Since I sold my last business in 2004 I have been trying hard to make a living online. Most of my neighbors knew what my last business was as it was very obvious from the garage full of soda, water, snacks and vending machines. When I say garage full I am talking about maybe 1000 to 1500 cases at least. Yes, I was a vendor and I did this for about 8 years. 8 years of people complaining about out of date soda, warm candy bars and dimes stuck in the machines. 8 years of 40 foot Pepsi and Coke trucks coming up to my driveway and unloading materials. 8 years of counting coins and dollar bills every day. Had it not been for the recession, 9-11 and the dotcom bust I would probably have grown to where I hired a few workers and I would still be doing it.

However things did slow down and besides, I was looking for something with less headaches and had more of an upside.

Now my neighbors wonder what the heck I do. They see me stay inside my house all day long and when I do come outside I am in a robe, shorts or tee shirt and jeans. They ask me what I am doing and I say I am doing some internet marketing. They just kind of look puzzled and dont say much else. Nothing like Oh. My son is doing that also Or I know a friend I who is an internet marketer and they are making tons of money Nothing like that.

So at times I try to explain and that is what I will do now.

Internet marketing is very simply making money from the internet. You may say Duh. What a genious but the thing is, it has to be described in that broad of a sense because there are so many types of internet marketing. Here are a few different ways to make money online that I have discovered:

1. Affiliate programs.

Affilaite means you sell other people's and companies products and you get a commission. Many huge companies around the world use the affiliate system to sell their products such as Yahoo, Microsoft, Macys, AT&T, Walmart, Blockbuster, etc...The products that can be sold from affiliate sites are never ending. I honestly can't think of a product that can't be sold through an affiliate program. Here is a short list of some of the products I can sell through various affiliate programs: e-books, solar panels, books, magazines, homes, mortgages, wart remoaval medicine, hypnosis tapes, leads, movies, car insurance, anti theft devices for cars, self improvement courses and the list goes on and on.

As an affiliate you sometimes are able to have other affilaites join under you and you also get a percentage of their sales. The typical affiliate commission structure is for the affiliate to be paid a higher percentage on their direct sales, say 50%, and then a lower percentage on the sales of those affiliates they sign up, maybe 10 to 20% commissions. Usually what we consider affiliate programs are limited to two levels. Most affiliate programs are free to join.

Many of the top internet marketers used affiliate programs to get started in their carreer.

2. Network Marketing.

Network Marketing is simular to affiliate programs except they go more than two levels deep. They can go unlimited levels even. What this does is create great leverage so that you can possibly make huge amounts of money if you get an organization of thousands of members. There are different government rules for network marketing businesses, or MLMs, than for the typical two tier affiliate program. Network marketing has been around for about 50 years, way before the internet started. However the internet has proven to be a great way to promote network marketing companies.

3. Selling your own products and/or on your own website.

Having your own products and/or services with your own website is of course a great way to make money. There have been constant improvements to doing this and additional ways to make money this way. One addional way to now make extra income from your own website is by using Google adsense. these are ads from Google's customers who pay by the click to advertise on other people's websites. This can make a good income for the website owners but you need traffic to the sites to make money this way. You can also have links to affiliate sites on your own website. Or sell advertising directly to other website owners.

Here is an example of a website with Google adsense ads and also some affiliate programs. Cutting Edge Real Estate

4. Blogs

A web log is called a blog. This is a way to instantly publish any information online. There are 9 million blogs out there, with 40,000 new ones popping up each day. Amazing. A blog can be set up quickly at no cost at blogger.com, a site owned by google. Anything that can be sold on a website can also be sold on a blog so many people are using blogs instead of websites.

Here is an example of one of my blogs.

Self Improvement Now Blog