Entries Tagged 'Tips' ↓

If you are looking to make money online you have to watch out for scams. There are lots of them out there and when you are just starting out it can be difficult to separate the legitimate from the scams. My basic rule of thumb is that if it sounds too good to be true it probably is.

For this top 10 list,  I have purposely avoided mentioning the most obvious scams such as pyramid schemes (or pseudo pyramid schemes like multiple level marketing (MLM)), chain letters or any other program where you make money by recruiting people rather than selling or investing in something.

I figure most of you are smart enough to figure out that those programs aren’t all they are cracked up to be. What is more difficult are programs that fall into a gray-area; they work but not to the extent claimed.

The following is a list of common make money online programs that all have some potential problems. Not all of them are 100% scams and some of them do actually work to some extent. However, the one trait they all share is that their claims fail to live up to their hype.

So, exercise caution when looking at make money online schemes that resemble any of the following. And, always use common sense: if it sounds too good to be true it probably is.

10. Paid Surveys

There are some legitimate paid survey programs, but I guarantee you will not get rich from them. Any legitimate survey program should be free to join. However, many sites claim you can make money from surveys if you first pay a fee.

I would highly recommend you stay away from any survey site that requires you to pay. You may make some money, but it will take you a long time to recoup your investment. Instead opt only for free sites.

Red Flag Claims: Fortune 500 Companies Need You!, Get Paid Up $75/Hour, etc.

9. Government Grant Programs

It is true that local, state and national governments in the United States and other countries often have free grant programs. You can usually find information about them for free online just by using Google.

However, scams have developed to try and make you pay for this free information. Spend a little time on your own and you find out everything you need free of charge.

Red Flags Claims: Billions in Free Money, Over 30 million People a Year get Grants, etc.

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Ever since I wrote about the possibility of buying a website I have been on the lookout for a site of my own to buy. My first deal fell through which was a little disappointing, but I think goes with the territory. But, I am please to announce that I actually bought my first site, well actually a blog!

Now, I am not going to reveal what it is here because I want to see if I make money from it without outside interference. I will say I spent $475 on it and I had hopped to make that money back relatively quickly through adverting deals.

However, I think I was a little too optimistic about how much some people would pay for these. I still think I will make money on it, but it is going to take longer than originally anticipated. Oh well, all a learning experience.

I am going to get back to work improving it but I just thought I would let you all know what I have been up to.

If you have bought or sold a website please share your experience in the comments section below. I know I would be very interested to know how it worked out for you.

Before I explain what I mean by this I will address a very obvious objection to my headline. Why am I telling you not to create webpages, blogs or products about making money online when I blog about making money online?

Very simply, I don’t make my money online through this blog. It currently represents only about 1-2% of my total online income. I assume that this proportion will rise somewhat as it becomes more popular, but I never expect it to be more than about 10% of my total online earnings.

I enjoy writing this blog because it helps me to think through my own ideas about Internet business and because I want to help people improve their lives by starting their own Internet business. Obviously, if I can make money from this blog so much the better, but the earnings from it could disappear tomorrow and I would hardly notice.

OK, enough about me for one post, what does this have to do with you? In fact, I think this point is extremely important, because it is the biggest single mistake I see people online making online.

Why Do People Think Writing or Even Creating Products About Making Money Online Will Make Them Money?

I think the simple answer is that they see other people doing it and decide to copy them and do it themselves. For example, they see supper bloggers like John Chow who report incomes as high as $30,000 a month, writing about making money online and think well that looks like a good idea, so they copy it.
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I spend a ridiculous amount of time online. When I am not working, I spend time reading blogs and websites about topics which interest me, such as business, politics, entrepreneurship and financial planning among others. However, many things bug me about how websites and blogs are often presented.

So, I decided I would create a list of 3 common mistakes that I seem to constantly come across. There are definitely dozens more than these out there, but these are the three that annoy me the most. Both new and experienced website and blog owners make them; although I think newer ones probably make them more frequently.

Try to avoid these mistakes when making a new site or blog and you will be way ahead of the game. Moreover, you will stand out from everyone else who is making them.

1. The biggest problem I run across are websites that have too much advertising. I find that this is problem with sites big and small, old and new alike. In fact a great example is super Blogger John Chow whose blog is filled with ads. But he makes great money with his blog so I should just copy him, right?

Wrong! John Chow and other owners of authority websites, can put many ads on their sites because people know and trust them. People want to read the content on the site and thus put up with the ads. Unless, you are an authority site you should not even think about putting up a ton of ads that get in the way of your content.

Work towards building up a solid base of people who like your site and then slowly put more ads on. However, you never want your ads to make your site more difficult to navigate. Again using John Chow’s site as an example you can see that even though there are a lot of ads they do not make it that much more difficult to navigate his site (see point number 2). Continue reading →

Well it looks as though my outsourced work still isn’t finished yet. It is not the end of the world, since I don’t have to pay until the project is complete, but it is annoying since it delays the other things I want to do. So, today I thought I would bring you another simple Internet business idea.

It can take a long time to build up both traffic and content of a new website or blog to a respectable amount. Depending on your niche area of focus it could take from 3 months to 2+ years before you really start seeing any return on your results. For some people this is just too long.

The good news is that an alternative does exist. You can always buy an existing Internet business and then expand it on your own. This can save you precious time. Plus, if you buy a site that is already generating money you will also have some instant cash flow.

The most popular places to find fully developed websites for sale are Sitepoint, Website Broker, buysellwebsite.com and the Digital Point forum. Continue reading →