You've heard the term "don't put all your eggs in one basket" before. Well, unless you're operating a dairy, it's a pretty good axiom when it comes to webmastering.

There are many ways to make money with your website, but it's fair to say that some days you're not going to make as much as others, because markets fluctuate, economies waver, and traffic ebbs and flows like the tide. But, like investing in stocks and funds, if you have other methods to generate revenue, you can work your way through the times when the cash flow is a little slower.

Multiple Revenue Streams

Depending on the makeup of your website(s), you can probably find several revenue streams in which you can try and earn money. If you are a high-traffic site, you can look at banner ads and other CPM impressions where you can earn income from just the pageviews. You can also ad CPC (cost per click), such as Kontera, and there's always Google's Adsense if you want to earn extra money through clicks.

But it isn't always just about traffic. Clients may be willing to pay you for text space on your sites only because they are pertinent and relevant to their own categories and niches, and they are looking to earn extra visitors from your site to theirs, just because they're hoping that those visitors are interested in the same material. Text links and direct ads target your visitors to other sites (that you approve of), and are another way to earn money.

Now if your website isn't getting the traffic you are hoping for, and your revenue is sliding because you're not getting enough clicks or pageviews, then what else can you do to bump the slump? Well, if you're an entrepreneurial spirit, you could consider selling that website to another buyer, and direct your efforts to another site that has more potential. This isn't a bad strategy, especially if you have other websites in your inventory. Many people earn a living just buying and selling websites, and often just the domain itself (sans website!).

If you're good at what you do, whether you're a coder, artist, or writer, you can always contract out your commercial skills to other webmasters and clients. If you've done all you can to develop and market your own site, then there's no use sitting on your own skills when you can be making money designing graphics or writing articles for someone else. There's always someone looking for something!

Thousands of others have already shared their methods of money making, often through ebooks or other promotions (see, that's another way to make money online), but many of those webmasters and Internet entrepreneurs that have been successful are the ones who are willing to try new things, and try more than one of them at a time. If at first you don't succeed...well you can try, try again, or you can try something else.