Image by Ludwig Gatzke via Flickr

What is the Internet made up of? Websites. So you are probably thinking that if you do not have a website, then you cannot make any money. Well, that is not true. I am going to take the premise that you are just starting out, trying to make some money on the internet, and do not want to spend a bunch of money doing it. If that is right, then read on.

I will not be talking about pay per click advertising and linking directly to someone else’s sales page, as this is an option but an expensive one. Here I will tell you of two ways you can start out without having a site of your own and that won’t cost you anything more than your time.

1. eBay
2. Affiliate Marketing

The way I started out on the Internet years ago was selling items on eBay. Myself, I purchased things, usually toys, either at garage sales or from stores when they were at rock bottom prices and then I sold them on auction. Believe me, this was very time consuming and a lot more difficult than it is now. But that is what I did. I chose this method because it did not require me to have to put out any money upfront (except for the cost of the products) and it would allow me to learn some things along the way while still being able to make a little money. Of course this was way before drop shippers, free picture service, and optional background. I had to figure out how to do all of this myself, learning html. But now it is so much simpler. Once you have an account at eBay, you can start listing items. And you only pay once your item sells. And you can start with items around your house to get your feet wet. This is something you can do in your spare time with very minimal cost.

Affiliate marketing is another great way to make money on the internet. There are a variety of affiliate marketing avenues you can choose to follow. You can sell Amazon.com products on your site and receive a commission for every sale. You can use Clickbank and promote items from there. You can even find smaller companies with an affiliate program you can join.

Affiliate marketing is the method that I have been using for a while now. With affiliate marketing you can promote someone else’s products without having the hassle of delivery of the item or product support. You just have to get the people to your sale’s page and get them to click on your link and buy. Once you do that, you get paid.

But what the heck is a sales page and how do you get one for free?

You have probably seen hundreds of sales/landing pages but never even realized it. When you do a search for something, a lot of times you will click on links that take you to a page that is trying to persuade you to click on a link or an image. And if you look to your right of Google after doing your search, you will see all the pay per click ads that lead to sales pages themselves.

So, how do you get a free sales page if you do not have a website?

The easiest way to do this is to use one of the many free services. But you have to be careful, many of them do not like any affiliate links on them and will delete all of your hard work in a snap. So here is what you do.

You can use one of these platforms on which to make your sales page:

1. Squidoo. On Squidoo you can make a lens and within that lens you can put a link to your affiliate product.
2. Hubpages. Here you can make a hub and within your hub you can put a link to a product, Amazon affiliate products, and even eBay product links.
3. Blogger. Now Blogger is somewhat more difficult than the other two in that at the top of each Blogger blog there is a flag this blog and if your competition wants to try to get your site canned, he or she will do just that. This can cause your whole blog site to disappear. So be careful.

So, in a nutshell, the above are ways that you can make money without a website of your own. But remember, if you do not have your own site that you control, you are at the mercy of someone else. It is a great way to get started and get your feet wet, but over the long haul, you will want your own site.

If you have any questions or thoughts, please leave them.

Next: Your First Steps in Make Money Online