Making money blogging falls into two categories in my view; direct and indirect.

Direct would include link sales, adverts, sponsored posts etc. while indirect would be making money on other sites with traffic and exposure from your blog. The best online entrepreneurs know that you should be working in a number of areas and here are two of the finest examples I could find;

Darren Rowse, one of the most popular Bloggers around uses his main site to promote his digital photography site and his conference speaking (among other things) and not just relying on the income ProBlogger makes. The traffic to ProBlogger is exploited in three different ways giving three different sources of revenue and while each is able to operate independently, by inter-linking them he is able to improve the amounts earned overall. If Darren had only one website it’s unlikely he would be making as much money which would directly affect the number of conferences he is asked to speak at further lowering the amount he makes.

John Chow owns Johnchow.com as well as The TechZone and TTZ Media Network all of which generate sources of income. The TechZone reviews computer hardware while TTZ allows publishers to display products related to the content and earn from clicks or from commission. John Chow is a master at self promotion and well worth learning from.

These are arguably the top two Bloggers around and neither of them rely solely on one site to make money, in fact they inter-link the sites / services they have to boost sales throughout. Your Blog has the potential to make a lot of money but never let it be your only source, the odds are you’ll find it extremely hard to make millions from just one blog, combined with other sites you might just be on your way!

There is no reason all your sites need to be directly related, in fact I would suggest they not be. Having two or three websites in different topics will limit any big hits to your income should something go wrong. If for whatever reason blogs stopped making money, John Chow will still have a source of income from his other two sites, neither of which rely on blogs to work.

I personally have websites that deal with music, history, health, video as well as web services, combined they generate a nice income. If one dies I have the others to keep the money coming.

How many sites do you own?
What do you think about diversification?

I’d love to hear your points of view on this one.