There are hundreds of opportunities to make money on the Internet today. If I was to make a checklist of what you need to make money online today would that be helpful? Here are five steps you can review to see if you are ready to get started.

1. If you expect to make money on the Internet today you will need the proper tools. Fortunately we are not talking about a long list like you would need if you have an brick-and-mortar business.

You should have a quality computer hooked up to high speed Internet since you will be spending a lot of time online. I understand that that is not possible for everybody depending on where you live.

However it is worth paying the money every month if high speed Internet is available. Online time is money and you do not want waste yours waiting for pages to load.

2. Arrange web hosting where you can set up a blog, landing pages for lead capture, and where you can upload graphics. If you choose to do so your blog can be your website to promote your product. Promoting landing pages makes sense because it is a great way to get your visitors to give you their name and email address and build a mailing list from.

3. Initially pick quality products and focus on just one theme. Until you are making money do not do a lot of jumping around.

Affiliate marketing is an excellent way to find products and learning which ones you want to market is best done by purchasing them yourself. This also gives you a chance to write review pages which is an excellent way to sell more products online.

So you can get paid over and over for doing your work one time whenever possible sell products that offer residual income. Join a couple of two-tier affiliate programs if you enjoy social networking and recruit affiliates to make more money as well.

4. To automate as much of your follow-up as possible get set up with a good autoresponder. Program it with a series of messages that drip information about the product or program you're representing. This is an excellent way to create sales in the future as well as develop relationships with your subscribers.

5. Plan on spending most of your time promoting your website pages and blog. You will never make money on the Internet without traffic!