Introduction to making money online

How do you make money online with the internet? Thousands of people struggle with this question everyday, and few ever spend the time necessary to get the answers. Thousands of people waste time and money on get rich quick schemes and promises of easy income. Those same thousands of people are disappointed at the end of the day.

This website will tell you how to make money on the internet. I'm not going to sell you pipe dreams, or pretend you can make thousands of dollars a month of steady income from "doing virtually nothing". Opportunities like that only exist in the heads of those who believe the hype from late night infomercials. Let me repeat that, in case you missed it.

You will not make a good living from the internet (or anywhere else) without a lot of work and honest effort.

As a colleague of mine in the domain business says, it's not 1996 anymore. The domain craze is over. Venture capitalists have come to their senses. These imaginary pyramid schemes of internet riches don't work. The only people making money from those schemes are the ones spamming your inbox with unrealistic dreams and junk information. Read this next statement several times, because your long term success on the net will hinge on it.

Anybody can make excellent recurring income from the internet without a major monetary investment.

The second statement only applies to people who are willing to put a good deal of time and effort into the process of building a web presence. I'm not talking about setting up a website once and forgetting about it, though even some of those websites gain a certain amount of value over time. I'm talking about putting effort into a website consistently over many months. These are the people who reap the windfall from their efforts.

Think about the internet. It's the largest global business opportunity in history. The mid 90's were much like what the Louisiana Purchase was to early America. The Thomas Jeffersons of the internet recognized it's value early on (most notably domain names), and they spent pennies for what would later return millions of dollars. Although those earlier pioneering days of the net are behind us, it is still a very young medium and on a daily basis people across the globe are making their mark with internet ventures. At the same time, tens of thousands more are falling victim to bad information and impossible promises.

If you read all the free information offered on this website, you will be equipped to begin investing your time properly to reap the benefits of the web. Should you read all the information available, and decide you want to make that investment of time and effort, I highly recommend you subscribe to the newsletter, and join in the forum discussions. Don't be ashamed to learn from others who've been there - take your venture to the next level. I believe it was Ben Franklin who was quoted as saying "An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest."

Are you serious about starting a business in web development? Do you already have a business and want to capitalize on the web's awesome potential, but aren't sure what to do or who to trust? If you're a web developer, involving yourself here can expand and improve your skill set. If you've got a business, but you aren't knowledgeable about internet matters, this site can help you as well. It can provide you with enough knowledge to pick solid companies who will develop your website properly at a competitive price. You can learn what to look for when considering someone to build up search engine rankings for your website, where to get great website hosting at good prices, and the importance of things like viral marketing. A college course from a respected institution will not begin to match the insight and know how than talking with experienced developers and reading real development strategies can deliver.

Read the information available here first. It will give you a good idea of what to expect when you subscribe, with one exception. The subscription material and the subscriber's area is far more specific. It is highly focused on the actual methods and means to setting up a website properly, effective (relatively unspoken) ways to market your website on the internet, and precise methods to building a web presence. These methods are updated regularly to stay current with what works and what doesn't work on the web.

As a final note, let me say this: If you don't plan to follow through on this venture, or you're the type of person that tries something for a couple weeks and then you're on to the next big thing, I recommend you stick with your day job and don't even bother, because it will be a colossal waste of your time. This is not a get rich quick scheme, it's a collection of the lessons I've learned and the experience I've gained since my first experiment with a Geocities website back in 1994.