How do you monetize your blog?

Are you an AdSense maniac or an affiliate fanatic? Do you direct-sell ad space to advertisers like I do on Webmaster-Source?

Or are you part of a marketplace like BuySellAds, or a network like Casale Media or Doubleclick?

Or is your blog an ad-free zone?

Take a minute to vote in this poll (no registration, no hassles, just two clicks), and maybe elaborate upon your choice a little in a comment. We’d like to know.

I’ll start. I direct-sell 125×125 ads on Webmaster-Source mainly, and I voted that since it’s my largest source of blog income. I do have a single AdSense block that I haven’t been able to bring myself to delete (I’m halfway to another check again ), and I put the occasional affiliate link in, but mainly I try to keep to the 125×125s, which are noticeable enough, yet unobtrusive enough not to be a bother.

Okay, now it’s your turn. Vote in the poll below, and share what your solution is. (If you’re reading this in an RSS reader, you’ll need to click through to the permalink to vote in the poll.)

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Around mid-July, I asked you what you used for your browser’s homepage. Unlike most of my polls, I this time allowed the selection of multiple options, seeing as most modern browsers allow you to have multiple tabs open on startup.

We ended up with some interesting results, and, predictably, Google is the #1 choice.

An interesting strategy, though quite different from mine, which is to have a custom page with links to my Google Apps email page, and the like.

The numbers are as follows: 40% of the 50 votes have Google.com, 20% use Netvibes, iGoogle, or similar; 20% use “other,” 16% about:blank, 6% a custom HTML file, 2% use Yahoo or AOL, and another 2% have their blog set as their homepage.

Google is leading by a large margin, which I kind of expected. Really, it makes a good homepage. It’s quick to load and fairly empty, sort of like about:blank, but it provides some useful function as well.

Michael Martin of Pro Blog Design uses this strategy:

My blog, Todoist, Google Reader and Digg.I read Digg first, then Google Reader. Once I close each of those tabs, I try not to open them again until the next day. It usually works.

On virtually all web browsers (modern browsers, anyway), you can set a particular page (or pages if you have a tab-equipped browser) to automatically open when you launch the browser.

What page you choose is obviously up to you, and it’s generally a choice made depending on browsing habits.

That brings us to the question: What site do you use for your browser start page? Take a moment to vote in the poll (you’ll have to click through if you’re reading this in an RSS aggregator).

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Are you a Googlemaniac or do you prefer About:Blank? Or do you prefer to load up Netvibes or Pageflakes with RSS feeds and Twitter streams?

Polls are a great way to solicit opinions, and add some community to your site.

With a poll, a user can just click a button to give you their two cents. Meanwhile, it takes a lot more effort to leave a comment. Which do you think your readers prefer? While comments allow them to say anything they want, polls enable a quick multiple-choice response (which can be very useful). Also, I’ve found that blog posts with attached polls tend to generate more comments.

Once you decide you need a poll, you need to actually add one. You have plenty of choices for implementing your poll. Here are a few of the better services/scripts: (more…)

The poll asking whether you like the new ShareThis 2.0 or ShareThis Classic, which is luckily still available to anyone who wants it, has ended.

There have been some interesting results:

43% said “What’s the difference?” Either a lot of people aren’t very observant, or they didn’t even bother to look before voting.

27% said they don’t care at all.

13% said ShareThis 2.0 is better.

16% said ShareThis Classic is better.

Personally, I like Classic better, but the new ShareThis 2.0 has some cool features. Plus, I like the fact that non-Wordpress users can easily add ShareThis to their site.