Over recent time news headlines have focused on world markets and the downward spiral of major stock indexes. When this occurs, the media try to reduce relevant issues to easy to understand, nibble-size articles. A favourite strategy is to outline a "typical" small investor who had all his eggs in one basket when the market crashed and now his entire life savings are in the red on his balance sheet.

Had he diversified his portfolio, investing some of his capital in blue chip stocks, tech stocks, property and bonds, the chances are he might still be in the black. The same can be said for anyone running an internet online business. The online environment is so dynamic and volatile; many so-called "hot" opportunities come and go (and don't do much in between), that devoting an entire enterprise to one product or service offering is nothing short of dangerous and foolish.

The answer is to place a few eggs in several baskets, so if the bottom falls out of one, you can still make an omelette with what's left. In other words, diversify your product and service offerings to produce multiple streams of income.

SOURCES OF INCOME

Here are five ideas to get you started: -

1. Affiliate programmes.
2. Own products and services.
3. Website advertising.
4. Ezine advertising.
5. Content access via subscription.

Each of these will be individually assessed in a moment, but first, one important warning. The model of multiple streams of income does not mean you should rush out and add new products and services to your repertoire willy-nilly.

Whatever you choose to offer must be closely related to the subject matter of your website. If your website is about wool, don't try and sell coal. To do so would be a waste of time and other resources and also compromise the integrity of your website's objective, not to mention your credibility as an expert in your field.

More importantly, all internet traffic is not created equal. If you create a separate page on your wool website just for your news on selling coal you may attract one or two site visitors not have otherwise attracted. But those visitors were interested in wool, not coal. Once they reach your site they'll assume you've lost the plot and click away faster than you can say, "Ye What Gay?"

Far better to have fewer site visitors who are all extremely interested and motivated by the subject matter of your website (highly targeted traffic) than relatively more visitors who are only somewhat interested and motivated (untargeted traffic).

The return on your investment will always be much higher from targeted traffic in the form of repeat visits, referrals and recommendations and, of course, all-important sales.

Now let's assess the five sources of income.

AFFILIATE PROGRAMMES
The first and most obvious source of income is affiliate programmes. Most of you familiar with the concept but, if not, you can get a quick briefing by reading an article at http://www.ahbbo.com/affiliate.html/

To be effective as an income-generator, the affiliate programmes chosen should be closely related to the subject matter of your website in the sense that a visitor interested in your website content will also be interested in the subject matter of the affiliate program you are promoting.

For starters on your search for affiliate programmes, visit: -
http://www.associatesearch.com  and/or http://www.refer-it.com/

OWN PRODUCTS
While affiliate programmes are a good place to start, you are working on commission. For significant, long-term, sustainable income you need to develop your own line of products and services. This does not necessarily mean you must personally create the product or service; it just means you get to keep the profits on any sale. You could, for example, sell products you purchase from a wholesaler. Under this type of arrangement, you buy the product for a certain price and sell it for a higher price. The difference is your profit. The profit under this type of arrangement will be, 99% of the time, significantly higher than the commission income you generate with affiliate programmes. If you don't want to bother with the hassle of storing inventory and shipping orders, make arrangements for the wholesaler to drop-ship orders to your customers instead.

You can always create your own products. A good option for an online business is a digital product such as an e-book since production and distribution costs are extremely low. Your customer simply downloads the product from your server to their hard disk. But you don't have to restrict yourself to digital products. You might choose to write a book and have it professionally bound and printed. Or you may choose to make your book available in both digital and traditional format with different price points to reflect the different production and shipping costs.

WEBSITE ADVERTISING
Once you have generated consistently high, targeted traffic to your website, you can begin to think about charging for third party advertising on your website domain. The price you can charge for banner advertising depends on your traffic and whether your advertiser pays you to simply host a banner or whether they pay you per click-through. If your revenue depends on click-through it is especially important (both for you and your advertiser in terms of repeat business) that your advertiser's product or service is relevant to the overall subject matter of your website.

Your pricing would generally be set at a CPM rate, for example €20 per thousand page views. The more targeted your traffic, the more you can charge as your CPM.

EZINE ADVERTISING
A great way to generate traffic to your website is to publish an ezine (electronic magazine or newsletter). Ezines are a great traffic generator. But they can also be a source of revenue in their own right. Once you hit 1,000 subscribers (as a general rule) you can start charging for advertising in your ezine. The CPM rate is a good pricing model to start with. The more targeted your subscriber database, the higher your CPM. Some very highly targeted, specialised ezines can charge as much as €40 CPM or more. Others that are very general and untargeted may only be able to generate €2 CPM. The more time and effort spent in targeting your market audience, the higher your potential revenue.

CONTENT ACCESS
The number one commodity people are looking for online is information. Consider making your website content available on a members-only basis, charging a membership fee for access. Your content, however, has to be of genuine value to your website visitors. Don't try this if all you're offering is a collection of other people's articles.

The type of content that lends itself well to this type of arrangement includes things like apartments for rent listings, home-based job openings, that sort of thing.

Members-only sites that consist of a collection of freely available products and tools can also work well if, by joining, the member saves him or herself many hours of independent searching and collating the relevant information.

Entertainment type content also lends itself well to a pay-for-access type arrangement. The obvious (if untoward) example is the highly lucrative internet pornography industry. Say what you will, it is a business model that most online entrepreneurs would love to be able to replicate in their own industry, if only they could generate the same level of interest. It's that targeted traffic principle yet again!

These are just a few ideas to get you started. Once you start implementing these, others will suggest themselves. It really doesn't matter what you do so long as it works for you. If something works well, don't stop what you're doing. Don't rest on your laurels either. Make sure you always have other wells to drill if today's runs dry.
End.