Creating a profitable business online is not difficult. You have to have three basic things.

Number one, a product or service to sell. This doesn’t have to be your own product or service you can be an affiliate of other people and sell their products and services. Affiliate marketing is one of the easiest and cheapest ways to start making money online in the least amount of time.

Although some want to tell you that it takes months and sometimes years of effort before you start to see a big payoff this does not have to be the truth for you. You can start making money online in a very short amount of time. It takes work, determination and focus. You can’t put one site up do a little promotion and then expect to be sitting by the pool while your bank account fills up overnight.

Let’s be realistic. Affiliate marketing is a solid business that works, but like any business you have to work at it to make it a success.

Number two, a site or place to promote your product. Free sites like Blogger, Squidoo and Hubpages are a great place to build a site and learn the ins and outs of internet marketing without costing you an arm and a leg in hosting and domain fees while you’re learning your craft.

Some very successful marketers rely only on free web 2.0 properties. Don’t let the thought of a big initial investment deter you from starting to live your dreams, you can get started for free.

Number three, traffic. Traffic is the lifeblood of any business be it foot traffic for offline businesses or web traffic for online businesses. You can’t build a site and expect people to find it with no promotion on your part. Build it and they will come? No, build it and promote it to the maximum and they will find it.

You can start your promotion using free techniques as well with article marketing, building manual back links and creating supporting sites that link back to your main site.

Getting started online is easier than ever these days. There is a wealth of information to be had online about the topic and for self motivated business minded there is no better way to make money than from home on your own schedule.

Find a product, create a site, get traffic. There are many ways to go about these three things but that is the basics. Do this and you’ll be on your way to achieving your internet lifestyle dreams.