If you are attempting to make your way in this business, then you need to have enough savvy to realise that there is always more than one way to monetise a site or product.  The other day, I posted something in response to a comment posed on the Keyword Avalanche Forum;

There's loads of opportunities out there, the best advice I can give is to approach anything from a slightly different angle to everyone else. If you see a wood, most people will see trees. I see tree-houses.

What I was trying to say was that most people look at a problem head on, whereas I like to look at things from a different perspective. I'm guessing that readers here are bit more used to my meanderings

So, what you must do with any site or product that you are AIS'ing or not is to make sure it has at least 2 different streams of income. This allows you to broaden your horizons substantially. Let's look at some real life examples;

Example 1. This website is one of my oldest and best AIS sites. I have this monetised in multiple ways;

1. Sales of pre-made Templates
   This is where the bulk of the income for this site comes from - pretty simple, the customer chooses which template to purchase, pays by paypal and gets to download the template.
2. Upsell of Installation Service
   Buyers can also elect to choose for me to install the Template for them.
3. Upsell of other services
   Bespoke Template creation service, as well as bespoke advice on their own sites.
4. Affiliate link to another site
   This allows people to purchase an affilaited product - just a simple link through to each product. If they buy the aff product, I get a small commission.
5. Google Adsense
   I have a small block of Google Adsense showing on some pages. This does not raise very much of an income at all, as this site is not optimised for Adsense.
6. Text Link Ads
   I recently joined Text Link Ads, and have sold a few links via this. I am only testing this, as selling links is a new adventure for me.

Example 2. A piece of software which I had created for me. Monetised as follows;

1. Sales of the actual software.
   Obviously, every time the software sells I get paid!
2. Sales of Templates for said software
   Obviously, people are inherently lazy, so pre-made templates sell well. Link to my Template Site is built into the Software.
3. Sales of subscription service
   This is something new that I am testing. Buyers pay $x per month and receive a couple of templates and first access to any new scripts I bring out. Link to my Subscription Service is built into the software.
4. Affiliate Links
   All of which are built into the software. From extra template providers to article providers to website hosting providers. If the person clicks one of these links and goes on to purchase, I get an affiliate payment.
5. Non Affiliate Links
   I also have a couple of non-affiliate links to other providers. One of the sites is owned by me, so any buyers here I get to keep 100% of the fee.

So, as you can see, it is actually quite easy not to have to rely on just Adsense to raise a good income. My challenge to you is to take one of your sites that presently has one stream of income, think laterally and come up with another stream. If you can come up with something that is not linked to clickbank or paydotcom, then Kudos to you.

There's your challenge, do you accept ?