Actually Working to Make Money on the Internet

There are many people out desperate for more money. Unfortunatly, most of them are desperate for a lot of money very fast. Thousands of internet sites prey on these people. In fact, these sites are around because their owners also want to get rich quick. A good example of some of the scam sites are the "get paid to..." sites. According to these you can get paid to take surveys, read e-mails, surf the internet, or just about anything where they can cram your computer full of ads and pay you 1/1000 of a cent for each one.

Just think about this... if you knew how to make money without working hard or for a long time would you really want to tell other people your secret? I doubt it. Trying to profit through the internet is not a free ticket. You need to learn to do things on your own and work for success.

Probably the simplist way to make money on the internet is to sell a product. However, before you can do this you need a domain name, a host and a product. Domain names and hosts are fairly cheap. Sites like yahoo offer hosting and domain name business services that even people with no webamster experience can easily use for little money. In contrast a product can be expensive. You will need to decide what you want to sell and then buy an inventory for the product. Buying your inventory also requires that you find a supplier. Once you find a supplier they will most likely be very helpful and want to help your new business.

After this comes promotion. Nobody will buy from you if they can't find your site. Submitting to product info to price comparison sites can get a lot of sales. If you price your product lower than every one else you will definitely get some sales. You can also promote your entire site by advertising. Advertising on the internet requires a great deal of sorting through the scam sites. Most people will waste money on bad advertising even after the work to find legitimate places to advertise. Webmaster forums can help to get through this because you can ask other webmasters what has and hasn't worked for them to avoid mistakes others have made.

Once you find a way to successfully promote your business the money really does often come quick and with little work.

A Savings Plan Where You Can Actually Make Money

Many folks want a savings plan where they can actually make money, not just miserly interest. Also, many would consider investing money in stocks and bonds if they felt it could be done without much risk. Here's a custom-built savings plan and investment program I offered clients when I was an active financial planner.

We'll use Jack as our example. Jack wanted a savings plan that was safe and paid more interest than he could earn at the bank. Plus, he didn't want too much money accumulating in the bank where it was so readily available because he was always tempted to take a withdrawal and spend it.

Jack had never been into investing money in stocks and bonds to make money because he abhorred risk and did not know how to invest. He also disliked and did not trust the investment industry or those who worked in it. Because he knew he needed an investment program as well as a savings plan if he wanted to earn higher returns, he decided to talk to me.

We started Jack's first financial adventure with $600 per month flowing (automatically) from his checking account to a large mutual fund family. All of it went directly into a money market fund where it was safe and earned a competitive interest rate. Plus, this gave us flexibility because money could easily be moved from there to any of the other funds offered by the fund family.

The money market fund was earmarked as his savings plan. Of the $600 that went in each month, $300 would stay there. The other $300 was his investment plan and would automatically flow each month into three different funds, $100 each.

The three other funds were: a short-term bond fund, an intermediate-term bond fund and a conservative stock fund. The bond funds gave him more interest in the form of dividends, which were simply automatically reinvested to buy more shares. The stock fund offered both dividends (that were also reinvested) and growth.

Jack was now investing money as well as saving it. He was finally an investor, accepting only a moderate to low level of risk overall. As money flowed from his money market fund each month to his bond funds and stock fund, each $100 purchase would automatically buy more shares when the price was down and fewer when the price was higher.

This is called DOLLAR COST AVERAGING, and it works to lower the average cost per share. Plus, as Jack's dividends reinvested periodically he would accumulate more shares.

There you have it. A savings plan and an investment program all in one simple package. Jack was still a client of mine 20 years later and eventually allowed me to be a bit more aggressive in my recommendations. But he still does not trust the investment industry.

A retired financial planner, James Leitz has an MBA (finance) and 35 years of investing experience. For 20 years he advised individual investors, working directly with them helping them to reach their financial goals.

Jim is the author of a complete investor guide, Invest Informed, designed for average investors or would-be investors of all levels of financial background and experience. To learn more about investments and investing and his new financial guide go to http://www.investinformed.com