Make Money Online (Without Spending a Dime)

Even with no product and no website, you can get paid for what and who you know

Making money online used to pretty much require you to have your own Web site, products to sell and some marketing savvy. But a new generation of dot-coms have arisen that will pay you for what you know and who you know without you having to be a web designer or a marketing genius.

But it's hard to tell hype from the real deal. I did a search on "make money online" and "making money online", and much of the information out there is just promoting various infoproducts, mostly about Internet marketing. I see why people sometimes ask, "Is anyone making money online besides Internet marketing experts?"

So I put together a list of business opportunities with legitimate companies that:

• Pay cash, not just points towards rewards or a chance to win money
• Don't require you to have your own Web domain or your own products
• Don't involve any hard-selling
• Aren't just promoting more Internet marketing
• Give a good return on your time investment

In the interest of objectivity, none of the links below are affiliate links, and none of them have paid or provided any other consideration for their presence here. These are legitimate companies with business models that allow you to get paid for a wide range of activities.

Help friends find better jobs.

Sites like ReferEarns, Zyoin, Who Do You Know For Dough?, and WiseStepp connect employers with prospective employees, many of whom are already employed and not actively job-hunting, via networking - the people who know these qualified candidates. Rewards for referring a candidate who gets hired range from $50 on up to several thousand dollars - not chump change. If you know a lot of job-seekers (and who doesn't these days?), this is a great way to break into the recruiting business with no overhead.

Connect suppliers with buyers.

Referral fees are a common practice in business, but they haven't been used much in online networking sites because there was no way to track them. Sites like Salesconx,  InnerSell and uRefer now provide that. Vendors set the referral fees they're willing to pay (and for what), and when the transaction happens, you get paid. uRefer also allows merchants to set up referral programs for introductions and meetings, as well as transactions.

Write.

A growing number of sites will pay for your articles or blog posts. Associated Content and Helium will "pay for performance" based on page views for just about anything you want to write about. Articles on specific topics they're looking for can earn direct payments up to about $200. The rates are probably low for established writers, but if you're trying to break into the field and have time on your hands, they're a great way to start. Also, a lot of companies are looking for part-time bloggers. They may pay per post or on a steady contract. Our Weblogs Guide posts blogging jobs weekly in the forum.

Start your own blog.

You don't have to have your own Web site, or install blogging software, or even figure out how to set up the advertising. At Blogger you can set up a blog for free in less than five minutes without knowing a thing about web design, and Blogger even automates setting up Google AdSense so you can make money off your blog by displaying ads and getting paid when people click on the ads. To make even more money from it, set up an affiliate program (see below) for books, music, etc., and insert your affiliate links whenever you refer to those items. You'll have to get a lot of traffic to become a six-figure blogger, but pick an interesting topic, write well, tell all your friends, and you're off to a good start.

Create topical resource hubs.

Are you an expert on a particular niche topic? Can you put together an overview of the topic and assemble some of the best resources on the topic from around the web? Then you can create topical hubs and get paid through sites like Squidoo, HugPages and Google Knol. Payments are based on a combination of ad revenue and affiliate fees. You'll get higher rates doing it on your own, but these sites have a built-in supply of traffic and tools to make content creation easier.

Advertise other people's products.

If you already have a Web site or a blog, look for vendors that offer related but non-competing products and see if they have an affiliate program. Stick to familiar products and brands - they're easier to sell. To promote those products:

• Place simple text or graphical ads in appropriate places on your site
• Include links to purchase products you review or recommend in a blog, discussion forum or mailing list you control
• Create a dedicated sales page or Web site to promote a particular product

They all work - it just depends on how much time you have to spend on it and your level of expertise with Web design and marketing.

Microstock photography.

You don't have to be a professional photographer to sell your photos for money. People are constantly in need of stock photography for websites, presentations, brochures and so on, and are willing to pay for the right image. People generally search for images on stock photography sites by keywords, not by photographer, so you have the same chance as anyone else of having your image picked. Just be careful that you don't have images of trademarked brands, copyrighted art or people's faces that are readily identifiable (unless you have a model release), but just about anything else is fair game, and I promise - you'd be amazed what people need pictures of, so don't make any assumptions. If it's a decent photo, upload it. Some sites to get you started include Fotolia, ShutterStock,  Dreamstime and iStockphoto. The great thing about this is that it's truly "set it and forget it".

The above list is by no means comprehensive, but it highlights some of the new and interesting ways to make money online without investing any money, without having a product of your own, and without having expert sales and marketing skills. Most of all, unlike taking surveys or getting paid to read e-mail, the potential return on your time investment is substantial.

Top 5 Affiliate Program Marketing Tips

Congratulations on making the decision to become involved in affiliate marketing!

The most difficult part of the home based business process if finding out what type of work you want to do, and affiliate marketing has proven itself to be a viable option for thousands of people across the globe.

You may feel overwhelmed with information in the beginning, but there are a few main things you should focus on as you're preparing to launch your first campaign. Here are the 5 tips that helped me the most as I launched my first affiliate marketing project.

Choose a product or subject you are familiar with. While a product may be popular and successful, the less familiar you are with the subject matter the less likely you are to make money within that niche. You'll end up spending more time on research than you'll spend marketing. Stick with what you know and the rest will come easily.

Build a strong content site. One of the most popular phrases online is "content is king," and it's the truth. Building a website full of articles about the product you are trying to promote will make you appear as though you are a knowledgeable authority. People will trust you more and, as a result, will be more likely to make a purchase from you.

Avoid overusing banners. Banners may seem like a great advertising tool, but they're not. Banners scream "advertisement" and most people try to avoid advertisements at all costs. If you must advertise, you're better off with a small text ad or blurb on another website or blog. Besides, most banners look ugly and unprofessional - you don't want to attach that sort of stigma to your business.

Explore different affiliate networks. Just because someone you know is experiencing success with a certain affiliate network or merchant program does not mean you will. As a matter of fact, in most cases your success has nothing to do with the reputation of the affiliate network, but has everything to do with the amount of effort you put forth. Explore a handful of different networks and incorporate products from each into your campaigns. Ignore those who complain that they're not getting paid enough - they're probably not working very hard.

Conduct thorough research and educate yourself. Don't just choose a niche or product because it sounds interesting. Take some time to do a little bit of keyword research and determine what is popular and what is not. Look at other affiliate sites and determine what is making them successful. Try to determine if there is a niche that is yet untapped that you can take advantage of.

Remember, affiliate marketing is not easy, but it can be incredibly lucrative if you're willing to put some time and effort into your campaign right from the start. Feel free to leave comments with questions or to share your most recent affiliate marketing experiences. I'd love to hear from you!

Happy Affiliate Marketing

4 Effective Places to Advertise That Won't Empty Your Wallet

Many of you know that I am definitely a proponent of free traffic. I love working with my blog, writing articles, prospecting on Facebook, and even making videos from time to time.

But, sometimes you just have a pressing need to get some traffic!

For example, how do you know if your funnel is working if you only have 3-4 people visiting it a day? You'd have to wait 30-45 days before you have enough data to make any sort of judgment on the effectiveness of your marketing plan. That's not an efficient way to run your business.

Or, maybe you need to build a "seed" list of a couple hundred subscribers so that you have some people to market products to. A "seed" list also allows you to participate with other marketers in list swaps and webinar swaps and things like that.

Or you simply just want to supplement your current lead flow by paying a little bit here and there for something extra.

However, there is a serious myth out there that needs dispelling.

A lot of people believe that paid advertising has to be really expensive. Of course it can be, but spending under $100 on advertising can still give you some fantastic, immediate results.

If you can send a few hundred visitors to your site in less than a day, it makes split-testing and tweaking much easier.

Plus, you don't have to just sit around and wait for enough people to stumble across your page. You can take control now of the leads and sales you generate by paying for it.

Now, I know that a lot of big-time marketers pay thousands upon thousands of dollars every single month on advertising, and that is how they are able to earn millions of dollars per year.

Here, I'm just going to assume that you have a very small budget, and show you the absolute, most useful places you can spend a few bucks to generate leads.

Let's say you find a spot for $40 that generates around 80 leads every time you spend the money. $40 is an amount that almost everyone can come up with, but if you did this once a week, you've got 320 leads a month. I'd say that's a significant boost to your business!

So here are my 4 favorite places to do some inexpensive advertising...

1. Ezine Solo Ads

This strategy will work for you because most other people fail completely at it!

For that reason alone, it's a very under-used strategy, but can be your most effective one if you know how to use it.

What is involved in this strategy?

Basically, there are a lot of marketers out there that run their entire businesses by generating very large subscriber bases and then sending out a steady newsletter. They charge other marketers to place ads in these outgoing newsletters.

Now, if you can find a newsletter where the target audience are all people in your industry, you'll know that you'll get a killer response with an ad.

Everyone on the list is interested in the topic because they had to subscribe to the newsletter in the first place. They've already requested more info about your industry.

However, I highly recommend only buying solo ads.

Most newsletters offer solo ads, top sponsor, middle sponsor, and bottom sponsor ads. The top, middle, and bottom ads refer to the placement of the ad inside the newsletter itself. With a solo ad, a separate email is sent out to the list, so you get to control the subject line as well.

One of my favorite marketers, Daegan Smith, showed a test result where he bought a solo ad, and top, middle, and bottom sponsor ads in the same newsletter. The solo ad pulled better than all the other ads combined... hmmmm...

The very first time that I ever bought a solo ad, I paid $50 and got 57 leads from it. I liked it because it was immediate, and right away I knew that I had a pretty good capture page.

Like I said above, most people stink at ezine advertising, so how can you succeed where others fail?

The ultimate key to success with advertising is to be very, very picky about where you place ads.

I only place ads in ezines where the home website is very professional looking. Also, the subscriber base must be growing. Sometimes, a marketer will have a list sitting there for 5 years and then, out of the blue, decide to send out a newsletter. The problem is that the list is very stagnant and the subscribers won't even remember who the newsletter is from or why they're getting it.

Most serious ezine publishers will say on their site how many subscribers they are adding per week or month. This will give you an immediate indication if the list is stagnant, or being filled constantly with hungry, interested marketers.

Next, I always get in contact with the publisher. I ask a few questions about the newsletter, like if other people have promoted an offer similar to mine and what kind of response they received. I ask how fast their subscriber base is growing, and I also send them a copy of my ad to get a second opinion on it from a real pro.

I know it's a bit of a process to go through, but in the end it will be well worth it because your results will be so much better than the average marketer's results.

Most people aren't willing to pay the price to do the homework, and that's why you'll succeed where others haven't!

Now, your ad should promote a capture page with a free offer on it. Another reason that marketers are unsuccessful with advertising is they try to outright promote their MLM. Doing that is the fastest way to go broke in advertising.

Use a headline that generates curiosity and hints at giving free value.

Then, give some specific numbers or results in the body of the ad. Your entire ad needs to be only about 4 lines or so, but pack it with curiosity, secrets, and value.

"Generate 39 leads a day completely free

with these 8 hidden lead strategies

that will have you dominating the competition

in 30 days or less! Free report inside:

"http://www.YourCapturePage.com"

This type of ad is very up front about the benefits anyone will get by clicking on the link. They'll get more leads, they'll beat the competition, and they can do it in 30 days.

Plus, the words "these 8 hidden lead strategies" builds up a TON of curiosity for any online marketer. It will be really hard to resist knowing what those 8 strategies are.

That's all there is to it! Just make sure to do your homework, and the rest is a piece of cake.

2. Facebook Pay-Per-Click

I know that normally PPC carries a reputation that it is ridiculously expensive and you shouldn't even try it unless you have thousands of dollars you don't mind taking a match to.

But, with Facebook, that is no longer true.

With our premise of spending under $100 for a strategy, even Facebook PPC is within reach because of their extremely efficient targeting and keywords aren't all that expensive.

I've been able to have some very good results for spending just $5 a day. In fact, in one day I once signed up 4 people into my marketing system for $10.

I like Facebook PPC because it becomes obvious after just a few dollars if the campaign is going to work or not. You don't have to burn through money to know if an ad is going to pull.

For example, any ad you run should have a CTR (click through rate) of.1 or better. Sometimes, I'll check back after a day, and I'll have 6,000 impressions and two clicks. Obviously, something isn't going right, but I've only been charged for 2 clicks to find that out.

Most of the time, my clicks are around $.30 or even less.

Here are just a few tips about PPC:

- Target specific MLM companies (if you're in network marketing)

- Send to a capture page with a free offer (just like ezine advertising)

- Write ads basically the same way you would with ezine advertising, except make sure to mention the name of the company that you are targeting in your ads. For example, "Hey Nu Skin Reps!" as the title of your ad.

- Find engaging, bright pictures. That is the key to making your ad stand out in the crowd

- Rotate through several ads in the same campaign. It happens very often that an ad will run successfully for 3 or 4 days, but then fall below.1 CTR. Just pause it, run a different ad, and then you can run it again a week or two later with great results again.

3. Warrior Special Offers (WSO)

The Warrior Forum is the world's largest forum strictly for internet marketers, and they put special emphasis on network marketing. There are always thousands of people on there.

It's a great place to do some free marketing because you can respond to questions and post your own helpful tips, while indirectly marketing with your signature line.

However, the WSO's are an amazing way to market. Basically, they are offers that are placed in a special forum within the Warrior Forum, and they have to be approved before they are displayed. It costs $40 to place one.

Now, because everyone here offers products that cost money, if you offer a FREE WSO, it will stand out like crazy. You can garner more than your fair share of attention.

Of course, you have to construct a well thought out ad. Basically, a headline that you would use would be put in the subject, along with the words FREE WSO.

Then, you can construct an ad just like the others we've talked about. The Warrior Forum will even let you spice it up with fonts, pictures, and different colors to help make you stand out a bit.

And, of course, you're sending people to a capture page that offers the free WSO you were promoting.

These ads are great because they're cheap, and you can get immediate traffic. Once you've written a successful WSO, you can submit it every couple of weeks or so and know how many leads you'll get.

It's really not uncommon to generate 80-100 leads using this strategy effectively. Spending $40 for 80 targeted leads will definitely get the job done for you!

4. Warrior Forum Banners

Obviously, this is another marketing strategy within the Warrior Forum itself. If you head on over to the Warrior Forum, there are huge banners that are the first thing you see.

Because there are so many network marketers surfing the site, buying that banner space can be a very effective use of money.

It does cost $100 for one day of advertising, but imagine the exposure you're getting straight to other network marketers!

And, like the WSO's, you can put in images, change the fonts, use colors, and basically anything you can do in Photoshop. You're not stuck with black and white like ezines and PPC.

With a banner, all you have to do is come up with a headline or two that creates curiosity and hints at extreme value. Adding an image and some different colors will go a long way to setting your ad apart from others.

The best way to get some ideas is to head on over to http://WarriorForum.com and check out the banners that other marketers have put up there.

In fact, if you can find a banner that's been posted on different days, you know they're getting some good results. Otherwise they wouldn't be spending $100 a pop.

Each of these 4 strategies is powerful enough that you could build your entire business with it.

My favorite use of these strategies is to get immediate results on whether my capture pages are working. Then, I know I can direct my free traffic there as well and know I'm going to get good results.

And that's the real key: test everything. If you're going to spend money, you better know exactly what results you're getting. You have to track your conversions and your sales in order to know if you should use that strategy again and if you need to tweak your page.

Now, these strategies I've shown are so inexpensive that you can drive hundreds of visitors to your site in a single day without breaking the bank.

And, if you completely bomb and don't get any results, at least you know what doesn't work and you have to change something. That's better than spending $500 on Google PPC or sending free traffic for two months before you know it doesn't work.

And finally, don't shy away from paid strategies because others have told you it's too expensive. While trying to build a large, successful online business, you need to explore several options for generating leads. Plus, with these strategies, you can give yourself a pretty good head start without spending very much money

I hope these strategies help you to incorporate a few paid strategies into your marketing plan!

Ten steps to increase your brand’s Facebook performance by 30%

Jason Stewart (MD of HaveYouHeard) and his team of Cath Mori, Tracy Dale and Britt Adami, in an effort to understand Facebook Timeline better, tracked just over 30 Facebook Pages, both local and international (including our own Pages which we manage) over the past few weeks since Timeline was introduced. We looked at other studies done by similar agencies internationally, with our ultimate objective being to identify the best practices to use.
It has been widely established that the success of a Facebook Page is not its size, but rather the amount of people engaging with it. This is indicated by the amount of people “Talking About This” (which is measured as a percentage within our study to be able to compare pages of different sizes more accurately).
The reason why we want a higher percentage of people “Talking About This” is to ensure that the brand’s content remains in peoples’ newsfeeds. That is why a high number of “likes” means much less because if only a very small percentage of fans are “Talking About This”, your message is falling on deaf ears. Therefore looking at what percentage of your Page is “Talking about this” is a critical factor in determining your Facebook Page’s success. Anyone can buy “likes”, but it takes smarter thinking to generate higher engagement.
Buzzfeed found that after tracking 200 Pages, the average engagement rate (Talking About This) was less than 0.02%. We focused on the top pages from both South Africa and abroad and those Pages fared much better. We found the average engagement rate was closer to 5% which should be seen as an acceptable benchmark – any lower and your Social Media team needs to start thinking harder about content and engagement.
This article is focused on what we have learnt from our own experience as well as from the best practices of others. Following the advice should bring your “Talking About This” rate above the 5% acceptability benchmark.
Here are our Top 10 Best Practices for Facebook Timeline:

1. Images are in and copy is out as communication becomes more about visual storytelling. The use of pictures is incredibly important. Forget writing detailed status updates or posts, rather use pictures or specifically designed posts that translate the message visually. The implication for the brand is that more budget needs to be set aside for developing content in this way, but with higher impact you should be able to measure the ROI on your increased spend.

2. Posting Content : An entire article, or even a book can be written about this topic. The shorter the post, the better. As Buddy Media found out – 80 words or less generates around a 30% better response rate than longer posts. We must not forget that online content has become more intensive than advertising itself as people are constantly bombarded with information, from emails to alerts to articles etc. The quicker they can read, understand and respond to a post, the more chance you have of them doing it.

3. Questions work much better than statements in terms of creating engagement. Officially, questions generate around 15% higher engagement than statements. We measured it closer to 30%. However, it is not always as simple as asking a question – it is what you ask that is important. Don’t ask ‘Why’ as this requires too much thought and people will more often than not gloss over it. Rather use “When, Should, Where” etc, those that require less thinking and an easier, shorter response.

4. The type of content a brand posts is critical. This is where creativity comes into play – finding or creating content that is shareable and ensuring it drives the brand message. What we need to know about posting content is that Facebook has something called the Edge Ranking, which is an algorithm that ‘measures’ all content and judges how high up and for how long a piece of content stays in someone’s newsfeed for. The algorithm looks at the affinity between the message creator and the message receiver (how often they interact), the weight of the content (video versus comment versus “like” for example – with the more robust the content, the higher the weighting) and then it looks at time; when it was posted, with the sooner being the better. It shows us that we need to ensure high engagement with all our fans, more robust content (videos and pictures are better than copy), and that we need to post more often than not.

As much as possible, include pictures, links, thumbnail images and videos into posts as they increase your content’s Edge Ranking (interestingly videos that show the actual time length in the post have a higher engagement rate as the user can immediately decide whether they will spend that amount of time watching it).

5. When to post has become increasingly more important. Because of Facebook’s Ticker (the stories that appear on the right hand side of your page and “tick” continuously as new content is posted), posts now only have a lifespan of roughly 3 hours in a newsfeed. Therefore, posting once a day will not do, we need to post more regularly. This is one of the most neglected but influential ‘rule changers’ for Facebook, as your Page’s “Talking About This” amount will drop if you no longer post enough. What we have noticed is that most brands post between 9am and 5pm. However, a lot of activity goes on after and before business hours and on weekends. Did you know that 30% of women check Facebook during the middle of the night and again first thing as they wake up? Which brands are they engaging with then? We found that Pages that posted more often during the day did not lose fans due to ‘spamming’ them with content, but rather increased their engagement as different parts of their audience saw the different messages at different times of the day.

6. One of the areas that most brands fall short on is in how they respond on the Page. There is no reason for more than a 24-hour delay. Our aim as an agency is for no longer than a day turnaround for a response, with our goal being to respond within an hour. It is also important to continue to engage with your fans in the comments as this pulls the thread back into newsfeeds.

7. Pinning and highlighting posts makes it easy for you to pull attention to the most important content. Strategic thought needs to be given to which posts go where. This is prime real estate and your most important messaging and calls-to-action need go here.

8. Apps are a little more user friendly and can make a Page look great, whilst also helping users with their experience of a brand. It is great for redirecting users to competitions, brand or campaign websites or customer care. But what is more important is that a user’s interaction is recorded by Facebook’s Social Graph – which means that this activity gets pulled into your newsfeed, improving your brand’s exposure. Apps allow more reasons for users to engage with you, spend time on your Page and to share content with others.

9. The cover photo is the most important real estate on a Facebook Page. One eye-track study noted that users spent more time looking at the cover photo than they did at the wall posts. Good brands change their cover photo about once a week with most only changing it every 3 to 4 weeks. Much more attention needs to be given to this. Your cover photo sets the tone for your Page and just like people ‘judge a book by its cover’ so do users judge a Page by its cover photo. Pick ‘n Pay does a really great job in this regard.

10. Milestones are a great way to provide an immersion into the history of a brand. Again, great visual content can be created for this. Creatives should get involved in building up the brand story as it offers the opportunity to educate and transform how a consumer understands your brand. Ensure that the content you post is engaging and visual.

With these 10 tips, we hope you are able to improve, possibly even drastically, your brand’s performance on Facebook

Mobile Cash Empire Marketing in 2012

After we still transition within the industrial age and to the information age personal computers will finish up progressively more built-into our everyday lives. Personal computers continues to obtain additional compact plus much more simple for everybody in the world to own and rehearse everyday. Most likely the most crucial types of personal computers or info items that will integrate into every persons existence can be a cell phone. Cell phones have grown to be modern-day every month, eventually everybody will own a smartphone in a position to connecting as much as the net at incredible high connection speeds and possess excellent shows. We have already seen the launch of 4G LTE systems in recent several days, which allows for data transmission speeds faster then just what a home pc could only a few years back. This type of speed combined with progressively impressive HD screens allows for a lot of amazing mobile marketing options. As all of this technology is constantly evolve, mobile advertising is predicted to continue growing within an exponential rate over the following decade. Mobile marketing has been launched of the infancy and beginning to start an enormous presence inside the marketing area, showing a massive opportunity to create massive amounts of cash just like a mobile internet internet marketer. Also, as technology is constantly evolve, it's becoming simpler and much easier to have an average person to make money online, particularly in mobile marketing. Mobile Cash Empire can be a new software and training program created by Huey Lee and Steven Manley, two well-known mobile advertising guru's who generate serious affiliate income. Mobile Cash Empire will probably be launched just right before the completely new year, and chances are it will train 100s of thousands of people making incredible affiliate earnings with mobile marketing. Mobile Cash Empire provides all the training required to create a simple and effective marketing business inside your cell phone you could run from around the globe that has cell phone reception. No technical experience is needed to start by using this new software, Huey and Steve provides you with all the training necessary. These guys have really done a fantastic job using this package. The Mobile Cash Empire software and training program will most likely be a massive hit in 2012, it's expected that numerous people who purchase many will have a way to create thousands of dollars per monthly out of this. A present article from ABI research reviews that mobile marketing revenue will achieve $24 billion by 2013. 2012 is a good year to acquire started making money online as mobile marketing is constantly explode. It is time you're taking your share in the mobile marketing cake!