However, with a little training in the ways of online marketing, anyone willing to put in the time can make money online. However, we do recommend several tutorials because there is quite a bit to know to actually make money online. Those that say you can’t make money online have tried to do it by themselves…and, well, it’s like trying to pass your driving test with out looking at the book. Driving may be easy, but there’s just some facts you need to know or you run into trouble. Trouble that can cost you money.

Here’s our 2010 list:

1. Affiliate Marketing

I think a full 50% of the internet consists of affiliate marketers and people telling you how to do it. It’s super simple to do, super hard to make decent money at it. One of the best ways to make BIG money online, affiliate marketing is definitely a subject to take time to learn.Yes, take the time to learn. Affiliate marketing has become a skill that takes a great deal knowledge to do well. It’s no longer just throwing a few links up.

Now, the trick is finding legitimate material that gives you what you really need to know and we all know there is no lack of people wanting to teach you all about it. Read http://homeschoolent.com/2009/10/learn-affiliate-marketing-the-easy-way-before-christmas/ for some basic info that I don’t want to repeat here. There is a good ebook you can download for free from Site Build It-just know they have a motive. Don’t get me wrong, it’s good, although somewhat outdated, information, but they are intent on selling you their full service web building suite. It’s great for a newbie, but at over $300/year, it’s a little more than you’ll need after year one.

The ebook I used and have recommended for years to learn affiliate marketing from scratch is Rosiland Gardner’s “How I Made $436,737 In One Year – Super Affiliate Handbook”. Rosiland Gardner is one of the pioneers of affiliate marketing and is not offering you a quick buck online. This is “Affiliate Marketing 101″ that will get you started with everything you need to know to begin to make real money online.

If you are more advanced and want to take affiliate marketing to the next (highest) level is Jeremy Palmer’s Blueprint For Profitability. This course includes his flagship ebook, Quit Your Day Job and all the information he offered in his online 8 week course, The Black Ink Project. Jeremy is a pro and makes over one million a year with affiliate marketing and has put together a wealth of information for anyone that wants to learn advanced methods in affiliate marketing. One of the most honest and genuine online teachers, he doesn’t need the money, but just wants to pass on what he’s learned. The course is $197, but is well worth every penny and is comparable to courses priced $1,000.00 and more. It’s the college course of affiliate marketing.

2. Adsense

Google Adsense is one of the most talked about revenues online. While many of the stories may sound inflated, believe it when you hear that many websites pull in insane amounts of income from simply placing those little ads on any website. One of the most common strategies is to create multiple mini sites that are search engine optimized that make a modest amount from Adsense each. More websites, more money. This is something that isn’t quite as easy as it sounds, because Google strives to protect their search integrity by ‘punishing’ sites that are phony money makers. Offering valuable information on niche subjects, like “Poison Ivy Remedies” is what will do well. There is a multitude of little tricks and tips to make this work, and there are several ebooks willing to bare all. One of the better ones to learn Adsense from a standpoint that Google accepts… is called Fat Cat Blueprint. It offers alot of information that you may or may not use all of, but it could make a great family learning project! Use it with Edu-blogs, or educational websites you build with unit studies, or other ideas you may come up with. Integrating learning with profitable publishing will stay with them through out life!

We are also checking out another one that looks very promising, especially for homeschool families called Rapid Income. The benefits are you don’t need to know how to build a website, or many of the other ‘tech challenges’ that prevent families from starting out online. I’ll let you know what we think after we have a chance to review the course. If you know about it, please post a comment below or email us your opinion. It helps everyone! Thanks.

3. Ebay

You’ve heard so much about the money that can be made on Ebay, but if you’ve ever sold anything on Ebay, you know it’s not the easiest way to make a living. The competition is fierce, and newbies can get eaten alive. It costs money to list items, so if they don’t sell, you have lost that money. Do yourself a favor and take a little time to learn from other successful Ebay sellers. A few years ago I did extensive research on the best book available on making money on Ebay and found that eBay PowerSeller Secrets: Insider Tips from eBay’s Most Successful Sellers (2nd Edition) (v. 2) was your best choice-and still looks like it’s in the top 3. Marsha Collier has a great reputation as an Ebay educator and eBay Business All-in-One For Dummies looks like an excellent option, too. I haven’t read this one, but I can testify that Ebay PowerSeller Secrets is excellent and a staple in my business library (when someone isn’t borrowing it!).

4.  Write and sell an Ebook

It’s not hard to write and publish an ebook, but throwing another ebook into the informational product ocean could be a waste of time. No question it takes a bit of time and mind power to create your product, so you want to be sure that it’s something that will give you a return on your time. Do your research on what sells, and provide a genuine solution to a common problem and you’ll be on your way. Marketing your book will take as much, if not more, time and mind power if you do it right.

Basically, once you have written your (researched topic) ebook, convert it into a PDF. There are several free ones available online. PrimoPDF is the one I use and it’s completely free-not just a free trial like most of them. Then, signing up to be a Clickbank seller is your next step. It may cost $50, but there’s no where else you’ll get so much bang for your buck. Chances are if you offer a decent commission, you’ll get calls/emails the day it appears on Clickbank’s Marketplace from prospective re-sellers. You will also gain a new respect for Clickbank’s integrity in what they require from every ebook they agree to list.

The most popular and respected resource for those that would like a step by step tutorial on how to create and market an ebook quickly is How To Write and Publish Your Ebook in 7 Days. It’s only $29 and if you don’t find it useful, you can easily ask for your money back (within 60 days). You’ll make that back in one sale. (#1 tip: don’t underprice your ebook, remember, it’s perceived value!) There are many more tutorials for sale on writing ebooks, but this the best selling one, and for good reason. Reliable.

5. Online services

There are many things you could offer to others that work online. Do you know how to write a website, install a WordPress blog, or use Photoshop? Copywriting,  social marketing, virtual assistant services are just a few services you could offer.  Use 99 designs, Elance, etc to advertise what you can do, and join a few Yahoo groups that might want your services. It can be slow to get started, but be persistent, once your name is out there, you’ll have all the work you can do. There’s a big demand for online help.

6. Sell something

Sell your crafts on Etsy if you make something from scratch. If you manufacture a product or want to resell a product, of course Ebay is good, or you can put up a website and offer it with a ecommerce site. An ecommerce site basically enables you to take money online. A free version can be found on OS Commerce. If you only have a few items, Paypal for business will work beautifully. They take a commission, but it’s very reasonable. Do not use a free website service for this. Blue Host is a good choice because their customer support is outstanding. You’re going to need it.

7. Blogging

The perfect choice if you aren’t in a hurry to make money and want to start for free. Ideally, starting out with a self hosted WordPress blog so you don’t have to switch over when you start making money is best, but if money is super-tight, then start on WordPress.com. Blogger is another choice you can start for free, but WP is reported to be easier to learn. Just click on the links and set up your blog. The key is to offer information people need on a regular basis. There is much more to learn to make this a money making venture, but getting started NOW is most important. It takes time to get your name out, so be patient but diligent. Read our 5 part series on How to Get Started Blogging and our Huge List of Blogging Resources to get started.

If you are looking for a great online blogging course, we recommend the ever popular Blog Mastermind by Yaro Starak. This is highly regarded in the blogging community as the premium learning source for those that want to get serious about making money with their blog. It’s an excellent resource, read more about it here.

9. Writing

Even if you aren’t a professional writer, or very good at grammer, you can make money writing. The key is choosing hot topics and integrating keywords as you write. Hubpages is one of the hotspots for this, but get on it, because it’s getting overloaded as we speak (write?). Take a look at Hubpages, and you’ll see that the articles are short and to the point. They are search engine superstars, so traffic is no issue if you write on a topic that is searched on often. The way you make money is offering your Adsense account, and Hubpages splits the profit with you. One article won’t make you but a few dollars, so the ones that make decent money have many articles posted. Commit to writing 2-3 per day and see what happens! Other writing options can be found at Squidoo, Elance, Suite 101 and Demand Studios. Find good information on this topic at http://www.freelancewritinggigs.com/

10. Sell Your Digital Photos Online

Deciding on what would make the cut on the top 10 list here, it was a toss up between selling your photos or starting an online forum. Now I know we could file these under selling something or Adsense, but we’ll let you figure out how to start an online forum and we’ll cue you in on selling your photos online. If you don’t think you are a good enough photographer to sell your photos, think again. Granted, you need to have some decent photos to offer, but the key making money here is in the gruntwork. Submitting many photos of subjects that people need for their websites, blogs or print ads and posting them diligently in all the right places is what it really takes. An excellent resource to learn the tricks of the trade is Sell Your Digital Photos Online. It’s 202 pages of the best information on making a career with your digital camera.

If you want to learn more about how to improve your photography skills, the absolute best place is Digital Photography School, a blog that has close to half of a million subscribers and is free for the reading. My daughter in law wants to be a professional photographer and has started a notebook printing out all the information she would like to study more.

Let us know if you have had experience with other ways to make money online. We’d love to hear!

Remember, ignorance is NOT bliss.

One point to remember when you apply to a network, they often base your acceptance upon the website you have at the time. While some are more picky than others, it’s good to have something that looks halfway decent finished before you apply to any of the major networks. If you are planning a variety of different websites representing different products or markets, I’d also like to suggest that you create a ‘Branding Site’, or “The Mother Ship” as my son calls it.

Our branding site is in need of updating, but we simply use the front page of a self-hosted WordPress blog and call it “Family Choice Marketing”. Many of the websites listed there have made it, others haven’t. You’ll find you change course as you learn what works . . . and what does NOT. We have several websites that we don’t list for copyright purposes, too. You’ll find that certain sites will mimick what you write – word for word -and create a competing campaign, which can really hurt – or completely harmless, just annoying. Who or why they do that, I’m not sure, but if you’ve put a great deal of research into a campaign, don’t list it on your branding site.

The Difference Between Affiliate Networks and Affiliate Programs

Once you have your identity established, and a decent website up, you’ll want to find products to sell. If you have a product in mind, you can find information about their affiliate program (usually) at the bottom of their web page. Often, you will see a small link that says something like “Affiliate Program” taking you to a detail page. Sometimes companies handle their own program, but bigger companies will go through a network, like Commission Junction. CJ is an excellent example of a network that handles many different company’s affiliate programs. A network will give you stats and tracking information on the different programs that helps immensely in choosing which program to invest your time in.

It’s very helpful to have all your affiliates in one place, although that is a rare luxury. A good network also protects you with a guarantee that you get paid what you are owed. Yes, it’s not uncommon to have individual affiliate programs be unreliable in their payments to you. That’s the advantage of working with a network. However, all networks are NOT the same, nor do they offer the same level of protection. When in doubt, it’s always helpful to do a Google search on that company’s affiliate program and see if there is much complaining. Not always the best indicator, but can be a red flag.

Keeping track of all your programs can be time consuming, so don’t sign up for too many programs. Find the products you want to represent and join those first. You’ll figure out as you go along which ones are worthwhile.

Here’s the top 10 to consider:
• Commission Junction – by far the best network online, and has some of the top companies represented. Hint: Don’t apply to every company when you first sign up, many will deny you and won’t reconsider. Wait until you are better established. Pays every two weeks.
• LinkShare – notched directly under CJ, Linkshare carries many of the big companies, yet does not enjoy the favor that CJ seems to. Good tracking and stats, pays monthly.
• ClickBank - with over 10,000 digital products (ebooks), Clickbank is one of the easiest to use and pays some of the highest commissions online. Hence, the competition is stiff.

• Affiliate Window – is a UK based network, which can be good because savvy affiliate marketers know that promoting in other countries can be easier than the saturated American market.

• Link Connector -  is a relatively new  network (2004) that offers Pay Per Click, Pay Per Sale and Pay Per Lead. I’m not familiar with it, but SelfSeo.com says it’s worth checking out for their different types of new affiliate technology such as Direct Linking which passes pagerank along to the merchant’s site.

• ShareASale – advertising real time tracking and on time payments, Share a Sale may not have as many to offer as the bigger networks, but they do have better customer service. (They try harder)

• Click Exchange – has many of the smaller companies with some good payouts. Excellent stats.

• ClixGalore- a smaller network with some great offers.

• Amazon – not really a network, or manager of programs, it deserves a place on this list because it’s a must sign up. Paying only 4% at first, once you sell more items, it can go up to 10% of the sale you send to Amazon. Incredibly easy to use, they are slow to respond to applications, so be patient.

• Google Affiliate Network – Google is well known for the money-making possibilities of Adsense, and now it’s created it’s own true-blue affiliate network and is growing rapidly (big surprise, right?). Yes, I do believe Google is taking over the world.

That’s plenty for today, if you have more questions, or want something covered in more detail, feel free to email me.

Do it right. That’s the key. It’s staggering the number of programs out there trying to claim they have the magic ‘key’, and they all will say what ever it takes for you to buy their program. I know. I’ve bought waaaay too many of them over the years. What I learned is that it IS a science, and it IS work. However, you have two big advantages over my experiences from years gone by:

1) You don’t need to be an expert website builder any more.
I’ve bought so many different programs over the years, from those that include a ‘ready-made website’ (what a joke!) to those that said you don’t need a website. The inconvenient truth was the better you were at creating professional looking websites, the better your income would be. In the last year, some excellent alternatives have become available that can shave 6-12 months off your learning curve.

Free websites aren’t always your best option, and I’ll try to cover why in future posts. However, free websites can be used and actually look good if done right. It’s a great choice if you are doing this as a family learning project and you are still not sure it’s a long term activity yet. If you can, at least buy your domain name so it can be aging (the longer a domain name is active, the more Google likes it and higher it will be ranked).

Web hosting that has a good site builder can be almost as good as hiring a professional designer. Caution, some site builders still look like their designs are stuck in the 90′s, so be sure to ask for a demo of their builder before you buy. If it’s not available, then keep looking. A site builder is a program within your webhost’s plan that is made available to their customers to make it easy for them to build their own website based on pre-done templates. It’s easy to put online, usually with one click. Perfect for beginners.

One & One has the easiest to use and best built in sitebuilder we’ve seen with a huge selection of up-to-date templates.You can also put a self-hosted WordPress blog on your host and take advantage of the thousands of free templates available for WordPress. They also have the best price for domains (we have close to 50). For those of you that don’t need a website builder, Host Gator offers you 4500 free (awesome) templates. They do have a site builder, too – it’s just not the best one we’ve seen.

2) You have me to tell you what NOT to do.
You may or may not want to rely on this advantage, but one of my ‘vows to self’ was if I ever got my business off the ground (which I did) I would help others avoid the headaches I suffered learning the trade. There is plenty of good information out there now, but 5-6 years ago there was very little help except for the scammers – who seemed to dominate the field. As much great information as there is out there, please do NOT try to piece it all together yourself, trust me, you will regret it later.

It’s still a little tricky to tell the scammers from the honest affiliate teachers, but sometimes it’s not so much a judgement call as who to trust with your time. I’ve found two major problems with the majority of information on affiliate marketing:

1) Waaaaay overpriced. Apart from paying for a one on one teacher, learning the art of affiliate marketing is the same basic information in the $47 course as the $997 course. There may be a few more perks, but try a $47 one first.

2) Waaaay too MUCH information. I’ve signed up for courses that had so much information that it was difficult -AND time consuming – just to sort through it all. It’s become quite a trend, err . . . ‘sales technique’, to see who can offer the most BONUS ebooks to entice you to buy their program. Unless you have nothing else to do, learning affiliate marketing will take enough of your time, let alone reading extra ebooks. All those programs that offer free graphics are usually (not always) garbage.

So, if you’re wondering if I was going to sell you my ebook on affiliate marketing, my answer is no. Actually, I took notes over the years in hopes of eventually offering up the easiest way to do it, but found that there are a couple of ebooks already out there that are far better than anything I could write. These are written by veterans in the field that I have closely scrutinized for years and have come to completely trust in their knowledge, experience, AND ethics.

Yes, ethics. If you’ve ever heard the term ‘black hat’ SEO, it’s unethical SEO practices. Unfortunately, I’ve seen black hat, or ‘grey’ hat practices promoted as the magic bullet by many so called great affiliate marketers. So, be sure you know who you are buying from.

One more comment – when I said the ‘easy way’ in the title, it’s because one of my BIGGEST mistakes was trying to teach myself the ropes. It’s so much more economical to learn from someone else that knows what they’re doing, not only in dollars saved, but time. Think about it, if you make just $40,000 in a year with affiliate marketing (which is a very low figure) and you save just 6 months time, that $20,000! Sometimes we just don’t think it though (guilty as charged!). There are so many little tricks of the trade that will make it so much easier for you than if you go it alone.

Tomorrow I’ll try to give you several different options for the most direct route to learning affiliate marketing, but for today, here is my #1 choice. If I could turn back the clock and start all over again, I would use Rosiland Gardner’s “Super Affiliate Handbook”* before I did anything else. Out of all the coursest’s the most easy to follow, step by step, instructional manual for learning everything you need – without information overload. I did notice the upsell she has created recently, and can’t recommend that because I have not seen it. Stick to the basics, set aside some time every week, and you will be on your way to a second income that can replace your J-O-B in less than a year if you work hard. I’m also not sure of the refund options on upsells. (you have a 56 day iron-clad MB guarantee on the basic course) What a great skill to learn with your teen! I’m also happy to answer your questions by email.

Do you know of another ebook or course that you think is worthy of recommending? If you’ve had experience personally with a course that you think would be a good way to learn affiliate marketing with teens, please share it with us! Comment it or email me. Thanks!

*Disclosure-just wanted you to know that if you purchase Rosiland’s course with my link, I do get a commission-but if I was recommending it for the money-there are FAR more lucrative offers that I could’ve chosen! I truly believe this is your best starting place. Your purchase does help support this blog, what my husband refers to as ‘my public service project’! Thanks!