In this article, I will explain five of the top Internet-based income generation avenues:

1. Adsense or Yahoo Publisher Network. This is probably one of the best and most popular methods of generating an income over the Internet. All you have to do is start by selecting a niche that you can not only generate traffic for, but for which you can also earn a considerable amount per click.

You then take this niche you have discovered and turn it into a website. While there has been a trend lately in building low-quality Adsense sites, I personally suggest that you build legitimate sites that will actually attract a fan base; and then ad your Adsense advertisements. Everytime someone clicks on an advertisement, you will generate revenue.

2. List building. Many experts will tell you that this method has seen better years. It was once an absolutely unstoppable means of revenue-generation. Now, it is still quite powerful, but it isn't always as effective as it has been.

List building entails three things: the first is creating a list using a capture page and some pay per click traffic or existing traffic from the site. Your next step is to send material to that list, whether pre-made or current. The last part involves marketing your own or affiliate products to your new list members.

3. Building forums. This seems like a woefully unprofitable endeavor, but it isn't. Building forums can be one of the most profitable business models if you do it correctly.

You will need to start off by creating a forum and then getting people to post on it regularly. Once the pump is primed once you have a reasonable amount of posters you will then want to flood the board with all possible sources of related traffic.

You can then monetize your forum through several different methods, including contextual advertising, banner advertising, and digital product sales.

4. Affiliate marketing. This is probably one of the easiest ways of generating an income over the Internet. Rather than messing around with your own products and your own ideas, you can simply take someone else's great idea and then market it to a fresh crowd.

5. Digital product selling. This method can entail several different things from creating your own software to hiring someone to create a private label ebook series for your current niche business.

Any of these ideas will work, provided that there is a market for them and provided that the work is high-quality and well-targeted.

If none of these methods of generating an income over the Internet sound appealing to you, that's actually okay. There are several different other methods available all of which you should consider before you begin building your first Internet-based business.