If you've been trying to earn a living with the Google AdSense program and you're finding it to be tough sledding, here are some other options you can try either in conjunction with or in place of AdSense to boost the revenue of your websites.
Adbrite
I really like Adbrite for a number of reasons, but one of my favorite is that you can use Adbrite as an AdSense replacement ONLY if it's most profitable for you.
For example, I've got a website in the debt industry and among the many ways I monetize the site, I also use AdSense. So just putting untested Adbrite Ads in place of AdSense didn't seem particularly palatable. However, with Adbrite I didn't have to.
Adbrite will run my AdSense ads unless they get advertising willing to pay me more than the eCPM I was already earning from that when it displays AdSense ads.
Affiliates Links
If you see a lot of ads running for a particular product and they stay there, I'd recommend skipping the middle man and promoting the product yourself.
If you're in a niche where people are passionate and spend money, promoting products as an affiliate can be highly profitable.
CPA Programs
I remember when I first learned people were earning 100x more with CPA offers on certain websites than they were with AdSense... to be honest, I really didn't believe it.
However, I later learned that some websites can really perform well when you put CPA offers on the site. The key here is that SOME do and some don't. However, it's well worth the test.
Kontera
In the world of SEO, contextual links are considered to be among the best. So it only makes sense that advertisers would want to take advantage of them too. That's where networks like Kontera come into play. They'll make text on your website look like text links where you get paid anytime somebody clicks on the link.
I wouldn't call it a complete AdSense replacement, but a nice compliment to the program.
Chitika
Chitika is another wonderful ad network to test out on your sites as a potential AdSense replacement.
They have a cool click prediction algorithm that will display select ads on your site when there is a higher chance that the person will actually click on the ad. I don't understand how it works exactly, but I can tell you it's a cool piece of technology.
