Do you think legitimate online businesses sound just too good to be true?  Sometimes they are, and sometimes they aren't. Here's how to sort through the options and find the real thing.

First of all, if you are promised thousands of dollars for hardly any work, especially right away, it's probably not for real. I'm terribly sorry to break that news to you.  But you better believe it.

On the other hands, there are hundreds of thousands of people doing legitimate online work from home.  So why not join them.

You know all the perks... No commute. You get to work in your jammies if you want to. And almost no overhead. Depending on what you do, you also get to make your own hours.

There's even more...  Some of the better types of online work offer an ever increasing pay-out, so you can actually make a considerable amount of money -- eventually -- while working fewer and fewer hours.

But first you need to work.

So how can you get paid to work online? Stop looking at get rich quick ebooks and opportunities and look around for examples of people who make money by producing real value for others.  Then follow their lead.

What kinds of work can you do?  Pick something you enjoy.  You'll be doing a lot of it once it takes off. Basically, there are three major types of legitimate online businesses:

1) You provide products (virtual or otherwise)

2) You provide services

3) You promote other people's products (or sometimes services)

Often, these categories intersect.

Examples of products

Information products, programs, themes, ring tones, applications, and graphic designs, and, well, physical products.

Example of services

Ghostwriting, copywriting, editing, proofreading, transcription, design, and virtual assistant services to give you some examples. And it's the services that sell especially well and that can be a recipe for building a legitimate income quickly.

How do you find clients?

That can be a bit challenging, but if your services are good and you're willing to start for a modest amount of pay, you won't have trouble finding clients. Once you have collected a few happy clients who are willing to give you testimonials, you can raise your prices and most of your customers will be glad to pay them. And the next thing you know is that you'll have joined the ever growing ranks of thriving legitimate home based businesses.