3 Easy Ways to Supplement Your Income Without Being Spammy

The whole craze of creating an income online and making hundreds of thousands of dollars without lifting a finger is a dream for nearly everyone. While I am not at the income I would like to see I am setting up revenue streams that allow me to work when I feel comfortable without giving up quality content to my readers.

There are really hundreds of ways to make money online, however most of those tend to be a bit spammy and most people do not feel comfortable doing those. There are also tons of MLM (multi-level marketing) schemes that I see so many bloggers fall into. While they may make a bit of profit from those at first, I hardly think that it is worth their time and money invested given that the fad will most likely die off in a year or so.

These are three not-so-spammy options for generating revenue online while still providing value to your audience. After all, isn’t that the reason we all blog? If we were in it to solely make money the passion would never come through to our audience and they would leave faster than they came in.

 Create A Product

Products that will generate revenue on its own like an ebook or self paced e-course. There are many bloggers that have created awesome products that are now their primary source of income.

Such as Ruth Soukup, the founder of Living Well, Spending Less has a few products, ranging from ebooks to Elite Blog Academy.

Abby Lawson from Just A Girl and Her Blog publishes a monthly income report that shows her ebook, Building A Framework to be her number one source of income.

Melissa, from Blog Clarity, has quite a few E-Courses that she uses to generate income for herself. She also has an book, Blog Design for Dummies.

Utilize Ad Networks

If you are generating a decent amount of traffic to your blog it might be worth considering adding ads. These are a great way to create passive revenue streams, meaning once you set them up there isn’t much else that needs to be done.

There are many bloggers that generate the majority of their income from ad networks  such as Google, BlogHer or even smaller ad networks.

You can see from The Chaos and The Clutter that the majority of her income comes from a combination of ad networks.

Affiliate programs

There are many ways you can use affiliate links to supplement your income. One of the easiest ways is to create a resource page on your blog and link to all of your recommended tools, products and books. This page will not only create a ton of value for your readers but could also provide a bit of income when readers trust your opinion and use some of your favorite resources.

I personally have a few affiliate programs that I love to work with. Most are resources that I use nearly everyday for my own blog and even life. Amazon offers a great program that nearly every blogger can utilize to supplement their income with. Moms Affiliate and Share A Sale are both great networks that work with many brands that you are sure to find a fit for your blog.

 You Still Have to Work to Make A Passive Income

You will learn from all online entrepreneurs that regardless of how “passive” their income is you must be willing to put in some work at least at first. For most, the more work you put the larger the reward you can anticipate. And some things may require quite a bit of trial and error to find what your audience responds to the best and what yields the highest return on your investment.

While for most people it takes a combination of many revenue sources to earn money online these are three methods that I believe will set you on the path to generating revenue without being tied to your computer for hours every day for the rest of your life.

What methods do you currently use to supplement your income?