But I can’t help but feel that there is a little bit of blind optimism at work here. In fact it rather reminds me of another catch-cry for “the paperless office” about a decade back. Great aspirations but short on substance.

Passive after all means “not participating readily or actively; inactive”.

Making money on the Internet usually involves selling products or services (either your own or others, as in affiliate arrangements). To do this it is necessary to attract a large number of visitors to your website. There are many ways to do this but they generally come down to:

• paid search engine traffic e.g Google Adwords
• or natural search engine traffic brought about by optimising web pages.

Both require very careful product and/or service research, precise keyword analysis, constant testing,  ongoing monitoring, feedback and continuous adjustment of all processes from marketing through to final product or service delivery.

It is not starting to sound too ‘passive’ is it?

So, is there to be money to be made on the Internet? Absolutely!

Is it likely that the money could be described as passive income? Well, no.

I am sorry if I have burst a bubble. No doubt many hopeful souls have already branded me as a heretic. It is just that I have a rather more down to earth appreciation what the Internet has to offer. In the end, from a business perspective, it is a fantastic marketing and sales channel. But like every other form of business it is highly competitive and success comes through intelligent application and hard work.

Sorry