The point of being online anymore, isint about just checking your email, there are millions if not billions of people making money online every single day. How do they do it? What steps are they taking? What do you need to know in order to make money online? I have a feeling this is going to be a long one, because there are hundreds of ways to making money online and making money online does not have to be mission impossible!

In this article Im not going to be talking about traffic, although traffic usually does equal money. In this article Im going to be talking mainly about different things you can do to make money, direct money, online. One thing I absolutely have to emphasize right now is the absolute need for a website. This can ultimately be the hub for more than half of your money making ops online. While Im writing this Ill assume you have a website, or your going to get one soon, because some of these options like CPM banners or affiliate links need to have a place to be posted. So heres a few options available to you.

These aren't ALL the things you can do to make money, just the ones Im most familiar with and know work.

Affiliate Programs - Almost every single site out on the internet has some sort of an affiliateship, affiliate program, profit sharing program etc. An Affiliate program is a program you join as an affiliate from a website. These can be large well known websites such as Amazon, AllPosters, ProFlowers etc.

Or they can be from other sites you may not have heard of. Check all of these sites out. A good place to find a directory for Affiliate Programs is a site called AffiliatePrograms. You can earn a percentage of every sale you make. If your a good salesperson this would be the way to go for you. Me, Im not so good at selling stuff, but that doesn't mean I dont belong to a few programs! They also have affiliate programs where you can get paid for getting people to do trials, or if you can get people to download things like software, e-cards, e-books etc.

Provide Products- If you have the capabilities or are already selling something offline, why not try doing it online. This is a really good idea if your product is something unique and isint like everyone else's. You can set up a free website, even find free hosting, set up shop online and voila your own e-store. How simple is that?!?

Write Articles- If your creative and articulate enough you can write articles, blogs, reviews or forum posts for people and they will pay you. You can also do this as a business if you want to, by creating your own website putting examples of your work on it, make a price list, so on and so forth.

Or you can do something even simpler. Go on forums, sites like scriptlance, getafreelancer, genuinejobs, or even craigslist and you will find a multitude of people looking for YOU to write articles for them. I love to write. I would write 50 articles a day if it was possible and getting paid by doing so is also incredibly satisfying and fun. Who doesnt love doing something they love to do? You can even goto Google and type in "freelance writing jobs", "freelance sites", or "writing jobs online" you will find lots and lots of pages, people, forums etc looking for this kind of work.

Domain Parking- If you own any domains online even if its just a handful you can actually make money from those domains. You can find a parking site, park your domains with the program, and make a percentage of the money thats made. These are search portals. You get paid a percentage when people goto your search portals and, search. Some programs offer optimization, different options, etc.

You shouldn't ever join a parking program where YOU have to pay them. Try sites like Sedo, TraffiClub, Parked, Fabulous etc. Some are better than others, not all pay the same, so check the sites out before you join! Try searching for "domain parking programs" or "domain motenization". Depending on how many people you get to goto your site, and the quality you could make good money from this. *** Always follow guidelines and TOS or your account could be terminated and it doesnt matter if you have 35cents or $35,000 owed to you. Break the rules and your done.

Freelancing- This sort of goes along with writing articles. If you know how to do something like write, do web design, web templates, web development whatever, you can do it as a freelancer. You can make actual money from this! Check out freelance sites, do a search on Google for "Freelance sites", "freelance jobs" or "freelancers". This will take you to many different sites where YOU might be able to offer your service(s).

Provide a Service Online- if you know how to do some of the stuff above, web design, web development, web hosting or you know other things like optimization, backlinks, how to submit sites to directories, how to bump peoples PRs up, you can provide this service to other people and they will pay you. Again you have to either offer a unique service or pay lower than your competition. Dont tell them I said that though!

MLM or Networking Marketing- I dont usually get involved with this stuff, only because of two reasons. One is a lot of these sites are scams. Two, about %99.9 of these programs make you pay. And it usually isint a few bucks. But if its something your interested in and you can afford to invest money into a scheme like this, do it! Be cautious tho.

Domain Real Estate- If you know anything about domains, and can get your hand on some good ones for however much your willing to spend, you can make a living buying and selling domains. Buy low sell high, type thing. You can sell domains pretty much anywhere but there are certain "official" websites for this kind of work, such as afternic and sedo. But you can also sell them on forums such as NamePros or DigitalPointForums. Dont think just because your selling them on forums you wont make good money. Ive seen people on NamePros selling and buying domains for as much as $35k!

Ok now Im going to go onto something a little different. In the beginning of this article I mentioned that I can tell you about things you can do online to make money but you will most likely need a blog or a website of some kind. Well now that we got a majority of the things that you can (usually do) with out a website, I want to dig in a little deeper and list the things you can do if you DO have a website or a blog.

First off let me just start by saying something about the blog/website. There are ways now a days that you can do this for hardly any money at all. If not for free. I set up my website with wordpress, I got a really nice theme/template that was %100 free and all i had to pay for was hosting which is literally a few bucks a month. You gotta spend money, to make money!

CPM Programs- Most likely if you have a blog or website you will be putting CPM banners or CPM links on your site. CPM= Cost Per Thousand. If you put CPM banners or links on your site you will get paid a certain amount of money every time someone views that banner, or rather every 1000 times someone views that banner.

Example if a site offers to pay you $1.50 CPM and you have 5000 visits, then you will make $7.50. I know it doesnt seem like a lot but you can have multiple program CPM banners on your sites. And you can usually have one banner per page per CPM program on your site. So it gets a little better when you raise the numbers from 5000 to 50,000 = $75. Sometimes you will also get paid if people CLICK on these banners/links too. It depends on the program.

Affiliate Links / Affiliate Programs- Having a blog or website is a good way to incorporate your affiliate programs/links into the content/layout of your website or blog. Example, I am an affiliate for Amazon. My main website is about food and drink.

So far I have made 3 types of sites from Amazon, all of which are for cook books. So if Im talking about a Chef I like, say Jamie Oliver, I can then hyperlink the word "Jamie Oliver", so when people click that link they will be directed to the site from Amazon I made about Jamie Oliver which include all his cookbooks. This is also a form of marketing!

Sponsor ads- You can charge people a certain amount of money and put their ads on a certain place on your website, known as "sponsors". It gives them great exposure and you get paid for charging them a certain fee, say per week or per month.

Featured Blogs/Articles- People can be featured on your site, you can write blogs about services or programs they offer. Another relatively close thing to this is a site called BlogVertise. You sign up with an account tell them what category your site is, and then different companies online choose you to write blogs about them. BlogVertise will then disapprove or approve these blogs and you will get paid. Thats pretty easy!

Product Blogs- This is similar to that above but instead of writing about the company for a site like BlogVertise or PayPerPost, you write about a certain product from this company. I did one last month for a company that wanted me to write about their unique and luxurious gift baskets. It had to be 4 paragraphs, had to include certain keywords, include 1 link to the product per paragraph. I mean its fun and easy, why wouldnt you do this!?!

Adsense and sites similar- This is the last one! This is another way you can make money online through your website. Sites like adsense, bidvertiser, and adbrite will allow you to put contextual "ads" on your sites. When people click these ads you will be given a certain amount of money per click. Once you build up enough money on your account they will send you a check, money through PayPal or allow you take make a EFT (electronic funds transfer) to your bank.

This was a lot of different ideas, options and things for you to check out online. Hopefully I gave you more than enough information for you to begin your search! Don't fret if at first your not making very much. Millionaires aren't made over night. It takes perseverance, determination, and patience. Go out and get yourself a blog or website today!

Seriously, I dont think I ever realized how important having a website could be. And not just any old website. If your going to have a blog or an article web site make sure you sit down every day and do at least 4 posts. Dont copy and paste even if the articles are not copy written. This is another mistake people make. If your going to take the time to do all this stuff, or even just 2 or 3 things, your going to want to do it right. Remember Content Is King.

If you have content that is unique and interesting, they will come! I wish you luck in your search and I hope you find some really great programs to join so you too can start making money online. Thanks for reading, this was a fun article for me!