You don't have to have a website to make money online. But if you are truly serious about making money online, then you need to have your own website. This is all about presentation and professionalism which enhances your customers confidence and trust in you. Think about how your potential customers will perceive you if you are selling from a free site like Tripod or Angelfire. No trust means no sale especially on the web where the human element is so lacking. Bottomline, I would never give my credit card numbers to anyone operating from a Tripod free site. If you are serious about this and you want people to take you seriously, have your own site (or what appears to be your own site).

There are 3 basic elements which you must have in order to get your website up. (Click on the links below which will bring you to a more detailed discussion on each topic). They are:

#1 Domain name - The most common domain names on the web is .com. I would strongly suggest that you only register a .com name, because it's mainstream.

#2 Web hosting provider - Your domain name needs to be hosted by a webserver. These server stores all your files for display to anyone who types in your domain name.

#3 A web page - to inform your visitors what your site is all about. Some domain name registrars have "parking" or "under construction" web pages if your website is not ready.

Those are only the bare bone necessities, you will the following features if you are truly serious about setting up a professional looking site :

#4 A web site - It may be a single page, several page or a multi page website depending on your concept and business model (we will discuss this in Site Concept). It may also be simple and business like or colourful and artsy, depending on your content. But it must look proper and professional for its purpose.

#5 Autoresponders - Auto-responders will help to automate your follow up process. From web statistics, the average number of contacts made between a buyer and the product before a transaction is made is around 7 times. Your sales will increase by as much as 400% with proper follow-up.

#6 Mailing List Provider - If you intend to publish a newsletter, you will need an email software which collects email via opt-in subscription, manages your email list, sends out your newsletter and informs you when someone has signed up.

#7 Payment Gateway - If you intend to collect credit card and checks as payment online, you need either a merchant account with shopping cart or you may open an account with a payment gateway provider. If you intend to sell anything over the net at all, you will need to collect credit cards.

#8 Affiliate program - The main idea of an affiliate program is to let thousands of net citizens to promote and sell your product for a commission. That way you will have thousands of salesman to either sell for you or provide leads to your site. You can install your own affiliate program software to track their sales and commission or use someone else's system which automates the entire process for you.

Please go to each section above for a detailed explanation on each topic.

Recommended readings : I would strongly suggest that you read the following books below to give you an in depth discussion on setting up your site. In all cases, the authors discuss the entire process from registering your name to setting up the site and how to market your site and drive traffic to it. These books are considered the "standards" and acknowledged bibles for making money online.

#1- 33 Days to Online Profits by Yanik Silver and Jim Edwards (mainly for 1 page sales letter website).

#2- Site Built It by Ken Evoy. (Click right for a free download - mainly for content sites and affilitates program)

If money is not an issue and you're too busy to be bothered with all the intricate aspects of setting up the entire site, you may consider buying a fully set-up package from Site Built It. All you have to do is think of a concept and the rest of the process will be taken care of for you. They actually do a lot of the background work which is not apparent to you at all, but they provide top notch service to ensure your site is keyword optimized so that it will get a good placing on the search engine.