I’ve been blogging for ten years on this domain. I can’t begin to tell you how much advertising revenue I’ve earned from the site, but it’s no where near a living.

My best guess is ad revenue over the past ten years is somewhere around $7,000. I won’t break that down to an hourly rate to spare my dignity, but it is revenue I didn’t seek out.

Overtime, the ad revenue came from Google ads, Blogads, Adbrite and direct ad placement. In hindsight it wasn’t too bad since I loved blogging and creating content, but I always wanted what I loved doing to somehow pay the bills.

Doing what you love is not a bad formula to live by, and it paid off for me in other ways. My salary at jobs I’ve had since starting this blog is a direct consequence of what I learn and share here. For most people that dream will never happen, but there is another way that can better match your passions with revenue.

Trace Sharp shared this link on Buzz:

One thing I noticed a lot with the mid-level blogs is they have their own product. This is one of the main things that separates them from the A-Listers. A-List blogs need a ton of traffic because their main income source is advertisers. But mid-level blogs have learned how to make more money per visitor.

Creating and selling a product is the key. With a product, you can earn more with less traffic because you don’t have to split profits with advertisers and affiliate programs. It will take more work to create a product than to manage ads and affiliate products, but once you’ve done it, you have a recurring income stream all to yourself.

If you create a product or sell a product you are passionate about, your blog will make more money than it does with ads. You can then replace Google Ads with ads for your own products. The audience you are left with might be much smaller, but it will be an audience that shares and appreciates your life passion.