How many people earn their living online? It is hard to say. Millions. And millions work online part time in addition to their main full time job. How do they earn on the Internet?

1. Sell tangible products. Start with eBay – test what is in demand, find product suppliers. Next move – set up your own online store to cut costs.

2. Sell digital products. For example, ClickBank is the top player on the market of e-books. Explore the bestsellers, develop a better product than your competitors offer. Software, stock photos and other digital goods go to this category.

3. Design websites, program websites, promote websites (SEO) (best places to learn and improve your skills – forums similar to www.sitepoint.com, www.webmasterworld.com, www.digitalpoint.com, blogs – see my blogroll list on blog home page).

4. Publish your own websites and collect advertising revenue. Income resources:

- CPC (cost per click) networks (YPN, AdSense, etc);
- CPM (cost per impression) networks (Casale, TribalFusion, ValueClick, BurstMedia, etc);
- CPA (cost per action) networks (CJ, LinkShare, AzoogleAds, Shareasale, etc);
- Link sales (via eBay, text-link-ads, etc);
- In-text advertising (VibrantMedia)
- Direct adv sales
- Donations
- Subscriptions

5. Online services: auctions (eBay), online payment services (PayPal), hosting companies.

What other ways to make money online would you recommend? Probably, some important additions to the ones I mentioned.

Summary: it is not the ultimate list of ways to make money online. I have tried to make the list of the best ways that can generate you enough funds to make it the only income source.

There are other ways but I think they fit some of the five ways. For example, forum posting goes to the 1st type.

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Links are harder to get this time. Link exchanges do not work, natural links are not that easy to obtain. As a result, link buying is probably the easiest way to gain link popularity (here it is also not that simple: Google states that it can detect the websites that sell links and promises to their ability to penalize them. As a result, those website that rent links from penalized resources will not get the benefits they pay money for).

On the other hand you can generate some extra income if you sell links (but there is a chance to be penalized by Google for this activity).

I was quite impressed with the information that Steve Pavlina generates about $600.00 and Matt does even better and gets about $700.00 per month from links sales through one channel. Yes, these two persons run well-known blogs on the Internet and at this time I will not dare compare my websites and online business with theirs. But I am still impressed and signed up with the service they both recommend: www.text-link-ads.com (aff link).

I have placed their code on three websites and I also joined their Affiliate Program (placed it’s banners and links just on this blog). Now one week later I can’t boast of any link sales. And referral program does not work. But I am sure that the service will generate me some extra cash.

1. Firstly, one week is not enough time to become visible.
2. Secondly, it is summer time, most people enjoy their holidays and will be back to their routine activity in autumn – I expect at that time more traffic and more opportunities.
3. Thirdly (probably, most important point), my websites are not as well established as the two I referred to.

Nobody wants to waste their cash inefficiently – I need to improve my websites first.

www.text-link-ads.com is also a good place to buy links. I have checked their competitors (LinkWorth.com, Linkadage.com), browsed webmaster forums and eBay.com and conclude that their service suits me best: selection, prices, security, reliability and convenience. I guess every webmaster approaches link purchase process from two points of view:

- buying links for PR boost and improvement of his website search engine rankings
- buying links for getting considerable targeted traffic

The best solution is, of course, to combine both aspects in one link, but it is unfortunately a rare case. So, expect to spend funds on a few links if you need to achieve both targets. Also, one-two months are not enough for your purposes. It is recommended to keep the links at least 6-9 months to get some result.

Summary: text-link-ads.com is a promising supplemental source of income generation for all types of websites. You can safely combine this type of adv with any other (including contextual adv from YPN and AdSense); the links do not annoy your visitors; they as a rule come from the website that operate in your industry; so one can say that it is an extra benefit for your visitors.

If you are going to spend some funds on link buying – it is also a nice place to start your tests.

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Being quite unhappy with my results of using CPA (cost-per-action: you get paid once the visitor from your website did some action on the website you are affiliated with) programs (I am signed with Commission Junction, Shareasale – do not use them much – and LinkShare) I have decided to explore what works with other online entrepreneurs.

Here is a list of my observations:

- There is a new generation of CPA networks that most webmasters discuss and use: AzoogleAds, HydraMedia, etc. At this time Azoogleads.com seems to be the buzzword for a CPA network. I have applied to become a member – they promise to contact the applicants within two business days. Now it is a week – no reply: approved/ rejected – no idea.

But as I have discovered it is their standard practice – they have too much applications at the moment and strict screening guidelines. It is recommended to call them. They have a big amount of applicants due to all positive feedback on the Internet and fail to process every application in time.

- What programs to apply for? I mostly run offers to buy some products – promotions with banners and text links. But at the moment it is the history.

What works now according to those webmasters who are doing fine with CPA networks:

Freebies. Free trial memberships (ringtones, diet, etc).
Surveys and contest.

- Promoting techniques are more or less traditional:

website,
PPC (unfortunately for affiliate marketers, you can’t send the traffic directly – you need a landing page on your website. From that page, you cane send your visitors to the merchant website),
forum signature,
MySpace spamming (send your hot offers with your bulletin and embed the affiliate links. Remember to properly express the benefits and call to action within 1-2 sentences),
E-mail marketing

Summary: CPA as an income for online marketers is obviously not dead. One just has to keep up with the changes that occur so fast on the Internet. Yesterday’s leaders are no more key industry players, promotional techniques change even faster with social networking topping the list for this moment. Just apply for the new networks, browse their offers and test, test, test.

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