Revenue Models for blogs & personal sites

Get paid per-month, per-view, per-action, and per-clickHere, I'd like to write a very brief note on four unique revenue streams for blogs. These four are all different with each laying focus on a different aspect of advertising (per-month text-links, per-view, per-action, and per-click). They are more prominent than others in their respective ad-revenue model targeting small blogs and personal websites.

Text Link Ads

Text Link Ads(TLA) offers 2 ways to monetize your blog. One is by displaying Affiliate banners + buttons, and the other is by showing text-links on your blog. Further, Text Link Ads (TLA) network is compatible with contextual advertising such as Google Adsense.

Using Affiliate banners + buttons, you will be paid US$25 for every successful referral. The term "successful" in this context means that a visitor results in a sale or gets accepted into their publisher program.

The second method of monetization (display of Text-links) lets you display flat-rate static text-only link ads on your site. Ads are purchased by advertisers on a monthly basis, and you may earn approx USD15-USD50 per link per month. The Payout is 50/50, and is paid monthly by check or paypal.

AdBrite

AdBrite is basically a marketplace for digital advertising. In addition to earning revenue from pay-per-click ads, you can sell your ad-space via an "Your Ad Here" link. You can also set your own pricing scheme, and control what ads to show on your blog. It enables you to define various pricing models such as 7 day / 1 month advertising periods.

Adbrite also offers an impressive affiliate program for its users. You get 50% of the revenue that your referred webmaster earns in first 3 months, and 10% to follow for next 9 months.

Amazon.com

The Amazon Associates program lets you choose any item from their online catalog, and promote them on your site. The good news is that Associates are paid up to 8.5% of the selling price for the refered items. Its free and easy to get yourself an Amazon-Associate-ID from Amazon.com

I found an interesting web-tool (Blogger-Toolkit) that can help you to quickly get started. This tool can automatically display relevant amazon items on your blog. The relevancy is based on the keywords that you can specify for every post. All you need is the Amazon Associate ID to begin with. To gain a greater control over the display of Amazon products, you may use BMash for your post.

Google Adsense

Google Adsense is a god-sent monetizing opportunity for small content publishers. You can signup for Google Adsense for free before you define your ad-space. When you are approved, Google will display contextual ads in your ad-space. When a visitor clicks on the Ad, you get paid from Google.

The earned revenue is handed over to the client on a per-month basis. However, the revenue structure is not disclosed by Google. No different from others, Google also offers a referral program that you may be interested. As a word of caution, get yourself familiar with the rules & limitations of the Adsense program before you get started.