With the onset of the Internet age, more and more people are wondering how to ride on the whole online game. There have been much success stories about real people making money online either through websites or blogs or tutorials. But how do you know exactly what makes money and what doesn’t? For anyone who is new to the big bad world of the Internet, don’t worry. There are many resources that are ready and willing to help you out.

In fact, Web Hosting Rating is a very good place to get you started. Now the question is, how do you make money online? You may already have a website to begin with or a blog but you don’t have any idea how to monetize from it yet. If you haven’t put one up yet, here is a great guide to get you started: How to Install a WordPress Site.

Now that you have a website, now what? There are several ways that an individual can make some money through their website. These are Internet advertising, associate programs and referral programs.

1. Associate and Advertising Programs

It’s good to remember this saying: “what you give is what you get”. In other words, the amount of traffic you get on your website and the kind of content that you have on your website is what will determine the programs that will accept you. It will also determine how much money you stand to get. It is important therefore that your website has good content and a high amount of traffic. For tips on how you can drive traffic to your site, read this: 5 Sure-Fire SEO Tips For Your Small Business Website.

Here are some of the programs available that can help you make money from your website:

Google AdSense. This is one of the biggest growing networks for advertising. Google gives website users the permission to set up banner ads on their web pages. Any product that is bought through that website will give a portion of its revenue. Whenever these ads are clicked from your page, the website owner also gets a percentage of the income. This is great way to make passive income while you relax at home.

Amazon Associate. This program allows a website user to set up a link to any product from Amazon. Now, whenever a good is purchased, a portion of the income goes to the user that set up that link. Here’s a great thing about it. You also get a portion if a purchase was made of any other good while going through Amazon’s web page after the buyer clicked the link from your website.

Not all of the networks or services are listed here. There are many more out there that you can make additional revenue from. In fact, you can check with your favorite selling site if they have an associates program. Big sites usually have some sort of program that will generate you some cash for getting people to go their site.

2. Sell goods or services

Another way you can make money from your website is by offering a service or goods on it. Of course these products come at a price. If anyone want to purchase any of your products or services, they will need to make a payment through your website. You therefore need to set up an efficient system that will allow users to pay online through your website. You will also need an application in order to have your goods or services listed down.

3. Micropayments

This is another amazing way that you can earn from your website or blog. Micropayments is defined as a social tool that allows you to send a user whose content you like a small amount of money. By the same token, anyone who enjoys your blog or website can send you a small amount of money as well. Paypal defines the term as a payment of less than $12 made online. Two examples of current microsystem platforms that allow you to send and receive micropayments for content are:

Flatter. This service allows anyone from around the world to send any amount of money (but small) to a website that they like through the click of a Flattr button. You can deposit how much you want into your Flattr account. At the end of the month, your total deposit is divided equally among all of the webpages that you “Flattrd”.

Zong. This type of micropayment service charges the amount of the user on their mobile bill. Zong can be used in order to buy goods virtually from social media networks and online games.

4. Donations

You also have the option of creating a system that will allow your visitors and readers to donate some money to you. This works if your website provides something very rare or special that people want to support it. It can be a study being made about a unique topic or a cause that you believe in that others may want to help out with.

Here are some examples of methods that allows donations to your website:

ChipIn. This is an intuitive and easy way to generate some money for your website. It utilizes Paypal. It uses a widget that show’s a company or an individual’s progress in collecting money to the public. The visitor can then join in or chip in to help raise money for the featured project or cause.

Amazon honor system. This is a widely used and very popular donation service. It has a huge amount of people already registered with Amazon for buying goods online. The Amazon system allows a website user to set up the application in order to receive donations on their page.

PayPal. This is another highly popular method for receiving donations. There are many people who are registered with this site. It is well known for making and receiving payments online. It is easy to install and user-friendly.

There you have it, some ways to make money with your website. It is important to have a lot of creativity, some common sense and the drive to make things happen. If you combine all three with the tips shared here, you will definitely find a small fortune accumulated by your website in a given period of time.