Making Money Online

I thought I'd create a page that lists the various resources I've found helpful. First, you can sell things online yourself. Other than a few e-books I don't have much experience with that, so I'll leave others to explain it. I did help set up a site that uses Yahoo Stores, which was fairly easy to learn how to use and seems to be adequate.

Second, you can sell other people's stuff through affiliate marketing.

If you're just getting started and want to create some sites specifically to earn yourself some affiliate income, get a copy of Rosalind Gardner's The Super Affiliate Handboook. She'll explain what you need, how to pick affiliate programs, ways to pick a niche market, and point you toward resources for everything from affiliate software to web hosting.

The other main option for income generation is a program like Google's AdSense, the ads you see to the right of this text. You sign up for the program, plug in a small bit of code, and Google serves up ads that match your content. I recently bought "What Google Never Told You About Making Money with AdSense" by Joel Comm. I've only taken advantage of the "low-hanging fruit", making the easy changes he suggested on the site that produces the most income for me. Granted, the niche I selected is not a huge money maker but it's fun. I didn't start the site with the goal of earning any income from it at all, so the fact that I am turning a profit on it is pretty nice. My AdSense revenue definitely improved after making the simple changes suggested in this book. I'm definitely going to sit down and re-read it. The book is $79 right now but the price is going up to $97 on July 1st, so if you're thinking about getting it, grab it now!

If you're interested in this stuff, I also highly recommend Revenue Magazine. It covers things from both the publisher point of view as well as the merchant side. There are interviews with successful affiliates and affiliate program managers plus regular columns on search engine optimization, online marketing, and more. Even the ads can be informative, as most of the big affiliate programs seem to advertise in its pages.