I have 5K dollars.

get setup with a couple affiliate networks. talk to your AM's. think about what would work for you. trust me you wont find your golden nugget sitting on wickedfire or DP. just work and see what you can do to drive revenue.
 


You made 5k$ and you obviously do not have many of those 5k's.
So what is the best idea ?
KEEP THEM ..

Sure, investment is a nice idea and you NEED money to make money.
But the best method to have money is not to spend it;)

Look for business opportunities but don't look for ways to spend your 5k.
There are unlimited methods to make $ these days, many documented here and on other places. Pick one or two you like and try your luck ..

A dedicated server, a few domains, a few IPs, knowledge and free-time is what you need. (and you'll be fine to start by spending just a few hundred $ on that)

I second this recommendation. It's all about getting a feel of what you're getting involved in before putting all your eggs in one basket per se you need to test the waters to make sure it's a) something you like b) you can actually make money in the area of interest.
Good luck!
 
I am prepared to make money. I am a newb at this but I had enough technical discussions about SEO and web design. However, I would like the best education and SEO company to help me get started.

Well, since you asked . . . I would recommend starting a new effort to earn the money you want to use for SEO and web design. You already have $5,000 and are asking what you can do with it. What you can do is educate yourself on the miracle called compounding interest, and max out your Roth IRA before wasting money on other stuff.

Traditional IRA vs. Roth IRA
Publication 590 (2008), Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs)

Create a Roth IRA account with Fidelity or someone else, deposit your $5,000 into the account with your favorite index fund or something similar, and enjoy the "balloon" payment you're going to get when you retire. If I were you, and still had the advantage of being young, I would think of my available money to spend in terms of what is left over after taking care of myself and my future. The $5k is your minimum level to reach zero in available spending money, everything above that you can do whatever you want with it. So if you said "I have $10k I saved from summer jobs" then you would be okay to ask what can you do with $5k for SEO and web design, because you would already be able to dedicate the first $5k to your Roth IRA.

You've got to start thinking about the bigger picture. It's not all about taking a gamble with the Internet and testing the waters to see what is going to payoff. Start with the Roth IRA, then add in a couple of monthly insurance premiums for your life policy and your own disability policy, then you can start wasting the money you make above that.
 
Alright, so you are with the right budget to start off with things. Now all you'll be needing is a good plan to implement. I would suggest you to build content sites. At first, if you are not into investing any money, you should be writing the articles yourself. Then, slowly you can hire writers for providing content to your sites. Start with 10, and then publish content on these sites regularly. After a month or two, you'll be with lots of content. But during this 1-2 months, you should be promoting your sites as well. Get traffic as much as possible. Try to improve the page ranks and serch engine rankings. Soon you'll be able to make money selling links and also through programs like Adsense and the such.

Cheers
 
With 5k you could employ 6-7 full time workers from the philippines for
three months. With them implementing any idea and project you come up
with for three months, you will either make much more then the 5k back
or realize you need to Quit IM.
 
NickyCakes has been back with his new avatar 2.0, so you can paypal all your monies to him.
 
You could take your 5k over to microworkers (dot) com. :-\

Find a niche, build a website, have the workers backlink, stumble, write content, etc..etc..etc..
 
get setup with a couple affiliate networks. talk to your AM's. think about what would work for you. trust me you wont find your golden nugget sitting on wickedfire or DP. just work and see what you can do to drive revenue.

What he said. Signup with a network and use your Affiliate Manager. We deal with noobs all day and have some paths for them to travel down. An affiliate network is going to benefit the most from your success so why not start there for building your support team.

As far as confidence... Do you know where confidence comes from? Trying things and failing and succeeding. So the best way to build confidence is try small stuff and have small successes and failures. That will build your confidence as you'll learn from your failures and celebrate your successes.

It's so true there's nothing to it but to do it! Nothing ventured nothing gained.:)

Have some money you're ok investing into education. IE using for campaigns that if you lose it, it's considered an investment into your online marketing education. That's truly the best use of the money. Could be succesful at your first shot or could take you years. But you only fail when you quit.

Just my 3 cents.
 
Sign up with affiliate network, ppc, cpm (adwords, yahoo, msn, facebook, myspace or others), pick 10 offers, run $100 budget on each network for each offer and see which one makes you more money.