How can Perfomancing make money?

Part 4 of the Performancing Reboot

How can my blog make money?

It's a question every blogger asks himself one time or the other. If you're lucky (and smart), you get the answer soon enough.

But even if you *know* how your blog will make money (through AdSense if I can increase my traffic, through TLA if I can increase my PR, through affiliate marketing...maybe I could sell a book?), chances are you'll be stumbling through the implementation.

But the guys Performancing are all about implementation right? Showing you how to monetize your blog hands-on and what not?

So how do WE make money?

There are 3 basic things we can do (or your site can do):

1. Services: This is the first and perhaps the most obvious for me, possibly because of my freelance writing and SEO consulting background. If you're an expert on something, why not make money off it?

   There are a couple of issues with services - how do you take out that much time, how do you price them and most importantly, why are you selling your expertise when you could be using it to make more money on your own projects?

2. Ads: Easiest of them all. We could monetize the archives through AdSense, sell text link ads, paid graphics ads like on SEJ, affiliate promos, etc etc. Personally as a blog owner and reader I don't mind ads but I hate the fact that a) ad placements are so uncreative and b) ad creatives are so ... uncreative. Some more effort, guys.
3. Products: In the long run, this is probably the best solution. Think SEO Book, or heck, SEO Elite. A product - whether it's a book or software - is an excellent branding tool and nice earner if you can establish yourself as an authority in your niche.

We've already started on the ads, we have a product (pMetrics) and we are going to working on all three areas (products, ads, services) in the coming months.

If you've got any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.