Many people are interested in earning money online but don't want to go to the hassle and expense of building a site.

They visit forums and ask "How do I earn money without a website?".

The answer is that there are a number of ways to do this, but the results are always even better if you add your own website into the mix.

Let's discuss why, then look at some potentially very profitable businesses you could launch without a website incase you're still not convinced.

Without a website you'll lose out on a number of very profitable revenue streams:

1. Branding - when you have a website you have a "central hub" of your business and customers soon get to know your domain name and hence exactly where they can find you. When I want to buy a book I don't search for it in Google, I go straight to Amazon. Without their website they'd lose my business.

You can also list your website address on letterheads, on business cards, in articles, in directories and so on so others can quickly learn where to find you.

2. Free Traffic - without your own website it's far harder to generate free traffic from the search engines and missing out on hundreds or even thousands of potential leads each day is like throwing money down the drain. It's how I make 90%+ of my monthly income and I wouldn't be without it for the world.

3. Leverage - when you have your own website you see both repeat visitors and can leverage it by setting up your own affiliate program to draw even more visitors to it. Both of these are difficult to impossible without your own website.

4. Lead Generation - by setting up your own mailing list you can repeatedly market to the same leads and so increase the lifetime value of your leads - and make your marketing more cost-effective.

The easiest way to go about this is to set up a form on your website so people can sign up for newsletters, special offers, product updates etc. from you and this can rapidly build a list of thousands of interested people.

The other way is that the shopping cart you use on your ecommerce website can record the details of everyone who buys from you so you can market to them again in the future.

Having your own mailing list is like being able to make cash on demand. Any time you need extra money you just fire out a message to your list and wait for the sales to come in.

It's the closest thing to having a perfect business that there is.

5. Contextual Advertising - many webmasters with their own sites earn even more money each month by adding contextual advertising - such as Adsense - to their sites. However this advertising can only be placed on websites you own. None of the "website-free" businesses discussed below will allow you to indulge in this easy, cost-effective business model.

Infact, the truth of the matter is that with developments taking place at such a rate now, having your own website is neither expensive, time-consuming or difficult and many services and pieces of software exist to make having your own website so easy you won't believe it.

But if you're still not convinced, here are a few businesses you can run without your own website...

1. Ebay - sell your own stuff or deliberately buy and sell professionally on Ebay. Your reputation will grow and there are many buyers surfing for whatever you opt to sell but the most successful Ebay sellers have their own websites that offer additional information and that previous customers can return to again and again.

2. Article Distribution - you can write useful, informative article like this one and distribute them through article directories. Many will be published hundreds of times across the Internet and you can include a signature file at the end of the article which can direct people to your affiliate link for a related product.

Please be aware however that having your own website will allow you to utilize free search engine visitors and so increase your results even further, and that many affiliate programs require you to have a website they can check out before you are accepted into their program.

3. Forum Marketing - the process is to usefully answer questions other people post in discussion forums and use your signature file much like in the article marketing concept to send people to an affiliate program you are a member of.

4. Freelance - many marketers use sites like Guru.com and eLance.com to find people capable of offering services of use to business people - such as article writing services, graphic design and programming and if you have saleable skills you can earn quite a reasonable living with just these third-party sites.