You might find the concept of making money through ads distasteful or counterproductive. You aren’t alone in that respect. There are several drawbacks to ads that detractors readily point out.

• Searching for advertisers eats up time
• Ads don’t always pay that much
• The income stream is unreliable
• Sometimes advertisers will refuse to pay you
• Ads can be creepy and intrusive
• They also slow down site performance
• You’ll have to forfeit some control to please your sponsors

To make money from your site without giving in to “the man” you have to build value and an audience. Once you’ve established your value, you have several methods of turning that into cash.

Start Selling Something

We touched on this earlier. You might have a product or merchandise of your own that you can market. A book, T-shirts, or something else physical in nature. You might be offering a skill or consulting services. You could use your site build yourself up as an authority on a topic. Then you charge for people to hire you for your expertise. You could even start doing classes and charge others to learn your unique talents. As an expert, you can parlay a massive online following into an offline one. Set up a speaking tour, seminars, or day-long lectures. If your followers like what you do, they’re likely to attend. If you’re an entertainer, the website becomes a similar means for getting people interested in your art. Then you direct them to your live shows, where you earn money from people that want to see you perform.