If you’ve read the previous parts of this mult-part series on making money online, you should have, by now, honed in on a hobby that you are involved in – and you should have copious notes about your hobby. At this point, it’s time to think about how you can actually make money with your hobby. There are several ways to do so.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing covers lots of things – digital products, physical products, CPA, etc. It’s probably the most balanced way to monetize your hobby. By “balanced”, I mean it’s easy to do but also can be quite lucrative.
Your hobby will probably dictate which types of products you promote. My personal preference (and recommendation) is to promote physical products – Amazon being my favorite. Now, when I say “promote products”, I don’t mean go out on your website and “sell, sell, sell”. What you’ll be engaging in the “soft sell” – we will go over this later in the guide. For now, just give some thought to what physical products your potential audience (people like you) would be interested in.
A good way to track down products that your audience (people like you) would be interested in is to simply do some Amazon searches and some Google searches. Jot down things that interest you because chances are good that your audience will also be interested in them. Following along with our “fly-tying” example, you might want to check out the market for fly-tying materials, books, etc. You want to make sure there are plenty of options to promote. You’ll use this list later.
E-Commerce
The E-Commerce option of monetizing your hobby is probably the most complex since it involves offering your own products for sale. However, it’s also quite likely the most lucrative. You’d have to be the judge of whether or not this option is on the table for you since it would also require the implementation of some sort of shopping cart on your website (which PayPal does offer).
Taking our “fly tying” example to the next step, you might want to consider tying your own flies and selling them. You might also consider writing your own eBook or guide or Kindle book about tying flies and selling it. While these options are good, my recommendation would be to stick with affiliate marketing early on so you can focus on the business building end of things. Later on, you can move into e-commerce. It’s up to you though.
AdSense / Connexity
Although AdSense is the 800-lb gorilla in the PPC space, another solid option is Connexity. Both programs allow you to display ads on your website and pay you when visitors click on them. However, the difference between the two is huge. While AdSense matches its ads to your content, Connexity is more product-oriented and allows you to display ads for specific products on your site. For example, instead of showing random niche-related ads with AdSense, you could display ads for specific fly-tying books and materials. This often drives up click-through rates and can substantially outperform AdSense.
The AdSense/Connexity monetization method is probably the easiest to implement but it’s also probably the least lucrative of the three I’ve mentioned. What I like to do is monetize my hobby sites with all three methods, focusing on affiliate products within the content and relegating the AdSense/Connexity stuff to the sidebars.
Ultimately, you’ll have to decide which method works best for you and your hobby. For now, the important takeaway is to decide what your primary monetization strategy will be.