Unless you have been living on a desert Island you will know that many people are becoming very rich through making money via the internet. If you are also trying to grab your stake in this huge business I hope this article can provide a decent introduction for you.

Perhaps the most popular but not necessarily the best way, in my opinion, is to join some sort of MLM scheme. There are SO many to choose from. This business is huge and feeds mainly on the desperation of people who want or need to make money fast. These business tend to have very similar websites that have pictures of cash and flashy cars and stories of people who have made their fortunes using their system.

They are all basically the same. You pay a fee to join (either one time fee or a monthly fee) and you convince others to do the same and they in turn do the same. It’s appealing to many people because theoretically you only need to introduce a few people and get them to do the same and so on and the effect snowballs. So theoretically a little bit of work and getting a few people on board will snowball into $1000s or more and you can retire as the snowball grows by itself automatically.

The reality is this is simply theory. It very rarely actually happens that you invite a few people and watch the snowball grow. I have tried a few of these MLM’s for fun really just to see what this market is really all about and they all pretty much turn out to be the same. A company is getting ready to launch so they contact all the people they know and hype it up as the answer to their online income dreams. People get really excited and chat on Skype all day long about how their marketing plan is coming along. Then the company launches and things are going great this guy has a new recruit that guy has a new recruit, maybe even you have 1 or 2 in the first month. It all seems to be going according to plan. But then a month or maybe a few months in the momentum begins to slow. Not so many new people are coming in and the recent recruits get impatient and upset. They then start to get angry with whomever recruited them and start to accuse those recruiters as scammers because they promised them financial freedom and it hasn’t happened yet. So then they go around every forum and start slandering the program saying it’s a scam etc but then somehow those same people find another new start up program and they foolishly believe that this next one will be the answer to their prayers.

It’s almost religious because a lot of these MLM’s have a “leader” and the people follow him almost like a cult. He was able to recruit maybe 100 or more people within a short period of time and he is normally very charismatic (otherwise how could he recruit so many so quickly). Whenever anyone says something bad about him the followers are quick to defend his reputation because they have somewhat fallen in love with him and believe that he is their “savior”.

I’m not saying that everyone is like this but believe me I have seen this phenomenon at least twice in my travels.

In saying all of that you can certainly make money with these MLM’s, and you can also certainly become rich as many have. But you are basically doing it via a legalized pyramid scheme. Many people think these MLM’s are illegal or dodgy but they aren’t in the slightest. All you have to do is give a product for the money the members pay and you are totally legal. So what you find is many MLM’s give webhosting which is of course a staple product for any internet user. Reality is perhaps 90% of the members don’t even use the webhosting. They are only in it for the business opportunity.

The fact is this market is huge. It isn’t about to die anytime soon and the market is growing. More and more people come to the internet in search of an online income so this is certainly one way to make money online but in reality it isn’t stable and your business is being built on sand as it were.

Another online money making business idea is to become a ghost writer. If English is your native tongue there are many online marketers that need people to write articles for them about anything. They normally tell you the topic they want you to write about and how many words etc. Depending on how fast you can type and think you could make anywhere from $10-$30 per hour doing this work. If you have an above average knowledge of a topic then you are able to give superior quality content on that topic you could make more. The problem with this business is there are already many people doing this and it could be hard to get your foot in the door. You need to build a reputation before you get decent work so your first 100 jobs will be a real struggle. However if you do a good job you will get a lot of repeat business and eventually be able to work completely form home using only your computer and your writing skills.

The final online income method I will talk about here is called Niche Marketing or Affiliate Marketing. Essentially you create websites focused around a certain theme. If the theme is computer mice then you have a website all about that topic and you feature all kinds of mice on that site which link to sites like Amazon where you will get a commission if someone actually buys a mouse. You can also put Google AdSense on the site and earn money simply from people clicking on ads. This has been my preferred method and it is the one method I will stick to for now as it’s working well and doesn’t require me to recruit others.  Some of my niche websites include Wedges Sandals & Mother of the Groom Dresses

My success or failure purely depends upon me and no one else. When I did the MLM’s they just kept failing because people would drop out and I felt like I was constantly bailing water out of a sinking boat. With the website business it’s the opposite. The costs of running this business aren’t very high. Just need webhosting which is about $5/month and $10/year for each domain name you buy. Currently my income is growing by about $75 per month so its working well and the growth is stable. However doing this business takes a lot of learning. During my first 6 months I earned about $100. But after that it started to be more consistent and started to grow at a decent rate. There are many courses you can buy that will show you the basic ropes if you want a head start. Otherwise just search the net and learn as much as you can for free and give it a go. About 80-90% of websites fail so be sure to try as many websites as possible before you give up. Most people have 50-100 sites before they have a few successful ones.