If you've been trying to make money on the internet for more than a few weeks, you've no doubt researched or tried a number of methods and schemes to make it happen. Each one claims that they have secrets no-one else on the internet has discovered, and if you join their program or buy their e-book, you will have the one single key to making millions online.

Many of these people are completely sincere. They really do believe there is one single key to success. Let me save you a world of trouble and grief up front. None of the methods you read about will work by itself, and if you try them all one by one, you'll either go crazy or burn yourself out and end up blinded from staring at your computer screen with a permanent kink in your neck that the doctor claims is self-imposed whiplash. And you'll only have made enough for your lunch money at best.

Are most of the courses and programs out there libelous scams, simply out to make a fortune off of your naivete? No, most of them really did make a fortune for the person who made them, and for the happy smiling people you see with the glowing testimonials underneath. They won't work for you, though, and here's why.

Making money online is like a jigsaw puzzle, and once you find all the pieces and get them firmly in place, the money will literally roll in. The trouble is, it's terribly hard to get anyone to tell you what those pieces are, and how they should fit together. Ask "guru" Richie Rich how to succeed and he will most likely tell you about the final piece of the puzzle that brought his business to a profit level. Richie is assuming that you already have the pieces that were easy for him to achieve, and you are simply missing the one that was a challenge for him.

Most people who make money online will tell you that the first few months or even years were essentially fruitless. That's because it took them that long to figure out what all the puzzle pieces were and get them in place. Want to know what they are? I don't claim to have all the answers, but I think this may be the most accurate list of the puzzle pieces to internet wealth you will find. If you will simply work on each of these pieces in turn, you will save yourself a lot of grief and disappointment, and will eventually be sitting back and watching the money flow in just like the happy testimonial people.

1. A Positive Mindset

That's right. How you see yourself living a year from now, and how much you believe that it can really happen has a huge impact on your chances for success. If you have specific goals, a solid plan to make them happen and the faith that you can do it, you are more than halfway there. There is a lot of literature on this subject, but the single all time classic is "Think and Grow Rich." Do a Google search, and download it for free.

2. A Product that is In Demand.

Deciding what to promote or which company to join is the hardest job you will do online. Many programs teach you to promote digital products to the internet marketing world. There is a lot of money flowing in this market, but there is also an enormous amount of competition. An e-book on how to make a salt water aquarium may be a lot easier to sell. Whatever you do, research both the claims of the company and any complaints against them as well.

3. A Webpage to Sell the Product and Capture Leads.

Yes, regardless of what some companies tell you, eventually you will need your own webpage. There are two basic reasons for this.

First, you need the names and e-mail addresses of a large group of people who trust you and are willing to buy from you. You can get this list by having a form on your page for people to sign up.

Second, it is a proven fact that people hardly ever buy something the first time they find out about it. If they read about a product or service on your page, and then click on a link to the actual product sales page, they will have been "pre-sold" on the product, and will be much more likely to buy.

If you don't have experience making a webpage, there are a lot of companies out there that will give you a pre-made webpage that you can change little by little as you figure out how.

4. A List to E-Mail To

Imagine having a list of 3000 people who you know are interested in your product or service. All you have to do when you want to make some sales is send out one e-mail, and you'll get 100 sales or so within the first few hours. This is how most of the really successful people continue to make money year after year.

5. A Backend Product to Sell to your Established Customers.

You need a second product to offer the people who have purchased something from you. Think about how much McDonalds makes every year simply by training their staff to say, "Would you like fries with that?"

6. An E-Mail Series Loaded Onto an Auto responder

A good auto responder will cost you between $10 and $20 a month. It will send your list a series of e-mails over a period of time. This way you can stay in personal contact with hundreds or even thousands of people at one time. They will hear about your product and gain useful information on a regular basis, and will be thinking about you when they are ready to buy.

7. Multiple Sources of Traffic.

Traffic is people who visit your webpage. If your webpage is set up with a form for people to join your list, a sales section to pre-sell people on your product, and a link to go buy the product, then the more people who visit your page, the more money you will make. You can get people to visit your page in a number of ways. Some of them cost money for advertising, and some of them are free.

Pay per click advertising, Traffic exchanges, classified ads, news releases, and article marketing and just a few methods to get traffic to your site.

There you have it. There are other puzzle pieces. Lots of them. But I think that if you have these seven pieces well established, you will start to make money, and will be able to incorporate other things at your leisure. Don't let anyone tell you that any one of them is the key. You have to have all the pieces in place if you want to enjoy the whole picture.