Money Schemes - Learn How To Make Money Online

A friend mentioned this to me so I thought I’d have a look. SiteCube.com offer a Flash website generation service and website hosting that they are selling to small businesses. I think what the idea is that you pick one of their pre-made templates and then you add text and your own pictures etc until you have a finished website. That in itself is not too bad, after all if people want to rely on a cheap Flash based website for their business then all the very best to them. What concerned me however was that they are reselling this service.

What they are trying to offer you as a reseller is your own website design business. In a market swamped by cowboys and hobbyists is it really wise to offer people with even less knowledge of the whole hosting and design market a business in a box? They’ll set up a domain for you and then you end up hosting pages from their website in frames on yours. Does anybody still use frames these days? What about support? How the hell is Resleller going to respond when his client needs support? The resale plan relies on you marketing to businesses skills that you don’t have. You are then responsible for billing them and collecting payment.

“You do not need any programming knowledge, design skills or any technical expertise to avail of this business opportunity.”

“The system has been setup such that YOU own the customers under your own business name.”

So I own the customers who I have got by misleading them into using a service that I don’t have the skills or knowledge to support, ace!

“integrated web solution created for independent professionals like, doctors, attorneys, musicians, models etc and small businesses like restaurants, salons etc”

Having been involved with small business website design for a long time now there is something else that doesn’t sit right with me with this. With every client their primary concern was using their website as a marketing tool, making sales and lead generation. They all wanted to rank well for search terms related to their business and products because the search engines can provide free eye balls, when you are starting of in business free can be a great word! It is wrong to pitch Flash as a suitable tool for small business websites, unless the client is in the design industry where lovely animation can count. If my business had been sold a SiteCube website then I think the chances of me ever having anything to do with the web again would be a bit limited. And some people wonder why website design has such a bad reputation?

I installed the top stripe ad after reading about it somewhere (I think it was John Chow but can’t be sure). Anyway I’ve been running it for a little while now and can conclude that it’s a waste of time! Click through rates are really bad, some of the worst I’ve ever seen from any advertising method I’ve used actually. Not only that but 3 people have felt the need to fill in the contact form and complain about it. Where this is unusual is that it only shows for the first 3 page loads on the make money online dot net (my idea was to target search traffic, not regular readers) so the people who have complained are not complaining because it’s a recent addition but instead are complaining because they just don’t like it!

If you want to make money from your websites then you are going to want to sell advertising, and promote affiliate deals etc amongst your content. There has to be a line though where advertising starts to have a big impact the rest of your websites content (for me personally that line is uncontrollable pop-ups and pop-unders). Just to show that I do listen occasionally the stripe ad is gone (it’s got nothing to do with the appalling CTR, honestly! )

This whole Adsense thing has got me in a bad mood so I’m just not in the right frame of mind to be receiving the next earth shattering offer on the internet.

Unlucky then for Traffic Kahuna who have sent me an e-mail promising all the traffic under the sun, I’ve seen so many of these link exchange programs that I want to puke. Even if they could deliver there are a few things that have got my alarm bells ringing:-

Purchase Agreement
Notice — Read This

WHEN YOU COMPLETE YOUR PURCHASE, YOU, THE BUYER, ARE CLAIMING THAT YOU HAVE READ, ACCEPTED, AND FULLY UNDERSTAND THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT. WHICH INCLUDES A ZERO REFUND POLICY ON ALL RECURRING FEES (FEES ARE BILLED ON A 30 DAY CYCLE). REFUNDS ARE ONLY OFFERED ON THE INITIAL PAYMENT FOR A 30 DAY PERIOD FROM THE DATE OF PURCHASE, NO EXCEPTIONS.

When a company is unwilling to refund a recurring payment then I’m not interested in buying what they’re selling. It’s an open invitation to eventually rip people off.

The second point:-

EARNINGS DISCLAIMER:

EVERY EFFORT HAS BEEN MADE TO ACCURATELY REPRESENT THIS PRODUCT AND IT’S POTENTIAL. EVEN THOUGH THIS INDUSTRY IS ONE OF THE FEW WHERE ONE CAN WRITE THEIR OWN CHECK IN TERMS OF EARNINGS, THERE IS NO GUARANTEE THAT YOU WILL EARN ANY MONEY USING THE TECHNIQUES AND IDEAS IN THESE MATERIALS. EXAMPLES IN THESE MATERIALS ARE NOT TO BE INTERPRETED AS A PROMISE OR GUARANTEE OF EARNINGS. EARNING POTENTIAL IS ENTIRELY DEPENDENT ON THE PERSON USING OUR PRODUCT, IDEAS AND TECHNIQUES. WE DO NOT PURPORT THIS AS A “GET RICH SCHEME.”

is exactly the same sort of disclaimer that you see over various “rich clubs”, one of which I was a member once. On one hand they claim to be able to deliver the sort of results that will see your online business soar yet on the other it might actually do jack shit. If what they are selling doesn’t work then it’s your fault for being stupid, or so the disclaimer says. I think this is one traffic building product I’ll skip.

Agloco is now dead, gone, kaput. I bet all those people that really pushed it hard are feeling a bit stupid today. Not as stupid as the doom merchants claiming that WidgetBucks will be the next to go! Agloco was based on a single idea (viewbar), executed badly that never had any real way of generating an income. WidgetBucks is based on a very stable business model that works well (if not slowly for the creators) and also has enough backing (Mpire) for the development to be done correctly. It’s like comparing chalk and cheese.

The truth is that the doom merchants are bloggers, relying solely on blogs for their income. As has been said a hundred times before WidgetBucks ads DO NOT work well on blogs. They require decent amounts of product targeted search engine traffic which does not mix nicely with general blogging, no matter how specific you think you are being. The Blogosphere is not the internet, it is not the world wide web, it is only a tiny part of it. I have Adsense ads on here because they will generate an income on even the least untargeted websites, even if it’s just from affiliates bidding 2 and 3 cents. This website is not how I make my living. In general real money on the internet is made in 1 of 3 ways:-

1. Content websites
2. PPC Affiliate Marketing
3. Mail list marketing

I was watching a TV program on Sunday morning and it had a famous ballroom dancer being interviewed on it. One of the presenters asked “but ballroom dancing has only become popular recently, only old people used to dance?”. He was totally wrong, there has always been a dancing community, in their own eyes a large one at that. The truth was though that if you weren’t “part” of that community it might as well of not existed. Blogging is the same. My 12 year old daughter doesn’t blog so has no interest in them. My mum and dad don’t so have no interest in blogging but they still use the internet, they will both use Google to search for things to buy. I think we bloggers can sometimes get caught up in our own little worlds, John Chow, Darren Rowse, Jeremy Schoemaker are only truly famous amongst bloggers and people interested in making money in the same way that I’m sure there are plenty of “famous” erotic blog writers out there that I’ve never heard of. Of all the people that visit my blog how many are not bloggers themselves, very few I would guess? Natural search traffic for blogs (the type of people that buy things) is a infamously low percentage compared to other types of website. There are people out there making 10,20,50 times from the internet what the more well known a-listers are making without ever feeling the need to talk about themselves or write a blog, why, because they know blogging doesn’t pay and they don’t need the ego boost. This isn’t supposed to be criticism (hell you are reading MY blog), I’m just pleading with you all to diversify, when you have been introduced to making money online through blogging then it’s natural to think it is the only way. It is these people that will hammer anything that doesn’t work for them on their blogs i.e. WidgetBucks.

WidgetBucks does not work well on general blogs, you will not get the same number of clicks that you see from Adsense. If you have product related content webistes that attract targeted search traffic then WidgetBucks ads can perform very well (I know of one medium sized publisher that has made more than $15,000 in a month with them). If you’re looking for the next idea to go belly up I suggest you look in the direction of BlogRush

Agloco, the get paid for surfing mega plan looks like it might be on its last legs. I don’t sign in to my account very often, maybe once every few months but I just have done to be greeted with a SSL certificate expiry notice. Looks like they haven’t bothered to renew their SSL since the 18th of November. Not paying for things is always the first sign that any business is struggling, I’ve worked for 2 companies that went from great to struggling so the signs tend to be quite obvious* (bills getting ignored, people starting to blame anybody and everybody other than themselves, lots of talk of “if we can do this.. and “if we can get that..”). A quick read of their company blog shows that

1. It’s not been updated in well over a month
2. The last several entries are all about magical “ifs”

I might be completely wrong, it has been known from time to time but my guess would be that the Agloco concept won’t be around much longer. Makes me really glad that I gave up the idea of ever making any money with them months ago.

* Nothing to do with me I must add

Surprises don’t get much better than unexpected money turning up in your bank account and thanks to Commission Junction I had a little bit of that action this week! The last time I spoke about Commission Junction was because I’d had a bit of a falling out with them over an advertiser. To cut a long story short I was invited on board an advertisers program (by the advertiser) made a load of sales for them only to be booting off because of the content of my website. It was crazy for a few days, as far as I was concerned my earnings were being forfeited and Commission Junction could go and take a running jump! That’s how it was left, or so I thought…

Turns out that the evidence I supplied was enough for Commission Junction to not withhold my earnings and to honour the sales I’d made. I haven’t checked to see if the advertiser in question still uses them but either way it was nice of them to stand up for the little guy here. This week they paid me, as it’s bonus money I wasn’t expecting I’ll probably by investing it in some form of making money online scheme, or maybe it’s time I dabbled again with Adwords.

Whilst I was away from Commission Junction I’ve been experimenting a bit with another affiliate network, NeverBlueAds. It’s still early days but even at this early stage I’d say that NeverBlueAds has the potential to be the most profitable affiliate network I’ve used to date. I’ll report back in a month or so when I know better but if you’re looking for some high quality prducts to promote for a great percentage you could do worse.

It’s a serious question, is there anybody out there actually creating content on the internet for anything other than financial gain?

The reason I ask is because as part of my campaign to let people know about the new internet monitoring software I’ve contacted the webmasters of several large parenting organisations, forums and charities, you know, just to let them know. Stupid me thought that it might be of some interest to their visitors/members to know about a free (or very cheap depending on if you buy) program that allows them to keep an eye on their kids. Personally I would have expected responses to vary from being completely ignored to at best “yeah might have a look”. What I wasn’t expecting was to get a response from one parenting charity website that suggesting that they might “push it” for the right price. Err, this is a charity right, concerned with parenting issues? Yet the webmaster is looking for payment to push something whether it’s crap or good? Hmmm, don’t know why but that just doesn’t sit right.

That’s 2 rants in 1 day, I must try and get some sleep tonight. I’ll probably give away some software tomorrow to cheer myself up.

Some people say that there is nothing new in the world, whilst I don’t agree entirely some days you’ve just got to think that they’ve got a point! When it comes to making money from the internet we should not be afraid to follow the example of our more established company cousins. I just got sent an offer from one of these and at first it made me think I want that, then a second later followed by cheeky buggers! I’m willing to guess that they make a lot of money from it.

There is nothing new about what they have done, but clever is clever whichever way you look at it. All BoysStuff.co.uk have done is take a load of old sweets (not that the sweets are old but the make of sweet) boxed them together, called it Sweet Memories and are now charging £20 (about $40) for it! Looking at the picture the actual sweets would cost you maybe £8 in a shop so that must surely be around £4 cost value. Of course being boxed it would be an ideal Christmas present, lets face it if anybody lose wrapped £8 worth of sweets and gave them to you you’d be not so pleased!

So what I’ve learnt from this is simple, never be afraid to group and brand some old stuff and sell it as something new. I’ve got literally hundreds of products that I have the sale rights to but have never done anything with, I would say it’s not going to be too long until my own marketing pack is put out there at a stupid price. Seriously though there is obviously some value in packaging related products to make using them more convenient, if you’ve got a couple of things you could group together why not give it a go and see how you get on.