Secondary Income for Designers

Our government has added vast sums of money to the monetary supply that will cause significant inflation. The credit market is frozen. The Dow is down 33% this year. We have started to see the beginning of a recession.

The economic woes of today may not be affecting you, but chances are in the next few months they will. In tough economic times print and web design are considered expendable. In order to prepare for tougher times, we need to look for secondary sources of income. Here are three ways to supplement your income.

Start your own blog and monetize it
Pick a topic - Your topic should be something that you have a lot to say about and will continue to interest you months from now.

Choose some software or hand code it - I'd suggest using WordPress if you go the software route.

Spend time writing posts that you think your audience will find valuable. Ignore the lack of traffic your site generates when you are starting out. Post to your site on a regular basis to build a following.

Monetizing a blog takes some work. You should be constantly testing different setups to maximize profit. You have to find the right mix of ads and programs for your audience to respond to. Listed to the right are some options for monetizing your blog.

Google Adsense - These are the pay per click ads that you see on most blogs. There are a variety of companies who offer similar programs, but adsense is the most prevalent. The vast majority of people never click on these ads. I always clicked on an ad or two if someone offers me content I enjoy. It is an easy way to pay them for free entertainment and it doesn't me cost anything.

Project Wonderful - Project Wonderful is an online advertising broker that lets you choose who advertises on your site. Advertisers can see the amount of visits and unique visitors that your site generates. Then they can place a bid to advertise on your site. You can accept or reject bids at your discretion. It is pretty popular with the web comic community.

Topspots - (http://www.scratchback.com/) Topspots is an online tip jar. In exchange for tips, you let the tipper put a link or image on your website. Every time somebody new tips you, that person moves to the top of

the TopSpot list of people who have donated recently. You can control the minimum tip amount, but the default is $1.00. Payments and earnings are only paid through PayPal.

Donations - Set up a donation program with PayPal. It takes about 10 minutes to set up.

Ads sold to individual advertisers - You can always sell ads to individual advertisers on your own terms for extended periods of time.

Sell stock photos, illustrations and flash files
There are a variety of websites online that you can sell your stock to. I usually sell the leftover illustrations and photos that are created while working on projects, but don't end up getting used. It's a great way to earn money without doing anything you weren't doing already.

iStockphoto - Photos, illustrations, flash, video and audio

FlashDen - Flash animations, menus, preloaders, templates, applications, components, video loops and effects and fonts

Crestock - Photos

VectorStock - Illustrations

Ultrashock - Flash, illustrations, photos and audio

Shutterstock - Photos

123 Royalty Free - Photos

Pixmac - Photos

Dreamstime - Photos

Sell website themes and Templates
Making website themes and templates is a pretty easy way to make money off of your web design skills. You can sell each design over and over again with minimal effort. The customer saves money while getting a quality product and you have the potential to make more money than you would have just selling your design once.

Theme Forest - Web templates and themes

Template Monster - Website, e-commerce, CMS, blog and Flash templates

These forms of secondary income will earn money 24/7. You are not exchanging your time for money. You are exchanging value for money.

You get to sell that value over and over again. The only limit is how many people want to buy it. Good luck creating your own secondary income system.