How to Really Make Money on the Internet (Hint: Not Amazon Associates)

Just came across a story from About.com on how to really make money online (click here for the article). The article is very basic and leaves out a lot of crucial information. For example, steady income is not guaranteed--or even likely--if one were to only follow the steps outlined in the article. While this blog doesn't usually focus on web promotion techniques, I'll make a brief foray into the genre.

Traffic drives profits. Content drives traffic.And unless your page is as well-known as Microsoft.com, Yahoo.com, or Google.com or has a pagerank of 8, 9, or 10; chances are you'll be getting most of your views organically (that is, through a search engine). So, how do you get more search engine traffic? Three words: Search Engine Optimization (I'll cover this in the next post).

Now, back to the article which talked about the Amazon Associates Program. From my experience, Amazon Associates has been very disappointing. Not only do the publisher's receive a very small commission (~7%), but it's very hard to hold Amazon accountable for sales that were likely initiated from content on a publisher's page. Also, unless your site receives incredible traffic for users searching for somewhat specific items, chances are your Associate income will be no greater than ad services like Chitika or Adsense.