Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Do I get paid by the hour? On a per-survey basis? And how much?
Sunday, February 17, 2008
The Truth About Paid Online Surveys - A Question and Answer Session
Answer: Yes, this is for real. There are literally hundreds of legitimate market research companies out there who offer incentives for your opinion. Companies have come to these firms to get public opinions on their products or services and are willing to pay them to find out what you think. They then pass some of that payment onto you.
Answer: Just about anything that you can think of. You may be asked to review a movie trailer for a new movie, what kind of peanut butter you like, what restaurants you frequent, you name it. From barbeque grills to medical questions to appliances to what you had for dinner last night. There are sites for specific age groups, professions, hobbies and interests. The surveys are generally very interesting and these companies are looking for your opinion on how to shape their products.
Answer: Each company works a bit differently, but here are the basics of online surveys. You will sign-up for a paid survey site. You will enter some basic demographic information (age, gender, etc…), and when they have a survey available in which they are looking for someone who fits your profile, they will send you an invitation to take a survey. The invitation will usually contain a link directly to the survey and the incentive they are offering for you to take the survey. Just click on the link and take the survey to qualify for the reward.
Answer: The incentives vary for each site, but generally the incentives take the following forms: cash, gift certificates (Amazon gift certificates being the most popular), merchandise (DVDs, small appliances, electronic gadgets, cookware, etc…), and charity donations. Each survey site will offer one or several of the above incentives for your participation in their surveys. Some will offer these straight out, for example "get paid $5.00 to take this survey", some offer these in the form of a drawing and others have a point system in which accumulated points can be "cashed in" for the items above.
Answer: No, but you do have to be careful. There are some sites out there that are simply advertising firms posing as paid online survey sites. Here's my advise on how to tell the difference. First, if they offer you a chance at a fantastic prize for signing up, such as a car or a boat, I would be a bit weary and do some more research before you sign-up. Second, if the survey to sign-up for the site consists of a lot of questions as to whether or not you want more information on other products, walk away, you're certain to get spammed. Just remember that a legitimate market research firm will not endorse a product or service, they are supposed to be unbiased. Third, read the privacy policy if you have any concerns. The majority of the sites out there are legitimate and will only email you if there is a survey available or if there is important information they need to notify you of.
Answer: No. There are several reasons why you shouldn't pay a dime to take online surveys. First, with a little effort you'll be able to find all of the sites yourself - free. There are a lot of free sites that have pretty good lists and also a few really good free sites out there that have comprehensive free paid survey directories with hundreds of listings. Secondly, market research firms are actually prohibited from charging people to participate in surveys and frown upon anyone who does.
Answer: I've had so many people ask me if there are going to be able to retire by taking online surveys. Well, that's just not going to happen. Where it is possible to make a decent amount of money by making referrals or by running a survey related website, you're just not going to be making a full-time salary by simply taking surveys. There are a lot of sites out there advertising that you can make thousands of dollars per week or make $45 dollars and hour for taking online surveys (you can actually make $45 dollars an hour for a particular survey, but you won't always make that much and it may only be a 10 minute survey).
Answer: That's really hard to say. It really depends on a number of factors. How many sites did you sign-up with? How often do you take the surveys you are invited to take? What is your demographic? Etc… But I won't just leave you hanging at that. I would say, if you sign-up for a number of survey sites, take the majority of the surveys you are invited to and are not limited in life experience, you could make perhaps $1,000 to $2,000 a year in cash or something equivalent. Mostly you will get smaller payments ($1.00 to $10.00) for a survey but I've seen them pay as much as $200. Treat this as extra cash, not a career. You can easily make enough to take the family out for dinner, buy a few extras, get a few nice things for around the house or save it all for your Christmas shopping.
Answer: Yes, I think so. Whereas, it's not going to make you filthy rich, it's certainly an easy and fun way to make a few extra bucks. I find the surveys to be enjoyable to participate in and for the time spent, the compensation is pretty good.
About the author: Chris Ohlson is the owner of Free Paid Surveys.net,
www.freepaidsurveys.net
With a comprehensive listing of over 300 paid online survey sites
and dedicated to providing straight-forward and honest information
on paid online surveys.
Monday, February 4, 2008
9 Simple Ways to be an Effective Blogger
1. Focus your expertise
Always begin your blog with a theme or a focus. Although you can start one blog for all topics - both business and personal issues - it’s also best to separate your business from your personal blog particularly if the target audience is different. This helps you focus on the theme of your blog and enable you to blog easily without running off tangent!
2. Blog regularly
Commit time to blogging. Blogs are a little different from websites because blogs are expected to be updated more regularly than websites. Be sure to update your blog regularly. For example, I blog twice a week but I do blog extra if I have the time. However, if you worry you cannot blog regularly, try this time-saver tip of mine – set aside a day to draft 4 or 5 blog entries all at one go. Use them on days when you’re pressed for time or have writer’s block and cannot think of anything to blog about.
3. Show your personality
Don’t be afraid to show your personality when you blog. In fact, a blog is the best place to show the best bits of yourself – share as much as you can about how you feel and why you say the things you do. Don’t be afraid to use humour or honesty. Your readers will love you for being frank. Having said that, do set some personal rules as a blogger. My personal mantra is that I don’t cuss or have four-letter words in my blog.
4. Encourage feedback
Your blog exists because you want to start ‘conversations’ with your readers. You have an opinion to share and you want others to share theirs too. Some bloggers prevent their readers from leaving comments by turning off the Comments feature on their blog. I say enable your readers to provide you feedback but moderate comments – remove those which are rude. If you worry about spamming, plug in extra security by getting readers to register before they can leave comments and get the comments sent to you for approval prior to being posted to your blog.
5. Use photos to sell
Photographs always capture attention and convey emotions. They also help break the monotony of large sections of text. Remember to re-size them before you upload them to your blog. This keeps photograph sizes standard and consistent. I use photos which are re-sized to 400 pixels wide by 300 pixels tall. Don’t have gorgeous photos? Get them free from free stock photo sites such as freefoto.com or sxc.hu
6. Include links to other blogs
Include links to other blogs or websites. The mistake most people make is that they don’t want to link out because they’re worried their readers will leave. Don’t worry about them leaving - focus on writing quality engaging content. Your mission is to get them hooked enough that they will bookmark your blog and return often!
7. Use proper grammar and spellcheck
I can’t stress enough the importance of using proper grammatical language when blogging. You don’t have to be an expert in a language to use it well. Just remember that what you blog should be easy to understand without spelling or grammatical errors.
8. Ensure readability
When you blog, keep in mind that you need to ensure that your readers will be able to read easily. Follow newspaper conventions: use subheads to break up long paragraphs, keep one idea to one paragraph and use bulleted lists if the information is too unwieldy. Don’t torture your readers by having white text on a dark or black background. It hurts the eyes! Black text on white or light background always works best.
9. Be personal
The easiest way is to constantly use ‘you’ and ‘I’ liberally throughout your blog. This keeps it casual, friendly and easygoing. You definitely don’t want to blog in the third person because that would defeat the purpose of your blogging. Imagine you are having a conversation with your best friend. Use this mental image when you are blogging and you’ll never be stuck for ideas or words!
About the author: Krista Goon is the co-founder and business partner at http://www.RedboxStudio.com, a web design and web consultancy firm based in Penang, Malaysia. She has been blogging since 2003 (she writes for 3 different blogs - all on different topics) and has given talks about blogging. Find out what else she is raving (or ranting about) in her blog over at http://www.MayaKirana.com
Proven Techniques Help You Blogging - Guaranteed!
About the author: Wirat Muenpan is the webmaster of Article Ecommerce , Free Article E-commerce Internert Marketing For Reprint http://www.article-ecommerce.com
CPA (Cost-Per-Action) Affiliate Programs
In a nutshell, CPA is a performance based online advertising payment system in which payment is based solely on qualifying actions such as a lead, a sale or registration. In other words, merchants/advertisers determine what actions they want to reward and how much they are willing to pay for those actions.
Lead, Conversion or Registration
The actions defined in a CPA or Cost Per Action agreement relate directly to some type of conversion, with leads, sales and registrations among the most common and does not include deals based solely on clicks such as AdSense, which are referred to specifically as cost-per-click or CPC.
The definition of a Lead, Conversion or Registration can vary from one CPA Affiliate Network to another.
A lead or conversion may simply be considered to be no more than a website visitor providing his/her name and eMail address.
In another example, to be considered a lead or conversion, a website visitor may need to complete and submit a 1 page or 2 page application form. In this example, the product in question may be a home loan or payday loan. But it does not matter to the publisher whether the applicant gets the loan or not or has to wait 30 days before they get an answer from the lender. Once the visitor has completed the desired or contractual action, the publisher has earned a commission.
In another example, a lead or conversion may simply be achieved by a website visitor completing a small website form and paying a small $postage fee via a credit card for the advertised product to be sent to their mailing address.
What all this means is that publishers i.e. website owners, get paid not on how many times an ad is seen or even on how many times it's clicked, but according to how many people click on it and take the action specified by the advertiser on his/her site.
Comparison of CPA Affiliate Programs with Cost Per Click or Cost Per Sale Website Monetization Models
CPA Affiliate Programs are very similar to other popular website monetization models whereby a publisher takes advantage of the arbitrage opportunities between low cost traffic and high paying contextual ads or products paying high affiliate commissions.
In one Scenario low cost pay-per-click or other traffic is driven to a website or landing page displaying high paying contextual ads. When someone clicks on the low cost pay-per-click ad, they then get referred to the website or landing page. If that same someone then clicks on a high paying contextual ad, the publisher earns a commission.
In another Scenario low cost pay-per-click or other traffic is driven to a website advertising high paying affiliate products or directly to the advertiser's own website. When someone clicks on the low cost ad, they then get referred to the Product page(s). If that same someone then orders and pays for a product the publisher will have earned an affiliate commission.
The subtle difference between the first scenario and the second scenario is that in scenario 1 the publisher gets paid with a % of the value of the click regardless of whether the visitor purchased the end product or not. In scenario 2 the publisher only gets paid if the click resulted in a Sale. In CPA (Cost-Per-Action) Affiliate Programs the publisher gets paid if the click resulted in a lead.
CPA Affiliate Network
Before you can engage in a CPA Affiliate Program you will need to apply for affiliate membership in one or more of the 50+ CPA Affiliated Network Companies. All applications are stringently reviewed before they are approved.
Once your application is approved there are essentially 7 simple steps to start generating profits:
1. Find the ultimate high paying, high quality CPA Campaigns to advertise;
2. Identify appropriate Keywords;
3. Register your Domain, prepare and upload your Landing Page;
4. Set up super Low Cost P-P-C Advertising Test campaigns;
5. Monitor and Identify Profitable Test campaigns;
6. Turn Profitable Test Campaigns into fully-fledged Campaigns;
7. Rinse and Repeat;
CPA Affiliate Programs can work well with any type of advertising or traffic generation but are especially extremely profitable when undertaken with a pay-per-click advertising program.
Caution - CPA Affiliate Programs are very profitable and are currently fashionable. All Internet marketers should start looking at CPA Affiliate Programs but before they engage in this activity they should make sure that they have read and fully understand pay-per-click advertising.
About the author: Stephen S Alison is a retired "bean counter" who spent 26 years in middle management positions for major US financial institutions in Europe and a further 10 years as an adviser/consultant to a number of European financial institutions. He owns and operates a number of "hand built" niche websites including: http://www.1clickflipping.com and CPA Affiliate Programs
Sunday, February 3, 2008
9 Steps To Success In Affiliate Marketing

2.Build your own website to promote your product: You will need to build a website with your own domain name (ie. yourname.com) and pay a monthly fee for hosting as opposed to going the free route and sharing a domain (ie. freespace.yourdomain.com) If you don't know much about web design that's quite ok. You will find there are lots of companies out there who offer very affordable website design.
3.Start a reciprocal linking campaign: Start exchanging links with other websites in your niche. You will find lots of webmasters willing to add a link to your website as long as you return the favor. The more websites that link to you, the higher page rank you will have in the search engines, therefore leading to more traffic to your website.
4.Start your own newsletter: The newsletter can simply consist of articles related to your products and website. Always add a signature containing a link to your website at the bottom of each newsletter entry. That way when people read your articles they can continue on to your website. If you don't want to write your own articles, there are many websites that will let you use theirs for free.
5.Build an Email List: Owning your own email list is one of the most important tools you can have as an affiliate marketer. The best way to build a list is to buy leads, that way you don't have to worry about getting in trouble for spamming. Lots of companies sell quality leads (email addresses) consisting of people who want more information about your products. With every lead you buy you can in turn sign them up for your newsletter.
6.Get an Auto Responder: With an auto responder program you can make the process of buying leads and adding them to your newsletter completely automated. You can save hours of time with this approach.
7.Write your own Articles: To be successful with affiliate marketing you will eventually have to write an article or two. This may sound a bit overwhelming in the beginning, but after you have been building your business for awhile you will get into it. Always include a signature at the bottom of the article containing your website link. Then post your article on as many websites as you can. Lots of sites let you post for free.
8.Add an Article page to your website: Post all of your articles on this page and any others you find related to your niche. Having an article page will add content to your website and will help with your page rank since search engines love websites with lots of relevant content.
9.Join an Online Forum: Becoming a member in a forum is a great way to stay current with the products in your niche. Talking with fellow entrepreneurs will keep you motivated and help generate new ideas as well as answer any questions you may have.
About the Author: Curtis Sexton, If you would like to learn more about the ideas discussed above, contact me or visit my website: http://www.homeworksolutions.biz/ curtissexton@gmail.com
Make Money With Adsense Writing Articles

So to help you along your way, here is a method you've probably not tried and most people probably won't as it does take effort and time. This will make it easier for you to be successful with it.
You see, most people seem to want to keep switching from automatic software generators to bombs to portal sites to directory listing sites, which is fine, but the best way is to stick to creating unique content that's informative and of high quality.
This method is not the only way to make money with Adsense, jeez there are probably hundreds and hundreds and lots that we all have not even thought of yet. But as I said before I really feel that this is the best method for long term success, simply because it's been working well in different ways since I began Internet marketing a while ago.
What you need to do is create a site that has thousands and thousands of pages of content on all sorts of subjects and then you get your traffic for free via organic search engine searches, which is all well and good if you want to wait awhile, but this article is all about making money quickly.
Every page on your site should have an adsense box on it and that is how you will make your money.
Now, trying to write thousands of pages of content yourself before making any money would be difficult, you'd lose interest very very quickly and even if you tried to buy that much content would be lunacy.
Plus to build a publish a website with that much content would alert the search engines who would think you are spamming them.
I've always preferred to make money constantly even if the project is only half done or in progress. I find it gives me incentive to keep going.
So this is how you need to approach it.
1. Register a catchy domain name, something like fiveminuteguides.com or learnitnow.com
2. Start writing little 500 to 750 word action plans or checklist on all sorts of topics such as your favorite hobbies and other interesting topics.
3. Publish your website with your articles and remember to add your Adsense boxes, one in the middle and one of the right hand side.
4. So you've published your site up, you have a page up on a certain topic that had a fairly high search rate and Adsense payout rate, now what? How do you make money with this page.
Write articles! For every one fly fishing type checklist write 10 to 20 articles on all sorts of subjects to do with your topic.
But how do you get people from reading your article to going to your website?
Well, not only would you mention your site within your article, (slip it in humbly) you also have your article byline you can use for that purpose.
For example
"For a complete checklist for your first fly fishing trip visit blah.com"
or
"For a complete step by step checklist for catching large Trout visit blah.com"
So not only will you make money instantly from your website, you will also build tons of quality content over time and you will have hundreds maybe even thousands of articles all over the Internet working for you around the clock and your site will do a heck of a lot better in the search engines due to all the incoming links!
This is a very rough outline, but you smart people out there will be able to run with it and add new ideas I haven’t even thought of. This is one of those money machines that will make you money on demand pretty much for the life of the Internet.
About the author: Justin Bryce runs a number of websites for Internet Marketing. If you want to save time writing articles or just grab private label articles go to http://www.nicheprivatelabelarticles.com/ Plus you can check out Jeff Paul , Jim Fleck , Mal Emery (http://www.lazy-internet-marketing.com/)and other top internet marketers.
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Blogging Advice - Give Your Readers What They Want

So, what is it that is expected from a blog? A blog is considered to be a place to inform and to be informed. Straight talk is what readers consider to be an ideal blog message. Straight talk is a four or five sentence of direct, informative content about a specific issue or bit of news.
Blogs consists of human expressions and is expected to have a soulful purpose. Blog posts are expected to be a personal post, as it can convey blogger's emotions. So, these messages are mostly written in first person singular and are rich in emotions. Blogs are also expected to provide details from the writer's life: missed flights, break-ups, rodents under the stove, computer breakdowns, muggings, and tamale recipes and more.
A blogger should always remember that if there are doubts that readers will discount the article entirely based on its context; they shouldn't consider linking it at all.
Authentication of the message is one important aspect that a blog post is expected to adhere to. Blogs are expected to be clear about its source. This avoids chances where readers may cease to trust the bloggers. These chances may take shape if discovered that the information source has been disguised or the blogger didn't make the source of an article clear. The readers might have evaluated these sources differently had they been given all the facts. Into every aspect of the practice of weblogging, transparency is one of the weblog's distinguishing characteristics and greatest strengths.
A writer's goal and priority should always be clarity.
It is a bloggers responsibility to focus exclusively on producing content that attracts the reader. What determines the right kind of content? This can be determined by reading other blogs and hitting whatever is hot in discussion or high in trend.
The most compelling bloggers are necessarily the ones with the most insightful analyses and the best links; besides this the most successful are those who get the reader interested in their own ongoing story. Because bloggers on similar subjects link to each other, the reader finds it easier to understand opposing points of view. For bloggers, not linking to others is a death sentence for their ratings.
About the Author: Chris Hickman owns a full info site about Weblog blogging. Check Out his site at http://www.ez-weblog-blogging.com/
Get Paid to Blog

Sure, you could use Google AdSense, but guess what? AdSense requires a very high level of traffic to generate anything worth your time; but, with PayPerPost, you don't need a high level of traffic, just a decent PageRank and the ability to deliver advertisers the content they want.
PageRank is easy to get: get link backs from relevant websites and get your website listed in dmoz. Delivering what the advertisers want, however, is a bit more difficult than that, but I've got a few tips that will help you keep the advertisers happy and the money rolling in:
- Mind your subject matter. Sure, that "jet turbine" offer looks promising, but if your blog is about jelly making, you should probably steer clear of that offer.
- Follow the rules. If an offer requires you to link to a certain site X number of times in your article then DO IT. You will not get paid if you do not follow the requirements of the post. Make sure you pay special attention to the minimum number of words in the article as well as any required phrases, links, and photos.
- Be mindful of the tone of your article. Advertisers generally prefer a positive tone in the article you’re going to write about them. The advertising requirements will list a tone that you should follow: either negative, neutral, or positive. Don't write a negative article when the advertiser wants a positive one, or you won't get paid.
- Maintain a 1-month archive. If the article is not accessible on your website for a month you will not get paid for the work you've done.
Sure, some bloggers might complain about the service, but those people are living in some fantasy world where every blogger can generate an obscene amount of traffic and get rich with AdSense, but if you want to get paid to blog then PayPerPost just might be your answer.
About the author: Jason Pullara has run a successful sole proprietorship in New York City building, repairing, and maintaining workstations and personal computers for local businesses and consumers for 5 years, and currently runs a successful contentFreelance Blogging: Get Hired To Blog And Earn Thousands A Month

Create a blog If you don't already have a blog, creating a blog is your first step. You can do this very quickly. Creating a new blog at blogger.com (which is owned by Google) only takes a minute or two. This is your "sample" blog. Think of this blog as your blogging portfolio.
Your blogging topic can be in any subject area that you choose, but give some thought to your potential clients - don't make your blogging topic too personal. If you have expertise in a particular area like finance, technology or health, make this the subject area of your blog.
Write some blog posts Now your blog has been created, it's time to make some blog posts. Your entries are published in reverse chronological order, with the most recent entry first. Your first entry can be a brief statement (no more than 100 words) about the general topic of your blog.
For example, if your blog is about dieting, you could summarize the areas (recipes, weight lost tips, health tips) you intend to cover. Or your first post could be an introduction: tell your readers who you are, and why the topic of the blog concerns you. Or you can skip the idea of an introductory post altogether, and just jump into your topic.
Look for blogging gigs Great - you've created two or more blog entries. Now it's time to look for your first blog-job. Your first step is to write a blog post about your availability to blog. You can make this entry detailed, or extremely brief. If you wish, you can add a link to your online resume or CV.
Where do you find blogging jobs? You'll find that several sites have already been set up to match bloggers with companies that want to hire them. Enter "blog jobs" into a search engine to find your initial leads.
You'll also find companies looking for bloggers at out-sourcing venues like guru.com. However, be aware that on these sites, you're competing against others for gigs - don't be tempted to underbid others. Under-bidding is a bad idea because it's terrible marketing. Once you set your price low, it's hard to lift it. Have an awareness of what blogging is worth, and set your price appropriately. Companies which want bloggers don't want the cheapest option - they want the best they can afford.
So there you have it: everything you need to know to get started as a freelance blogger today. Create a blog, make some entries, get a gig. Good luck with your blogging career. If you're a born blogger, you can turn your freelance blogging into a full-time career.
Good luck, and happy blogging.
Abouth the author: Angela Booth is a veteran copywriter and blogger. Her ebook, Blogging For Dollars: How to become a career blogger -- in your PJs, if you want, is available at http://www.abmagic.com/Blog/blogging.html You can visit the book's blog at http://www.dollars2blog.com/blog/ Angela will show you how to turn a humble blog into a great career, or a lucrative business.
Google Adsense Tips

Make Money Online By Selling Information

Earn Money Blogging

Do You Want To Make Money Online?

How Newbies Can Make Money Online - Earn While You Learn From

Why Work At Home? Questions to Ask Yourself Before Starting A

Paid Surveys: Everyone has an opinion. Why not get paid for

Paid surveys-Simplest way to make money online.
