You probably already realise that there are many different ways to earn money on the Internet, but do you know that there are two distinct different formats when making money Online is concerned?
Here I’m going to go over the two different types of formats to give you a good understanding of how things work Online before choosing how you want to earn money via the Internet.

#1  Be An Internet Service Provider

One way to earn money Online is to be a service provider.   In my opinion, this is the easiest way to make money as you are guaranteed to receive money once you have completed your tasks for other Online business owners.
You won’t be employed, you will be a self-employed, freelance service provider.
The tasks of Internet service providers vary enormously, but here are some to give you an idea.
Internet Service Provider Jobs:

IT & Programming Website Design Software Programming Database Development Technical Support Networking & Security	Design & Multi-Media Graphic Design Illustration Animation Cartoons & Comics Videos
Writing & Translation Article Writing Sales Writing Ghostwriting Press Releases Editing & Proofreading	Sales & Marketing Search Engine Marketing Business Plans Public Relations Consulting Lead Generation Telemarketing
Admin Support Virtual Assistant Word Processing Data Entry Bulk Mailing Customer Service	Engineering & Manufacturing Architectual Mechanical Interior Design Product Design Civil & Structuring
Finance & Management Accounting Management Consultancy HR Policies & Plans Financial Planning Tax Services	Legal Patent, Copyright & Trade Business & Corporate Contracts Immigration

If you have skills in any of the above categories then this would be an ideal situation for you to make some money this way.  However, if you don’t have any skills, don’t rule this way out to earn money Online - not just yet.
Think You Have No Skills To Offer?
I’m pretty sure that you will have something to offer.  You will be able to do very easy, normally repetitive or mundane tasks which the Online business owner either does not want to do or hasn’t got the time to do those tasks and is willing to pay someone else to do them.
Tasks which don’t need a formal skill as such are:

• Email Customer Support – You can type an email can’t you?  Then you can do this job.
• Data Entry – You can input numbers or text into a document can’t you?
• Basic Word Processing – You don’t necessarily need to be a trained typist to type basic word documents.
• Article Writing – You don’t need to be a trained writer, if you can write a 500 word article on a subject (which you can research Online), then you could provide an article writing service.

So there’s four jobs I’ve just thought of from the top of my head which I’m pretty sure you could do.  There will be many other general admin types of jobs which you would be able to do too – you just have to search for them and seek them out.
In fact, there will be jobs on offer which you will be able to do that both neither you or I have even thought of!  So let’s find these jobs…
Where To Find Freelance Jobs
Now that you’re aware that there are dozens of service provider jobs which you could do, you now need to know where to find them.
There are a few sites Online which act as the ‘middle-man’  where service providers are seeking jobs and where small businesses are looking to hire freelancers.
Here are some of those sites:

• Elance – www.elance.com (the largest and very first of these sites)
• Freelancer – www.freelancer.com
• People Per House – www.peopleperhour.com
• Guru – www.guru.com
• Virtual Employee – www.virtualemployee.com
• Hire Your Virtual Assistant – www.hireyourvirtualassistant.com

You can sign up for one or two of these sites and start finding work immediately.  This is what usually happens on these sites:

1. Jobs are posted on the site;
2. Service providers (you) can then put forward a ‘bid’ for a job;
3. The job is offered to the best candidate;
4. The service provider carries out the advertised task;
5. Payment is then forwarded via the website where the host site takes a percentage of the funds.

The best thing to do is to click onto each of the above sites and have a good digg around to find out how they work and how they can work for you.

#2  Your Own Independent Internet Business

The second way to earn money Online is with your own Internet Business.   If you really don’t like working for others then this may be the route for you.   However, you must understand that this is not a get-rich-quick way to earn money Online (I don’t think one exists) and because this is your own business, you are not guaranteed an income.
Running an Online business requires a HUGE learning curve.  You will come across things you’ve probably never even heard of before, so you must be willing to learn:

• Writing skills
• Technology
• Software
• Internet marketing

There are a few ways to run your own Online business but the main ways are blogging and running a business website.
For me the fun and easy part is the actual building of the blog (look, feel, design) and putting content on it, the hard part is getting visitors to your site.  I think I can speak for every blogger Online that it isn’t easy to get visitors to your blog.
And once you do get a decent amount of visitors to your site, say 500+ per day, you want them to purchase something or at least click on an ad for which you get paid for.
So to make money from a blog you need to:

1. Build the design of the blog;
2. Write content for it (at least ten blog posts/pages);
3. Drive traffic to it;
4. Convert those visitors into customers (or at least click on an ad).

You then need to write at least one new blog post per week of approximately 700+ words and be consistently marketing your blog to get traffic to it.
Say you have chosen to use guest posting as a marketing technique (recommended), then you should spend most of your time writing guest posts.
A little strategy which I use is this:

• Write a blog post for my own blog on a Monday, then
• Write three guest posts and submit them to other similar blogs the rest of the week.

I hope that this article has given you an insight into how you can earn money Online.  It’s not easy and it is a lot of hard work, but if you want to work from home then you have to be willing to put the hours in, especially at the beginning of your work at home career.