I'm sure you've realized by now there's no way to make real money with all the free programs around. Sure you can probably make a few bucks with a free website and some free programs, but you will soon get the itch to make more money. That’s just the way most of us are. I learned long ago the way to do well online is to have many different websites filled with content, advertisements, programs and advertise these to the right markets. I didn’t want to believe it was that much work, but the hard honest truth is, it is. You not only need to do all these things, but you need to so much more and continually test and change things so you won’t be left behind by your competition. It a job! Don’t believe all the get rich quick things you see all over the internet. You won’t make a million dollars promoting an affiliate program. You won’t get rich with a free website selling overpriced merchandise people can pick up at Walmart at half the price. It’s not going to happen.

For you to be successful online, you absolutely need the following at the bare minimum:

1. Pick a niche that has a big enough market
2. Pick and buy your own domain name that has to do with your niche
3. Get your domain hosted so you have your own website
4. Learn basic HTML (this is much easier than you think)
5. Create a professional looking website or contract it out (This site only cost $200!)
6. Adding content, ads and affiliate programs to your website
7. Exchange links with other websites
8. Advertise your website with AdWords and/or other PPC (pay-per-click) advertisers
9. Submit your website to free search engines
10. Get your visitors e-mail addresses and use auto-responders
11. Constantly monitor your sites progress, change content and test, test and test some more
12. Once you're generating profit from your website, do it all again with a new site

All your websites will not be profitable. Some may start out that way and fizzle. Some you will be able to turn around and make profitable again. Others you won’t. It’s work. Lot’s of hard work. Let me be blunt. If you’re not a technical person, then this business is not for you. If you don’t know how to drag and drop files and folders on your computer and know where they go, this business is not for you. If you don’t know what FTP is and what it meant to transfer files from one compute to another, this business is not for you. I’m not trying to be a wise guy. If you are willing to learn these things, then this business is for you. You wouldn’t believe how many people are not good at computers but expect to be successful webmasters and make tons of money online. It’s just not going to happen. You get out what you put into this business just like anything else in life. I’m literally online 10 hours each day and maybe only 4 hours on Saturday and Sunday. But come Monday, I’m back to work and I only manage 5 websites. There are people who manage dozens, even hundreds. I have no idea how they do it without contracting much of the work out. I’m not at that stage so I’m the wrong person to ask how to manage 100 websites. The only thing I contract out are my websites. All my websites were done by professional web designers for $200 each or less! That’s unbelievably cheap. I was getting quotes for $3,500 to $8,000 for website design! There’s no way I wanted to spend that kind of money, and neither do you. You don’t even have to have someone design your website. If you’re good at web design and using Microsoft Frontpage for example, you could design your own website, or just purchase a web template service and get access to hundreds of templates for $30 a year. This business can be done with little investment, but remember the more work you can do yourself, the more money you will save in the end.