How I have monetized my websites
Below are some of the ways I have did it in the past.
I do not even really monetize a site for six months for search engine rankings but I will if its something that needs to make money quick, like hurricanes, specials on T.V., something that happened in the Olympics ect.
Text Link Advertising
Direct Sales - Your own shopping site
PPC - Pay per click, I do not use this much any longer
Banner Ads - The names says it all and I have never used it.
Affiliate - My most favorite way
Paid Reviews - Used in the past but do not any more.
Parked Domains - Always use it when I buy a new domain that has traffic or I decide to pull content off one and it's sitting.
Sell Ad Space - Don't really care for it.
CPM Ads (Cost Per Thousand) - Never really paid off, even less than adsense
CPA (Cost Per Action) - I like this but you need to know what your doing or you will lose money quick.
Selling or Renting Internal Pages - I used to do this alot with authority sites
Donations - I have had donations buttons up before and if you have valuable content and don't try to nickle and dime your readers you will get clicks. I didn't get rich but was able to buy a 12 pack once in a while.
PPP - Used to have fun with this. people love videos and if the video is funny they will watch it, you get paid per view.
That's just some suggestions on the main ways I have tried and ones I have not wanted to try.
Like I said affilliate links are my favorite, with the right website and the right affiliate product you can make some good money on conversions.