Losing Your Main Income Source

Like traditional businesses, losing the main income source is a risk that online businesses face. One of the most crippling situations for any entrepreneur is to find your business model crumble in an instant where you lose everything. Worse, the end may come without any warning at all.

When your online business is doing well and income is on the rise, you may not think about this possibility of losing your income source. You may start to become complacent and think that good times will continue to roll forever. Sure, your business can continue with the upward trend, but do not ignore the possibility (however far fetched you may think it to be right now) that there’s always the chance that you could lose your comfort of working at home..

Let’s look at the scenario of an online entrepreneur earning through advertising.

Many online entrepreneurs running information-based websites earn through advertising or affiliate programs. They join advertising networks such as Google Adsense, or the Amazon Associates Program where members earn commissions from selling qualified products on Amazon.com.

When you are part of these advertising or affiliate programs and depend on them for your online home business main income, do you know that they can just cut off your account with just one email? There will be no prior notice; instead you will just receive an email notifying you that you have been terminated from the program. Your account will be disabled and you can’t log into your account anymore. The company can even take away any unpaid income that you may have earned prior to the termination of your account.

You may be kicked out from the program due to policy violations (that you may or may not even be aware of). For example, you’re a Google Adsense publisher and you just receive the dreaded email that you are terminated from the program. Your website may be kicked out due to suspicious activities (e.g. from invalid clicks to clicking on your own ads to poor content quality or poor traffic quality, among other reasons). Sometimes Google will tell you why they are disabling your account, but more often than not, you will just receive the termination email without any explanation why. And that ends your Google Adsense income.