One thing I learned the hard way when running a relatively large website back in the day, was the importance of diversifying your income through different channels of revenue, and this principle can definitely be applied to blogs as well. It is never good for you to be too dependant on one certain advertising network, be it a CPM (Cost Per Thousand Adviews) network like
BurstMedia or
Casale Media, or a CPC (Cost Per Click) program like
Google AdSense.
AdSense is often the first thing new bloggers decide to check out when they wish to monetize their blog, and more often than not they become attatched to it to the level where they fail to see the perils of being completely dependant on one certain network, as well as the potential they are missing out on by limiting themselves to other potential sources of revenue.
In the past there have been more stories than we like about people being kicked out from AdSense after being accused of click-fraud, which is essentially trying to boost your income by clicking your own ads excessively. Of course most people who share their stories claim their innocence, and while I'm certain some of these actually
have conducted improper behaviour, the fact that innocent publishers have been falsely accused and penalized can't be brushed away. This illustrates the dangers of becoming too attatched to a certain network. If this were to happen to you, and your only source of revenue was AdSense, you would be left completely without any sustainable income. Testing and optimizing new sources of selling your advertisements is a challenging and time demanding task, and therefore it could be months until you can get your income anywhere near what it was. Not a situation anyone would want to find themselves in!
With this the benefits of diversifying the income from your blog should be clear for everyone. Another incentive that should encourage you to do this is also that if you have only ever used one thing, you might be missing out on top-notch dollars, because other methods might prove to be far more lucrative than the one you are currently committed to. Maximizing your income is a demanding job, but if you want to see the best results you need to put serious effort into this part of the game.
