As you make your website, make sure you have an idea for how you will make money online.

There are many options for achieving this:

DIRECT SALES

You can sell products and services while collecting credit card payments through PayPal or other credit card merchant services.  This is usually done by established companies who have already figured out the processes for manufacturing, storing, billing, and shipping products.  An easier direct sales approach would be to create an ebook or some other type of digital product that could be sold online.

If you have something to sell, you can use ProStores to build an online store.  You will have access to built-in, step-by-step wizards that help you design the look of your store, upload products, and set up shipping and sales tax information. 

If you are not sure if your product is something that can be sold online, try selling it on eBay first.  This will allow you to do some test marketing on an established website before you go through the effort of creating your own online presence.

ADVERTISING

Show advertisements on your site using various ad networks such as Google AdSense. 

The problem with relying on advertising is that you need a lot of traffic to make significant amounts of money. 

There are two basic types of online advertsing.  You can get paid based on how many times the advertisements are viewed.  The second way is to get paid based on the number of times people click on the ads.

Sites with only a little traffic will need to start with the pay per click model.  If you have a very targeted site with targeted traffic, you can make a profit with this type of advertsing model.  Don't click the ads on your own site because this is easy to track and you will be removed from the advertising program.

AFFILIATE MARKETING

Affiliate marketing is based on a pay per sale commission structure. Place affiliate links on your site and receive commissions if someone makes a purchase after clicking through from your site.

For example, if you have a site about fishing, affiliate marketing programs can be used to make commissions with stores such as Bass Pro Shops. You can link directly to the home page of Bass Pro Shops or to specific products. Most affiliate programs also include updated promotional links.

Affiliate marketing allows you to receive commissions from customers who purchase on the same day they clicked through, within seven days, within 121 days, or even throughout the lifetime of the customer. It all depends on your chosen affiliate partner's program terms.

Affiliate programs provide banners, text links, and promotional content that is embedded with your affiliate ID so all click throughs and sales are tracked. Be sure to read the program terms to avoid prohibited search marketing keyword bidding and prohibited email marketing techniques.

In addition to generating sales, some affiliate programs will give you a commission if people take a specific action such as signing up for a newsletter or downloading a free ringtone.  These programs are called CPA (cost per action) affiliate programs.

Affiliate marketing is all about lead generation.  This is something most of us are willing to do as long as quality commissions are generated and paid to us while our customers get the quality service and ease of shopping we promote. These commissions allow many of us to pursue our interests and provide for our families. Web publishers and related companies have mutual interests in supporting each other.

To begin using affiliate marketing programs, create an account with some of the big affiliate marketing companies such as Commission Junction, LinkShare, and Share A Sale.  These sites run the affiliate programs for some of the best known companies in the world.

SUBSCRIPTIONS

Some sites charge a subscription fee.  In order to do this, you must have some very good and unique content that people will be willing to pay for.  The New York Times tried to have people pay a subscription fee to read their editorials, but very few people did.  The reality on the internet is that most online information and content is free of charge.  Getting people to pay a subscription fee is difficult unless you are a widely acknowledged investment guru or something along those lines.

YOU CAN MAKE MONEY ONLINE

There is no time like the present to start creating, publishing, marketing, and selling online.

It is not hard to copy some code for an advertisement or afiliate link and place it on your site. 

The hard part of making money online is getting enough quality traffic to your site. 

If you have any questions, ask them in the forum

NEXT: Get Quality Traffic