tracking information are two more benefits that such software products may offer. The Bible describes the kind of confidence that believers can have in the faithfulness of God. Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. (Philippians 1:6)

From an e-commerce merchant's point of view, advertising an affiliate marketing program is essential. A careful match between affiliating websites and e-commerce merchants is the first step. Merchants will want to choose affiliates with sites that have some relationship to the type of product that they sell. This is necessary if the merchant hopes to come in contact with likely customers. A merchant can choose to either sign on with a professional service or handle all of their own promotional needs themselves. If this is the case, the merchant will be responsible for tracking sales and making commission payments to affiliates. Whatever approach is chosen, merchant's and affiliates working together can increase sales and bring in profits.

Advantages Of Affiliate Marketing

There are many advantages of affiliate marketing that a person should consider when deciding on business opportunities. For those who are seeking an opportunity that requires minimal time and effort, then this particular brand of marketing may be just what they have been waiting for. Simply put, affiliate marketing is where companies recruit individuals to promote products or services on their websites. Businesses can choose from several different options when it comes to what results they expect from the marketing tactics. And with a variety of choices and the seemingly effortless nature of the program, the current fascination and enthusiasm with this type of profit sharing is easy to understand.

Among the advantages of affiliate marketing programs is the benefit to the merchant. Companies and businesses across the globe spend millions of dollars a year on advertising. In order for products to sell and services to be requested, the public has to know about them. That is why advertising companies and independent marketers are in such high demand. Everyone wants an opportunity to showcase their company to the world in the best possible light. But this frequently comes at a high cost.

This is not so with affiliate marketing. For sellers, the one of the greatest advantages of affiliate marketing is that they do not have to pay exorbitant fees for promotional materials. Once an individual agrees to post a banner, or an ad, on his website, the seller can reap the benefits without having to pay hefty costs up front. And since the website owners only get paid after results are seen, it is another good way to make sure that the money is not being needlessly wasted. And one sure way to succeed in business is to make certain that whatever decisions, even ones concern advertising, that are made, are made after careful research and thorough planning. "Every prudent man dealeth with knowledge: but a fool layeth open his folly" (Proverbs 13:16).

Included in these advantages of affiliate marketing for the merchant is the unlimited potential. There are no rules or contracts stating the number of sites a seller can have sign up to promote his business. Therefore, if the seller is able to find enough people, he can have his product being peddled on hundreds of sites. This, of course, increases the amount of product visibility, which inevitably leads to higher interest and sales. And while, certainly, not everyone on every website is going to be interested in the product, the chances of finding future customers increases with each website that links back to the merchant. Many large, successful companies today can attribute much of their success to this brand of marketing, proving that the possibility for success is not beyond reach.

Individuals also get to enjoy the advantages of affiliate marketing. The nice thing for the affiliate is that he is essentially getting paid without having to do any work. By simply posting a clickable ad on his site, the person has already done the hard work. There is no upkeep or scheduled tasks to attend to. Visitors to the website can click on the advertisements at will, any time, day or night. Thus, the individual can be making money even while he is sleeping, without having to put forth any extra effort.

Affiliates also have the luxury of advertising for more than one company. This can be a huge asset to a person. As long as the individual makes sure to thoroughly check out the companies they plan on entering into an agreement with, and find that the business practices are ethical, there is no reason why someone should not work on setting up multiple streams of Internet income. By not doing this, a person is really limiting himself, when he could be taking advantage of a variety of niches and trends in order to offer something appealing to a wide variety of readers. By partnering with several different companies, the potential for a livable income increases, and while getting rich may not ever happen, it is not unrealistic to expect that eventually, one might make a tidy sum from the venture.

Both merchants and affiliates can reap the advantages of affiliate marketing. As long as both parties are in agreement and have come to an understanding of business, and compensatory terms, there is no reason that the business relationship should not be both productive and satisfying. Individuals may, eventually, have the opportunity to work from home, either focusing completely on advertising for others, or by using that as a supplement. They also have the capability of working, or devoting time to a project, on their own terms. The hours are flexible. These non-rigid structures may also improve the general quality of life for many participants. By allowing time for doing other things that a traditional job would not, marketing online usually relieves stress rather than adding to it.

Merchants can expect to see increased revenues in the long term and small advertising payouts in the short term. And unlike with traditional marketing positions, one of the advantages of affiliate marketing is that no one has to be added to the payroll. Companies can consider the affiliates as freelancers, who only get paid with certain results. This also eliminates the added responsibilities of staffing people who specializing in advertising. As a whole, this system is beneficial to everyone involved in the process, even the customer, who may stumble upon a placed ad and discover a business whose products or services enhance their lives. As shown, the advantages of affiliate marketing are numerous, and if considered and planned properly, the downsides are few.

For more information: http://www.christianet.com/makemoney

How to Make Money From Your Blog

StevePavlina.com was launched on Oct 1st, 2004.  By April 2005 it was averaging $4.12/day in income.  Now it brings in over $200/day $1000/day(updated as of 10/29/06).  I didn’t spend a dime on marketing or promotion.  In fact, I started this site with just $9 to register the domain name, and everything was bootstrapped from there.  Would you like to know how I did it?

This article is seriously long (over 7300 words), but you’re sure to get your money’s worth (hehehe).  I’ll even share some specifics.  If you don’t have time to read it now, feel free to bookmark it or print it out for later.

Do you actually want to monetize your blog?

Some people have strong personal feelings with respect to making money from their blogs.  If you think commercializing your blog is evil, immoral, unethical, uncool, lame, greedy, obnoxious, or anything along those lines, then don’t commercialize it.

If you have mixed feelings about monetizing your blog, then sort out those feelings first.  If you think monetizing your site is wonderful, fine.  If you think it’s evil, fine.  But make up your mind before you seriously consider starting down this path.  If you want to succeed, you must be congruent.  Generating income from your blog is challenging enough — you don’t want to be dealing with self-sabotage at the same time.  It should feel genuinely good to earn income from your blog — you should be driven by a healthy ambition to succeed.  If your blog provides genuine value, you fully deserve to earn income from it.  If, however, you find yourself full of doubts over whether this is the right path for you, you might find this article helpful:  How Selfish Are You?  It’s about balancing your needs with the needs of others.

If you do decide to generate income from your blog, then don’t be shy about it.  If you’re going to put up ads, then really put up ads.  Don’t just stick a puny little ad square in a remote corner somewhere.  If you’re going to request donations, then really request donations.  Don’t put up a barely visible “Donate” link and pray for the best.  If you’re going to sell products, then reallysell them.  Create or acquire the best quality products you can, and give your visitors compelling reasons to buy.  If you’re going to do this, then fully commit to it.  Don’t take a half-assed approach.  Either be full-assed or no-assed.

You can reasonably expect that when you begin commercializing a free site, some people will complain, depending on how you do it.  I launched this site in October 2004, and I began putting Google Adsense ads on the site in February 2005.  There were some complaints, but I expected that — it was really no big deal.  Less than 1 in 5,000 visitors actually sent me negative feedback.  Most people who sent feedback were surprisingly supportive.  Most of the complaints died off within a few weeks, and the site began generating income almost immediately, although it was pretty low — a whopping $53 the first month.  If you’d like to see some month-by-month specifics, I posted my 2005Adsense revenue figures earlier this year.  Adsense is still my single best source of revenue for this site, although it’s certainly not my only source.  More on that later…

Can you make a decent income online?

Yes, absolutely.  At the very least, a high five-figure annual income is certainly an attainable goal for an individual working full-time from home.  I’m making a healthy income from StevePavlina.com, and the site is only 19 months old… barely a toddler.  If you have a day job, it will take longer to generate a livable income, but it can still be done part-time if you’re willing to devote a lot of your spare time to it.  I’ve always done it full-time.

Can most people do it?

No, they can’t.  I hope it doesn’t shock you to see a personal development web site use the dreaded C-word.  But I happen to agree with those who say that 99% of people who try to generate serious income from their blogs will fail.  The tagline for this site is “Personal Development for SmartPeople.”  And unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your outlook), smart people are a minority on this planet.  So while most people can’t make a living this way, I would say that most smart people can.  How do you know whether or not you qualify as smart?  Here’s a good rule of thumb:  If you have to ask the question, you aren’t.

If that last paragraph doesn’t flood my inbox with flames, I don’t know what will.  OK, actually I do.

This kind of 99-1 ratio isn’t unique to blogging though.  You’ll see it in any field with relatively low barriers to entry.  What percentage of wannabe actors, musicians, or athletes ever make enough money from their passions to support themselves?  It doesn’t take much effort to start a blog these days — almost anyone can do it.  Talent counts for something, and the talent that matters in blogging is intelligence.  But that just gets you in the door.  You need to specifically apply your intelligence to one particular talent.  And the best words I can think of to describe that particular talent are:  web savvy.

If you are very web savvy, or if you can learn to become very web savvy, then you have an excellent shot of making enough money from your blog to cover all your living expenses… and then some.  But if becoming truly web savvy is more than your gray matter can handle, then I’ll offer this advice:  Don’t quit your day job.

Web savvy

What do I mean by web savvy?  You don’t need to be a programmer, but you need a decent functional understanding of a variety of web technologies.  What technologies are “key” will depend on the nature of your blog and your means of monetization.  But generally speaking I’d list these elements as significant:

• blog publishing software
• HTML/CSS
• blog comments (and comment spam)
• RSS/syndication
• feed aggregators
• pings
• trackbacks
• full vs. partial feeds
• blog carnivals (for kick-starting your blog’s traffic)
• search engines
• search engine optimization (SEO)
• page rank
• social bookmarking
• tagging
• contextual advertising
• affiliate programs
• traffic statistics
• email

Optional:  podcasting, instant messaging, PHP or other web scripting languages.

I’m sure I missed a few due to familiarity blindness.  If scanning such a list makes your head spin, I wouldn’t recommend trying to make a full-time living from blogging just yet.  Certainly you can still blog, but you’ll be at a serious disadvantage compared to someone who’s more web savvy, so don’t expect to achieve stellar results until you expand your knowledge base.

If you want to sell downloadable products such as ebooks, then you can add e-commerce, SSL, digital delivery, fraud prevention, and online databases to the list.  Again, you don’t need to be a programmer; you just need a basic understanding of these technologies.  Even if you hire someone else to handle the low-level implementation, it’s important to know what you’re getting into.  You need to be able to trust your strategic decisions, and you won’t be able to do that if you’re a General who doesn’t know what a gun is.

A lack of understanding is a major cause of failure in the realm of online income generation.  For example, if you’re clueless about search engine optimization (SEO), you’ll probably cripple your search engine rankings compared to someone who understands SEO well.  But you can’t consider each technology in isolation.  You need to understand the connections and trade-offs between them.  Monetizing a blog is a balancing act.  You may need to balance the needs of yourself, your visitors, search engines, those who link to you, social bookmarking sites, advertisers, affiliate programs, and others.  Seemingly minor decisions like what to title a web page are significant.  In coming up with the title of this article, I have to take all of these potential viewers into consideration.  I want a title that is attractive to human visitors, drives reasonable search engine traffic, yields relevant contextual ads, fits the theme of the site, and encourages linking and social bookmarking.  And most importantly I want each article to provide genuine value to my visitors.  I do my best to create titles for my articles that balance these various needs.  Often that means abandoning cutesy or clever titles in favor of direct and comprehensible ones.  It’s little skills like these that help drive sustainable traffic growth month after month.  Missing out on just this one skill is enough to cripple your traffic.  And there are dozens of these types of skills that require web savvy to understand, respect, and apply.

This sort of knowledge is what separates the 1% from the 99%.  Both groups may work just as hard, but the 1% is getting much better results for their efforts.  It normally doesn’t take me more than 60 seconds to title an article, but a lot of experience goes into those 60 seconds.  You really just have to learn these ideas once; after that you can apply them routinely.

Whenever you come across a significant web technology you don’t understand, look it up on Google or Wikipedia, and dive into it long enough to acquire a basic understanding of it.  To make money from blogging it’s important to be something of a jack of all trades.  Maybe you’ve heard the expression, “A jack of all trades is a master of none.”  That may be true, but you don’t need to master any of these technologies — you just have to be good enough to use them.  It’s the difference between being able to drive a car vs. becoming an auto mechanic.  Strive to achieve functional knowledge, and then move on to something else.  Even though I’m an experienced programmer, I don’t know how many web technologies actually work.  I don’t really care.  I can still use them to generate results.  In the time it would take me to fully understand one new technology, I can achieve sufficient functional knowledge to apply several of them.

Thriving on change

Your greatest risk isn’t that you’ll make mistakes that will cost you.  Your greatest risk is that you’ll miss opportunities.  You need an entrepreneurial mindset, not an employee mindset.  Don’t be too concerned with the risk of loss — be more concerned with the risk of missed gains.  It’s what you don’t know and what you don’t do that will hurt you the worst.  Blogging is cheap.  Your expenses and financial risk should be minimal.  Your real concern should be missing opportunities that would have made you money very easily.  You need to develop antennae that can listen out for new opportunities.  I highly recommend subscribing to Darren Rowse’s Problogger blog — Darren is great at uncovering new income-generating opportunities for bloggers.

The blogosphere changes rapidly, and change creates opportunity.  It takes some brains to decipher these opportunities and to take advantage of them before they disappear.  If you hesitate to capitalize on something new and exciting, you may simply miss out.  Many opportunities are temporary.  And every day you don’t implement them, you’re losing money you could have earned.  And you’re also missing opportunities to build traffic, grow your audience, and benefit more people.

I used to get annoyed by the rapid rate of change of web technologies.  It’s even more rapid than what I saw when I worked in the computer gaming industry.  And the rate of change is accelerating.  Almost every week now I learn about some fascinating new web service or idea that could potentially lead to big changes down the road.  Making sense of them is a full-time job in itself.  But I learned to love this insane pace.  If I’m confused then everyone else is probably confused too.  And people who only do this part-time will be very confused.  If they aren’t confused, then they aren’t keeping up.  So if I can be just a little bit faster and understand these technologies just a little bit sooner, then I can capitalize on some serious opportunities before the barriers to entry become too high.  Even though confusion is uncomfortable, it’s really a good thing for a web entrepreneur.  This is what creates the space for acollege student to earn $1,000,000 online in just a few months with a clever idea.  Remember this isn’t a zero-sum game.  Don’t let someone else’s success make you feel diminished or jealous.  Let it inspire you instead.

What’s your overall income-generation strategy?

I don’t want to insult anyone, but most people are utterly clueless when it comes to generating income from their blogs.  They slap things together haphazardly with no rhyme or reason and hope to generate lots of money.  While I’m a strong advocate of the ready-fire-aim approach, that strategy does require that you eventually aim.  Ready-fire-fire-fire-fire will just create a mess.

Take a moment to articulate a basic income-generating strategy for your site.  If you aren’t good at strategy, then just come up with a general philosophy for how you’re going to generate income.  You don’t need a full business plan, just a description of how you plan to get from $0 per month to whatever your income goal is.  An initial target goal I used when I first started this site was $3000 per month.  It’s a somewhat arbitrary figure, but I knew if I could reach $3000 per month, I could certainly push it higher, and $3000 is enough income that it’s going to make a meaningful difference in my finances.  I reached that level 15 months after launching the site (in December 2005).  And since then it’s continued to increase nicely.  Blogging income is actually quite easy to maintain.  It’s a lot more secure than a regular job.  No one can fire me, and if one source of income dries up, I can always add new ones.  We’ll address multiple streams of income soon…

Are you going to generate income from advertising, affiliate commissions, product sales, donations, or something else?  Maybe you want a combination of these things.  However you decide to generate income, put your basic strategy down in writing.  I took 15 minutes to create a half-page summary of my monetization strategy.  I only update it about once a year and review it once a month.  This isn’t difficult, but it helps me stay focused on where I’m headed.  It also allows me to say no to opportunities that are inconsistent with my plan.

Refer to your monetization strategy (or philosophy) when you need to make design decisions for your web site.  Although you may have multiple streams of income, decide which type of income will be your primary source, and design your site around that.  Do you need to funnel people towards an order form, or will you place ads all over the site?  Different monetization strategies suggest different design approaches.  Think about what specific action you want your visitors to eventually take that will generate income for you, and design your site accordingly.

When devising your income strategy, feel free to cheat.  Don’t re-invent the wheel.  Copy someone else’s strategy that you’re convinced would work for you too.  Do NOT copy anyone’s content or site layout (that’s copyright infringement), but take note of how they’re making money.  I decided to monetize this site with advertising and affiliate income after researching how various successful bloggers generated income.  Later I added donations as well.  This is an effective combo.

Traffic, traffic, traffic

Assuming you feel qualified to take on the challenge of generating income from blogging (and I haven’t scared you away yet), the three most important things you need to monetize your blog are traffic, traffic, and traffic.

Just to throw out some figures, last month (April 2006), this site received over 1.1 million visitors and over 2.4 million page views.  That’s almost triple what it was just six months ago.

Why is traffic so important?  Because for most methods of online income generation, your income is a function of traffic.  If you double your traffic, you’ll probably double your income (assuming your visitor demographics remain fairly consistent).  You can screw almost everything else up, but if you can generate serious traffic, it’s really hard to fail.  With sufficient traffic the realistic worst case is that you’ll eventually be able to monetize your web site via trial and error (as long as you keep those visitors coming).

When I first launched this blog, I knew that traffic building was going to be my biggest challenge.  All of my plans hinged on my ability to build traffic.  If I couldn’t build traffic, it was going to be very difficult to succeed.  So I didn’t even try to monetize my site for the first several months.  I just focused on traffic building.  Even after 19 months, traffic building is still the most important part of my monetization plan.  For my current traffic levels, I know I’m undermonetizing my site, but that’s OK.  Right now it’s more important to me to keep growing the site, and I’m optimizing the income generation as I go along.

Traffic is the primary fuel of online income generation.  More visitors means more ad clicks, more product sales, more affiliate sales, more donations, more consulting leads, and more of whatever else that generates income for you.  And it also means you’re helping more and more people.

With respect to traffic, you should know that in many respects, the rich do get richer.  High traffic leads to even more traffic-building opportunities that just aren’t accessible for low-traffic sites.  On average at least 20 bloggers add new links to my site every day, my articles can easily surge to the top of social bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, and I’m getting more frequent requests for radio interviews.  Earlier this year I was featured in USA Today and in Self Magazine, which collectively have millions of readers.  Journalists are finding me by doing Google searches on topics I’ve written about.  These opportunities were not available to me when I was first starting out.  Popular sites have a serious advantage.  The more traffic you have, the more you can attract.

If you’re intelligent and web savvy, you should also be able to eventually build a high-traffic web site.  And you’ll be able to leverage that traffic to build even more traffic.

How to build traffic

Now if traffic is so crucial, how do you build it up to significant levels if you’re starting from rock bottom?

I’ve already written a lengthy article on this topic, so I’ll refer you there:  How to Build a High Traffic Web Site (or Blog).  If you don’t have time to read it now, feel free to bookmark it or print it out for later.  That article covers my general philosophy of traffic-building, which centers on creating content that provides genuine value to your visitors.  No games or gimmicks.

There is one other important traffic-building tip I’ll provide here though.

Blog Carnivals.  Take full advantage of blog carnivals when you’re just starting out (click the previous link and read the FAQ there to learn what carnivals are if you don’t already know).  Periodically submit your best blog posts to the appropriate carnivals for your niche.  Carnivals are easy ways to get links and traffic, and best of all, they’re free.  Submitting only takes minutes if you use amulti-carnvival submission form.  Do NOT spam the carnivals with irrelevant material — only submit to the carnivals that are a match for your content.

In my early traffic-building days, I’d do carnivals submissions once a week, and it helped a great deal in going from nothing to about 50,000 visitors per month.  You still have to produce great content, but carnivals give you a free shot at marketing your unknown blog.  Free marketing is precisely the kind of opportunity you don’t want to miss.  Carnivals are like an open-mic night at a comedy club — they give amateurs a chance to show off their stuff.  I still submit to certain carnivals every once in a while, but now my traffic is so high that relatively speaking, they don’t make much difference anymore.  Just to increase my traffic by 1% in a month, I need 11,000 new visitors, and even the best carnivals don’t push that much traffic.  But you can pick up dozens or even hundreds of new subscribers from each round of carnival submissions, so it’s a great place to start.  Plus it’s very easy.

If your traffic isn’t growing month after month, does it mean you’re doing something wrong?  Most likely you aren’t doing enough things right.  Again, making mistakes is not the issue.  Missing opportunities is.

Will putting ads on your site hurt your traffic?

Here’s a common fear I hear from people who are considering monetizing their web sites:

Putting ads on my site will cripple my traffic.  The ads will drive people away, and they’ll never come back.

Well, in my experience this is absolutely, positively, and otherwise completely and totally… FALSE.  It’s just not true.  Guess what happened to my traffic when I put ads on my site.  Nothing.  Guess what happened to my traffic when I put up more ads and donation links.  Nothing.  I could detect no net effect on my traffic whatsoever.  Traffic continued increasing at the same rate it did before there were ads on my site.  In fact, it might have even helped me a little, since some bloggers actually linked to my site just to point out that they didn’t like my ad layout.  I’ll leave it up to you to form your own theories about this.  It’s probably because there’s so much advertising online already that even though some people will complain when a free site puts up ads, if they value the content, they’ll still come back, regardless of what they say publicly.

Most mature people understand it’s reasonable for a blogger to earn income from his/her work.  I think I’m lucky in that my audience tends to be very mature — immature people generally aren’t interested in personal development.  To create an article like this takes serious effort, not to mention the hard-earned experience that’s required to write it.  This article alone took me over 15 hours of writing and editing.  I think it’s perfectly reasonable to earn an income from such work.  If you get no value from it, you don’t pay anything.  What could be more fair than that?  The more income this blog generates, the more I can put into it.  For example, I used some of the income to buy podcasting equipment and added a podcast to the site.  I’ve recorded13 episodes so far.  The podcasts are all ad-free.  I’m also planning to add some additional services to this site in the years ahead.  More income = better service.

At the time of this writing, my site is very ad-heavy.  Some people point this out to me as if I’m not aware of it:  “You know, Steve.  Your web site seems to contain an awful lot of ads.”  Of course I’m aware of it.  I’m the one who put the ads there.  There’s a reason I have this configuration of ads.  They’re effective!  People keep clicking on them.  If they weren’t effective, I’d remove them right away and try something else.

I do avoid putting up ads that I personally find annoying when I see them on other sites, including pop-ups and interstitials (stuff that flies across your screen).  Even though they’d make me more money, in my opinion they degrade the visitor experience too much.

I also provide two ad-free outlets, so if you really don’t like ads, you can actually read my content without ads.  First, I provide a full-text RSS feed, and at least for now it’s ad-free.  I do, however, include a donation request in the bottom of my feeds.

If you want to see some actual traffic data, take a look at the 2005 traffic growth chart.  I first put ads on the site in February 2005, and although the chart doesn’t cover pre-February traffic growth, the growth rate was very similar before then.  For an independent source, you can also look at my traffic chart on Alexa.  You can select different Range options to go further back in time.

Multiple streams of income

You don’t need to put all your eggs in one basket.  Think multiple streams of income.  On this site I actually have six different streams of income.  Can you count them all?  Here’s a list:

1. Google Adsense ads (pay per click and pay per impression advertising)
2. Donations (via PayPal or snail mail — yes, some people do mail a check)
3. Text Link Ads (sold for a fixed amount per month)
4. Chitika eMiniMalls ads (pay per click)
5. Affiliate programs like Amazon and LinkShare (commission on products sold, mostly books)
6. Advertising sold to individual advertisers (three-month campaigns or longer)

Note:  If you’re reading this article a while after its original publication date, then this list is likely to change.  I frequently experiment with different streams.

Adsense is my biggest single source of income, but some of the others do pretty well too.  Every stream generates more than $100/month.

My second biggest income stream is actually donations.  My average donation is about $10, and I’ve received a number of $100 donations too.  It only took me about an hour to set this up via PayPal.  So even if your content is free like mine, give your visitors a means to voluntarily contribute if they wish.  It’s win-win.  I’m very grateful for the visitor support.  It’s a nice form of feedback too, since I notice that certain articles produced a surge in donations — this tells me I’m hitting the mark and giving people genuine value.

These aren’t my only streams of income though.  I’ve been earning income online since 1995.  With my computer games business, I have direct sales, royalty income, some advertising income, affiliate income, and donations (from the free articles).  And if you throw in my wife’s streams of income, it gets really ridiculous:  advertising, direct book sales, book sales through distributors, web consulting, affiliate income, more Adsense income, and probably a few sources I forgot.  Suffice it to say we receive a lot of paychecks.  Some of them are small, but they add up.  It’s also extremely low risk — if one source of income dries up, we just expand existing sources or create new ones.  I encourage you to think of your blog as a potential outlet for multiple streams of income too.

Automated income
With the exception of #6, all of these income sources are fully automated.  I don’t have to do anything to maintain them except deposit checks, and in most cases I don’t even have to do that because the money is automatically deposited to my bank account.
I love automated income.  With this blog I currently have no sales, no employees, no products, no inventory, no credit card processing, no fraud, and no customers.  And yet I’m still able to generate a reasonable (and growing) income.
Why get a regular job and trade your time for money when you can let technology do all that work for you?  Imagine how it would feel to wake up each morning, go to your computer, and check how much money you made while you were sleeping.  It’s a really nice situation to be in.
Blogging software and hardware
I use WordPress for this blog, and I highly recommend it.  Wordpress has lots of features and a solid interface.  And you can’t beat its price — free.
The rest of this site is custom-coded HTML, CSS, PHP, and MySQL.  I’m a programmer, so I coded it all myself.  I could have just as easily used an existing template, but I wanted a simple straightforward design for this site, and I wanted the look of the blog to match the rest of the site.  Plus I use PHP and MySQL to do some creative things outside the blog, like the Million Dollar Experiment.
I don’t recommend using a hosted service like Blogger if you want to seriously monetize your blog.  You don’t get enough control.  If you don’t have your own URL, you’re tying yourself to a service you don’t own and building up someone else’s asset.  You want to build page rank and links for your own URL, not someone else’s.  Plus you want sufficient control over the layout and design of your site, so you can jump on any opportunities that require low-level changes.  If you use a hosted blog, you’re at the mercy of the hosting service, and that puts the future of any income streams you create with them at risk.  It’s a bit more work up front to self-host, but it’s less risky in the long run.
Web hosting is cheap, and there are plenty of good hosts to choose from.  I recommend Pair.com for a starter hosting account.  They aren’t the cheapest, but they’re very reliable and have decent support.  I know many online businesses that host with them, and my wife refers most of her clients there.
As your traffic grows you may need to upgrade to a dedicated server or a virtual private server (VPS).  This web site is hosted by ServInt.  I’ve hosted this site with them since day one, and they’ve been a truly awesome host.  What I like most about them is that they have a smooth upgrade path as my traffic keeps growing.  I’ve gone through several upgrades with them already, and all have been seamless.  The nice thing about having your own server is that you can put as many sites on it as the server can handle.  I have several sites running on my server, and it doesn’t cost me any additional hosting fees to add another site.
Comments or no comments
When I began this blog, I started out with comments enabled.  As traffic grew, so did the level of commenting.  Some days there were more than 100 comments.  I noticed I was spending more and more time managing comments, and I began to question whether it was worth the effort.  It became clear that with continued traffic growth, I was going to have to change my approach or die in comment hell.  The personal development topics I write about can easily generate lots of questions and discussion.  Just imagine how many follow-up questions an article like this could generate.  With tens of thousands of readers, it would be insane.  Also, nuking comment spam was chewing up more and more of my time as well.
But after looking through my stats, I soon realized that only a tiny fraction of visitors ever look at comments at all, and an even smaller fraction ever post a comment (well below 1% of total visitors).  That made my decision a lot easier, and in October 2005, I turned blog comments off.  In retrospect that was one of my best decisions.  I wish I had done it sooner.
If you’d like to read the full details of how I came to this decision, I’ve written about it previously:  Blog Comments and More on Blog Comments.
Do you need comments to build traffic?  Obviously not.  Just like when I put up ads, I saw no decline in traffic when I turned off comments.  In fact, I think it actually helped me.  Although I turned off comments, I kept trackbacks enabled, so I started getting more trackbacks.  If people wanted to publicly comment on something I’d written, they had to do so on their own blogs and post a link.  So turning off comments didn’t kill the discussion — it just took it off site.  The volume of trackbacks is far more reasonable, and I can easily keep up with it.  I even pop onto other people’s sites and post comments now and then, but I don’t feel obligated to participate because the discussion isn’t on my own site.
I realize people have very strong feelings about blog comments and community building.  Many people hold the opinion that a blog without comments just isn’t a blog.  Personally I think that’s utter nonsense — the data just doesn’t support it.  The vast majority of blog readers neither read nor post comments.  Only a very tiny and very vocal group even care about comments.  Some bloggers say that having comments helps build traffic, but I saw no evidence of that.  In fact, I think it’s just the opposite.  Managing comments detracts from writing new posts, and it’s far better to get a trackback and a link from someone else’s blog vs. a comment on your own blog.  As long-term readers of my blog know, when faced with ambiguity, my preference is to try both alternatives and compare real results with real results.  After doing that my conclusion is this:  No comment.  
Now if you want to support comments for non-traffic-building reasons like socializing or making new contacts, I say go for it.  Just don’t assume that comments are necessary or even helpful in building traffic unless you directly test this assumption yourself.
Build a complete web site, not just a blog
Don’t limit your web site to just a blog.  Feel free to build it out.  Although most of my traffic goes straight to this blog, there’s a whole site built around it.  For example, the home page of this site presents an overview of all the sections of the site, including the blog, article section, audio content, etc.  A lot of people still don’t know what a blog is, so if your whole site is your blog, those people may be a little confused.
Testing and optimization
In the beginning you won’t know which potential streams of income will work best for you.  So try everything that’s reasonable for you.  If you learn about a new potential income stream, test it for a month or two, and measure the results for yourself.  Feel free to cut streams that just aren’t working for you, and put more effort into optimizing those streams that show real promise.
A few months ago, I signed up for an account with Text Link Ads.  It took about 20 minutes.  They sell small text ads on my site, split the revenue with me 50-50, and deposit my earnings directly into my PayPal account.  This month I’ll make around $600 from them, possibly more if they sell some new ads during the month.  And it’s totally passive.  If I never tried this, I’d miss out on this easy extra income.
For many months I’ve been tweaking the Adsense ads on this site.  I tried different colors, sizes, layouts, etc.  I continue to experiment now and then, but I have a hard time beating the current layout.  It works very well for me.  Adsense doesn’t allow publishers to reveal specific CPM and CTR data, but mine are definitely above par.  They started out in the gutter though.  You can easily double or triple your Adsense revenue by converting a poor layout into a better one.  This is the main reason why during my first year of income, my traffic grew at 20% per month, but my income grew at 50% per month.  Frequent testing and optimization had a major positive impact.  Many of my tests failed, and some even made my income go down, but I’m glad I did all that testing.  If I didn’t then my Adsense income would only be a fraction of what it is now.
It’s cheap to experiment.  Every new advertising or affiliate service I’ve tried so far has been free to sign up.  Often I can add a new income stream in less than an hour and then wait a month to see how it does.  If it flops then at least I learned something.  If it does well, wonderful.  As a blogger who wants to generate income, you should always be experimenting with new income streams.  If you haven’t tried anything new in six months, you’re almost certainly missing some golden opportunities.  Every blog is different, so you need to test things for yourself to see what works for you.  Failure is impossible here — you either succeed, or you learn something.
Pick your niche, but make sure it isn’t too small
Pick a niche for your blog where you have some significant expertise, but make sure it’s a big enough niche that you can build significant traffic.  My wife runs a popular vegan web site.  She does pretty well within her niche, but it’s just not a very big niche.  On the other hand, my topic of personal development has much broader appeal.  Potentially anyone can be interested in improving themselves, and I have the flexibility to write about topics like productivity, self-discipline, relationships, spirituality, health, and more.  It’s all relevant to personal development.
Pick a niche that you’re passionate about.  I’ve written 400+ articles so far, and I still feel like I’m just getting started.  I’m not feeling burnt out at all.  I chose to build a personal development site because I’m very knowledgeable, experienced, and passionate about this subject.  I couldn’t imagine a better topic for me to write about.
Don’t pick a niche just because you think it will make you money.  I see many bloggers try to do that, and it’s almost invariably a recipe for failure.  Think about what you love most, and then find a way to make your topic appealing to a massive global audience.  Consider what will provide genuine value to your visitors.  It’s all about what you can give.
A broad enough topic creates more potential advertising partners.  If I keep writing on the same subtopic over and over, I may exhaust the supply of advertisers and hit an income ceiling.  But by writing on many different topics under the same umbrella, I widen the field of potential advertisers.  And I expand the appeal of my site at the same time.
Make it clear to your visitors what your blog/site is about.  Often I visit a blog with a clever title and tagline that reveals nothing about the site’s contents.  In that case I generally assume it’s just a personal journal and move on.  I love to be clever too, but I’ve found that clarity yields better results than cleverness.
Posting frequency and length
Bloggers have different opinions about the right posting length and frequency.  Some bloggers say it’s best to write short (250-750 word) entries and post 20x per week or more.  I’ve seen that strategy work for some, but I decided to do pretty much the opposite.  I usually aim for about 3-5 posts per week, but my posts are much longer (typically 1000-2000 words, sometimes longer than 5000 words, including the monster you’re reading right now).  That’s because rather than throwing out lots of short tips, I prefer to write more exhaustive, in-depth articles.  I find that deeper articles are better at generating links and referrals and building traffic.  It’s true that fewer people will take the time to read them, but those that do will enjoy some serious take-away value.  I don’t believe in creating disposable content just to increase page views and ad impressions.  If I’m not truly helping my visitors, I’m wasting their time.
Expenses
Blogging is dirt cheap.
I don’t spend money on advertising or promotion, so my marketing expenses are nil.  Essentially my content is my marketing.  If you like this article, you’ll probably find many more gems in the archives.
My only real expenses for this site are the hosting (I currently pay $149/month for the web server and bandwidth) and the domain name renewal ($9/year).  Nearly all of the income this site generates is profit.  This trickles down to my personal income, so of course it’s subject to income tax.  But the actual business expenses are minimal.
The reason I pay so much for hosting is simply due to my traffic.  If my traffic were much lower, I could run this site on a cheap shared hosting account.  A database-driven blog can be a real resource hog at high traffic levels.  The same goes for online forums.  As traffic continues to increase, my hosting bill will go up too, but it will still be a tiny fraction of total income.
Perks
Depending on the nature of your blog, you may be able to enjoy some nice perks as your traffic grows.  Almost every week I get free personal development books in the mail (for potential review on this site).  Sometimes the author will send it directly; other times the publisher will ship me a batch of books.  I also receive CDs, DVDs, and other personal development products.  It’s hard to keep up sometimes (I have a queue of about two dozen books right now), but I am a voracious consumer of such products, so I do plow through them as fast as I can.  When something strikes me as worthy of mention, I do indeed write up a review to share it with my visitors.  I have very high standards though, so I review less than 10% of what I receive.  I’ve read over 700 books in this field and listened to dozens of audio programs, so I’m pretty good at filtering out the fluff.  As I’m sure you can imagine, there’s a great deal of self-help fluff out there.
My criteria for reviewing a product on this site is that it has to be original, compelling, and profound.  If it doesn’t meet these criteria, I don’t review it, even if there’s a generous affiliate program.  I’m not going to risk abusing my relationship with my visitors just to make a quick buck.  Making money is not my main motivation for running this site.  My main motivation is to grow and to help others grow, so that always comes first.
Your blog can also gain you access to certain events.  A high-traffic blog becomes a potential media outlet, so you can actually think of yourself as a member of the press, which indeed you are.  In a few days, my wife and I will be attending a three-day seminar via a free press pass.  The regular price for these tickets is $500 per person.  I’ll be posting a full review of the seminar next week.  I’ve been to this particular seminar in 2004, so I already have high expectations for it.  Dr. Wayne Dyer will be the keynote speaker.
I’m also using the popularity of this blog to set up interviews with people I’ve always wanted to learn more about.  This is beautifully win-win because it creates value for me, my audience, and the person being interviewed.  Recently I posted an exclusive interview with multi-millionaire Marc Allen as well as a review of his latest book, and I’m lining up other interviews as well.  It isn’t hard to convince someone to do an interview in exchange for so much free exposure.
Motivation
I don’t think you’ll get very far if money is your #1 motivation for blogging.  You have to be driven by something much deeper.  Money is just frosting.  It’s the cake underneath that matters.  My cake is that I absolutely love personal development – not the phony “fast and easy” junk you see on infomercials, but real growth that makes us better human beings.  That’s my passion.  Pouring money on top of it just adds more fuel to the fire, but the fire is still there with or without the money.
What’s your passion?  What would you blog about if you were already set for life?
Blogging lifestyle
Perhaps the best part of generating income from blogging is the freedom it brings.  I work from home and set my own hours.  I write whenever I’m inspired to write (which for me is quite often).  Plus I get to spend my time doing what I love most — working on personal growth and helping others do the same.  There’s nothing I’d rather do than this.
Perhaps it’s true that 99 out of 100 people can’t make a decent living from blogging yet.  But maybe you’re among the 1 in 100 who can.
On the other hand, I can offer you a good alternative to recommend if you don’t have the technical skills to build a high-traffic, income-generating blog. Check out Build Your Own Successful Online Business for details.