Every company has ancillary products and services. There’s nothing wrong with it, it’s a way to provide added value to your customers, and to add money to your bottom line.

Rental car companies offer their extra insurance. Electronic stores sell additional warranties. And most fast-food restaurants allow you to make your order a little bigger (and a lot unhealthier!) for a few extra cents.

The products and services that companies offer over the Internet do not always give them the ability to push for the extra ancillary sale. Sure, Dell has buttons like “click here for a great product to add to your system” when you buy a Dell computer, for example, but the Internet has taken the hard sell out of ancillary product sales.

Options: That’s how you’re going to get ancillary product sales on the Internet. Provide options to your customers as they’re browsing your site and checking out your products. Aside from many options on your own site, here is an excellent way to add value to your customers’ perceptions of your site and to add money to your bottom line.

Google AdSense is an advertising program, like affiliate marketing, that has been developed for people with websites to earn extra cash.

It works like this: You apply to the Google AdSense program at no cost. They review your application to make sure you comply with some guidelines (for example you can only have a Google search field on your site, no other competitor’s search field). Once approved, Google will place links along the right side of your site that are both related to the content of your site and appropriate to what it is that you offer.

The value is that as people look at the page containing the ads you get paid a little (“pay-per-impression”), and if people click on the ad you get paid a little (“pay-per-click”). So by simply having these on your site you can begin to receive an small income simply by providing advertising space for another company.

Customers may also feel an added value by seeing you as more than just the place they go to get toner, for example. They may also now see you as the place to go to get toner, but also the portal through which they can get printers, copiers, etc.

Now the cautions: First, you won’t get rich by doing this, so make sure your own personal business plan is sound. In other words, keep selling your product and make sure the advertisements do not point your customers to your competitor’s sites.

Second, while it’s nice to make an added income, you need to be sure that your customers are not getting distracted by the ads and clicking out of your site before they can make their purchase.

That said, adding value to your customers and adding a little income to your bottom line is easy when you use AdSense. It’s free so by signing up you can quickly see the benefits.