There are a number of legal ways to make money online. Some are short term with limited gains and other are long term with big payoffs.

If you are good at writing, you can make money writing a blog. A number of sites provide free blogs and will pay you, depending on the number of people viewing your blog. The best bit is you do not need a dime to start and you don’t need any web design skills. The beauty of blogging is that there is no set topic and you can write about whatever is closest to your heart or what ever you have a good grasp of. Some people find blogging very therapeutic and some sites allow you to add Google Adwords, so you would be able to earn more money from people clicking on them.

Submitting articles for money is another legal way of making money online. There are a number of sites where you can submit your articles and they will happily pay you for them.

A number of auction sites are available. Take eBay, for example, you can make money by selling your unwanted stuff and using the money to buy some more stuff that you can sell off at a profit.

Answering surveys online is a great way of making money online. You can answer questionnaires for market research companies and they pay you for it. Although answering surveys is an easy and interesting way to make money online, one should make sure that the company is reputable since there are a number of rogue companies that will have you answer surveys and not pay you.

Working for others online is a great legal way of earning money. The number of people telecommuting has increased and companies find it more acceptable to employ telecommuting employees. A number of forum owners need people to post and make conversation to keep the forums busy to make them attractive to more visitors, so you could get paid to chat and facilitate conversation. You could be employed as a moderator, making sure all posts are under the right topics as well as removing any obscene posts.

Being a virtual assistant is another legal way of making money. A number of companies get a lot of emails so you could be involved in selecting which mail goes to who as well as answering some simple questions. You will be the first line of support for a company. You could be answering live help and dealing with simple problems and referring more complex ones to someone else for closer scrutiny.
Researching could be a legal way of making money online. A number of companies employ people to compile certain chunks of information for them. Certain busy people could employ you to find certain things for them. A busy executive might want to know where to get a certain dress for her daughters play, you would look for which site has them and pass on such information. This saves them time and they, in turn, pay you for the service.