So, you've finally decided to take that giant leap of faith and
start your very own home based internet business. You've decided
that it's finally time to step up to the plate and claim your share
of all those internet riches you keep hearing about. Only problem
is, now that you've finally made your decision, it seems like a
pretty daunting task deciding what to do next. Using the term
"information overload" to describe the problem seems like a huge
understatement.

Well, if you're really serious about starting your own home based
internet business, the next step really doesn't have to be that
difficult at all. There are 3 relatively simple ways to start making
an online income and one of them is sure to fit your particular idea
of what it is you would like to do. So, just relax, take a deep breath,
and peruse the following list until you find something that strikes
the right cord.

1-Join One or Several Affiliate Programs

This is probably one of the easiest and quickest ways to get
started making money online. The internet is full of products that
have affiliate programs you can join and most of them pay generous
commissions. When you join an affiliate program, you are simply making
an agreement with the owner of a product that you will receive a
commision in exchange for referring a prospect to that person's product
(usually a sales page that you have sent the prospect to via your
affiliate link) if that prospect ends up making a purchase.

Start by choosing a product or service that you're interested in
and then visit some of the websites which have achieved top rankings
for the keywords which describe that topic. You're sure to find the
top affiliate programs for that industry relatively quickly. Or, try
visiting one of the many affiliate program directories (you can find
them quickly enough in Google) and scan their listings and
recommendations until you find something that appeals to you.

This is a good one for newbies since you don't even need your own
website to get started. You will, however, need to learn how to use
the pay per clicks so you can get some targeted traffic to your
affiliate link. Once you start generating some income from the pay
per clicks, you can then start reinvesting some of your profits and
get yourself set up with your own website. By that time the prospect
of getting set up with your own website won't seem so daunting.

2-Join a Residual Income Program

Residual income programs are somewhat similiar to affiliate programs
in that you typically get paid for referring a prospect to the
program's website if that prospect decides to make a purchase.
However, the difference lies in the fact that with these programs
you also have the opportunity to earn a monthly recurring income if
the prospect you refer becomes a paying member of the residual income
opportunity program. For example, I belong to one of these programs
myself. If a prospect comes to my website and clicks on a link which
takes them to the sales page for the product and they buy, then I get
a commission. However, if that prospect also decides to become a
member of the residual income opportunity program, then I get a check
every month as long as that prospect remains a member of that program.

People tend to be skeptical of these programs and get them confused
with pyramid schemes. The way to tell if one of these programs is a
pyramid scheme is to simply determine if the company in question offers
a real honest to goodness product or service. If so, it cannot be
classified as a pyramid scheme and you should be okay. Don't be scared
off by the fact that you will most likely have to pay a monthly fee to
participate in the residual income opportunity. If you can build a
downline for yourself in one of these programs, the monthly fee will
be negligible compared to the potential residual income you could earn.
Alot of these programs will provide you with your own cookie cutter
website, which is okay if you are just getting started. Again, use the
pay per clicks to start generating some traffic and then work on getting
your own site up so you can start to build your own opt in list.

3-Sell a Hard Good or Downloadable Infoproduct

Okay, okay, I know this one doesn't sound so simple or easy, but to
be honest, it's really not as hard as it might first appear. Selling
a hard good entails offering a real physical product (like fishing poles,
for instance) for sale in your own online retail store. If this idea
really appeals to you, go for it. Brainstorm some products you would
enjoy selling, then do some keyword research in Wordtracker to develop
a targeted niche within that market (deep sea fishing poles?).

After that, you can use a drop ship source directory or the search
engines to find manufacturers or distributors who will drop ship the
merchandise for you (meaning they ship it directly to the customer and
you don't have to carry any inventory). Then go to Ebay or Yahoo and
sign up for one of their stores.