You don't have to sign up for a ponzi scheme or buy into some goofy MLM scam to make some extra cash from your website.  In this post, we'll cover a few ideas to help you generate added income from your website

Create & Sell a Product

Back when search engine optimization was in super high demand by real estate agents (about four years ago), I was getting flooded with requests for the same basic SEO services; link building, keyword optimization, maintaining link directories. Since that was all that many of these clients wanted, I decided to create an 'SEO Maintenance' package and offer it on my website. It included a set number of hours per month that I would handle their SEO and detailed monthly tracking reports of links, ranking, etc. Since I had invested in top of the line SEO software, I was quickly able to sign several new clients to the service. It was a win-win on both sides.Do you have a particular skill set or knowledge that you could use to create a product? Perhaps if you're a wiz with MS Publisher or Photoshop, you could create graphics or templates to sell on your website. Are you a terrific copywriter? Perhaps start a Newsletter service where clients pay a monthly fee for your custom newsletter content. The possibilites are endless.

Become an Affiliate

Why not use someone else's services to make extra cash? Using an affiliate service is as simple as pasting some extra HTML into your website such as Amazon's affiliate program. Affiliate programs earn money in one of two ways. You either take a percentage of all the sales you refer to the provider or you can get straightfoward cash for clicks.

When you start looking for affiliate programs, be sure to be wary as there are some shady sites out there that might tarnish your websites brand. Don't spam your site visitors with tons of ads, but well researched offerings that appeal to your ideal customer should be perfect. You can find many great programs on affiliate networks such as Commission Junction, Trade Doubler and Google's ConnectCommerce.

Sell Advertising

If you've been to any of the popular blogs lately, you'll see that most have monetized their sites through advertising. Just because you don't have a million visitors doesn't mean you can't find a business who may be interested in placing a banner ad or text link on your website. The search engine juice alone is very worthwhile as you're giving them a big boost with a link to their website. Do some research, check out the big sites in your industry and who advertises with them and negotiate to have them advertise on your site.

Sell your Photos

Are you a photog? Do you love to shoot landscapes or interesting people? Then perhaps you could sell your photos to stock photo sites like iStockPhoto and get a small percentage each time someone buys a copy of one of your photos? This may work if you're a great Flash designer, vector artist or code jockey.

Add Google AdSense

The old standby and the other side of the coin from PPC (Pay Per Click) marketing. You can use Google Adsense to add targeted ads to your website. With just a bit of code added to your website, Google can serve up ads that harmonize with the content of your website pages. Perhaps you have a page on transcription and Google can show ads for audio recorders. It's a very clean, simple and easy way to make passive income from your website.

Create a Telecourse or eBook

Are you an authority on a given subject that's in high demand? Why not create an eBook that you can sell from your website or set up monthly Telecourses that subscribers can pay to attend? You could even use a great site called LuLu to convert your eBook into a printed version. There are many free resources online such as FreeConference.com, Vyew.com and Yugma.com. You'll want to take some time and create an outline of the subject you wish to present, perhaps use some graphics or statistics to support your premise - and with proper planning, you can design a terrific telecourse or webinar that will further establish you as an the 'go-to' person in your field.

I hope you've found this post informative - please be sure to add your ideas or offer feedback in the comments! Thanks for reading!