Can I Make Money Online - If So, How?

"Can I make money online" is a question being asked me by basically three different groups of people:

• Folks who have lost their job and the prospects for a new one are not good.
• Those who find that there are always more bills than money to pay them.
 
• Jealous types who know someone living the enviable lifestyle that can come from making your living online.

The people in the first group have an urgent need and are highly motivated, even desperate. The second group has some urgency but probably a bit more latitude in acting. The last group is a real wild card. I hope this article will satisfy the basics of the question for all three groups.There is no doubt in my mind that almost anyone can make money online. The follow up question that comes after that is HOW can I make money online. Good question.For the sake of brevity, I am going to assume that one is NOT asking about selling a product or service that they already sell offline, online. Nor are we talking about cleaning out the attic on eBay or Craigslist. Tip: forget garage sale-ing on eBay.That leaves us with essentially three methods to make money online:

1. Build a blog or website of valuable information, get lots of traffic and sell to the website visitors through various methods.

   Expect this method to take the longest of the three, take an incredible amount of work developing the content. Then learn search engine optimization (SEO) and promote the daylights out of the site.

2. Pay Per Click or PPC advertising of a product or service that you become an affiliate for. That means you do not develop, ship or ever touch the product or service, just send potential customers to the sales page of the business that does.

   This method can be the fastest method but also the most costly as you have to pay for the clicks of advertisements you buy on the search engines like Google, Yahoo! and Bing. You need extensive knowledge, or money to hire the work done, to build a website, do research, write ad copy, and carefully monitor your campaigns.

3. The third method is article marketing. The last method is my favorite for anyone who is not wealthy already. But then again, why would anyone wealthy be reading this article?

   With article marketing you can get started with no money, just a computer and internet (borrow one at the library even). This method can generate income in as little as one day, but can certainly take a week or two as well.

So as you can probably figure out from reading about the three methods to make money online, my answer to "HOW can I make money online" is typically to suggest article marketing.Article marketing is not only a great way for beginners to start making money online, it is also a great way to supplement other methods you may currently be using with some success. But it really shines for the newcomer.With article marketing you can do a little research about products you have an interest in already and probably have purchased in the past, then look for businesses that will pay you a commission to drive potential customers to their website.Once you have the product or service to promote, just start writing some articles as if you were typing a note to a friend and tell them about the product or service. Give information that saves them time digging up on their own and you will be deserving of the commission when they buy.These articles, when done right, end up showing up in search engine results and getting read by people looking for information that you have provided in the articles.The question is not so much can I make money online, because you probably are aware that a great number of people already are. What you really want to know is the how.It really is a fairly simple procedure from start to finish to make money online with article marketing. How quickly you succeed and whether you suffer frustration is the next topic of discussion.I spent two years looking before I finally found a guide to step through the process from start to finish in an easy to understand video format that I could recommend to all the people asking "Can I make money online?"Once I found it I created a website to let everyone know about it. I have a FREE BONUS for those who want to join me making money online at http://www.HowToEarnMoneyVideo.com.