Finding funding for blogging - the eternal struggle
What got me thinking
Oli over at ThePCSpy posed the question over at the 9Rules notes area (read this question here) as to how he could actually see more rewards for his efforts. He has a few thousand visitors a day, a strong PageRank (PR6) and some very useful posts under his belt and while he maybe doesn't post as often as other bloggers the material is typically quite strong. Clearly unimpressed by his current revenue methods he's looking for more ways to see some return.
A common aim for what?
I too feel his pain, writing a thoughtful post each day takes dedication and doesn't always fit into your social life and while we all do it for the benefit it could give to at least one reader, it's always nice to be able to reclaim some expenses (hosting costs for example). I know Oli reasonably well and he, like many bloggers, just wants some return over investment.
Adsense doesn't quite cut it
Adsense is good for what it is but it's never going to make you rich unless your traffic is monumental - and therein lies the problem. It can make you little bits here and there but to really make a difference you need lots of visitors and rather invasive positioning.
TextLinkAds and others
As I covered in another recent article (Dispelling some alexa rank myths) too many schemes like ReviewMe or Text-Link-Ads rely on a good Alexa ranking, which is only useful if your ranking reflects or exaggerates your traffic. If not, then you'll not only be under-sold but no one will buy your services.
DIY
The only way to actually make money for "normal" webmasters/bloggers appears to be some DIY advertising. Offering a Text-Link-Ads style service on a 1to1 basis to your readers, so that you take 100% of the profits rather than giving the lion's share to someone else. Convincing users to do this however may be difficult. I'll keep an eye open though, if a decent site like TPCS is unable to find funding there's no help for any of us.
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