There are lots of ways to do just that, but I want to write about just one of them today. It’s called Amazon Associates.

Amazon had this brilliant idea that they would “hire” thousands of external salespeople to help push their products. What they have done is give these salespeople an affiliate ID that is linked back to them. For instance, when you click on the link to Amazon Associates, you are taken to the Amazon website where that you can order items as you normally would. The only difference is that the referring person gets a small commission.

While you probably won’t get rich overnight, this idea combined with the affiliate programs of other companies can certainly add an extra source of income to your household. The nice thing about the Amazon program is that you are only limited by the amount of advertising that you choose to do.

Since the Amazon program is generally percentage based, the larger priced items will make you more money. Here’s a thought… suppose you take some of the information you have learned from me so far and set up a simple blog that talks about and compares certain products.

Say you are very versed on mp3 players. Why not talk about and compare brands and features of the players and the provide links for each product in the event that a customer wants to purchase the product now. Easy to do and you can make a few dollars each time someone buys. Add the different accessories and increase your income by upselling.

If you are interested in setting up your own program, just go to Amazon.com and click on the associates tab. If it doesn’t interest you, save this link and use it anytime you order from Amazon in the future. It might make me a couple extra bucks and encourage me to continue to add more useful information to this site. 

OK, more ideas on how to produce an extra income next time.

I will try to make this as simple as possible….

When you purchase a domain name, such as this one (www.MyOtherIncomeBlog.com), you need a hosting company that will place it on their servers and allow you to direct the name to them. Think of the domain name as an address and you are trying to send a letter… you just need to know what the address is so that people can find it. The host provides the actual connection to the internet.

There are many different hosting companies out there. They range in the services they offer from very basic for a couple dollars a month to the nearly “everything you need in one place” for up to hundreds of dollars a month. Some hosting companies include Hostcabin.com and Flux Services (which offers to host unlimited websites for just $7.95 a month).

My personal favorite and the one that I use often is GoDaddy. By using this link, you can get your .com domain name for just $7.95.

If you are unfamiliar with how to set-up a web server from your house, most hosts will have detailed instructions for you to follow and an information Help Desk that will walk you through the process. You can even purchase ebooks on how to set-up your server from home in just a few easy steps. 

Once you have the hosting account, you need to start thinking about the type of site you need for what you intend to accomplish. For instance, this is a blog site. It is meant to be fluid so that I can add new material on a regular basis. Many commerce sites are static, meaning that they are not changed on a regular basis, and then it’s usually only subtle changes or updates.

If you should choose a blog, I suggest reading my previous post on MyOtherIncomeBlog.com. It has information that may be handy on creating a WordPress blog. While there are other types of blogs available, I have used WordPress quite a bit and am very happy with the results. You can even purchase a series of videos for about $15 that will walk you through the steps to create your own blog on WordPress. Of course, if you want to be cheap and waste a lot of time, you can always Google “WordPress tutorial“.

If you are going to have a static site, the question is will you build it yourself or will you have one built for you?

We’ll talk about that in my next post.

See ya!

The great thing about Wordpress is that many hosting companies use Fantastico which will automatically install the Wordpress blog software for you. Once installed, just login to the wp-admin area and choose your theme, widgets, & set up your name, etc. It’s pretty simple really. If you need additional help, just do a search for “wordpress help”. And, once you get it installed, there is a lot of good information listed under “forums” in the admin area.

If you are new and would like some “professional” help setting up your blog, you cannot go wrong by checking out these clear step-by-step instructional videos that give you many Wordpress blog set-up tips and tricks. This is a great program for everyone from beginners with no technical knowledge to those who are more advanced and would like to learn some of the “tricks” of Wordpress.

I also have a variety of blogs through blogger.com, but they don’t have actual domain names, just the titles of the blogs after my hosting account name. For example www.hostingaccountname.com/blogs/nameofmyblog. Pretty stupid and, although they have the Adsense ads, I get very little traffic. I guess it’s because I was too cheap to give them cool domain names.

Someone jump in here and tell me if I am wrong.

If you are even toying with the idea that you may want to start a business online, you need to get a copy of Yanik Silver’s book Moonlighting on the Internet.

It is a great start and a wealth of resources. It has helped me a lot. For other books that I recommend (on all topics… not just the internet), click on “I Recommend” at the top of the page.

Later….