I wrote this last week for another 'Ask HN' thread regarding starting a successful blog. Thought it would also apply here -
"Generating revenue - whole books can be written on this subject (and they have been). But it can broadly be broken down into five categories -
1. Advertisements - the magic word here is CPM (read up on that). The higher the CPM, higher the payout for you. A word of advice in this matter - adsense is complete horseshit when it comes to CPM. Don't buy into the hype, it's absolutely pathetic. Same goes for Adbrite, Chitika etc. The real money is in PRIVATE ads. Take a look at the prominent blogs - like techcrunch.com for example - do you see any adsense or other types of nonsense on their blogs? It's mainly used as a placeholder in case any private ad spots weren't bought by advertisers. NEVER rely on adsense for your primary ad revenue. Having said that, you won't have private advertisers till you have good traffic, so it's ok to start with adsense. But as soon as traffic spikes up, dump adsense like it's the plague.
2. Affiliate - this is a bit trickier than ads being that it's not completely straightforward. The basic idea is that you link to products on your site and if you readers follow your links to buy those products, you get a cut of the sale. Amazon is a good start, but they're not the best. The key is finding a good affiliate that fits YOUR blog audience the best. The next step would be to beef up on your affiliate marketing skills. Start reading affiliate marketing blogs like shoemoney.com for this.
3. Merchandising - you can sell stuff on your blog. This can be as complicated as actually creating your own product or as simple as setting up a cafe press store and selling related merchandise (INSANELY easy! Just go to cafepress.com and set up a store for your blog, and they will handle the rest, by taking a commission of your sales.)
4. Job Board - a specific section on your blog where ppl can post or look for jobs. Charge based on traffic. You can either set up your own job board from scratch (check out the problogger job boards on the bottom right of problogger.com) or do some research on alternatives - http://www.blogtrepreneur.com/2008/04/29/make-money-with-you... (Job-A-Matic has a good premise). Read up on this.
5. Donations - Bloggers like Steve Pavlina and Leo Babauta use this method and it works out great for them. But it's not for everyone. Your audience has to LOVE you, or at least really appreciate you, for this."
"Generating revenue - whole books can be written on this subject (and they have been). But it can broadly be broken down into five categories -
1. Advertisements - the magic word here is CPM (read up on that). The higher the CPM, higher the payout for you. A word of advice in this matter - adsense is complete horseshit when it comes to CPM. Don't buy into the hype, it's absolutely pathetic. Same goes for Adbrite, Chitika etc. The real money is in PRIVATE ads. Take a look at the prominent blogs - like techcrunch.com for example - do you see any adsense or other types of nonsense on their blogs? It's mainly used as a placeholder in case any private ad spots weren't bought by advertisers. NEVER rely on adsense for your primary ad revenue. Having said that, you won't have private advertisers till you have good traffic, so it's ok to start with adsense. But as soon as traffic spikes up, dump adsense like it's the plague.
2. Affiliate - this is a bit trickier than ads being that it's not completely straightforward. The basic idea is that you link to products on your site and if you readers follow your links to buy those products, you get a cut of the sale. Amazon is a good start, but they're not the best. The key is finding a good affiliate that fits YOUR blog audience the best. The next step would be to beef up on your affiliate marketing skills. Start reading affiliate marketing blogs like shoemoney.com for this.
3. Merchandising - you can sell stuff on your blog. This can be as complicated as actually creating your own product or as simple as setting up a cafe press store and selling related merchandise (INSANELY easy! Just go to cafepress.com and set up a store for your blog, and they will handle the rest, by taking a commission of your sales.)
4. Job Board - a specific section on your blog where ppl can post or look for jobs. Charge based on traffic. You can either set up your own job board from scratch (check out the problogger job boards on the bottom right of problogger.com) or do some research on alternatives - http://www.blogtrepreneur.com/2008/04/29/make-money-with-you... (Job-A-Matic has a good premise). Read up on this.
5. Donations - Bloggers like Steve Pavlina and Leo Babauta use this method and it works out great for them. But it's not for everyone. Your audience has to LOVE you, or at least really appreciate you, for this."
There's actually two more methods as well -
6. Newsletter - http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/feb2009/tc200... - this guy makes a $40 CPM, which is absolutely incredible. Sign up for successful newsletters like dailycandy to get an idea of how they monetize them.
7. Sell a Service - from freelance writing to consulting etc.
What's your site about? That could help narrow down your options.