Work From Home Reviews and Tips

The Ad Exchanges I Admin...

2009-01-29T05:35:00.000-08:00

Sorry it took so long for me to post this entry. But, as I promised in my previous post, here are the three ad exchanges I Admin, along with EXCLUSIVE promo codes for my blog readers. :)

Uptown Ad Exchange

If the above link isn't clickable, copy and paste into your browser - http://hit.tropicalsafelist.net/

The site has the promo codes for the current specials, including lots of FREE advertising, that are available to all who sign-up. At the bottom of this entry are the two exclusive promo codes that are available ONLY to my blog readers, at ALL 3 ad exchanges.

What makes this ad exchange special, is that it features UNLIMITED text/html ad posting for ALL (both free and pro) members. You can also earn commissions on referral upgrades, send out solo ads, submit your banners into rotation, use your points for all kinds of things.

The February 2009 ad specials that I'm running at all 3 exchanges are crazy, so that's something to consider. They are being run in honor of my eldest baby girls' 7th birthday. :)

Next on the list is Fantasy Traffic Ads Exchange

Again, if you can't click on the link above, here is the URL -

http://fantasyads.creditexchanges.com/

This ad exchange also has special promotional ad packages available on the site, with promo codes to claim FREE advertising.

It also features UNLIMITED text/html ad posting for all members, and all the other features of Uptown. Frankly, I personally prefer the layout on this one, and I find that the members are a bit more responsive than they are at Uptown. But, I'm advertising both, heavily, so that may well change by the end of the month.

Last, but certainly not least, is Safari Ad Exchange.

Here's the URL - http://go4adexchange.com/safariads/

This one is different from those above. You have to send in a support ticket for most things (including the exclusive promo codes I'll be giving you in a minute), which I understand can make things rather frustrating. Trust me, I've thought of giving it up for 'adoption' because nothing's automated and I would rather be lazy.

There are advantages though, that aren't available in other exchanges. For instance, when you're submitting your banners for rotation, you can submit an alternate text ad with it. What that means is that if the banner picture won't show up for whatever reason (exceeded bandwidth at the photo host, for example), a line of text will show up with it, with whatever you want to say. That way, it's all still clickable and workable to get sign ups, referrals, etc. - even if the pic. doesn't cooperate on one of it's runs.

Also, you can put URLs in the body of your ad, which is forbidden at most ad exchanges.

There isn't unlimited posting, the system won't allow me to offer it, but you can post daily, and your text/html ad stays in the system for about a day longer than it does at most exchanges.

This exchange also has login advertising available for purchase, which isn't available for the two above. I will soon be figuring out a point conversion for this kind of advertising. But, it is currently available for purchase.

Now for those EXCLUSIVE promo codes I promised!

If you are already a member of any of the ad exchanges above, use promo code 'already belong' for an additional 10,000 points to be added to your account (At Safari, yes, this means sending in a support ticket).

If your are NOT a member of one or more of the above ad exchanges, use promo code 'blogger' to receive a FREE PRO upgrade! (this will only work for NEW members to any/all of the above ad exchanges. And, at Safari it does mean you have to send in a support ticket with the promo code inside it).

Well, that's it! If you join any of the ad exchanges, let me know what you think!

Credit Based Text Ad Exchanges.

2009-01-16T23:32:00.000-08:00

Credit based text ad exchanges, which include banner advertising, solo ads, text/html ads placed on the site, and sometimes many other forms of advertising, have the highest conversion rates of any other forms of advertising!

Even better, the advertising you get from them, you can get for free or very low cost. You can accumulate your points for free advertising, or you can go ahead and take advantage of some of their great advertising packages.

Pay attention to their PRO upgrade options as well, often these come with enough advertising, it more than makes up for the minimal lifetime PRO fee, plus they will usually offer some other incentives for going PRO.

Every text ad exchange is a little different, but most of them come with a 'starter' advertising package that you can use to jump start your advertising efforts, absolutely free! Because of this, it can really pay to join a number of ad exchanges.

Because they do send out solo ads to your e-mail box, it may be best to get a separate email account for joining these advertising programs. A free gmail account is the best, and is highly recommended, to avoid bouncing and other issues.

This is a bit different from a safelist. ONE safelist can result in thousands of emails per day! But, text ad exchanges keep the number of daily emails down. The highest number I've ever seen is 25 emails (potentially, not EVERY day though) per day. The lowest I've seen so far is 5. So, you could join quite a few text ad exchanges, and still be able to keep up with your email, no problem.

Some text ad exchanges, very few of them but they do exist, even allow the option to opt out of receiving solo ads emails, while still allowing you to send them out! It's a rare option, but it does exist.

I actually run three text ad exchanges, all of which come with different member incentives, free ad packages, and options. In my next post, I will provide links to those three ad exchanges as well as exclusive promo codes, only available to my blog readers!

This is probably the best, and most cost effective, advertising I've ever run across. If you have an affiliate program, a website, even a blog, this kind of advertising is definitely the way to go.

FREE Solo E-mail Advertising, safelist, banner and text exchange.

2008-11-08T15:19:00.001-08:00

This text ad exchange only just launched, but they already have around 600 members, as of me writing this entry. Until they reach their first 1000 members, they are giving away a FREE Pro member upgrade. Which is, seriously, phenomenal. You also get a bunch of free points that you can use for advertising (up to 6 solo ads, or a lot of banners, combinations, traffic links, etc.). They have some great advertising specials too, if you can spare a few bucks for your advertising budget. If you can't though, the free advertising they provide should be ample to give your home business a jump start!

Brand New Ad and Safelist Exchange

2008-11-07T22:38:00.000-08:00

This one has only just launched, so there's plenty of time to take advantage of the fantastic bonuses that they're offering! They have freebie-codes on the site that you can enter to obtain 100% free advertising through them. They're, right now, offering 3 free solo ads, 6 free banners, 3 traffic links, and more when you join for FREE, and enter "FiestyFairy". That's ONLY until they reach 500 members though. After they've reached 500 members, the freebies you get will be fewer, but still exciting.

There's also a free downline builder! That should help you to gain referrals for your free programs.

My advice is to take advantage of this right now, get the free advertising, set up your banners and traffic links, and keep your solo ads until they have around 1000 members. Solo, contact e-mail advertising is some of the most effective advertising you can take advantage of, for a variety of programs (know your audience, what would they be most interested in and most tempted to buy or join?). It's even better when you can get that advertising for FREE!

Get Paid to Take Surveys, Play games, Read E-mails, Click, Visit websites, etc. etc.

2008-11-06T23:36:00.000-08:00

I just joined this site 2 days ago and I am really excited about it. You won't get rich from participating in the opportunities on this site, but you can make some decent extra cash from this site. You can take surveys every day for $0.75 - $10. You can play their fast little games for more cash, visit websites.... etc. I made $1.00 yesterday for signing up for a few free newsletters that looked interesting. I made some cash the other day for watching a few 1 minute videos on health related tips.

There is no minimum to cash out using paypal. Or, you can choose to wait until you have enough money to buy a gift certificate for Amazon, etc. They have a variety of ways for you to cash in on your participation and money. Not only do they pay you for doing all this stuff, but you also get points for stuff (in addition to the cash) which can then be turned in for prizes, etc.

This is a GREAT site for a little extra cash every month. AND, they will PAY you for redeeming coupons at the grocery store, AND give you cash back for shopping! How great is that?! So, even if you don't want to spend time reading emails or visiting websites for cash, why not get PAID for picking up your groceries and using money saving coupons, or for doing your Christmas shopping that you were going to have to do anyway?

More Free Effective Traffic Ideas

2008-10-25T18:22:00.000-07:00

Recently, I joined Text Ad Profits. Their advertising has been very effective for my affiliate programs, and for building referrals. They offer multiple forms of advertising, and better yet, they're free (unless you want to upgrade, which I will definitely be doing soon).

When you sign up for free, they also give you a free solo ad that you can send out through their network. I can honestly say that their solo ad service is the first time I've had safelist type e-mail advertising pay off for me personally (though I do know others who've had success with other companies and forms of non-spam safelist type advertising).

You can collect points for free, or purchase them if you choose. And, they give you quite a few points (which equal real visitors to your site) for free when you sign up, even under the entirely free option.

Check them out, by clicking on the banner below.

Free Classified Ads

2008-10-11T10:21:00.000-07:00

Posting a classified ad can be an extremely effective way to generate traffic, leads, and/or sales. And, it's even better when you can get this form of advertising for free.

Click here to post your free ad and/or to get your own free adboard.

I recently started my own adboard, which already has a TON of traffic. And, you can click the link above to post your own ad for your website, affiliate product, auto information, etc. for free.

Click here to get your own free adboard.

Work At Home Six Figure Yearly Program Scam Review

2008-10-10T10:51:00.000-07:00

Is Michelle Campbell's Six Figure Yearly Program a scam? Does it really do what it says it will do?

Well, no, it's not a scam. And, yes, it really does do what it says it will do.

Click Here To Go To The Program Information Page.

Particularly if you're just starting out, making money online, this program is invaluable. It's essentially in e-book form, with videos (tutorials) to help you along, and a great customer support team willing to clarify and work with you to produce results for you.

There are a number of tips and ways to make money online that she presents you with. But, my favorite part is that, by using her tips in the last chapter or so of her ebook, I am saving a bundle on my Google Adwords campaigns. Google's tool said I would have to bid around $8.00 for one of the affiliate programs I was promoting, to get in the top 3 results for my chosen keywords. $8.00 PER CLICK! Forget that! I used Michelle's tips in the last chapter of her e-book portion of the program, and I paid less than .80 cents to be in the top 3 spots for those same keywords. That part alone, for me, was worth the price of admission with her program. That was incredible, for me, and it was very simple to follow her directions on optimizing those ads.

Click Here To Go To The Program Information Page.

More Free Traffic For Your Web Site

2008-10-09T13:48:00.000-07:00

This site works sort of around the model of the adsense program, in a way. Basically, you submit a PPC style advertisement, and place their little code on your site (or a floating ad to use with an affiliate program) that shows another's ad from the network.

Click to go to "Ads Vert".

You get 2500 free pay per click type ad impressions, on many many sites, just for joining up! Everytime someone views your page, with the ad of theirs that you placed on it, you get 3 free impressions.

They also have options where you can pay for either a certain number of impressions, or a certain number of clicks, with unlimited impressions.

This is another effective form of advertising that you can get for free.

Google Adsense optimized websites

2008-10-08T08:38:00.000-07:00

Adsense Ready Websites and Google Adsense Templates

by CraigRad
There are hundreds of thousands of web templates out there, but not all of them make for good Adsense templates. As the popularity of Google 's Adsense program grew, many web designers started creating templates that allow for easy contextual ad integration. Making money online is now a possibility and you can win cash in no time with Adsense, once your business is set up. And there 's really not a lot that you need to work from home using Adsense. Here are a few tips you should consider when purchasing an Adsense website template:

* The best Google Adsense templates are the simple ones. Forget Flash animations and complex menus and go for clear structures and logical link placements.
* Don't choose flashy graphics and don't use a lot of photographs, as these divert the visitor 's attention from the ads.
* The best places to ad your contextual ads are the top of the site, below the banner, the left side menu and the center of the site. Your chosen Google Adsense template should allow for easy ad integration in these areas.
* Personalize your Adsense templates if you wish, but this is not going to make you more online cash. The best way to increase your Adsense revenue is to experiment with ad placement and colors until you see the best CTRs.
* You may think that, out of all work from home jobs and online job opportunities, Google Adsense is the less complicated one - true, but only after you manage to understand all the subtleties behind the system. This is why you should go with a Google Adsense template that plays by the rules and is not too complex or extravagant - you can develop funkier sites in the future, but for now stick with a simple hierarchy and logical structure.

Adsense ready website information

Purchasing an Adsense ready website is a good idea, especially if you don't know much about web development, but there are a few things to take care of. There are basically two types of Adsense ready websites - the duplicate content websites which get sold over and over and custom-made, original Adsense ready websites. Let 's have a look at both of them:

Recycled Google Adsense ready website - let 's call them recycled because they get used over and over and over. You can purchase 10, 50 or 150 websites, each with hundreds of pages, for less than $100! Of course, these websites get sold, in their exact same form, to hundreds or thousands of other people. While these Google Adsense ready website offers are great because they offer a good structure and are designed to allow for easy and efficient contextual ad integration, they also rank lower in the search engine results.

This is because they have duplicate content - hundreds of people have the same site as you, only hosted on a different server and under a different domain name. However, what you loose in search engine rankings you make up in structure and content quality. And with a few dozen Google Adsense ready websites like these, you only need to handle some high quality link exchanges, or get visitors on your sites through the other program offered by Google to advertisers - Adwords.

Unique content Adsense ready websites are the other option. You will most likely pay a few hundred dollars for a unique website with 15-25 pages of original content. Instead of a hundred duplicate content websites you will have just one original website.

It 's hard to say which option will allow you to earn more from your online business, but it 's clear that your unique content website will outrank duplicate content in the search engines. An original Adsense ready website offers a more stable income level, and you can grow it into a top ranking site in time. Your online earning will depend on numerous factors, but one thing is for sure - the search engines will love your site for bringing new content to the Internet and will reward you by ranking it higher.

About the Author

Other resources: should you buy Adsense ready websites or is it better to use Google Adsense website templates. Learn more by reading this free step by step Adsense tutorial .

Article Source: Content for Reprint

Click Here to View Terms of Creative Commons License That This Article is Licensed For Reprint Under.

Legitimate Work At Home Program/Product Reviews

2008-10-08T03:03:00.000-07:00

I have a website up (wonderfully hosted for free with Weebly.com) that goes over more work at home products, services, and reviews.

The home page just gives a little welcome/about me message, and goes over 3 of my all-time favorite work at home programs, ones that actually work. I was excited about those, because so many that I've tried just don't have anything useful about them at all!

Then I have other pages, with contact info., other top picks, definitions and explanations of various work at home categories, sites to run away from, stuff like that.

Click here to check the site out.

If You Want To Open an Ebay Store/Drop Shipping

2008-10-07T04:00:00.000-07:00

If you would like to try your hand at auction sites, or selling various products online through an ebay type store, or even your own website, using a drop shipper is an excellent way to start with little to no out of pocket expense upfront.

An excellent list of drop shippers and wholesalers, along with bonuses to help you out in starting your new business.

Essentially, you would be selling products that you don't have on hand/in your inventory. You would then collect the orders and payments, order the products from your drop shipper, giving them the shipping information, and pay for the product. You pay less than you were already paid, so you've already made a profit, without having to stock inventory that may not sell, or pay for the items up front.

Typically, a drop shipper will "cloak" where the product came from, putting your return address/company name and info. on the package, so your customers really don't have to know that you're using a drop shipper.

Pros:

- no need to own inventory that may or may not sell.

- no upfront cost for the products you're selling.

- no need to go to the post office.

- much easier than trying to figure out what's in demand, how much you'll have to purchase, etc.

- Absolutely legitimate (as long as you're not selling anything illegal, that is), low cost home business opportunity that a lot of people utilize and make very good money from.

Cons:

- you have no control over the shipping of the product. Though the dropshipper will generally work with you, if your customer has an issue with not getting their product in good condition.

- shipping times will be longer and some customers can get impatient, expecting a product to be in their hands almost instantly, as opposed to the days of catalog shopping where people understood that things may take 6-8 weeks in order to be received.

How to handle the cons:

- Chances are you won't have an issue with using a large, legitimate drop shipper. And, if you do, chances are they'll help you to help your customer to work it all out. Essentially, it will be rare that you're going to run into this issue. And, you would run into it rarely anyway, even if you were doing the shipping yourself. The post office is not infallible.

- Make sure that you make it VERY clear to your customers what the shipping time will be (from the minimum to the maximum). The drop shipper that you use should be able to give you an estimate on typical as well as "special" (due to weight, etc.) shipping times. Tack about a week or so onto that. AND, make sure that you keep in contact with your customers, answer all questions in a timely manner, and make it very easy to contact you. This will alleviate their fears about being scammed by you.

Some drop shipping/shipper options:

There are two plans available with the company through this link. The basic plan is around $47 and includes the list of lots of drop shippers, wholesalers, and products, along with all the bonuses. The "platinum" plan includes all the above, plus a professionally designed website, that you can use for your business. If you'll be doing an ebay type store, just go for the basic plan. If you want to start your own website to sell from, the platinum plan will save you a lot of time, trial and error, and guesswork while you're getting started on establishing your home business.

This is a complete drop shipping guide to starting your business. Just in case you don't think you can, or don't want to, go it alone when you're just starting out.

A drop shipping company that offers a LOT of great products, and TONS of bonuses! This is a fantastic company, in my experience.

I promise, it's actually not as scary as it seems. This really is something that you can do, legitimately, to make a lucrative income from home. But, this isn't a "get rick quick while only working 45 minutes a day" kind of scheme. But then, those schemes are entirely unrealistic, for AT LEAST the first 6 months to a year you're in business, no matter what it is you're wanting to do from home.

More Free Traffic/Advertising That Works.

2008-10-06T17:17:00.000-07:00

Recently, I joined another free traffic/advertising site. This site works quite well. I'm actually really impressed with their set-up.

Click Here To Visit Link Referral, The Excellent Free Traffic Site I'm Talking About.

I've only been a member for less than 24 hours so far, but from what I can tell, you don't get traffic based on a credits system, you get it based on your position in your chosen category and sub-category. You can increase your position in these areas, by clicking on other members sites, reviewing other members sites, etc. It's really easy to figure out how to do it, and you can only do 30 site clicks and 5 reviews and 1 forum posting every 24 hours (my link made it to position #14 out of tens of thousands in my chosen category last night, after I utilized my max limit, which only took me a half an hour or so.)

This is a refreshing, unique, and effective form of free advertising. Check them out.

Free PPC type advertising?

2008-10-06T11:30:00.000-07:00

No, to my knowledge, you can't receive free PPC advertising on Google or yahoo, despite what some "guru's" (or at least one of them) has said. But, at Leads Leap (click here to see site), you can send your ad out to a lot of people, as a PPC style advertisement. You can do this for free! Hey, "free" is personally my favorite number, so I'll be writing a lot of posts having to do with money making things that are free. ;)

You can join the program for free, and you can start sending your ad along (it shows on the side of the e-mails they send their members, which are valuable newsletters that people are actually interested in). It's PPC style, you fill in an ad form, just like you would with Google adsense, it's that kind of advertisement.

Hey, it's free, and it's worked for quite a few people. So, there's really nothing to lose, by giving it a shot.

Click Here to view the "Leads Leap" site.

Free Swarm of Traffic

2008-10-06T04:22:00.000-07:00

A lot of people, including myself from time to time, use traffic exchanges in order to obtain free traffic. Hopefully, you don't use an auto traffic exchange, hoping that will generate anything but a few fake traffic numbers to your site. Few people actually look at the sites that are automatically cycling on their computer, while they're watching a movie in the other room.

Manual traffic exchanges are better. But, most people on those are not paying attention to the site in front of them, because they're waiting for the timer to tell them that they can click "go" and get their credits. Also, the traffic is entirely untargeted (the person on the other end of the computer may not even speak whatever language your site is in!). Furthermore, most manual exchanges keep their timers as low as possible, in order to keep surfers coming back and not getting too bored.

Traffic Swarm (click here), however, I have found to be very different, and to actually produce some fairly good results. It's kind of like a mix between a manual traffic exchange, and a Pay Per Click (PPC) campaign. You sign up for free, and submit your ad for consideration (it takes them a few days, to check your site and ad out). You title it, give it a description, etc. just like with a PPC campaign.

People who have indicated that they're interested in surfing through ads that are in the same category as your ad will be shown your ad, along with others, on their surfing page. They can decide to click on it, and view the site for 20 + seconds, or not. IF they do click on it, some of the credits you've accumulated through their free means, or purchased if you don't want to spend the time earning credits, will be spent. So, you're only going to be spending your credits, IF the person who sees your ad while they're surfing, clicks on it to view the site.

This is a much more effective means of generating a lot of free, (at least semi) targeted traffic to your site(s) than any other traffic exchange, or classified ads listing, or safelist e-mailing anything.

Click here to visit Traffic Swarm, and find out more, or sign up with them for free. They give you free credits for activating your account too!

Just want a little bit of money for doing what you normally do online anyway?

2008-10-06T03:33:00.000-07:00

A lot of people are looking to make a significant monthly income from home now. But, perhaps, you would prefer to join as many free paid to read e-mail, paid to click, paid to surf, and/or paid to post programs, for free? Or, maybe you're just looking to get paid a little bit for doing what you already do online, without spending any more or less time doing it?

If that sounds like you, then MyLot may be a good option for you. I still use this program now and then, when I'd like to give my paypal account a little bit of a boost.

Essentially, it's a paid to post internet forum. It works just like every other internet forum, except that you can earn money for posting, starting threads, uploading photos that you own the rights to, and referring active posters.

They have been around for a long time, and they've always paid me on time. They use paypal to process all payments (in certain countries, where paypal isn't an option, they use a different, popular payment processor).

They don't give away how much you'll earn per post/pic/etc. But, I average around 4 cents or so per post. That's not a lot, but I enjoy posting in forums, so I may as well get paid for it, right? It's free to sign up, and you can pick your own payout amount ($10. $25, $50, or $100). It's dead easy to make a $10 payout each and every month, if you're really lazy about it. And, I've known members who were active, regular posters, who made around $70 per month.

Check out MyLot

Tip: They don't tell you how their algorithm figures out how much you made per post. But, I have noticed that you make more money per post, if the posts are longer, have correct grammar and spelling, and are well thought out. They little, one sentence posts don't earn much at all. So, you'll spend more time for less money, if you try to cheat the system by copying and pasting a few sentences from the OP, or just writing "I agree." before moving on to the next thread.

Top ranking in search engines

2008-10-06T02:02:00.000-07:00

If you're an affiliate marketer, or you have any kind of website, store, etc. that you need targeted traffic for, the easiest way to get that traffic without spending a fortune in PPC advertising is to have a higher rank in the search engines. For example, if you're selling dog food, then when someone does a search for dog food, you would want your store, site, affiliate link, etc. to show up in the first couple of pages. That way, people who are specifically looking for dog food can easily find, visit, and purchase from your site, without your having to spend all your profit on advertising costs.

I found this site today that has me really excited, because they don't ask you to pay for their service until they have your site in the number 1 spot on 40 major search engines (including the big boys, Google and Yahoo). They promise to get you in the number 1 spot for 5 keywords relating to your site within 120 days from submission, and they will do it for free to let you try it out! Click here to check them out.

They say that they will keep you in the number 1 spot for those 5 keywords for 7 days before they ask you to pay/bid in order to maintain your position through their service. I submitted one of the sites that I promote. I figure, if it doesn't show results, I didn't lose anything (they never asked for a credit card, or any kind of information that could be used to get money from me right now). But, if it does show the results that it potentially can (being number 1 for keywords in a major search engine can dramatically increase your sales, even sky-rocket them to unimaginable heights, potentially). If it does show results, I certainly wouldn't mind spending a portion of my earnings to maintain my spot.

Their home page states that this service is free, for one website (per e-mail address) submission, that they won't ask you to pay until you've been confirmed in the number 1 spot (which you can check yourself), and they'll submit you to other search engines that are less known as well. They state that this is only offered for free during their beta testing stage, that it's entirely legal, and that there is no hacking or search engine tricking going on of any kind.

Now, the homepage says that the beta testing, and therefore free submission, ends in April, 2008. BUT, I only just submitted one of my sites, and it was accepted for free, without them asking for any financial information. So, apparently, they are still in beta testing, and still accepting free submissions.

I don't see how you'd have anything to lose by giving it a try, but I will definitely keep you posted on how this particular marketing campaign works out for me.

Click here to visit the site.

Welcome!

2008-10-06T01:45:00.000-07:00

In this blog, I'll be reviewing various work at home programs, both free and paid, marketing strategies and companies, both free and paid, and other such ideas and what-not having to do with working from home (mostly online).

I hope to have everything from Google Adsense earning, free and paid targeted traffic techniques, increasing search engine ranking, SEO, internet marketing, creating a home business, auctions, article writing, data entry, affiliate marketing, and so on and so forth... eventually anyway.

I'll also include reviews on work at home opportunities that I've tried and found to be entirely useless and a complete waste of money, whether or not I would classify them as a "scam".