This article addresses what to look for an avoid
in examining online money making opportunities.
The wide variety and flexibility of money making opportunities
available on line means there is no concrete list of attributes a
program should or should not have. This makes it extremely difficult
for inexperienced entrepreneurs to make heads or tails of all the
programs out there.
How can you be sure that you aren't spending
months of your life building a downline in a program that will fold
within the next year? Unfortunately, there are too many variables for
anyone to be 100% certain that a company will stand the test of time,
but there are certain clues that will increase your odds of being
right.
Here are things to look for (and lookout for!) in
some of the major categories of online opportunities to help you
identify which businesses are most likely to succeed.
Product Resale/Referral
The first thing to examine is the product. Does this product fill a
need that more than a few isolated people have? Is the price of the
product reasonable (even to someone who isn't participating in the
program)? Would you buy the product if you weren't in the program? If
the answers to these questions aren't satisfactory, than the business
won't be around long. Move on.
The second thing to examine is the compensation
plan. How likely is it you will make money in this program? Is the
program structured so that most people can make several hundred to
several thousand dollars a month, or is it set up so a few
heavy-hitters make absurd amounts of money that the company can use in
its marketing literature while members with less than several thousand
referrals in their downline struggle to break even? If it isn't
possible to break even by filling the first level or two of the
program, the majority of the people who join the program will lose
money.
Traffic Generation
There are two successful approaches to traffic generation. The first is
winning the numbers games. By that I mean if you get a ridiculously
large number of random people to visit your site, odds are at least a
few of them will be interested in what you have to offer. The visitors
who are interested might be a tiny fraction of your total, but if you
bringing enough traffic, a small percent can mean quite a few bites.
Good examples of these programs will allow you unlimited downlines for
multiple levels. The programs should be free (or it will take more
effort than it is worth getting people to join). The website for the
program should be very professional and convincing, as this site is
going to be closing the deal for you when potential referrals click
your link.
The second approach to traffic generation is
targeting. Targeting traffic is the practice of pursuing the people who
are most likely to be interested in your offer. If you have a hardware
site, you are trying to get contractors and handymen to visit. Instead
of focusing on a large number of visitors, you pursue the select group
who is most likely to be interested in your site. The value of these
programs depends largely on their categories. These programs will
segment traffic into different categories. The visitors you receive are
directed to your site by the program because they are interested in
whatever category you chose for your program. So if there is a category
that very accurately describes your area, you will experience better
results. If you run an investment banking web site, then you would want
to find a program that will bring you traffic under the category
Investment Banking. Not quite as good would be a category of Finance.
If the traffic sent to you is under the category Business, then you're
still getting better than untargeted traffic, but not by much.
Note: Many traffic generation programs will use a
combination of both of the above approaches.
Paid Email/Surfing
A good paid email/surfing program is one that actually sends out
payments. These companies make their money (some of which is passed
onto you) from advertisers. Some programs have difficulty collecting
payments from their advertisers. As a result they don't have money to
pay the members who are spending their free time reading ads for
vitamins and discount vacations.
The question then becomes how do you know a
program can collect from the advertisers. The simplest indicator is
often time. How long has the program been around? Another good
indication is the quality of their offers. If the offers of their
advertisers are at least moderately interesting, then it's more likely
some of the people viewing these offers are signing up for them.
Advertisers are sure to pay (and continue to pay) for marketing methods
that get results.
Internet Marketing
If you want to create an Internet scam, masquerading as an Internet
marketing program is one of the easiest ways to go about it. Even in
legitimate marketing programs, the product being sold is information.
Inherent to the sale of information is the fact no one can check out
the product until they've paid for it, however, that does not mean that
you can't check out the company.
Newsgroups are crawling with the tales of people
who have been scammed. Do a search on the program name, and you will
quickly discover how many people have been burned. Having said that,
you should realize that even the best programs will have a few negative
comments in the newsgroups. There are always people who signed up for a
program and simply waited for the cash to start rolling in instead of
putting effort into building an income. When these lazy folks didn't
magically become wealthy, they decided to shout from the rooftops (or
message boards) how their program was full of empty promises. Be sure
to read through the messages and get a feel for how much effort the
poster really put into trying to make the program work. You can get a
better picture of the quality of the program by looking for posts in
different places from different people.
About the Author
Copyright (c) 2003 Clay Mabbitt. Clay Mabbitt
writes articles about Internet affiliate and MLM opportunities. Need
in-depth reviews of the latest affiliate programs? Find them at http://www.affiliatescreen.com
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