Alternate sources of income

Tek7

Tek7

CGA President, Tribe of Judah Founder & President
Staff member
First, just so there's no confusion: No, I'm not planning to put ads on the Christian Gamers Alliance web site or forums now or ever.

I'm posting because I'm thinking of writing technical guides and articles related to video games on my personal site and need a way to make money off that. (The fancy term is "monetization," but I hate business jargon.)

I thought about trying out Google AdSense, but before starting out, I wanted to ask if any of our regulars have experience with earning a secondary income through web site advertising, whether for their own projects or through the company they work for.

If you are familiar with using web site advertising to make a few bucks, what companies would you recommend and why?

I'm still continuing the job search and all that entails, but I thought it might be wise to look at some non-traditional options as well.
 
1) Ads suck (both annoying and trying to make a profit)

if you don't care go to 2

2) Throw up adsense or yahoo or whatever else ads. You will probably need to play with several to see what works best for you. Don't expect to make much money, if at all. In fact hosting will probably cost more then your revenue for a long period (most clicks pay out only a few cents, and most people wont be clicking, some certain topics will net in the 50+ cent range, but those are few and far between).
3) Build up a subscriber base (feedburner and similar websites can help bring in traffic)
4) update, update, update. Google loves sites that are constantly updated, it will hit them like there is no tomorrow. This will help increase your page rank quickly (assuming you are starting at 0). This is rather minor, but providing fresh content will bring more peeps in.
5) At some point you will be in a position to negotiate advertising, so you aren't just a bottom feeder.


Selling a value added service would probably net you a better profit. And once your service is mature it becomes mostly passive income <- which is awesome! Passive income = people giving you money for doing virtually nothing = FTW! Of course I am a programmer, so my objectives are slightly different from that of a journalist/writer.
 
Tek, I'd definitely subscribe! I might even click a few ads if I get a cut.

In addition to this idea of yours, might I suggest creative writing? It's a difficult market to crack into, but it's a good thing to invest time in.
 
Maybe a Tek blog?

Write about all the cool stuff you do? Sky diving, bungee jumping, alternative medicines for treating psychological issues... wait.. errr..

McDonald's might be hiring?
 
...how about making an engadget that's actually better than engadget? the writing and editing has been just a hair short of horrific as of late, not to mention some pretty uninformed posts (e.g. the one calling the scuba camera mask something for "serious" underwater photogs)
 
If you like writing, Might i suggest associated content, (just add a .com at the end to find it.) I've made some money that way.

You write articles and submit them and you can get paid upfront and also for every thousand views. Its not get rich quick by any means, but if you get 50+ popular articles, the per 1k views can start to add up.
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/bump

I added ads to my personal/public site a while back, but I've yet to land a single click-through.

Are there any ways to make money (legally and ethically) through a web site other than advertising?
 
Tek7 said:
/bump

I added ads to my personal/public site a while back, but I've yet to land a single click-through.

Are there any ways to make money (legally and ethically) through a web site other than advertising?
Click to expand...

In all honesty I think you are going about it wrong. Whacking the bush trying to make money pop out isn't really going to work. When you work solely for money you tend to do a horrible job (particularly for creative works). Find something you enjoy (well besides shooting up people in TF2 and turning them into a human torch) and excel at it. Not because it makes money, but because you like doing it and from that people enjoy it and want more. Once you have a horde of loyal brainless zombie fans then you can point them toward an evil objective and take over the universe.
 
vibrokatana said:
Find something you enjoy (well besides shooting up people in TF2 and turning them into a human torch) and excel at it. Not because it makes money, but because you like doing it and from that people enjoy it and want more.
Click to expand...
Epic post right there.
 
to add to VK,

if you wanted to make a popular blog site, which i feel writing is your strong point and what you enjoy, then there are a fair amount of techniques to help you market it. zero punctuation wasnt an overnigt success either ya know?
 
ads and doctrine

be very careful if you choose the ad route.

in the past i have seen Christian or church websites with google ads and the doctrine or content in the google ad that was displayed on their website contradicted with thier actual posted doctrine.

sometimes, it wont even be a Christian issue, you will just have ads that totally oppose what your organization stands for.

and to the best of my knowledge, you dont get to choose

- rh
 
Consider investing in yourself. Read a lot. Since your job may be in any number of areas, focus on the likely ones. Economics? Biology? Church group? Human rights group? A foreign country? Read everything you can. Make yourself indispensable to a future employer. When applying for jobs, make sure you let your interviewer know that you know a lot about a specified area.
 
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