The term "related links" makes one think they are leaving the site, or they're ads. You'll want to rename that to something like "Articles" or "Related Pages" so people know that those articles/links are part of the site. It's important to google that people stay on your site as long as possible. The easier you make it for visitors to find all the content on your site the better. People want to stay, they leave as soon as they don't think there's any more to see.

I agree to get the word "link" off your site.

I thought your left side navigation was very well done. Makes sense, easy to follow where I was in the site. It's a shame you lost adsense because I think the ads would be more relevent to your site content.

I would look into Amazon as an additional way to monetize your site. Their keyword based widgets are nice because they update on their own.