In reality most of the time it boils down to these 10 steps:
- Find a profitable market
- Analyze your competition
- Find Products You can promote
Find either merchants in your chosen market whose products you can promote for a commission, or create your own product - Do your Keyword Research
Find out which words/keywords are people in your market using. Then focus on so called "buyers" keywords = words people are using when they are ready to buy, i.e. exact name, model type, model number etc - Build a website
I know, I know, it Is possible to make money without a website, but having at least One site will give you much more leverage and respect online. Besides, then you are building a Business. It does not mean you have to build a huge site will all the flashy gadgets right away, just start with simple blog or even some free template, and when your market proves to be profitable, then expand. - Create content for Real people
Don't fall into the trap of some fast scraped or low quality content no human can read. Those days are over. People go online for information, so give it to them! - Optimize your website
Your website has to be Search Engines friendly, although it's first goal is pleasing your visitors.
Add all the necessary things Search engines like, title, meta-tags, Head tags, alt tags etc. Or, if you are using a blog platform like WordPress just utilize all those free plugins available. - Add a newsletter to your site (optional)
Start writing a newsletter if you feel like and aim at having long-term customers. Put an opt-in form on your site and offer people some nice freebie in exchange for their email. Then use an autoresponder for sending your ezine issues.
Caution: don't bombard your audience just with sales pitches, offer them also a valuable content, so they will see you like an authority so they will be more willing to buy from you later. - Start Promoting your website
The more you market your website, the more traffic you will get. More traffic = more money. There are hundreds of ways of promoting your site online and offline, the real secret is: do it Consistently! You can use Free marketing or paid advertising methods just do it continuously. - Outsource!
As soon as you get some extra money hire other people, paid them for mundane things which take you too much time or you don't like doing it. Leverage other people skills and talents, so you can expand even more
Always, always go for a market where people Do Have money and are Willing to spend it. Be it markets for a 'pleasure' or resolving a 'pain'
You need to look at your competition. Only fool would not do that. Besides, it helps you to see what they are doing