The old saying “never put your eggs all in one basket” is very true when it comes to making money from the web. For one thing one source is not always going to make enough for you to be happy with the results, if you have a steady flow of traffic you need to monetize it. That is, use several different ways to make money from it. I am not suggesting you be greedy about it, but the web is an ever changing place and it is just not a good idea to focus all your efforts on a single source.

Another reason is that sources of income can dry up. Sometimes a product just doesn’t sale anymore, or the company you’re working with changes the way they do their affiliate stuff and you find yourself making less, or nothing from them. Having several streams of income is as much a safety measure as a way to bring in more money.

A good example of this is Ebay, who switched from a commission based affiliate program to a traffic based program similar to other Pay Per Click programs. Result? You could make quite a bit of money off Ebay Commissions, particularly automotive and other higher priced items. Now you can potentially provide dozens of sells and only make spare change. Many people who were making a living off of Ebay have had to make some serious adjustments.

The most common ways of generating income from a site are these:

1. Pay per Click ads

2. Donations

3. Affiliate product links

4. Your own products

5. Selling ad space on your site

Making money with pay per click isn’t as easy as it used to be. People have become fairly good at ignoring those ads, so people have had to get more tricky with how they use them. Plus Google recently kicked out a huge number of marketers, and are getting more strict with what they allow. Mainly just smaller scale marketers. A betrayal for the ages considering it was the small marketers that made Ad Words/Sense what it is today.

This is another very good example of why you should never just use one source for your traffic and sales. Many marketers relied on google for their income, and have found themselves in dire straights now that they have been kicked off. There are several alternatives to using google, but for may Ad Words/Sense was the only PPC they used and understood well.

Donations are still a valid way to generate income, especially if you have good info for people or are just very likable. It might feel a bit like begging at times, but really you are just providing a way for people to give back to you for your good advice, or for entertaining them.

Affiliate products and your own products are probably the best areas to work in these days. Sending buyers to your affiliate site nets you a commission and you never have to buy or stock merchandise yourself. You can also create your own down-loadable product(s), or some other online/electronic based product of your own to sell. The costs tend to be higher since you have to develop your product and figure out how to get it to your customers, while protecting it from people who might try and steal it.

If you have a site bringing in high traffic, you may be able to sell ads on your site. Harder to get away with anymore. With the enormous amount of sites online, which expands all the time, getting enough people visiting yours site on a regular enough basis to be able to sell ads is not easy. The best way to do it is to create something very entertaining.

Once you have one site making a steady income for you, and managing it has become less of a hassle, the smart thing to do is repeat the process all over again. Thus creating another source of income. There are tons of opportunities out there waiting for you, with some willpower, patience, and a plan you can make your dreams of online success come true.

Author Bio: Traffic is the life’s Blood of a Blog. Here are my Tips for writing content that will bring you better traffic: Building Long Lasting Traffic

Category: Marketing
Keywords: online income,multiple sources of online income,ways of generating income,making money from the web