Everyone has different reasons for wanting to make extra money online. For some, they're hoping that eventually they'll be able to quit their job, work from home and rake in the thousands. Other people, like me, are interested in supplementing their income, and having extra for vacations or other 'nice to have but not a neccessity' items.

With the current downturn in the economy, many people are turning to online marketing ventures to help them stave off bankruptcy and to have enough money to feed and cloth their families, pay off their mortgage and pay their bills. If this describes you, listen carefully. There are thousands of scams, scam artists or people wanting to make a fast buck on line and the people they're going to make it off are people just like you.

Being desperate for money makes people do crazy things, stuff they never would have done before. Desperation to make that extra buck, to keep the car or to buy new clothes for the kids can bring out the worst in some people. Not everyone, goodness, no! Some people roll up their sleeves, take on a second (or third) job, downsize their houses, branch out and turn their hobby into a paying job. Why am I writing this? Because you have no idea, when you're communicating with someone online, what type of person they are. You can't see them, can't talk to them, you have to take what they say at face value. None of the senses we usually use when making judgements about people are used when interacting with someone online.

If I'm entering into a business relationship with someone I like to know a little about them. If I am buying something from someone, I usually prefer to be able to look at what they're offering, examine it and talk with the salesperson about it. When conducting business online I am not able to do this. That alone makes it very easy to get scammed. If you're desperate to try anything to make money, it puts you in an even more dangerous predicament.

Scammers, or even just other desperate people, are waiting for other "desperate newbies" precisely because they won't ask questions, they will fork out money on a magic solution, one that promises instant riches and they'll quickly and easily part with their money. Some people prey on beginners. Don't become their next kill.

Having said that, I also want to say that there are some people who are making a lot of money online, who are helpful to newbies and willing to teach them all they know. Their take is that there is a lot of money to be made, plenty to go around. These are the type of people who helped me learn how to and even provided me with network marketing leads. They didn't have to but they did. In turn, I want to pay it forward and offer any assistance I can to people who are just starting out.

As a disclaimer, I am still in the beginning stages of my journey, and to date have only made around $100 of money online and it has taken me a few months to get there. Although it's small beginnings, hey we all have to start off small somewhere! I am now consistently bringing in money each day and am building up more sources of income online. There's no stopping me now!

Day One: The realization dawned on me, after having deleted hundreds of spam emails, that maybe there was something in this 'money making online' after all.

Day Two till about Day Fourteen: Spent every spare minute I had researching how to make money online. I went round and round in circles, researched affiliate marketing then finally stumbled on Griz' "Make Money Online for Beginners" site. I was set!

I don't know how many times I read and re-read Griz's posts. I tried to follow them to a 't', doing exactly what he recommended, and I soon had a few sites set up. Unfortunately, as good a teacher as he is, I really didn't make much progress mainly because I had so much to learn about keywords, finding the right word that would make a decent sum with Adsense advertising, etc.

Feeling that I needed something more to get me going, I signed up with a couple of free internet training gurus, and spent money on setting up web hosting sites, people search engines, trying to promote affiliate marketing sites to other newbies who were as green as I. Nothing I did worked that well. I still didn't know what I was doing, although I knew that some people were making a lot of money online.

Next I signed up with "Wealthy Affiliates". I decided to choose this one after looking into a few similiar programs. This seemed to be the more professional and the least scammy, plus they offered a lot of information and apparently one-on-one mentoring. I was happy with the program at first. There's an eight week 'course' that they take you through, and the first week or two doesn't really teach that much--in other words, it's a fairly slow-paced course at first. You are pretty much guaranteed to stay with them for eight weeks (or two subscription payments) as you want to see what you'll learn when the next week's course is made available. I actually stayed with them for three months, mainly because I forgot to stop my subscription :-)

I did learn a fair bit from the Wealthy Affiliate sites. The best things I learned were the basics of keyword research, and article marketing. I wouldn't say I wasted my money exactly, but it wasn't really what I was looking for.

About three weeks ago I saw the Keyword Academy advertised. You could sign up for one month, for just $1. After that, if you think it worthwhile, the monthly subscription goes up to $33 per month. I'm intending to stick with it for a while, as I'm still benefiting from the course and so is my income.

Pay it Forward

I vowed that I would never put up a "Make Money Online" site, I thought the internet already over-saturated with that type of thing. But then I decided that I would, in an attempt to help other newbies. If I can help even one person avoid some of the mistakes I've made it will be worth it. If I can save one person from getting scammed, or losing their money needlessly, I will be happy.

Someone took the time to explain these things to me. Someone helped me. I want to Pay it Forward.

These quick tips are in no particular order of importance, but more random bits of advice that came to mind when I pondered my whole "making money online" adventure. 

DO:

• Know how to set up and maintain a blog-the basics at least, before you make your first 'real' money blog.
• Find a mentor, program, blog to follow of someone you trust who is making it online, and stick to following their directions.
• Be prepared to wait for a few months even till you start making real money on line.
• Decide in advance how much time and money you want to invest, and then stick to your decision.
• Find or make friends who are at the same level as you in their MMO (make money online) experience.
• Celebrate every little success, no matter how small it is.
• Take a break every now and then and don't look at your sites, your statistics or your adsense or affiliate revenue.
• Be nice to beginners, those who know even less than you do, and give them a helping hand.
  
• Enjoy life whoever you best enjoy it.
  

DON'T

• Ever, ever, ever believe the guy who tells you to buy this or that program, and you'll have instant success. Don't believe him even if he has pages and pages of testimonials...
• Don't expect you'll be an overnight success
• Don't be dissuaded by all the people who laugh at you and tell you you're crazy for thinking it could work.
• Don't try to beat the system, scam the system.
• Don't think you're smarter than Google :-)
• Don't leave your day job till you are making money, and lots of it.
• Don't give up. It takes time!
  

Now to explain some of the "do's" I wrote about, earlier on in this post, in more detail.

Set up and maintain a blog: It's really very helpful to know a bit about blogging, basic html, how to set up a blog or a simple website, before you invest a lot of money on buying domains, etc.  It's rare that the first blog you set up will be perfectly optimized and ready to use to make money with.  LIke everything else, there's a learning curve with blogging and practice makes perfect.

If you don't want to invest money initially, try setting up a free blog on either Wordpress or Blogger.  You have nothing to lose and a lot to gain by way of learning how to set up and optimize a blog. If you already have a social blog you are ahead already, but you may still need to learn some basics.

Find a mentor:  If you are looking for someone to help you learn how to make money online in a very simple and easy way, people who won't tell you to buy this program, or that e-book under their affiliate links (so they get some of the money for referring you), and people who are interested in helping you make it, just check out the links on my hubpage.  They're the people I trust and take advice from. 

Be prepared to wait for money to start rolling in: If you want a quick get-rich scheme then don't try internet marketing. It takes time to set up a site, time to make it rise in the search engines so people will come to your site. If you realise this in advance you won't be disappointed.  Don't even think about making much in the first month or two, then if you do you'll be happily surprised.  Six months is probably a more realistic time-frame to look at. Oh, bits and pieces of income will dribble in before that, but you won't be making anything substantial unless you are a protegy.  They do exist, you may be one.  But you might not be either.

Decide in advance how much time and money you want to invest: If you have a full day job and kids, and  a hobby that you spend most of your weekends working on, be realistic. This takes time. I spend a few hours most days on it as well as keep up with my regular job. And I have a husband and kids oh and I homeschool my kids as well.  I do laundry, cook, take care of the dog, and sleep occassionally.

The hours that I spend on this every day had to come from somewhere.  Interested in knowing where they came from? I'm also an author, I have published two fantasy novels and I'm working on two more. Writing a novel takes a long time, and you don't get a lot of money unless you become an overnight wonder. I had to make a thought through, deliberate decision to put my writing on hold until I master this.  My husband didn't agree with my doing it, he thinks my writing is more important but he's willing to let me run with it.

I had about $100 to invest into starting my on line adventure.  That's all.

Find or make friends who are at the same level as you in their MMO (make money online) experience: This hasn't been easy for me to do, as i don't know anyone personally, or in person, who is also engaging in this.  I have made a few friends via the forums and am slowly getting to know people. I like chatting with people who are on about the same level as me.

Celebrate every little success:  First Adsense revenue?  Buy yourself an icecream or a beer.  Or catch up on the series that you've been skipping since working on your Web presence.

Take a break every now and then:  If you don't your eyes will glaze over and turn red, and you'll end up with a really flat bum.  Sometimes you've got to stop. One person recommended taking one day off, totally away from the computer, per week.  I don't do that, but I do take a night off a couple of times a week. 

Be nice to beginners: Please. Some people get rude and filled with their own sense of importance once they beginning bringing in some money. I think it makes them seem really petty and immature. So if you start gaining ground, help someone else who is starting out. Don't try to wow them with how much money you've made or how much you know, give them a little encouragement and a link to their new site.