Are you looking to earn money from your podcasting hobby? Do you own your own domain? Does your podcast have a website that you control? Are you directing traffic back to your site from your podcast's RSS feed? Do you know who your listeners are?

The ability to earn a steady stream of income from your podcast is a potential possibility for many podcasters. Most podcasters have very few costs associated with production, and all revenues earned will be mostly profits. Let's review some ideas on how to exercise your podcast's financial possibilities.

Incremental income can be earned from your podcast's website using advertising programs such as Google AdSense, or ClickBank. Both of the preceding advertising programs are a Pay-Per-Click (PPC) style of advertisements. When your visitors click on an ad, you get paid. PPC advertisement is fine and dandy, and can generate you hundreds of dollars per month if you are successful, but there are also many affiliate programs that pay you commission on sales and leads generated from your website. These programs can be very successful for a podcaster who receives a decent amount of traffic from your website, as you can pick and choose what you would like to advertise on your website. How well do you know your listeners? Knowing your listeners will allow you to know what they will most likely want to look at or buy. Affiliate programs can be found on many websites, or may be managed by other websites such as Commission Junction, or LinkShare.

Donations are a simple way to collect money from the website of your podcast. Several podcasters have found success from asking for donations from their website visitors. There are many people who are more than glad to make a $5 or $10 donation to shows, which they may often "religiously" listen to. A blogger who I have known for years once told me that she would never put up a donation button on her blog because it was the equivalent of panhandling, and she refused to take part. Upon pressure from myself, and a few others, she reluctantly put up a donation button, and to her surprise she was happy to find that she earned a few hundred dollars over the course of the year strictly from donations. A donation button is a wonderful way to add earning power to your podcast, and no one should think of it as e-Panhandling. In fact, a donation button is a great way for those who get so much from a podcast to give back just a little.

Corporate Sponsorships are for those who are looking to earn more than just spending money from their podcasting hobby. The value of a podcast is simply based on how many active subscribers that it has, and the more subscribers that the podcast has, the greater it's value becomes for commercial sponsorships. There is no simple formula for obtaining corporate sponsorships, the simple advice would be to publish well produced podcasts, keep count of your listeners, maintain a clean and functional website, and be sure to add contact information on your website for those who may be interested in sponsoring your podcast. No podcast success story is more known to up and coming podcasters than MommyCast, the podcast for mothers. Two women from Virginia managed to pull in major corporate sponsorships for their podcast, and they found success.

As the number of podcasts continues to increase, their value as an advertisement medium also continues to increase, and as that value increases so does the potential to begin earning serious income from your podcast.