Wow! That is a loaded question. Well, a lot depends on what type of a website you want to start. If you want to sell products online the first step would be to find a source for your products. You have to decide if you are going to work with a company that drop ships or if you are going to store the products at your location and then ship them yourself. Drop shippers will ship the product for you. You just send them the order information and payment and then they ship out the order. Of course this service comes at a price. Usually drop shippers charge a drop ship fee or the products are more costly than they would be if you bought them in bulk from the manufacturer or distributor.

If you are looking for drop shippers I have only found one company that offers a great list of reputable drop shippers and that is World Wide Brands. World Wide Brands also offers a list of light bulk wholesalers if you are interested in buying in bulk. The light bulk list is a list of wholesalers who do not require HUGE buys. You can usually get started with these companies for less than $500.

Selling physical products is just one way to get started online. You need to take a close look at what your interests are because if you are going to work hard creating a profitable internet business for yourself then it would help if you enjoyed what you are promoting. Some people prefer to sell information products online. You can write an e-book and sell that e-book on your website. Let's say you are an avid fisherman. Perhaps you have some tips and techniques that you developed that cause you to land a big fish every time. Well, you could document those tips and techniques and sell them on a website.

If you have a skill that could be sold as a service, you could create a website that markets those skills. For example, if you are an expert programmer you could create a consulting website that offers programming services to potential clients.

Another possibility is to sell other people's products and services. This would require you to join what are called affiliate programs. These programs allow you to drive traffic from your website or ads to other people's websites. When a sale is made on that website you get a commission.

Well, as you can see there are many different types of websites you could create that could generate income for you. The first step is to decide which type of website you would enjoy working on every day. Some people think that you put up a website and people just come and buy but unfortunately it is not that simple. Creating a website is easy but you asked how to make money with a website. That is going to take some planning and hard work.