Diversifying my online businesses is a constant struggle for me.  Perhaps it is for you too.  Or maybe you’ve been so busy starting or growing your business that you haven’t even started thinking about a diversification strategy.  The two areas to examine first are traffic diversity and income diversity.  After you get a handle on those, then you can start looking at more advanced diversification topics.

For me, my biggest concern about my business is a lack of income diversity.  Over 60% of my monthly income comes from Google Adsense.  If my advertising efficiency (as measured by eCPM) were to take a nosedive, my livelihood would be seriously impacted.  Worse yet, if I became banned by Google Adsense, I would be scrambling for sure.  After I quit my job to focus on my online business, the importance of diversity became elevated.  In the past year I have added revenue streams from affiliates, Pay Per Lead (PPL), and other channels to reduce my overall dependence on advertising.  I have also added two additional ad networks to reduce my reliance on Google Adsense. I still don’t think it’s enough. [Read more…]