Diversifying is great for your financial stability. The problem is getting to that point.
First, ask yourself what type of additional income you want. Do you want a passive income or something you have to work with to make money. The latter is like a second job.
When you build multiple income streams, your need to spread those across different areas of business. For example, don't work full time as a carpet cleaner and then work a second job carpet cleaning on the side. If a new business comes in with better service and better marketing, you're out of luck.
Here's what I have going on:
1. My primary daytime job. (computer programming)
2. I offer a software program to a niche market:
x3watchpro
I do provide technical support so there is some daily work required but not more than 30-60 minutes per day and no work on weekends unless I have something important related to the program.
3. I run a web site on
church sound systems. This is a more passive income based on income from google adsense advertisements. My work on the site is writing articles. The more articles i write, the more traffic I will get...but if I don't want to write an article, I can do that as well. However much time I want to spend on it is up to me.
4. The link in my signature. It's more of a pet project (which I'm updating now). Again, like number 3, the time I put into the site is up to me.
What other income streams could I create?
1. write an ebook on something I know very well. Passive after setup up a web site and clickbank account...ok, you can do a lot more but that's the short version.
2. create another software product for a difference niche market. Fairly passive with tech support.
3. Become a copy-writer: write articles for a price. Active income.
4. Create a niche-specific weekly newsletter and sell ads or sell affiliate products related to the topic - or write an ebook on the tpic and promote the ebook.
I'm not saying the above stuff I do MAKES ME A MILLIONAIRE. However, it's enabled me to start paying down my debt in large chunks.
I've listed means of diversifying income via internet sites and products. There are other means of doing this. You could invest heavily in stable mutual funds or the stock market (blue chip stocks or S&P 500) Take any dividend-yielding stocks and put that money into a money market. Then when that money builds up to 5-10k, reinvest or place it in CD's. This is more an investment than a diversified income, however you can do well with stocks to make it an additional income...if you don't mind being a bit more risky with your money.
There are other options such as a 2nd job or selling a product/service from your home. However, these don't provide the passive income you get from internet businesses.
One final note on passive income: it's not passive. If you want to start a web site on a niche topic (that isn't already dominated) then you need to develop the site, write articles, and market it. The more you write and moarket, the more traffic you should get. Then it comes to modifying the site to meet what your new audience is REALLY wanting. In time, once you get a steady flow of traffic, you can let the site go on it's own. Forums are great for building content for free.
Finally, passive income web sites, ebooks, anything internet-related isn't a guarantee of income.