By the way, every once in a while you'll notice some words are hyperlinked to third party vendors. These links are meant to be helpful and go vendors having something to do with the word or phrase discussed. Enjoy.
How do you earn money on the internet? There
are basically two ways to earn money on the net. The first is that you market your own goods or services
. In other words, if you sew tye dye
business suits at home, and you wanted to
advertise your wares
to a larger
market, you could sell your products through yours or someone elses'
website. The second way to earn money, is to market goods or services of
others, and either earn a fee from each sales lead generated for the product
manufacturer [pay-per-lead] or make a commission from each sale referred to the
product manufacturer [pay-per-sale].
If you're simply trying to earn money using your computer in your den, which is how I've done it for nearly four years, the second way, explained above, is basically the approach to e-commerce you need to focus on. What kind of a site do you want to create? Where will this site be found on the internet? And, whose products and services will you purvey?
What kind of a site do you want to create? This is the easiest and the hardest question to answer, but it comes down to one thing. What you are interested in. Whether that a rock band, taking pictures of aquarium fish, or current events, you'll always be better off creating a website around something you're interested in. This is for two reasons; first, it takes a lot of time and commitment to create a website so you'd better enjoy what you are writing about or you zeal for webcash will be overshadowed by your dread for creating and keeping updated your site. Second, the more you enjoy a subject the more likely you will have lots of content, the content will be material to your subject matter of interest, and the more likely the content will be updated or augmented. In the end this increases the likelihood that people will want to come back for repeat visits.
Where will this site be found on the internet?
Every website needs a home, on a server, somewhere. This site is hosted by
Bravenet
, which offers free and for fee hosting. Our legacy site is hosted by
Tripod, which also offers free hosting services. Take a look at the webspace
providers listed in the right hand column for more providers. By the way,
you'll need to have an email address to sign up for the free service providers,
so I've provided a list of email service providers to the right also. I'd
suggest using a free webspace provider to start and transition to a fee based
provider if the need exists.
Whose products and services will you market?
The answer to this question, of course, depends on the subject matter of your
site. If your site is about your favorite rock band, then place banners
and links from music, music video, music posters, music books, etc. The
largest clearinghouses for finding the right vendor are Commission Junction
and LinkShare
. Joining these services is free so I'd sign up for
all three.
Still don't have a clue of how to build a website? Don't worry,
I've got some useful resources where that's an issue also. If you sign up
for Bravenet's free webpages you'll get templates to get moving in a hurry; it's
a great place to start. Also, if you build your page with tripod, you'll
get helpful hints on building a site. Still not enough, try Sitemotor,
for everything you need. If you just can't do it, and you'd like to talk
to a professional, you might talk to
LiveAdvice
One last pitch. Personals sites earn money. The internet is a
fantastic medium to advertise for penpals, friends, dates, romance and marriage,
because unlike newspaper ads, the internet combines, print copy, photographs,
sound clips and even video. So I would whole-heartedly suggest the
internet personals vendor list in the right column. They're all free to
sign up for and, like me, I'm sure you'll profit from them for years to come.
Good luck,
M. Carona
