by Tamra Thomason

Created on: May 08, 2008

While most kids today would like to avoid homework at all costs, many adults are eagerly seeking for it. The type they want is a little different though. They want to work at home. Never since the days of the family farm has the idea of working from home been so enticing. The prevalence of broadband internet in every home, coupled with long commutes and less time with family has people asking, "How can I make money on the Internet?" Making money from home falls into three broad categories: Owning your own business, telecommuting, and using "paid to" sites.

Owning your own business is the broadest category and includes everything from making your own products or buying into a franchise, to freelancing, blogging, direct sales, Ebay stores, and drop shipping businesses. With any of these pursuits, the main activity is marketing the product or service on the web. Marketing your products and services on the web used to be all about Search Engine Optimization (SEO). If you could get your site to come up first in the search engine results, traffic would come knocking. Then, search engines started accepting money to place ads high on the results page and also changed some of their ways of ranking results. Now, businesses must combine SEO with more traditional forms of on-line and off-line advertising to attract customers. Money for advertising is a necessary expense.

In addition to producing and selling your own products on the web, the web opened up new ways of selling other's products. Ebay of course has become a household name for getting rid of those unused items, but some people have made a business of re-selling on Ebay the products they can get wholesale or at discount near them. All you need is warehouse space, shipping supplies, and a digital camera. Another way to sell products is affiliate marketing. Amazon pioneered this by allowing anyone to open up an Amazon store. Amazon takes care of the warehousing and shipping. This works best when you can attract a certain niche audience, say with your blog or informational website, and then recommend products that would interest them. Many sites and e-stores now have affiliate marketing programs that you can take advantage of.

If you have developed a marketable skill, freelancing from home may be an option. Sites like Elance and Guru match freelancers with projects that they can bid on. Writers, graphic and web designers, programmers, and general office workers are some of the best suited. Before starting, put up

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