by Luke Wheeler

Created on: June 22, 2009   Last Updated: June 24, 2009

Making money on the Internet is not easy. No matter how many scammy websites tell you that you can make five digit figures a month doing five minutes of work a day, I can assure you that making money on-line requires hard work, motivation and determination. Making a living on-line is a whole other story. However, with the right attitude, it is very possible to make at least some decent cash on-line. Here I will outline the most common ways of earning money using your computer.

1. Start a blog. Find a topic you're interested in, register a domain and write interesting articles that people will want to read. It's best to find a niche market, something that isn't already dominated on the web. For example, a technology blog would be a tough blog to make any decent money from, as there are already clear market leaders such as Engadget. Once you've got your blog going, spend a little money on promoting it. Use Google Adwords to advertise on Google, and use Google Adsense to generate income when people click on ads you place on your blog. Successful bloggers earn full time income just by running a blog with Google Adsense. A little bird told me that the I Can Haz Cheeseburger blog generates six digit amounts every month.

2. Affiliate marketing. Already have a website that gets a fair few visitors a day? Many companies will pay you to place ads for their products on your site, and if someone buys something after clicking your ad, you get a percentage of the sale. Using this in conjunction with Adsense on a blog is a decent way to up your earnings. Amazon runs an affiliate program, so they're a good company to get started with.

3. Ebay. Start a small shop on eBay, and sell stuff. You can buy batches of products from warehouses, and sell them individually on-line to customers. Get good feedback, and more people will come to your store. Technically this option isn't JUST using your computer, and does require you to sell things and ship them out, but plenty of people run niche shops on ebay and make some honest cash from it.

4. YouTube. You might be thinking how can you make money from YouTube, but making successful videos on YouTube and becoming a YouTube partner does actually earn you money. It takes a lot of subscribers and traffic to your videos to generate any amount of useful money, but it can be done and it's one of the more fun ways to earn, if you can make good videos that again, fill some sort of niche that hasn't already been done, at least not done well, before.

So those are just four ways to make some money on the Internet. Like I said before, it isn't easy to make a lot of money on-line, so don't give up your day job just yet; but with enough commitment, passion and drive, it is most definitely possible. Don't give up, spend time working on something people will enjoy, and get it out there.

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