>Pay per click
>Sponsorship
>Merchandising
>RSS Advertising

Pay-per-click

One of the most common means of profit via blogging is through pay-per-click advertising programs. The most common and well known way is through Google AdSense. Google AdSense is a free pay-per-click advertising service, in which Google places text advertisements of sponsors on one’s blog, and pays the subscriber based on the number of clicks made. Each click by a blog visitor will give the blogger a few cents. There are technologies to ensure the blogger does not click on his/her own advertisements, and all advertisements placed are governed by the extensive program policies and terms & conditions as stated on the AdSense site.

Only people above the age of 18 can apply. However, many young bloggers found a way around this by using their parents’ or relatives’ names to sign up for the program. Payouts will be made via cheque when the subscriber’s accumulation of clicks allows him to achieve a total payout of $100 USD.

AdSense advertisements are displayed alongside posts in this blog.

Google AdSense can be seamlessly integrated into Blogger blogs (advertisements with colours matching the blog’s applied theme), as Blogger is owned by Google. Many bloggers also choose to include Google AdSense into their non-Blogger sites. Google AdSense is not a blogs-only advertising feature; it can be implemented into any web page.

Sponsorship Programmes

Some bloggers, mostly famous and prominent ones, are paid to blog about certain products or services. Companies request that these bloggers post about certain topics occasionally, with the intent promoting their company or their products. Also, some companies can also sponser the blogger with their product (such as a phone, or an mp3 player) or services. Companies can also buy space on blogs, if these well-known bloggers choose to allow so.

Xiaxue, a famous Singapore blogger, has a section dedicated to advertisements.

Xiaxue, a famous blogging personality in Singapore, is arguably the most commercialized blogger in Singapore, endorsing various products and services. She has space on her sidebar dedicated to advertisements, and even a button daring visitors to press it with the words ‘You are SO commercialized and I hate it!’.

Merchandising

Various items on sale, as seen here.

Bloggers may choose to use their blogs to merchandise items. This is a simple way to sell off their wares and earn some money in the process without the hassle of applying for an account on web auctioning sites such as eBay. This form of generating income is not common, and is mostly seen on personal blogs which connect to only a close group of friends and relatives, whom the blogger may meet on a regular basis. Bloggers and would be buyers, which are mostly known friends, can then meet up to close the deal.

RSS Advertising

This form of advertisement is quite new, and is only found in well-known and widely-read blogs. It works by integrating online advertisements into an RSS feed. Through this method, spamming can be avoided as compared to email advertising and pop-up advertising, both of which are considered to be nuisances.

However, some are not too happy with this as RSS feeds are expected to be clean, simple and devoid of any advertising, and display only the blog posts and contents. Many people see RSS advertising as one of the ways in which a blog can be over-commercialized.