When the economy is bad, more and more people look for ways to supplement their incomes with good online business ideas. Does this sound like you? Are you looking for ways to make money online to help augment your income in these difficult times? Whether you have lost your job, or your employer has cut back on your hours, or the overtime you relied on has been slashed, you are in the same boat as millions of others.Today we have the Internet, and this is where most people will turn looking for help. They will begin looking for good online business ideas. Why not? After all, most of us have heard of people making money online. So why not us as well?The basic problem for most people is that when they start looking for good online business ideas, they have just about zero real knowledge to help guide them. We all see advertisements online with supposedly ”successful” folks telling us that they are making thousands of dollars per month in just a few hours a week. But are they scams? The fact is, if you spend some time working online you’ll come to realize something very simple: most of them are! How do you know if what you are looking at is a good online business idea or a scam? Without at least some knowledge up front, it can be very difficult to tell… until it’s too late and your bank account has suffered for your lack of knowledge.Before you start looking for good online business ideas, give yourself permission to get a little education first. The biggest mistake most people make is they dive right in, head first and willy-nilly, and never check to make sure there is any water in the pool! Why is it that people realize that if they want to open a “brick and mortar” business they need a certain amount of preparation and education before they begin, but they think that business on the Internet is somehow different? It’s not!Even if you’ve spent a lot of time online, or you’ve run your own business offline, you need to know how business online works. The Internet is very complex and a good online business idea alone will not be enough. Would you open a store on a busy street without checking out the location or products you are going to sell first? No of course you wouldn’t. You’d do your market research, and you’d also spend the time to find those allies and partners you’d need to help you in areas that are not your forte!You need to make the same kind of preparation if you’re seriously going to create any income online.Do you want to make money blogging? Do you want to be an affiliate marketer and promote one time sales to your mailing list? Do you want to promote a network marketing company online? Do you know all about how to do what it is you want to do online? If not… you need to learn how!Business online is the same as business anywhere else: it can be a nightmare, especially if you stumble into it blindly with no education. It can end up being very costly and time consuming as well, when really, it needn’t be either of those.The first requirement of any good online business is education. Take the time to learn all you can. Find some mentors… people who have “been there and done that”. Listen to their recommendation about which educational and business programs out there are garbage, and which are actually good online business ideas.You’ll be glad you did.

• Next Entry: What We Have Here Is A Failure To Communicate