So you have heard that there is money to be made out of websites. By setting up a number of websites you can make money from home, become a millionaire and retire! Well, if it was as easy as all that anyone would be doing it!

Once you have set up any website you can become an affiliate of any number of organisations and put adverts up on your site. If anyone buys a product through a link on your website you get paid a commission. The only problem with this is that the products really need to be in line with the subject matter of your site. If people have found your site because they searched Google looking for photos of puppies, they may not be all that interested in the ads for mobile phones or MP3 players they see there!

One way of getting adverts which are targeted to your site is to use Google Adwords. Google displays adverts on your site which are connected with the content on your pages - you do need to have a content rich site, as Google may not accept you if you don't. When people click on the adverts you get paid - sometimes it is only one or two cents a click, but sometimes you get dollars for each click!

So how much income can I get?

Most webmasters can at least expect to pay for their hosting fees from hosting Google ads on their sites, but you shouldn't expect to be able to retire on the income.

I'm not after earning pennies - I want to get a proper second income!

If you really want to get serious money there are some things you can do.

1. Have a number of different websites - you may not make a fortune from each, but having a number on different subjects will allow you to experiment, try different ideas and generate a better income!

2. Base your websites on keywords where clicks on google ads pay the highest amount - but you will need to make your site attractive so that you get enough visitors to make it pay!

3. Base your websites on keywords where there are only a few competing websites (thus guaranteeing you a position on page 1 of the search engines) which will ensure you get the number of visitors you need!

OK, good advice but where on earth do I start?

Firstly, remember that for each website you are going to need to purchase a domain name. Multiple websites are therefore an investment. Make sure that your hosting company enables you to have more than one domain on your account - otherwise it is going to be very expensive to set up and before you see any return!

I've got an idea, but is it competitive?

Wordtracker is a progam that is extremely useful when you are deciding to set up a website for making money. It will tell you how many people actually search for the keywords you have in mind, and how many other sites there are that will be in competition with you for that top spot in the search engines!

Remember, people normally only look at the first 10 items returned by a search engine. If there are many competing sites, the chances of you being in the first 10, or on the first page is very small.

Keywords are just one element - although some sites do read like a list of key words (a trick search engines are aware of and will black list) - what is really necessary is to put up some quality content based around the key words you have chosen. This way you will be offering something to your visitor, and can now start to put targetted adverts to generate an income stream as well. Remember though you do need to get visitors - it is no use using keywords which no one ever searches on!