Making Money Online: Creating and Managing Multiple Income Sources

If you make money online, you probably realize that you can maximize your earnings by creating multiple sources of income. Besides possibly dramatically increasing your income potential, having more several sources of revenue with decrease your chances of loss if one source dries up for whatever reason.

When I say different sources, I don't mean you should try to create different ways of making money. I don't mean you should attempt to try everything in the book, like affiliate marketing, copywriting, article writing, eBooks, creating and flipping websites and so on.

The idea is to get good at one particular thing. Learn everything there is to know about it. Master it. Of course you should know other things enough to get by, but don't spread yourself too thin. You will never make a great deal of money if you're a jack of all trades, dabbling a little here and there, without really grasping and fully knowing how to do one thing.

If you're into affiliate marketing, learn it inside and out. You might need to know how to write an article, or how to set up a newsletter, but you don't need to know everything about it. When you make enough money, you can outsource things that are on the fringe of your main discipline.

When I say "multiple income sources", I mean sources within your discipline. If you are an affiliate marketer, you should have affiliate accounts with multiple companies, instead of just focusing on one big money maker. If one company is 75% of your income, and the company fails, you're shit out of luck.

The same goes with article writing, or web site creation, or any other online occupation. Start with one source of income, build it up to a certain point, and move on to another. Once you have several sources going, you can always go back and build up your established sources some more.

Also, make sure that your actual income isn't coming from the same source, such as Google Adsense. If you write articles for a living, you can have some sources based on Adsense revenue share, and others from different companies. For instance, Associated Content and Demand Studios pay though their own companies. The point is to not keep all your eggs in the same basket.

You will also need to maintain your sources once you have them established. Create a system of maintenance. This system should be no more complicated than it has to be. Set into place a schedule for checking on how each source is producing, and a way to check for problems. If your sources of income are basically passive once set up, maintenance should be minimal. Just don't take on more than you can, or are willing to handle.