In my last blog post I boldly told the world that I am going to give away any money I make from this blog to charity. Having made this announcement I felt warm & fuzzy and ultimately very smug. This smugness lasted for around an hour before the truth hit me.
I have never made a single penny from this website and making money from small sites is notoriously difficult.
In light of this I wanted to share with you how I would normally go about monetising a small website and ask your opinion on how I could do this better.
Google adsense
My first instinct would be to put some Google text ads on the page. Although this is relatively easy to setup I have had limited success in the past with making anything more than a couple of pounds a month. On the plus side they are reasonably discrete compared with standard display advertising. This appeals to me as although I am keen to generate as much money as possible I don’t want to annoy my (two) readers.
Amazon affiliate scheme
The most success I have had making money from small websites has been via the Amazon affiliate scheme. Depending on what people end up buying, the referral returns are reasonably good. Previously, Amazon links have worked best for me on niche websites with a specific, targeted audience. If I can make the adverts on this blog relevant for the audience and subject matter this might work well. Perhaps links to books I have read and recommend would encourage more people to click the referral links and spend money?
Donations
I am not sure how well asking for donations works in general but from personal experience I have occasionally donated money, most often when a small website has shared something that was useful to me. As the money from this site will all be going to charity, asking for donations could be appropriate.
I have limited experience of asking for donations, apart from the odd sponsorship using justgiving.com, so wouldn’t really know where to start.
Suggestions welcome!
I will most likely go for a combination of the above methods, and discover what works and what doesn’t.
Any tips or suggestions would be most appreciated!
This is Russell's personal website, a Web Developer based in London. You can email me at
I think a combination of all of the above is ulitimately going to generate the maximum amount of money for the charity. I also think you need to pick a charity and state why you’ve done so. If you want people just to donate along the lines of if you find something useful here or you use at work etc please donate anything you can to said charity, it would be better if it is something close to your heart.
From my limited experience the best way to make money is to build an audience, make your site 100% buzzword compliant and then sell it to a big company that doesn’t really understand what they are buying.
Just saying…
@ScoobyFru Yep, good point. I need to decide which charity. I could put a poll on the site and let people decide – or is that a bit 90′s?
@Keith OK, so I have come up with a new ad format for this blog called the Super Sliding Take Underlay, it has a massive ROI and is a web first. I just need to find someone willing to snap up this exclusive new offer.
If you want to get some more ideas on making money from a blog this man is the daddy: http://www.smartpassiveincome.com
You should also look at more then just the Amazon affiliate there would probably be some better more targeted ones out there for your blog. For instance 123-Reg and DreamHost do affiliates. DreamHost in particular do a great scheme where you can tailor make your own packages to offer to your readers.
The other option I think would be for you is a eBook. I’m not talking Murder Mystery but more compiling and extending out a group of blog posts that have done you well. So you could do a great one on working with jQuery.
I have read a lot on making money online and the main point I have read is, you should always start with well written quality content. You have that covered…
Hey James, thanks for your advice.
I am going to check out that smart passive income site & look into getting some more targeted ads. I have already noticed the quality of the google ads isn’t great.
Funny you should mention Dreamhost, the one thing I don’t like about their service is their coupon/referral scheme. As a customer I always like prices to be as transparent as possible and having to trawl the internet to find the best possible coupon before I sign up doesn’t appeal.
The e-book idea is interesting, I will give that some thought.