If you type in “make money online” into a search engine, you'll find a whole host of different types of income opportunities available online. You'll come across a variety of home-based businesses, online typing jobs, affiliate programs, starting your own website, blogging, paid surveys, eBook reselling, and more. Some of these opportunities are little more than scams trying to dupe you into giving them $10 to $100 for “valuable information.”



However, some online income opportunities are legitimate, and of these legitimate ones, there are some offers definitely more worthwhile than others. If you're looking for an honest, well-paying, worth-your-time opportunity to make money using the power of the Internet, consider the benefits of residual income versus one-time payments offered by most online income opportunities, such as affiliate programs.

Residual income occurs when you keep making money after just one initial effort. These recurring payments are made to you over and over again without any extra work or involvement on your part. Many workers choose a residual income-based opportunity in order to escape the 9-to-5 grind and to allow them to finally quit their day jobs where their hours are dictated and their wages are limited.

But some people assume that just because they've figured out a way to work from home using their computer and Internet and managed to escape what they endured at the office (a boss to report to, set hours, fixed wage) that they've found the answer to financial freedom.

But if your opportunity doesn't follow a residual income pattern, then the money you make is still limited—based on how much work you produce. Affiliate programs, for example, only offer one-time payments for each customer that signs up or buys something “under” you.

Just imagine a life where the money you make doesn't depend on whether or not you “go to work,” or on how many hours you put in, or how much work you produce? Sounds heavenly, doesn't it?

But how do you find these residual income opportunities? One of the best residual income-based opportunities you'll come across online is joining an established and reputable home-based business or company.

Here's an example of how residual income works with a home-based business. You join the business as an affiliate or member, and you promote the company's products and/or services, as well as the money-making opportunity itself. If somebody signs up through your efforts, you make money off their purchases—over and over again. That customer becomes your customer, and there's no extra work on your part. Further, if someone signs up to become a business affiliate under you, you earn a residual “commission” for all the business that customer brings to the company.

If you're not entirely sure whether the company is legitimate, do some research first. Find out what other sites and forums are writing about them. Join a forum and ask about the company in question. Make sure you conduct a background check—with the Better Business Bureau, for example.

Of course, residual income opportunities are not just on the worldwide web. One example is the insurance agent who sells insurance to a customer one time, and without any extra work, gets paid every time that customer renews his policy. Published writers and musicians also make residual income. Every time someone buys their book or album (which they wrote or recorded once), they receive a royalty. Investors can also earn residual income with purchased real estate properties.

The next time you're tempted to quit your day job while you're online soaking in the plethora of money-making opportunities, bypass the online income opportunities that seem like scams, and avoid the one-time payment plans of most opportunities, such as affiliate programs and paid surveys. Look for ways to make residual income instead.

With residual income, there is no limit to how much money you can make.