Darren Rowse (ProBlogger) published what’s become an annual poll of how much money bloggers make from their work last week. The poll focuses on just how much money a blogger can make from his or her blog in a given month. According to Darren’s results, only 30 percent of all bloggers make more than $500 off their blogs each month.

Technically, my personal blog falls in that other 70 percent. I say technically because I use my personal blog as a sort of portfolio. It’s landed me more than a few blogging for hire jobs, along with numerous other writing opportunities. The two or three hours a week I spend writing for my personal blog easily translate into a few hundred dollars each week — more if you look at it by month.

I wouldn’t object to my blog making a few more dollars each month, but I’m reluctant to use advertising to do it. The grand majority of blogs — and websites — online today rely on advertising to make money. Furthermore, most of them use Google AdSense. I think there’s a direct correlation between the fact that most people don’t make huge amounts of on their blogs and the fact that most of them rely on Google AdSense. It’s a good way to make a small amount of money fast. It’s less dependable as a way to increase your earnings.

On some of my blogs, I outright refuse to sell advertising. I use merchandising, affiliate marketing and other options to make money. On other sites, advertising fits better as an income model — although I still try to limit my dependence on Google AdSense. It’s important to match your revenue model to your niche — a fact that I think a lot of websites ignore. How you plan to earn money affects design, topic — even how you write for the site.