what are some legit ways to make money online?

[Mk]

There are plenty of ways to make money online. What is more important however is how much time you have or what interests you and what you are willing to pursue. Each way of making money requires a different amount of commitment and in turn offers a different kind of financial reward. Generally speaking, if it is very easy to start doing and making money from then usually the amount of money you can make from it is very little. This may not be true for everything, but I am just offering a generalisation. A few ways to get started making money online are as follows

Paid To: Such things as surveys and the like. You will be paid to fill something out or make a post to a forum. Very easy to do and the payouts reflect this by being very low. This may be a good area for a beginner to making money online to get started in. You can meet other people and expose yourself to new ideas and ways of thinking that you previously were not aware of.

Freelancing: This includes pretty much anything where you offer a skill you have as a service to someone else. Posting to a forum isn't a skill but being able to write good articles or code in a programming language is. There are many freelancing sites and plenty of work to be found. Depending on what skill you posses, you may be able to make good money from this. This may be another area to start in especially if you are good at something such as writing articles (huge demand, pay isn't that great but much better than get paid to sites) or you can setup servers/linux etc.

Google Adsense: Includes any other kind of ad service where you get paid for placing an advertisement on your website. This is usually only good if you already have a website up and running and have plenty of traffic. You need traffic here to be able to make any amount of considerable money. While you can start a website from scratch and maybe target high paying keywords, there is a lot of work involved. If you already have a website this is a good way to make money while you sleep as placing ads on your sites requires you to do nothing other than just maintain and promote your site as you typically do. Maybe not a good idea for beginners.

Affiliate Products: Promote other people's products. Will involve a little work but you can promote and advertise via many free methods (online classified sites, social networking sites such as myspace) and the money to be made can be good (depending on the payout offered by the affiliate). Promoting affiliate products is very popular as you can make good money if you know what you are doing. Anyone can get started in this and start promoting today without spending a dime. I personally would recommend this for beginners as you pay nothing and it can lead onto bigger and better things such as promoting your own products.

Promote Your Own Product: This is where the money is, the real money. You will need your own product, it could be anything, and you will need a list of people to promote it to or have affiliates who will promote your product for you. There are many ways to promote your own product, by yourself or through affiliates. By promoting your own product online you stand the best chance of making what I would call REAL money. It isn't easy to do when compared to other ways of making money online and it can take considerable time before you start seeing any real return.

These are just a few ideas of how to make money online and there are many many more. Each one can be twisted and molded to suit your own personality or way of thinking. My advice for anyone serious about making money online would be to find a forum with like minded people and go one step at a time. There is a lot to learn and a lot of money to make if you stick to it, no matter what path you choose.