One of the most irritating topics that people seem to want to talk about ad nauseum is how to make money online. Frankly, I’m sick and tired of reading horrible advice on this subject, and I’m even more sick and tired of responding to people’s questions about Google AdSense, which is quite literally the worst monetization service of all time for people who don’t have millions of pageviews per month. In other words, AdSense ain’t gonna work for you, cowboy.
To rectify this abominable confluence of bad info and terrible services, I’m going to clue you in on two sure-fire ways you can actually make real, spendable, negotiable cash from your Website. Not surprisingly, both methods of earning money involve actual products, and while not necessarily falling under the “easy” category, they both find their roots in the “no bullshit” category, which I happen to love.
Method One: Sell Your Own Product
It’s no coincidence that the best way to make money offline also happens to be the best way to make money online. Selling your own product and living by the objective economic laws of supply and demand is by far the best way to generate cash and to protect yourself from all the crap that goes on in the world.
Unless you live under a rock, you’re probably aware of the fact that the US stock market is currently tanking. However, if you own a business and sell your own product, this shouldn’t make any difference to you. After all, you’re selling a product that has a nice demand behind it; you support your customers; and you’re still making sales and forging your place in the market.
Best of all, selling a product online has tons of ancillary benefits:
- You’re insulated from Google to some degree, so “big brother” can kiss your sweet ass. You literally own a piece of the market, and your vertical will persist regardless of Google’s opinion or influence (or anyone else’s, for that matter).
- You get to build your business by developing your product and responding to the marketplace, and the Internet is the most feedback-oriented marketplace there is. Talk about a harmonious situation—I hear doves chirping and violins playing in the background when I even think about this.
- You don’t need to compromise your site – or your users – with ads. Even beautiful ads are ugly, and given the choice, I don’t think anyone who would choose to fill up the real estate on their Website with someone else’s crap when they could be using the same space to promote their own stuff. You want absolute control over every pixel of your site while still making money? You need to sell your own product, my friend.
Now, I realize that not everyone has their own product to sell, so from the perspective of ubiquitous application, this isn’t a great solution. Fortunately, this is where the second sure-fire moneymaking method picks up the slack.
Method Two: Affiliate Product Sales
If selling your own product is the best way to make money online, then it should come as no surprise that selling someone else’s product is the second best way to make money online. In nerdy marketing circles, this practice is known as affiliate sales, and there are tons of average Joes out there who are doing this and making sustainable incomes.
As for the people who are a little more clever than the average Joe?
They’re making a killing.
If you want to find success as an affiliate marketer, the “secret” is simply to pimp a product that you not only use, but also genuinely like. The more knowledgeable and transparent you are, the better you’ll do; but if you can only be one thing, be genuine.
There are countless affiliate programs available online, so which one should you promote? The short answer here is to promote as many programs as it makes sense to promote! For instance, as a Web developer, I routinely deal with a few merchants who also offer affiliate programs:
- aMember — payment and subscription software that I use to manage my customer database on DIYthemes, my WordPress theme marketplace
- vbSEO — a clever collection of PHP scripts that turns vBulletin forum software into an SEO powerhouse
- MidPhase — Shared server Web hosting for smaller sites
- SingleHop — Dedicated server hosting for larger, more demanding sites (for instance, DIYthemes is hosted here)
Given the nature of my work, it makes perfect sense for me to promote these programs wherever appropriate. Now, I don’t really go nuts with these promos, but then again, I’m by no means a hardcore affiliate marketer. Despite this, 7% of my income in 2007 came from affiliate sales, so I’m living proof that even a half-assed effort in this area can produce a decent return.
How About a Hot New Affiliate Program?
If the dating game has taught me anything, it’s that hot and new are always fun, at least for a little while. Interestingly, the affiliate marketing industry exhibits a similar trend—new programs will get hot, generate tons of cash for those involved, and then slowly level off or die out depending on the quality of the product.
Today, I’m pleased to announce the new DIYthemes affiliate program, which I’ve opened in collaboration with Brian Clark of Copyblogger (and affiliate marketing) fame. Brian is literally the most genuine, transparent, and intelligent marketer I’ve ever met, so obviously, getting him on my team for this one was a no-brainer. He knows what it takes to be a successful affiliate, and I wouldn’t have bothered to open this program unless I knew I could help a lot of people kick ass.
We’re paying out 33% commissions, and based on initial sales and user testimonials from our flagship WordPress theme, this program is going to be hot.
So seriously, head on over to DIYthemes, sign up for the affiliate program, and replace that damn AdSense already. What have you got to lose, two dollars… this month?
See you on the site!
Follow me on Twitter for more linguistic porn than you can shake your tallywhacker at.
87 Comments ↓
I love it. I also love Thesis - I am currently using it and it is the best theme imaginable.
Couldn’t agree more… Really spot on and I love the no-BS approach!
I can also back you up with regards to AdSense; we get so many support requests from our users on WooThemes about integrating AdSense that it really gets to be too much… The worst thing is, that they probably only gonna be making $10 / month from it, yet they are still adament that, that is how they are going to monetize their website.
Thanks for the affiliate program
I am there
Chris,
Any concerns about us entering or SSN on an http: protocol and not a http”s” protocol? I want to sign up but am a bit weary. Soothe my soul.
Buck
I’m on it, Chris!
Dear Chris,
I am an user of your template. I think is the best I have seen in a lot of time, but I have some problems with Widgets, for example “democracy polls”. Please, could you help with this problems?
I am not very master with this issues, i would like concentrate my effort on contents, but….
Anyway, thanks for all.
I know that you don’t post as often as we (me) would like, but when you do, it is sweet reading bliss. Thanks.
Bucktowndusty — That’s not a required field, so you should be able to sign up without entering anything there.
Mike — Third-party plugins are the biggest crapshoot of all time. For one, many developers have no clue how to properly design a widget for easy stylistic inclusion into any site. Another thing that’s an issue here is that the code could be outdated, especially relative to the current version of WordPress.
The bottom line is that I can’t support third-party plugins—it’s hard enough being responsible for all the nuances of my own code!
Jonathan — Thanks, man! I’d expect to see more editorial/essay stuff on this site in the future, as I’m basically bored to death with technical writing anymore. Besides, I do more than my fair share of that over at DIYthemes on a recurring basis, so that frees me up to be a little more “real” over here.
Thank you very much Chris. I´ll try to resolve my technicals problems with a friend and if i don´t find answers is probably buy your special pack of this theme.
Best,
Mike.
We are working on a product ourselves, in two actually; one totally free and the other one paid. Hope you guys come around when it’s up; but yes we believe it’s a safe way to “move away” from design and development business little by little.
Of course, it has to work, because an ugly or worthless app won’t work either!
Take care! great post! lovely comments! NOT SO SURE about the affiliate programs, but hey; it’s your call!
Javier Cabrera
— Wrote at Buenos Aires airport.
please,could you tell me a widgets for democracy poll on this templAte?
So many people who want to use blogging and adsense to become billionaires…
Congratulations on you excellent wordpress theme. Best of luck to your success
I could not agree with you more.
Love your stuff! Have you heard any feedback on WP 2.6 compatability with your themes?
Jacque — Thesis had a minor problem initially (with option serialization), but I released a fix the day WP 2.6 came out.
That was fast, thanks! I’m having an issue with Cutline 3-Column and centering of images.
Jacque — Unfortunately, I sold Cutline in March of 2007, so I no longer have anything to do with the theme. In other news, Thesis is centering images like never before
Then Thesis it is! Thanks
Chris,
What you say about the monetizing a site that doesn’t have huge traffic makes sense. I plan on looking into affiliate arrangements.
My site is focused on personal development and self help, so I’ll have to find some great products that are related. Tech products won’t do it for me I’m afraid.
By the way, I’m using your CopyBlogger theme. I modified it quite a bit to suit of course. I enjoyed learning to do that and like the theme quite a bit. This seems as good a time as any to say — thanks
Cheers,
John
Wow Christ, really great post! As i’m a noob trying hard to make some money online. Thanks for sharing!
Be Back!
Sid.
“Lot of money with Google Adsense”! Oh, dear lord! Try to discuss with who believes in that and is only initiating! It´s so irritating! I absolutely agree with you!
I love Thesis!
[...] an easy alternative: sell a product or service directly. It doesn’t matter what it is you sell, because someone out there will buy it - [...]
Chris; what is better, this theme or Thesis theme? On thesis theme do you get a header (hor. banner) like you get in this?
Hi, I couldn’t agree more with you about Adsense. Too much work in optimisation for very little or no rewards at all. I find Affiliate progrms more profitable than adsense.
This was great I’m going to have to pass it on. It is amazing how many people expect to slap together a cheap template site with minimal or copied content, incorporate Adsense and then not spend any money on generating traffic to their site and expect to make money. I get more than my fair share of calls asking ‘why aren’t I making any money, I have a website’. I’m going to send them to this post!
Mike — This theme isn’t for sale, but even if it were, Thesis would still crush it like a bug. As of version 1.0.2, Thesis does not offer a horizontal header photo, but you can easily place one through the use of your custom stylesheet.
Well, just to be contrarian…
I work part-time and make a nice income from my sites, a large deal of it from Adsense. I also get a lot less than a million page views per month, and my sites are in the home and garden niche… not exactly what anyone would guess to be a huge money maker. I’ve built my sites so I could easily swap Adsense for another program, or sell ads directly to merchants, but for now I like it because…
1. I have absolutely no customer service demands
2. I don’t have to sell or pre-sell anything (something you really have to do if you create your own product or even if you intend to do well with affiliate programs)
That said, I’ll probably look into your affiliate program when I’m getting more traffic to my new site. I love your designs.
Take it easy all, and best wishes on your money-making ventures!
Hi LINDSAY, please, could you help me to editing and resolve some problems on my blog? please write my to miguelangel.santacruz@gmail.com and tell you details.
Thank you very much in advance.
Lindsay — Your setup sounds fantastic, but I’m betting you’ve been at that since at least 2006. There’s definitely something to be said for working within a reasonably active niche, but for nascent Webmasters and bloggers, the monetization hill just keeps getting steeper.
You (and plenty of others) are proof that a viable income can be had through ad-based strategies. In spite of this, I’d be willing to bet that the number of six figure Webmasters in the space I described outnumber your kind 4 to 1 (if not way more).
Being an affiliate is really the best deal of all—you make more on a one-off basis than you do with contextual ads, and you get to pass off customer service to the parent company. I’m tellin ya, it’s the perfect storm for any ardent wordsmith.
Mike — This site is not the place to ask about the Thesis theme. Instead, try the Thesis support forums, where you’ll be able to interact with people who are fighting the same battles as you.
Chris good advice, but even with selling your own product or selling others product (affiliate) you need a ton of traffic because only 1% of all the people going on your website will buy. No easy way to make money on the net.
Finally no BS about the subject.
@Marios -
If you’re selling your own stuff and only converting 1% of your traffic, you need to do more to optimize your site (or get higher-quality traffic).
Chris, off topic, but any plan to release this theme as free theme ?
dinu — I’m definitely going to release it, but it won’t be free. At this point, there’s been enough demand that I’d be an idiot not to charge for it.
[...] together. I decided to take AdSense off my main website, even though I wouldn’t go as far as Chris Pearson when he said, “[AdSense] is quite literally the worst monetization service of all time for people who [...]
Hi Chris,
Thanks for all the great work and honest sharing. I am in the process of restaging my personal blog and therefore would like to get in touch with you.
Could you pls drop me a one liner at agrawal.k.manoj@gmail.com (since I couldn’t find your e-mail on the web) so I could share more about the project.
Best regards,
Manoj
Hi,
I am a student and am desperately out fishing ways to make some good money in order to support my expenses along with my higher education.
Can you please guide me a little more elaborately about this. Your article gives a quite good insight and seems genuine. I am sure you are the right peron to contact. My is anubhuti_bajpai@hotmail.com
I completely agree, and love this forum… The internet gives the user so much availability, that if you don’t have any original product anyways, a million of sites will rob you of traffic, promoting the same item and/or keywords.. In the radio business, they guy that designs his own customer antennas or radio equipments makes the biggest profit margin, as they name their own price.
Scott Kaner
Radio Shop Manager
[...] http://www.pearsonified.com/2008/07/how-to-make-money-online.php [...]
LOL I don’t mind paying for this one
make it fast Chris 
The 1% of people who actually buy from you is a statistics(the truth) when I use to work for few e-commerce companies. No body clicks on ads anymore and only few people actually will buy from your website. The only sure thing is, Get a lot of traffic and charge monthly fee for a ads lets say $200 for 125×125 ad, thats only sure money.
Marios — Welp, then I guess it’s time for me to come up with a new strategy. Paying the mortgage proved too easy with mine; I’ll try yours and see what happens.
Chris ofcouse your strategy works for you, you are very popular, you have a big community of people fallowing you including me, you generate a ton of traffic to your website. All you need to do is to sell 10-20 themes, or 6-8 125×125 ads for $200 per month and you pay your mortgage, not a problem for you. You got interview on problogger(congrats) this will give you few extra sells, now you can sell pro blogger book on your blog as a affiliate and you make money, not a problem for you, you got the traffic behind you. Now try your or my strategy on just a regular blog and see if you can pay for a cup of coffee with the money you make.
[...] for your sacrifice. Now, you may know that affiliate marketing is one of the most lucrative ways to make money online, but in order to really drive home the returns as an affiliate, you need to cover two key [...]
Another fine article with sage advice, please keep them coming.
You’re totally right about selling your own product being the best way to make money. And indeed, AdSense is crap unless you have millions of pageviews OR you are a skilled SEO spammer.
I launched my first product a few weeks ago (it’s a specialized kind of theme, for the Pixelpost photoblog platform) and I’ve already made more money than I ever have with any ads solution or affiliate program.
Thanks Chris, that’s a breath of fresh air! I’ve really gotten sick of reading endless advice on making money from adsense and of the misconceptions that surround it. Just stumbled on your blog and from what I’ve seen i’m glad i did. Keep it up!
Anders
Why is it that your smart blog has no search box? :/
My story with AdSense: in 12 months at 2000 or so visits per day I amassed a couple of hundred bucks. I decided to relegate Google’s ads to the oldest of my posts and concentrate on affiliate marketing. With some coming in at up to 50% commission it was a no-brainer.
Steve
Hey Chris what is the affiliate link cloacker you are using? I will apreciate it if you can point me in the direction with your affiliate link too
how ironic
Thanks and take care
Jorge — It’s not a cloaker; it’s just a simple PHP jump script from Steve Dawson.
Chris - normally I take precautions before reading anything you’ve written (as in making sure I don’t have any drink in my mouth). The joyride you take words on never ceases to crack me up and my cat (diva of the desk) doesn’t like getting Diet Dr. Pepper showers. But the adorable Siamese and “epic fail” got me…..and her.
I’m LOVING the Thesis theme and can’t say enough good things about it. It’s the best thing to happen to blogging ever.
John - as far as self help affiliates, I’ve had really good success with http://www.efflearn.com’s affiliate program, All Posters, The Sedona Method, and Clickbank.
Thanks again, Chris. Without you, I’d be in theme hell.
Joi — At this point, I’m motivated to release new products just so I can see what your next comment will be
And yes, good luck with the new business as well.
I wanted to sign up as an affiliate for your theme, but you only pay through PayPal. And I live in Pakistan. Enough said.
God bless,
M.
So seriously… Chris… When is this theme going to be for sale? (Pearsonified)
Is it possible to get an advance copy? A waiting list of some sort?
I’m shopping around for a theme… The problem with Thesis for me is the three columns. It’s simply too much for a personal blog. It looks like a news website, much more than a personal blog.
Anyways, let me know.
Chris, sorry to bother you. In what may seem like a dumb question, I am asking if there would be a prohibition against buying the Thesis theme and adapting it for use with ExpressionEngine. I would keep the attribution line, etc. (And would have to hire someone to do the adaptation.)
Would the SEO friendliness be lost with such an adaptation?
The theme is just beautiful.
Thanks in advance for your reply.
Hi Chris,
I wouldn’t ordinarily post this as a comment but I can’t find any other method for contacting you. I tried posting a question through the affiliate software but that didn’t elicit a response - and I’m not sure where it was sending the message.
I was wondering when you would be making the DIY themes affiliate payments for July. The Post Affiliate Pro FAQ says payments are made on the 15th of the following month but we’re past that date now, so I wanted to check when to expect a payment.
Thanks,
Matt
Wassim — I’m not sure about the release date for a Pearsonified-esque template, but the first step in that process is going to come with Thesis 1.1, which will be equipped with a layout selector that will allow you to run a 2-column layout.
Celeste — As long as you did a thorough job of porting the theme to Expression Engine, you wouldn’t lose any of the SEO goodness. Oh, and of course, it’s perfectly acceptable to port the theme to Expression Engine; I just think that’ll be a pretty challenging task! I’d love to check out your results after you’ve completed the port.
Matt — The payment date of the 15th was a default in the affiliate system (and not when I really wanted to make payments), but since it’s already there, DIYthemes will be making payments this afternoon.
Awesome article… I bought Thesis and have started working on the making money part.
I couldn’t agree more with this post. I think too many people online are looking to cheat the sytem and make a quick few bucks. I’m sorry but everything in life is a bubble and sooner or later the internet bubble will burst. finding a product that you stand by and promoting it “cleanly” is the way to go. sure it might take longer but over time it will generate a stickiness and a buzz
Why hasn’t Chris been righting articles?????
The internet is just like selling out of a store on the street. We did it…with ADVERTISING! Yes, hello, we sell funny t-shirts, and make a BOATLOAD of money. No adsense, not gimmicks just great product!
Man - that is a fricken good post…with the affiliate program thrown in to boot! I think you might just be giving Brian Clark a run for his money in the “copy blogging” department.
Mark, just remember… no matter how good the grasshopper becomes, he doesn’t know what the master has been working on in the meantime.
Hey Brian - yeah, but what are you going to do when Chris is able to snatch the pebble from your hand…?
Retire… he’ll be able to do it all.
Chris, a great post, as always. I signed up for your Thesis affiliate program and have made my first commission already.
I do run Adsense, simply because there is nothing more lucrative taking up my sidebar and even if it is just a few bucks a month, at least it’s something. I also run BlogHer ads.
That said, I’ve been curious about affiliate programs for a while, and know I could probably team up with a number of agents where I live to promote their products. However, what I find really lacking in all writing about affiliate programs is the actual nuts and bolts of how to set them up. Is there some sort of code, some kind of central tallying, that keeps track of sales, etc.?? Something I could install on my site that would show that particular sales came through my site?? - The logistics of affiliate programs totally elude me, so if anyone could enlighten me I’d be really grateful. Thanks!
Alda — Most affiliate programs have admin panels where you can log in and check your stats. The real beauty of these programs is that you don’t actually have to do anything to get set up; you simply need to refer visitors to the product you’re pimping by way of your unique affiliate link.
I suppose your primary concern deals with tracking, and for what it’s worth, I don’t “track” my MidPhase hosting referrals from this site (for example). Instead, I simply wait for sales notification emails to roll in, and that’s how I know I’ve made a sale.
Boy, you ARE quick!!
I guess what baffles me is how *I* would go about setting up an affiliate program. Not, say, if I agree to pimp products for someone else who has already set up the program (like yourself, for instance ;)) - that’s easy. For example: I translated a book a few years ago that I know a lot of readers of my site would want to buy. If I go to the publisher and say “I would like to sell this book on my site but I want commission” - how would I go about setting that up? Or, say, if I pimp Icelandic candy, or wool sweaters, or putrid shark, and want commission for it — how would that work?
Am I making sense??
Alda — Your situation is a little different than the two scenarios I described in this post. In the case of the publisher, for instance, you may not be able to draw commission, simply because they may not be willing to offer it. I’m assuming they’re not already offering an affiliate program, and because you don’t control the distribution of that product, you may be out of luck. Now, if you were to take control of the book’s distribution, you could conceivably offer an affiliate program on your site that would allow others to sell the books for you (but you would have to pay them commissions).
If you want commission for selling something that you don’t produce, all you can do is hope that the manufacturer offers an affiliate program. If they don’t, there’s really nothing you can do outside of contacting them directly and seeing if you guys can work out some sort of individual commission structure.
Chris - I feel a little silly for not figuring that out for myself - so very simple. Thanks!
Great post. It is like making money is not so easy. Make some effort then surely you will get money from where you want.
Thanks for the straight forward post, Chris. Yes, I’ve been chiming the same message for over a year now - yet, you said it with much greater clarity. I constantly bang my head thinking why I didn’t create my own product and see silly, one-off newbies making a mint.
Listen to Chris, folks! He’s dead on - stay focused on building your own product and run with it!
Very interesting article.
On your choice of themes - somewhat confusing. Reading through the comments, are you selling the theme which is used on pearsonified? Or do you suggest people buy the Thesis theme? Can you advise as I am looking for a theme but not too crazy about the Thesis one, I like pearsonafied better - should I wait for an update or buy now?
Thanks
Riley — I’m not selling the Pearsonified theme (yet). I’m suggesting that people buy Thesis, simply because it offers the highest level of functionality coupled with the greatest ease of customization. If you want a car analogy to help explain this (or even if you don’t), here goes:
Thesis is a Mercedes Benz that isn’t too flashy on the lot, but once you get in, you’ll realize just how luxurious and amazing it really is. In its non-commercial state, the Pearsonified theme is nothing more than a used Honda Civic with some bolt-ons and a flashy paint job. Looks nice on the outside, but you better be a grease monkey if you hope to keep the thing running.
Thanks for the post. Makes sense.
My only other question is reading through your other articles, looks like some coding is required to customize. i.e. the code on categories comes to mind.
I have html, some .asp and little .css knowledge - is that enough to get me through or do I always have to pay someone to code? Better, yet, the forums?
Thanks
p.s. when you mention the next update - I assume that is accomplished by replacing files and can be done personally? Or does the whole site have to be replaced?
On the money! This is exactly what works for me. I sell my own product (largest source of income) and use an affiliate program on my curriculum site. Other than that I don’t bother and I am making darn good money online.
Hey Chris
For some reason I cannot login to my account here or at the forums? What’s the deal? I’ve never had this problem before did something change? I’m clearly a user, you know how I am. Thanks in advance for resolving this issue.
Miguel
Chris,
It seems to me that many people want the “Pearsonified” theme. Now you might say it is like a Honda with nice paint, but a better analogy would be a Beautiful Rolls-Royce with a broken engine.
People are literally lining up for Pearsonified. What are you waiting for to fix the engine and sell it?
Riley — The update only consists of overwriting most of the core theme files. Any options you’ve set will be retained, and you’ll also be able to keep your customizations and rotating images, so long as you don’t overwrite either the
/customfolder or the/rotatorfolder.Miguel — I think we got that taken care of; if not, please let me know!
Wassim — I’ve got a couple other projects in the works, and the Pearsonified theme will correspond with the debut of one of those projects. Basically, it all boils down to a timing issue and running promotions to accompany new releases at DIYthemes.
I have made another project that gives me $2000 a month. I´m happy to have it and will work on my three other projects.
see http://www.unusualprofit.com
Thanks for the heads up
I must confess I am a fan of adsense.
Yes you are right. it will not make me a millionare but it sure helps with the bills
Affiliate marketing is truly a great way of making money online, but of course the learning curve is steep. I think for people who do not have their own product, affiliate marketing is the way to go.
Hoot and/or Holler ↓