The Forex trading market is a relatively new phenomenon. Never before in the history of the world have we seen such an amazing event. In only 30 years, this industry has developed from almost nothing to a daily US$1.5 trillion market. How did this happen? Was it by design? Or was it by accident?
Well the answer falls somewhere in between. There are three distinct time frames that set the stage for today's style of currency trading. The first time frame is the pre-currency trading era of the 1950s. The second time frame is the worldwide, politically volatile atmosphere of the 1970s. The third time frame is what has occurred in this free market economy since the demise of the gold standard 30 years ago. In each time frame, there have been three catalysts: war, gold, and foreign banks- that have played a significant role in propelling currency development.
ur visit no.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Saturday, July 11, 2009
101 Ways to Make Money Online (part time or full time, and working at home) Disclaimers
There's no catch and I'm not trying to sell you an ebook. Or anything (read about conmen who do). I'm not even signing you up for a newsletter. This list was put together more as a laugh. It may change your life. Or it may annoy you enormously because of its er, brevity. I hope it does both.
Some ideas here are nice and have halos, others smell of dog urine ... but all these methods allegedly generate lotso dosho, and every single one is legal at least somewhere. There's overlap in everything so some ideas may be repeated (and some may not be covered at all) but I'm still maintaining there are 101 ways to make money online, partly because it makes a good headline. No, solely because it makes a good headline. It sucked YOU in, didn't it?
No, you won't get anything for nothing but there are a lot of things you can get for nearly nothing. Like getting to pick holes in my list. Go ahead. Pick holes and then link back here to show people how stupid I am.
I've put together a lot of these ideas from thousands of hours discussing businesses for sale with their owners. They've shared with me how their businesses operate, how they make money online, how they built their businesses up etc. They've given me access to their traffic stats, their earnings and accounts and tax figures. Many even gave me access to their Adsense or other "main earner" accounts. Some of those businesses were so irresistible that I bought them. And sold them. And bought others. It's a game. I love it.
Most of these business ideas can be run from anywhere in the world, even the United States, Australia and other non-English speaking countries. For consistency sake all figures are quoted in US dollars.
Each method is summarised in a single small para so appreciate it's not the complete unabridged version. And, no, I haven't tried each one so out of the 101 business models to make money online 102 may be completely dud. But, I do intend expanding - in due course - on some of the money-making ideas that worked for me.
More disclaimers will come when people sue me (suing can make you money, see #66)
Some ideas here are nice and have halos, others smell of dog urine ... but all these methods allegedly generate lotso dosho, and every single one is legal at least somewhere. There's overlap in everything so some ideas may be repeated (and some may not be covered at all) but I'm still maintaining there are 101 ways to make money online, partly because it makes a good headline. No, solely because it makes a good headline. It sucked YOU in, didn't it?
No, you won't get anything for nothing but there are a lot of things you can get for nearly nothing. Like getting to pick holes in my list. Go ahead. Pick holes and then link back here to show people how stupid I am.
I've put together a lot of these ideas from thousands of hours discussing businesses for sale with their owners. They've shared with me how their businesses operate, how they make money online, how they built their businesses up etc. They've given me access to their traffic stats, their earnings and accounts and tax figures. Many even gave me access to their Adsense or other "main earner" accounts. Some of those businesses were so irresistible that I bought them. And sold them. And bought others. It's a game. I love it.
Most of these business ideas can be run from anywhere in the world, even the United States, Australia and other non-English speaking countries. For consistency sake all figures are quoted in US dollars.
Each method is summarised in a single small para so appreciate it's not the complete unabridged version. And, no, I haven't tried each one so out of the 101 business models to make money online 102 may be completely dud. But, I do intend expanding - in due course - on some of the money-making ideas that worked for me.
More disclaimers will come when people sue me (suing can make you money, see #66)
Finding business ideas:
1. Spend all day browsing Site For Sale forums (like the list we have here) for the myriad ways people earn money online. People looking to sell their sites actually tell you how they make money! Pick one that suits you. Research it a bit, and away and start your own business. Or use a search engine to find ways to make money online. It seems to Finding some things - like nuclear bunkers - is easier than othersbe so easy that it's almost impossible to find someone who doesn't know how to do it. (But why stop at one search engine (SE)? Most people get to less than 1% of the top qualify info they're seeking because they use just one SE like Google, don't have the vaguest of ideas of the advanced search features available, and don't know the benefits to be had using specialised SEs, local SEs etc. )
2. Bundle the two above to tell other people how to make money online. They always want to know. It doesn't matter if you don't know yourself, you can still charge them for it. I obviously don't have a clue as I'm giving it all away. You can now ignore everything else I say. But don't go spending money on internet cons promising to make you a millionaire and here's how to spot them.
3. Be more inventive with your search. Look for small business franchise newsletters. Or for home jobs in your particular niche or hobby. (And check point #2 above for those specialised SEs). You can also go through the appropriate DMOZ categories (examples: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12)
But using "search" is just the start of the game. There are simply so, so many ways. We hope you hang around to find out.
4. Like the guy you can pay to stick a message in a bottle for you and throw it into the sea. He's made tens of thousands of dollars already. And there are several others like him in all parts of the world. Do you live near a sea or river? Or join the cleanup of those bottles and get your council to contribute.
Domains
5. The dot com gold rush made many millionaires but there's still plenty of money in domain real estate and still some good catches available. A good dot com may be difficult to find now. But there are a lot of gTLDs and ccTLDs from the .info to .eu to .tv to .co.in and they all present opportunities being discussed in several good forums. Put your thinking hat on, buy a famous word domain for a few dollars and put it up on the domain selling sites.
6. Lost your thinking hat? Hang out at SEDO. DNForurms, Afternics and other places where domains are bought and sold. Provided you learn enough about the market to recognise bargains you could make a living from just buying existing domains and reselling them.
7. If you're smart you'll run dictionary checks against available domain names and auto-check them against search volumes (using OST, Wordtracker etc.) for that term and Pay Per Click (PPC) rates in the major ad networks (example) to work out which ones are likely to be more profitable (how to make money with PPC). If you can pick up the domain for a profitable term that's searched for often you can use a domain parking program. Or post a little bit of relevant content and get a link or two ... and the search engines will start sending you traffic. If the phrase people are typing in coincides exactly with your domain name it gives you a great head start with SEs.
8. If you're smart AND a linguist you'd be doing that in multiple languages. And not paying for any domain till you've tried it free for five days to see if it does indeed get any type-in traffic (and how well that traffic converts). After you've tried it for five days and dropped it there's nothing to stop you immediately picking it up again for another five day trial. Strange, but true. It's not kiting, it's legal.
9. Misspellings. Massive opportunities still exist in the misspelling/typo market. People trying to get elsewhere land on your site instead ... and you sell them stuff (or use the domain parking idea). Some even tempt fate by making PPC opportunties out of typosquatting on trademarks. Finding typos has never been easier. There are many tools that will find misspellings for you. How easy can it get?
10. Domain parking and type-in traffic: People sometimesThe witch has spoken guess at URLs. If they want a plumber they may try plumber.com though they've never used that site themselves. Find terms that people may be typing in (I will provide a detailed guide to this when I get a chance), buy the domain and populate it with ads. There are several ad programs to monetise your parked domains. Or combine this with the previous idea to buy plummer.com or similar typo domains to make money online.
2. Bundle the two above to tell other people how to make money online. They always want to know. It doesn't matter if you don't know yourself, you can still charge them for it. I obviously don't have a clue as I'm giving it all away. You can now ignore everything else I say. But don't go spending money on internet cons promising to make you a millionaire and here's how to spot them.
3. Be more inventive with your search. Look for small business franchise newsletters. Or for home jobs in your particular niche or hobby. (And check point #2 above for those specialised SEs). You can also go through the appropriate DMOZ categories (examples: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12)
But using "search" is just the start of the game. There are simply so, so many ways. We hope you hang around to find out.
4. Like the guy you can pay to stick a message in a bottle for you and throw it into the sea. He's made tens of thousands of dollars already. And there are several others like him in all parts of the world. Do you live near a sea or river? Or join the cleanup of those bottles and get your council to contribute.
Domains
5. The dot com gold rush made many millionaires but there's still plenty of money in domain real estate and still some good catches available. A good dot com may be difficult to find now. But there are a lot of gTLDs and ccTLDs from the .info to .eu to .tv to .co.in and they all present opportunities being discussed in several good forums. Put your thinking hat on, buy a famous word domain for a few dollars and put it up on the domain selling sites.
6. Lost your thinking hat? Hang out at SEDO. DNForurms, Afternics and other places where domains are bought and sold. Provided you learn enough about the market to recognise bargains you could make a living from just buying existing domains and reselling them.
7. If you're smart you'll run dictionary checks against available domain names and auto-check them against search volumes (using OST, Wordtracker etc.) for that term and Pay Per Click (PPC) rates in the major ad networks (example) to work out which ones are likely to be more profitable (how to make money with PPC). If you can pick up the domain for a profitable term that's searched for often you can use a domain parking program. Or post a little bit of relevant content and get a link or two ... and the search engines will start sending you traffic. If the phrase people are typing in coincides exactly with your domain name it gives you a great head start with SEs.
8. If you're smart AND a linguist you'd be doing that in multiple languages. And not paying for any domain till you've tried it free for five days to see if it does indeed get any type-in traffic (and how well that traffic converts). After you've tried it for five days and dropped it there's nothing to stop you immediately picking it up again for another five day trial. Strange, but true. It's not kiting, it's legal.
9. Misspellings. Massive opportunities still exist in the misspelling/typo market. People trying to get elsewhere land on your site instead ... and you sell them stuff (or use the domain parking idea). Some even tempt fate by making PPC opportunties out of typosquatting on trademarks. Finding typos has never been easier. There are many tools that will find misspellings for you. How easy can it get?
10. Domain parking and type-in traffic: People sometimesThe witch has spoken guess at URLs. If they want a plumber they may try plumber.com though they've never used that site themselves. Find terms that people may be typing in (I will provide a detailed guide to this when I get a chance), buy the domain and populate it with ads. There are several ad programs to monetise your parked domains. Or combine this with the previous idea to buy plummer.com or similar typo domains to make money online.
10 to 15th way
10. Domain parking and type-in traffic: People sometimesThe witch has spoken guess at URLs. If they want a plumber they may try plumber.com though they've never used that site themselves. Find terms that people may be typing in (I will provide a detailed guide to this when I get a chance), buy the domain and populate it with ads. There are several ad programs to monetise your parked domains. Or combine this with the previous idea to buy plummer.com or similar typo domains to make money online.
11. Drop catches. People sometimes forget to renew their domains and these expire. Picking them up will give you some remnant traffic from sites that link to this domain/people who've bookmarked it etc. In some cases the traffic can be pretty high. Provided you're fast enough to replace the copyrighted content that was there with something else you can make quite a profitable business from doing nothing else but this.
12. A variation on the above. Sell the domain back to the previous owners. Note that you may want to tread carefully and get familiar with the rules for that TLD before you start sending off ransom notes. For example, with ICANN (domains that end in .com, for example) the moment you send the previous owners an email saying you've got their domain and you'll give it back for $10K... you've lost. It can't look like a ransom demand. Be reasonable and read the small print of the UDRP. No UDRP required if you're sitting hostage on myspace.com/theircompanyname or the equivalent at blogger, twitter or other big destination. LOL, watch them kick themselves and sack their web advisors who told them about taking the "dot info" but omitted to mention the importance of protecting the brand by owning the associated myspace directory (and others)! And it costs you nothing!
13. Run a domain management service. Hundreds of thousands of webmasters (or more) have a large portfolio of domains. A lot of them would like the boring bit taken out of their domain management. You can run their DNSes or just a service reminding them when each domain comes up for renewal. Or an automated monitoring service to tell them when one of their domains/sites is inaccessible.
14. Start a directory to list domains for sale. That's what people like SEDO do. You can get money just for allowing domains to be listed in your directory.
15. If you're running a service putting buyers and sellers of domains/sites in touch with one another you could get money for add on services (like providing escrow facilities). For ideas have a look at what existing domain intermediaries offer.
11. Drop catches. People sometimes forget to renew their domains and these expire. Picking them up will give you some remnant traffic from sites that link to this domain/people who've bookmarked it etc. In some cases the traffic can be pretty high. Provided you're fast enough to replace the copyrighted content that was there with something else you can make quite a profitable business from doing nothing else but this.
12. A variation on the above. Sell the domain back to the previous owners. Note that you may want to tread carefully and get familiar with the rules for that TLD before you start sending off ransom notes. For example, with ICANN (domains that end in .com, for example) the moment you send the previous owners an email saying you've got their domain and you'll give it back for $10K... you've lost. It can't look like a ransom demand. Be reasonable and read the small print of the UDRP. No UDRP required if you're sitting hostage on myspace.com/theircompanyname or the equivalent at blogger, twitter or other big destination. LOL, watch them kick themselves and sack their web advisors who told them about taking the "dot info" but omitted to mention the importance of protecting the brand by owning the associated myspace directory (and others)! And it costs you nothing!
13. Run a domain management service. Hundreds of thousands of webmasters (or more) have a large portfolio of domains. A lot of them would like the boring bit taken out of their domain management. You can run their DNSes or just a service reminding them when each domain comes up for renewal. Or an automated monitoring service to tell them when one of their domains/sites is inaccessible.
14. Start a directory to list domains for sale. That's what people like SEDO do. You can get money just for allowing domains to be listed in your directory.
15. If you're running a service putting buyers and sellers of domains/sites in touch with one another you could get money for add on services (like providing escrow facilities). For ideas have a look at what existing domain intermediaries offer.
16 to 18 way
16. Run a domain research service. Wonder what happens when a manufacturer is looking to name a new model car? Or starting a new range of clothing? They need trademark and patent research but now they also need some domain research. Which of the literally thousands of combinations and misspellings (+ sucks.com) are taken and which do they need to buy? With a few of the free domain tools discussed on this page, here, and one or two more - like free DNS tools - and a little time you could provide them a service they'd pay a lot of money for.
17. Start your own country: Whoa! yes, you're reading it right. If you've heard of Sealand (what is Sealand) you'll know that starting your own country is not that far fetched. Once you have your own WhackyCountry you can apply for a .wc (yuk) TLD. Sell millions of domains. Keep some for yourself. Ever wanted a Google.___?
18. Perform domain services for businesses and then send them a proforma (even if they've never heard of you). Explain that it's free this time but you'll gladly keep acting for them for a small fee. For example, there are thousands of big businesses whose half-wit webmasters/ developers didn't put in a redirect from the non-www to the www versions of their sites (or vice-versa). One entrepreneur made a few thousands just from pointing out to businesses how they were losing hundreds of customers every year who were landing on http://xxx-companyname.com and finding nothing there.
I'll talk about domain opportunities some more on this page when I get a chance.
17. Start your own country: Whoa! yes, you're reading it right. If you've heard of Sealand (what is Sealand) you'll know that starting your own country is not that far fetched. Once you have your own WhackyCountry you can apply for a .wc (yuk) TLD. Sell millions of domains. Keep some for yourself. Ever wanted a Google.___?
18. Perform domain services for businesses and then send them a proforma (even if they've never heard of you). Explain that it's free this time but you'll gladly keep acting for them for a small fee. For example, there are thousands of big businesses whose half-wit webmasters/ developers didn't put in a redirect from the non-www to the www versions of their sites (or vice-versa). One entrepreneur made a few thousands just from pointing out to businesses how they were losing hundreds of customers every year who were landing on http://xxx-companyname.com and finding nothing there.
I'll talk about domain opportunities some more on this page when I get a chance.
16 to 18th way
16. Run a domain research service. Wonder what happens when a manufacturer is looking to name a new model car? Or starting a new range of clothing? They need trademark and patent research but now they also need some domain research. Which of the literally thousands of combinations and misspellings (+ sucks.com) are taken and which do they need to buy? With a few of the free domain tools discussed on this page, here, and one or two more - like free DNS tools - and a little time you could provide them a service they'd pay a lot of money for.
17. Start your own country: Whoa! yes, you're reading it right. If you've heard of Sealand (what is Sealand) you'll know that starting your own country is not that far fetched. Once you have your own WhackyCountry you can apply for a .wc (yuk) TLD. Sell millions of domains. Keep some for yourself. Ever wanted a Google.___?
18. Perform domain services for businesses and then send them a proforma (even if they've never heard of you). Explain that it's free this time but you'll gladly keep acting for them for a small fee. For example, there are thousands of big businesses whose half-wit webmasters/ developers didn't put in a redirect from the non-www to the www versions of their sites (or vice-versa). One entrepreneur made a few thousands just from pointing out to businesses how they were losing hundreds of customers every year who were landing on http://xxx-companyname.com and finding nothing there.
I'll talk about domain opportunities some more on this page when I get a chance.
17. Start your own country: Whoa! yes, you're reading it right. If you've heard of Sealand (what is Sealand) you'll know that starting your own country is not that far fetched. Once you have your own WhackyCountry you can apply for a .wc (yuk) TLD. Sell millions of domains. Keep some for yourself. Ever wanted a Google.___?
18. Perform domain services for businesses and then send them a proforma (even if they've never heard of you). Explain that it's free this time but you'll gladly keep acting for them for a small fee. For example, there are thousands of big businesses whose half-wit webmasters/ developers didn't put in a redirect from the non-www to the www versions of their sites (or vice-versa). One entrepreneur made a few thousands just from pointing out to businesses how they were losing hundreds of customers every year who were landing on http://xxx-companyname.com and finding nothing there.
I'll talk about domain opportunities some more on this page when I get a chance.
19 to 21 way
19. Many sites runs on "auto-pilot". A common price these sell for in site-for-sale forums is 12-24 months' worth of net earnings (silly price, but it's true). Provided you don't mess the site up you can recover your capital in as little as 12 months and then ... sell the site to recover your capital again. Double your capital every year. 100% return. Sack your stockbrokers. It really is a crazy world!
20. Site flipping doesn't require as much capital and expertise as many people believe. Like property flipping, Buffalo Walking Service - why do only dogs get to have fun?you buy one that needs a bit of TLC. Do it up, then sell it on for a whacking great profit. And, the beauty is you never have to deal with tenants!
21. How about cornering a little market? There are DMOZ categories with grandfathered sites (sites that have been listed for many years) which aren't being updated. If you can pick up a few sites in the same category and merge their content suddenly you "own" that niche. That opens a lot of possibilities.
The rest of the 101 to come later.
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Only kidding, only kidding, here's
20. Site flipping doesn't require as much capital and expertise as many people believe. Like property flipping, Buffalo Walking Service - why do only dogs get to have fun?you buy one that needs a bit of TLC. Do it up, then sell it on for a whacking great profit. And, the beauty is you never have to deal with tenants!
21. How about cornering a little market? There are DMOZ categories with grandfathered sites (sites that have been listed for many years) which aren't being updated. If you can pick up a few sites in the same category and merge their content suddenly you "own" that niche. That opens a lot of possibilities.
The rest of the 101 to come later.
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Only kidding, only kidding, here's
22nd nd 23rd way
22. Several jobs exist on a pay per hour basis but the better paid ones are probably contract jobs. Some examples of both: Copywriting; proofreading of web content/ebooks/newsletters etc. (elance, guru, rentacoder, graphicdesign, more).
23. Email or phone answering: Be one of the first line support staff manning a company's phone or email answering service. Filter out the easy questions by pointing the user to relevant sections of his manual and escalate those that seem genuine problems. You are saving the company's engineers' time and providing a valuable service - that they pay for. A variation of this is chat help where you actually sit at your PC and text chat to users who've reached a firm's website and clicked the help button. Sometimes a bit of training is involved.
23. Email or phone answering: Be one of the first line support staff manning a company's phone or email answering service. Filter out the easy questions by pointing the user to relevant sections of his manual and escalate those that seem genuine problems. You are saving the company's engineers' time and providing a valuable service - that they pay for. A variation of this is chat help where you actually sit at your PC and text chat to users who've reached a firm's website and clicked the help button. Sometimes a bit of training is involved.
24 to 27th way
24. Good at web design, HTML, CSS? Create designs (templates) and flog them. You can sell each one multiple times to webmasters who don't have the time or patience to get familiar with the intricacies and quirks.
25. Monitoring Wikipedia/ forums/ blogs for mentions of a particular name, brand etc. A recent expose showed that several Wikipedia entries were being manipulated by a US political party who had several stooges signed up for just this purpose. Wouldn't their opponents want to know each time they're manipulating some facts? Find someone who needs some news "managed" or needs to know when news is being "managed" and get paid for it. You need to be "proactive" as these jobs aren't "advertised" but the fact that they aren't advertised means that others don't know about them, you have an advantage. And there are opportunities in almost every language.
26. Directories: start one. Webmasters pay to be listed in your directory. The better your directory the more you can demand. Niche, hand compiled directories are a million times better than the SERPs dross and both companies and users know that.
27. Filling in surveys. True, there are a lot of duds around but there are still some programs that pay you for doing mind-numbingly dull tasks like filling in surveys. If you aren't fussed about privacy and are willing to disclose all your personal details (or fictional personal details) there's usually someone willing to pay you, From YouGov to Ciao. This - and some of the next few - are called IFW or Incentivised Freebie Websites, more here.
25. Monitoring Wikipedia/ forums/ blogs for mentions of a particular name, brand etc. A recent expose showed that several Wikipedia entries were being manipulated by a US political party who had several stooges signed up for just this purpose. Wouldn't their opponents want to know each time they're manipulating some facts? Find someone who needs some news "managed" or needs to know when news is being "managed" and get paid for it. You need to be "proactive" as these jobs aren't "advertised" but the fact that they aren't advertised means that others don't know about them, you have an advantage. And there are opportunities in almost every language.
26. Directories: start one. Webmasters pay to be listed in your directory. The better your directory the more you can demand. Niche, hand compiled directories are a million times better than the SERPs dross and both companies and users know that.
27. Filling in surveys. True, there are a lot of duds around but there are still some programs that pay you for doing mind-numbingly dull tasks like filling in surveys. If you aren't fussed about privacy and are willing to disclose all your personal details (or fictional personal details) there's usually someone willing to pay you, From YouGov to Ciao. This - and some of the next few - are called IFW or Incentivised Freebie Websites, more here.
28 to 33th way
28. Get paid to read email. Why would companies pay for that? Plenty of reasons, not least that a human eye can spot SPAM that even the best program doesn't catch. Even the best anti-spam program has some false positives and some companies can't afford to have any.
29. Do other filtering. There are people who'll pay money to have you filter through those millions of ebay listings to find them the specific objects/ curios/ stock/ book that they really, really need. Another filtering idea: Businessmen looking to buy sites regularly visit the Site Buying/SellinFinding people is sometimes easier than you thinkg forums and trawl through thousands of listings a week. Get talking to one or two of them, offer to get familiar with what they are looking for and to do the looking for them.
30. The web has allowed easy access to industrial quantities of free stuff. For example, in 2007, a major manufacturer of cricket bats had a problem. Cricket bats can't have knots in them so most of the wood from the willow tree has to be discarded as scrap. Not a few bin bags full but 70 tons. Per week. Yes, lorry loads per day! Free. They listed it on the eastex.org.uk site. Opportunity: Find a company that sells bark mulch for gardens. Find out how much they are paying to buy wood. Offer them 70 tons of fine willow a week at 50% of their current costs provided they pick it up themselves. Or contact manufacturers of chipboard/cat litter/use-your-imagination. OK, eastex may not still have that particular opportunity... but there are others. And on other sites.
31. CPA = Cost per Action. Apart from filling in surveys people pay for all kinds of other things. Like clicking on links (though you may want to check that you're not participating in click fraud).
32. Posting in Forums: Like hanging out in forums and chatting to other people? Owners of new forums have a problem. If there aren't a lot of conversations going then people don't stop to talk. So they get the chat flowing by paying for posts. So, jump in, start chatting and get paid.
33. Do something silly. The milliondollarhomepage guy got famous for selling worthless pixels on his page. But, because he was in the news/having his 15 minutes of fame people focused on that and paid money for what they would normally have realised was fairly worthless links. Yes, people are stupid. ClickHereYouIdiot. But some of these "stupid" people are millionaires today.
29. Do other filtering. There are people who'll pay money to have you filter through those millions of ebay listings to find them the specific objects/ curios/ stock/ book that they really, really need. Another filtering idea: Businessmen looking to buy sites regularly visit the Site Buying/SellinFinding people is sometimes easier than you thinkg forums and trawl through thousands of listings a week. Get talking to one or two of them, offer to get familiar with what they are looking for and to do the looking for them.
30. The web has allowed easy access to industrial quantities of free stuff. For example, in 2007, a major manufacturer of cricket bats had a problem. Cricket bats can't have knots in them so most of the wood from the willow tree has to be discarded as scrap. Not a few bin bags full but 70 tons. Per week. Yes, lorry loads per day! Free. They listed it on the eastex.org.uk site. Opportunity: Find a company that sells bark mulch for gardens. Find out how much they are paying to buy wood. Offer them 70 tons of fine willow a week at 50% of their current costs provided they pick it up themselves. Or contact manufacturers of chipboard/cat litter/use-your-imagination. OK, eastex may not still have that particular opportunity... but there are others. And on other sites.
31. CPA = Cost per Action. Apart from filling in surveys people pay for all kinds of other things. Like clicking on links (though you may want to check that you're not participating in click fraud).
32. Posting in Forums: Like hanging out in forums and chatting to other people? Owners of new forums have a problem. If there aren't a lot of conversations going then people don't stop to talk. So they get the chat flowing by paying for posts. So, jump in, start chatting and get paid.
33. Do something silly. The milliondollarhomepage guy got famous for selling worthless pixels on his page. But, because he was in the news/having his 15 minutes of fame people focused on that and paid money for what they would normally have realised was fairly worthless links. Yes, people are stupid. ClickHereYouIdiot. But some of these "stupid" people are millionaires today.
34 to 37 way
34. Do something more useful and less silly. Find a need in a niche and fill it. People complaining in forums about how they can't find replacement parts for a certain type of car? Find someone who'll make it and be the broker. People complaining about limitations in a particular niche software? Find a programmer to design a solution and start selling it.
35. Have expertise in a particular subject? Write regularly on that subject and give away your knowledge for free. People will bookmark your blog and visit regularly. The money is in allowing companies to advertise their products and services to your very eager audience. There are third parties like payperpost, blogvertise, creamaid, Blogitive, reviewme, loudlaunch etc., who handle the finding of advertisers.
36. Don't have expertise in a particular subject? That doesn't stop bloggers. Some of them blog on the most mundane things - from what they had for breakfast to how they spent their day. And still the advertisers come. So, don't blog to demonstrate your expertise. Blog to demonstrate your camera obsession and show all the stupid pictures you take everyday. Or blog about breastfeeding your kids.
37. Join the myspace bandwagon, build up a lot of "friends" and bulletin advertise (what?!) the hell out of them. Send them to pages where you promote affiliate programs and you could walk away with five figures every month. There are people who make a lot more.
35. Have expertise in a particular subject? Write regularly on that subject and give away your knowledge for free. People will bookmark your blog and visit regularly. The money is in allowing companies to advertise their products and services to your very eager audience. There are third parties like payperpost, blogvertise, creamaid, Blogitive, reviewme, loudlaunch etc., who handle the finding of advertisers.
36. Don't have expertise in a particular subject? That doesn't stop bloggers. Some of them blog on the most mundane things - from what they had for breakfast to how they spent their day. And still the advertisers come. So, don't blog to demonstrate your expertise. Blog to demonstrate your camera obsession and show all the stupid pictures you take everyday. Or blog about breastfeeding your kids.
37. Join the myspace bandwagon, build up a lot of "friends" and bulletin advertise (what?!) the hell out of them. Send them to pages where you promote affiliate programs and you could walk away with five figures every month. There are people who make a lot more.
38 to 41 way
38. Or use tools like myspace to promote your offline activities - like the music you create. The Arctic Monkeys were record label/ talent scout/ music agent free.
39. Sell trinkets to myspace users. They love them. Especially shiny ones. Myspace backgrounds, templates, animations, scripts, icons and other "myspace resources" are a multimillion dollar industry.
40. Writing a newsletter. Building a mailing list is a long term plan and it pays dividends but don't expect immediate results. If your newsletter is good and you promote it well you can collect hundreds of thousands of subscribers (who all get the newsletter for completely free). The more subscribers you have on your list the more advertisers pay to feature in your newsletter.
41. Find something that won't sell, let your imagination run wild. Be willing to think the most outrageous thoughts, the most impossible items to sell. Who would have guessed there'd be an active market for urine. Yes, that stuff you flush away. No, I'm not taking the ... mikey. Start selling your outrageous item and you may find that a market already exists. You can also sell your hair, your blood, your eggs, breast milk and body parts... and rent your uterus.
39. Sell trinkets to myspace users. They love them. Especially shiny ones. Myspace backgrounds, templates, animations, scripts, icons and other "myspace resources" are a multimillion dollar industry.
40. Writing a newsletter. Building a mailing list is a long term plan and it pays dividends but don't expect immediate results. If your newsletter is good and you promote it well you can collect hundreds of thousands of subscribers (who all get the newsletter for completely free). The more subscribers you have on your list the more advertisers pay to feature in your newsletter.
41. Find something that won't sell, let your imagination run wild. Be willing to think the most outrageous thoughts, the most impossible items to sell. Who would have guessed there'd be an active market for urine. Yes, that stuff you flush away. No, I'm not taking the ... mikey. Start selling your outrageous item and you may find that a market already exists. You can also sell your hair, your blood, your eggs, breast milk and body parts... and rent your uterus.
42nd way
Build a community. While some webmasters see lower returns from forum-type sites it's probably because they're using contextual programs like Adsense. One of the biggest webmaster communities (forum) is free to join and free toIf I could only get the right wheels... use though it's very busy, uses massive bandwidth, and costs its owner a bomb. Yet, he makes a very profitable income from organising conferences/tradeshows. His "community" ensures every one is a sell-out.
43 to 46 way
43. Be a link monkey. Webmasters want people to link to them. It makes them feel loved. And it helps them rank higher with search engines. But they don't have the time to go begging. You do that for them and get paid per link. If you're smart you'll find shortcuts and charge people a lot of money for identifying and approaching possible link "partners".
44. Related to the link idea above - start a directory submission service. There are lots of directories around like the ODP. Many take free submissions but you have to do these by hand. When you're familiar with the submission process at a few of the top ones it takes you a lot less time to make submissions. Webmasters have to register, wait for a reply, jump through other hoops etc. They'd rather outsource it to someone who can do it faster and has the time.
45. Another flavour of link-building: Dropping mention of your client's site in forums, blog comments etc. Yes, clients pay for it. There are spamming ways of doing it and some more decent ways. If you can make relevant posts, posts that contribute to the discussion, and provide only those links that are beneficial to that thread, you'll be in high demand with webmasters looking to spread the word about their good content. For example, if you genuinely feel that this list of 101 ways to make money is the dog's testicles - and you participate a lot in webmaster forums - you're bound to come across threads where dropping a link would help your forum mates. Some website owners pay for that.
46. Press release websites often need people to screen user submitted releases for profanity etc., before running the "news". Well known blogs often require the same kind of vetting service for user submitted comments to blog articles. Niche directories that take automated submissions need to prevent against SPAM so could use a human review of each submission. There are numerous such opportunities. Spamming site owners with offers of your service may not get you anywhere. The key is to identify a site that looks like it could use this service and make a personal approach.
44. Related to the link idea above - start a directory submission service. There are lots of directories around like the ODP. Many take free submissions but you have to do these by hand. When you're familiar with the submission process at a few of the top ones it takes you a lot less time to make submissions. Webmasters have to register, wait for a reply, jump through other hoops etc. They'd rather outsource it to someone who can do it faster and has the time.
45. Another flavour of link-building: Dropping mention of your client's site in forums, blog comments etc. Yes, clients pay for it. There are spamming ways of doing it and some more decent ways. If you can make relevant posts, posts that contribute to the discussion, and provide only those links that are beneficial to that thread, you'll be in high demand with webmasters looking to spread the word about their good content. For example, if you genuinely feel that this list of 101 ways to make money is the dog's testicles - and you participate a lot in webmaster forums - you're bound to come across threads where dropping a link would help your forum mates. Some website owners pay for that.
46. Press release websites often need people to screen user submitted releases for profanity etc., before running the "news". Well known blogs often require the same kind of vetting service for user submitted comments to blog articles. Niche directories that take automated submissions need to prevent against SPAM so could use a human review of each submission. There are numerous such opportunities. Spamming site owners with offers of your service may not get you anywhere. The key is to identify a site that looks like it could use this service and make a personal approach.
47th way
Write an ebook. It's as easy as falling off a chair. Know something about something? Whether it's about growing cabbages, writing PERL, plucking nose hair or being a good cop - if you're a good marketer, or pay a good marketer, you can probably sell a few thousand copies of your ebook. People pay online and download it, no publisher, printer, book shop or other cumbersome details to worry about. In fact, you don't even need to do the selling. "Affiliates" do it for you (on commission). And, there are ebooks telling you how you can write and sell ... ebooks!
48th way
Become an expert in a particular niche, perhaps affiliate programs for kids' products, or mailing list services ..and charge for your advice either at online webinars ... or even at local business events. The great news is that this is the internet and becoming an expert in a niche often requires nothing more than spending lots of time (online) reading and absorbing. No school to attend, no fees to pay.
49th way
Data sorting and other mundane jobs usually pay by the hour. This is the online version of envelope stuffing except that there really are opportunities to do these jobs online. It's a matter of looking in the right places and avoiding all those scammers looking to part you from your money by asking for upfront fees.
50th way
Good at graphic design? Design and offer logos and icons downloadable for free (and without watermark on payment of a fee). Good icons sell for several hundred dollars a set. And each set can be sold again and again.
50th way
Good at graphic design? Design and offer logos and icons downloadable for free (and without watermark on payment of a fee). Good icons sell for several hundred dollars a set. And each set can be sold again and again.
51st way
Create an award and some fancy logos to go with it. The more credible they look the better. Award them to websites you like ... provided they pay you an "admin" fee every year to continue using the logo. Giving awards used to be a useful way to get backlinks. But when people's egos are sufficiently stroked they'll pay to continue boasting about how good the "rest of the world" thinks they are.
52nd way
Affiliate programs can be great fun and very lucrative. The trick is learning to generate traffic, funnelling it to your merchant and hiring expensive accountants to handle your massive tax returns. It has made more millionaires than you'd believe and I've personally met many of them. I hope to write a lot more about making money from affiliate programs in the months to come.
53rd way
But if fine-tuning ad CTRs and monitoring ROI is too much like hard work ... be your own affiliate customer. Credit card companies, mortgage companies etc., pay anywhere upto $100 per form filled on their site (per valid lead). Go apply for some credit cards and mortgages BUT do them through your own affiliate links and make a few hundred dollars per day. Sign up in as an affiliate in your wife/husband/dad's name to get around the occasional restriction that applications in the affiliate's own name don't generate the commission.
54th way
Like playing computer games? There's money in gaming. Top players get paid handsomely for participating in tournaments, attending gaming fests and endorsing products. OK, Tiger Woods does make more but does he have as much fun? I mean, have you ever seen him happy? Like deliriously happy ... and shouting for joy? No. Because his golf club don't have no buttons. But it's not just for big hitters. Anybody can make a few hundred bucks a week.
Friday, July 10, 2009
pure fun
54. Like playing computer games? There's money in gaming. Top players get paid handsomely for participating in tournaments, attending gaming fests and endorsing products. OK, Tiger Woods does make more but does he have as much fun? I mean, have you ever seen him happy? Like deliriously happy ... and shouting for joy? No. Because his golf club don't have no buttons. But it's not just for big hitters. Anybody can make a few hundred bucks a week.
55. MMORPG, or multi-player online role playing games are virtual worlds where otherwise sane humans lose all perspective and all sense of reality. Or they pretend they do. They spend money on invisibility cloaks, virtual machine guns, characters and even virtual money! It's hard to explain how it works but Be The Seller, there's a thriving economy there worth millions of dollars every year. Whether it's WoW or SecondLife.
56. Adult entertainment: Like dressing up kinky? Do it front of a webcam and adult webcam sites will pay you. (John Prescott need not apply.) Like chatting dirty? Are you a balding man who likes pretending to be an 18 year old blond, female model? The online equivalent of the premium rate phone lines is where you can earn money all day just having fun. I won't provide links - use a search engine and find them yourself.
57. Or get paid for promoting other adult sites. This is like other affiliate programs except that you get to give away stuff on your site (usually cut-down/lower quality versions of videos and pics) for free. These entice visitors to click through for the larger resolution version which requires a small subscription. So, free content for you and - if you can get enough visitors to click through and subscribe - a healthy commission cheque at the end of the month.
56. Adult entertainment: Like dressing up kinky? Do it front of a webcam and adult webcam sites will pay you. (John Prescott need not apply.) Like chatting dirty? Are you a balding man who likes pretending to be an 18 year old blond, female model? The online equivalent of the premium rate phone lines is where you can earn money all day just having fun. I won't provide links - use a search engine and find them yourself.
57. Or get paid for promoting other adult sites. This is like other affiliate programs except that you get to give away stuff on your site (usually cut-down/lower quality versions of videos and pics) for free. These entice visitors to click through for the larger resolution version which requires a small subscription. So, free content for you and - if you can get enough visitors to click through and subscribe - a healthy commission cheque at the end of the month.
58th way
Mystery shopping: Shopping on behalf of firms to see how staff on the floor are treating customers. Buy products, have holidays, eat at restaurants and have the tabs all picked up by your employers... as long as you provide them some feedback on what the service is like in-store. There are worse ways to earn a living. Some sceptics say they have fun but don't earn a great deal. Others disagree.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
59th way
Spend your time entering competitions. Despite the name "competitions" rarely require skill, they are nothing but glorified lotteries/ sweepstakes. The most challenging question they are likely to ask you is, "What's 1+1?" Try searches like "competition entry" and "win a prize".
60th way
or enter contests of skill. Good at SEO? There seem to be a lot of SEO competitions around. Good for nothing? I tried Google on a search for Good for nothing competitions and I get a lot of results. :-) Weed out 99% as junk, and you should still have some good 'uns there. Good at taking or editing videos and have a good idea? Video sites like metacafe pay you if your video is popular enough (this guy made $100K). See, also, this NYT article for inspiration.
62nd way
Become an estate agent. Not a real one; in places like the US that's too much effort. No, you can act for buyers without all that formality by being a buying agent. Clients have a clear idea of what they want but you have the time to keep hitting rightmove -or wherever your local listings are - to find them that special property. In the UK "buying agents" charge 1-3% of the property value.
63rd way
Concierge services: If you know the exact type of bra you want but can't find it would you pay someone a few dollars to find it for you? You'd be surprised how many busy people would. Whether it's a list for the supermarket delivery or a bathroom tap unavailable locally - for some people the hour or two hunting is not worth the $10 you'd charge. Maintain preferences for your signed up customers - so they can tell you to order "milk" without having to specify semi-skimmed, 2 litre, cardboard packing etc. - and close relationships with local businesses and even I'd sign up.
64th way
Be a researcher. At places like answers.com people pay for you to go research an answer to questions they don't have time to answer themselves. Like, "How do I choose an SLR camera?" and "What's the name of the theme song to the TV program A Bit of Fry and Laurie?" Note: Google has now closed the answers.google.com service but if you're that good at hunting things out you'll find that there are other places where people pay for answers. And, I'm not just talking paid homework help.
It smells
No, I'm not endorsing any of the plans in this section but this article wouldn't be complete without mentioning these unmentionables.
65th way
Has someone has violated your online rights? Perhaps they don't have a privacy page on their site as required by law. Or haven't made their site disabled friendly (illegal in some parts of the world). Sue them. Particularly if you can get one of those no win-no fee vultures to act for you. A guy called André-Tascha Lammé kept getting calls from salesmen selling him stuff. He sued them in the Sacramento, CA, small claims court (easy to do). Guess what? Apparently the law in the US awards you $500 each time a telesales person makes an unwanted call to you. Lammé walked away with $6,000. What's the law where you are?
66th way
They haven't violated your rights? Sue them anyway. Why do you think so many people sue Google on the most unlikely pretexts: giving them incorrect results, showing anti-Christian sites in the results, having advertising, being racist, not being racist? Find something unusual enough to sue them about and some dumb tabloid editor somewhere will pay you for an interview. Even if they don't you'll generate publicity, get column inches, get people to your site...Ka-Ching.
Or be the scum that sue companies for small amounts just because it's be cheaper for them to settle than defend. Even if the grounds for the case are petty and silly.
Or be the scum that sue companies for small amounts just because it's be cheaper for them to settle than defend. Even if the grounds for the case are petty and silly.
67th way
Sell photographs: Live in a big city? Hang around at celebrity watering holes, click some photos. There's always someone online willing to pay for interesting ones - there are sites specifically for the buying/selling of photos like these. Get "lucky" and click the UN Secretary General picking up a hooker and you can buy that dream home in the Bahamas quicker than he can say United Nations Secretary General. Find Paris Hilton in another compromising video and.... you can buy Bill Gates. More mundane photos will get you money in places like these:1,2,3
68th way
Perform domain hunting services for businesses and
then send bill them (even if they've never heard of you). Some businesses will pay up. A 0.01% success out of a million could be worth $100,000 (at a modest $10 each). For example, you could setup a program to extract company names from a Yellowpages database, run them through a misspelling generator and automail each company a list of domains you've identified that it would be in their interest to register as these are very similar to their company name. That's a service, right? The UK authorities have been clamping down on a lot of these operators... but that's only the UK based ones!
then send bill them (even if they've never heard of you). Some businesses will pay up. A 0.01% success out of a million could be worth $100,000 (at a modest $10 each). For example, you could setup a program to extract company names from a Yellowpages database, run them through a misspelling generator and automail each company a list of domains you've identified that it would be in their interest to register as these are very similar to their company name. That's a service, right? The UK authorities have been clamping down on a lot of these operators... but that's only the UK based ones!
69th way
Exploit people's soppiness. Once upon a time there was a site with lots of lovely pictures of a beautiful little bunny who was very, very happy. And his owner loved him very much. But he needed money so he asked for money on the site and promised that if he did not reach his target he'd eat the bunny. He provided graphic recipes with bunny dish mock-up pictures. Donations followed, fast and swift.
70th way
Relationship Marketing: Who said relationship marketing was about companies building relationships with 
their customers? It's about marketing to relatives. About pimping products to your friends. Whatever the "network marketing" opportunities there ever were offline - from Amway to selling water filters - there's always a lot of stuff you can "personally recommend" to your friends online. People who don't open junk mail will open mail from you, because they trust you! And you can get paid for endorsing all manner of rubbish. (Till you lose all your friends, of course)
their customers? It's about marketing to relatives. About pimping products to your friends. Whatever the "network marketing" opportunities there ever were offline - from Amway to selling water filters - there's always a lot of stuff you can "personally recommend" to your friends online. People who don't open junk mail will open mail from you, because they trust you! And you can get paid for endorsing all manner of rubbish. (Till you lose all your friends, of course)
71st way
Become a volunteer editor in places like DMOZ and then take bribes to list sites. Is it illegal? In many parts of the world it probably is not, and so it does happen a fair bit. But, the less said about this bribery the better..
72nd way
Petitions: People are constantly petitioning their bosses, their politicians, the rest of the world. Some of those petitioners pay for people to join their cause. Signing up again and again and again has proven lucrative for some, particularly those who know how to proxify their IPs (what is a proxy?).
73rd way
Email SPAM. Nobody likes it, it's illegal in some countries, ISPs get very upset, recipients get even more upset but no list of how people make money online can be complete without a mention of this. What do you sell when you spam? Have a look at what type of spam YOU are getting, it will likely give you an idea of what pays. And the stock tips that seem to "accidentally" land in your inbox. But that's about all the help I'm giving you on the subject.
74th way
(But wherever there's a big problem there's an opportunity: Run an free email service like Hotmail etc., but with a good SPAM filtering system. High startup costs, sure, but if you get enough people signing up you could be worth a few million very quickly. Google tried this with gmail and got about 4% of the market without advertising the service at all; accounts were given by invitation only)
76th way
While most webmasters use PPC to refer to Pay Per Click old timers use it jokingly to refer to P*rn (where *=o), Pills and Casinos. Those are probably the three biggest money areas on the net and have probably made more millionaires than any others. But they are very competitive and are difficult markets to er, penetrate. However, there are lots of legal, legitimate opportunities here some of which are expanded on here.
77th way
Example of a pure arbitrage opportunity: For a while buying traffic via Google Adwords and sending that traffic to pages of little content and Google Adsense ads generated reasonable profits when done astutely. Sure, Adwords and Adsense are two sites of the same coin. But I did say you needed to be astute to recognise where the opportunities were and you need to test, test, test. There are still lots of contexual arbitrage opportunities about. Especially when you work across programs (e.g., buy traffic from MSN, sell to Yahoo).
78th way
There are a lot of arbitrage opportunities in the finance world as discussed below but if economics and finance talk bores you to death, there's sports arbitrage. Different online bookmakers may offer different odds on a sporting event. By taking the better odds at each bookie you could come out ahead irrespective of the actual outcome of the event. If you're really clever you could make a program to do this for you. Why don't the bookies adjust their odds based on what their competitors are offering? Because they have to balance their own books. Their prices are decided based on how their own punters are betting.
79TH WAY
Hosting: You don't need to buy a lot of server hardware to provide a web hosting service. Many big hosting 
companies allow "reseller" accounts where you sell hosting plans to customers and the hosting company will host them all for you under your Reseller account umbrella. You get to charge customers as much as you want. Some Resellers provide value added services and charge more for these. At places like WHT 'll find that resellers sometimes sell their customers as a "bundle" i.e., you can pay some money to buy a reseller "business".
companies allow "reseller" accounts where you sell hosting plans to customers and the hosting company will host them all for you under your Reseller account umbrella. You get to charge customers as much as you want. Some Resellers provide value added services and charge more for these. At places like WHT 'll find that resellers sometimes sell their customers as a "bundle" i.e., you can pay some money to buy a reseller "business".
80th way
Related to the above is free hosting where you provide small website owners free hosting and in exchange you serve ads to all their pages to make the revenue to pay the hosting company and yourself. Early pioneers of this model are well known names like Geocities and Angelfire.
81st way
Being a broker can be done in a thousand different ways. There are some entrepreneurs making healthy profits just by bidding for projects on places like elance and guru (and others) and farming them out to a bank of writers/programmers they use on a regular basis.
82nd way
Trading from home is really catching on in many parts of the world. You don't need to be an expert on stocks & shares. You can trade on commodities, currencies, lots more. Trading futures allows you to leverage even small $100 amounts of capital into huge fortunes (or bankruptcy).
83rd way
Gambling is a far cry from trading futures but a route to riches for many. No, not the traditional horse racing type of gambling where the only long term winner is the bookmaker. I'm talking gambling against other gamblers, I'm talking the numerous ways of gambling online (search). And there are a million books and ebooks that claim to "teach you how to win".
84th way
HYIP, or High Yield Investment Programs are just what 
they say on the tin. They are also highly risky. You invests your money and you takes a chance, but some pay as much as 100% per day How do they do it? . A very few are putting your money into investments with even better rates of return. Others are simply going to keep paying out the first few customers with investments collected from later ones.... and then they go bust. Pyramid style. Maybe the ones who make the money are the ones who get in early... or actually start HYIP programs.
they say on the tin. They are also highly risky. You invests your money and you takes a chance, but some pay as much as 100% per day How do they do it? . A very few are putting your money into investments with even better rates of return. Others are simply going to keep paying out the first few customers with investments collected from later ones.... and then they go bust. Pyramid style. Maybe the ones who make the money are the ones who get in early... or actually start HYIP programs.
85th way
What's it with eBay? You just can't get away from them. Their bulk "dictionary purchase" of ad terms from the Google Adwords/Adsense system means you find ads for eBay no matter what you're looking for, even if it's for toenail clippings or dead pets. Whatever the reason for their success you can join the bandwagon and sell your rubbish on eBay and convert a garage of old junk to hard cash.
86th way
And when you've acquired a fair amount of experience with selling your own rubbish, start selling others' rubbish. How to get your hands on enough trash? Place an ad in your local paper to do house clearances, or just buy stock from wholesalers in - yes, you guessed it - eBay itself. You can get anything from unused toasters to umbilical cord containers. A lot of ebay sellers are actually shopkeepers; they buy stock new from wholesalers and sell them in eBay instead of a physical bricks and mortar shop... and make a healthy living doing so
87th way
You've now got a lot of experience buying and selling in eBay. It's time to write a book or ebook on how to use ebay to generate millions. It doesn't matter that you haven't made millions yourself. People still buy these books even if it's just to learn their way about ebay which can be quite daunting for some. And you can sell it on ... you guessed!
88th way
Don't fancy writing? Then set yourself up as an eBAY assistance. eBay itself will send you people who need help with their complicated system. And you can charge them a commission.
89th way
Alternatively, setup a shop to accept goods from those who can't list them themselves. Yes, a physical shop. There are lots of them springing up all in big cities. The operation is simple. You take something in from somebody, sell it on ebay and retain a percentage for all your efforts.
90th way
Think building an ebay business is too much like building a normal business? If you've got the capital you can take the easy route. A lot of ebay "shop" (businesses) come up for sale in site-for-sale forums and with buisness brokers. The ebay username and feedback generally accompanies the business so you continue to benefit from accumulated goodwill (though the "transfer" is something that eBay may not approve of).
91st way
Opportunities to make money in eBay are limited only by your imagination. There's money in everything from making connections (putting people in touch with other people) to coming up with or commissioning software to make the average ebayer's life simpler or more productive (thousands of such programs already exist). There's even a business model involving just searching for and finding items that have been misspelt in the listings.
92 way
t's not just eBay. Any merchant big enough or third party affiliate manager program - from Commission Junction to Clickbank - has opportunities. For example, you can create an Amazon affiliate site.
93rd way
Set up a proxy (example). People seem to want to surf at work AND access sites their IT system blocks them from viewing. A proxy allows them to get around that restriction. Some proxy services get by just on the advertising (as it's easy to get enormous page views in the proxy business). A very good one will even have people paying a few dollars each. There are several ways to monetise a proxy.
94th way
Enjoy networking? Social networking Web 2.0 style? Make money with it. If you build up sufficient reputation in places like Digg people will start approaching you to start some buzz on their company or their new product. At one point Netscape offered top "Diggers" a sweetener os $1,000 to move over to their competing service
95th way
Selling databases of parts/directory listings/modified or value added DMOZ data / email lists. The DMOZ directory is a massive directory put together by volunteer editors. And they give away their content for free. Kind of. You can download their database and combine it with other information - like phone number and postcode from Yellow pages- to add value / enhance those listings. You could then sell the enhanced product.
96th way
right for a particular job? Make the connection between friend and employer and you could get up to $5,000 for a few hours work.
97th way
Get paid for your unused computer cycles. Is your computer sometimes on while you aren't actually sitting at it? Then it's using electricity but not performing "work". Joining a distributed computing group like SETI lets you use that computing power to help reach some worthy/unworthy goal. However, you can also USE THOSE CYCLES TO EARN MONEY by selling them to companies who have large computing tasks then can't do completely in-house.
98th WAY
Take the cap around: Do something nice. Provide some information that helps someone, perhaps someone grieving for a lost partner. Or info on how to volunteer to help orphans in Africa, or find an internship. Make it useful. Or just make it very funny. Then stick a donation button on there for people to support your work. You'll be surprised at how well a donation button works on the right type of site. No, it won't work on this page - or any page promising to make you a millionaire.
99th WAY
Start an article directory. Giving away free articles (with embedded links) is one way for webmasters to build incoming links to their sites. For other webmasters these free articles are a great way to fill out their otherwise bare sites. Be the middleman. Popular article directories make a lot of money from the contexual adds they post on all the free articles they are displaying on their site.
100th way
Start a content site: The most common way webmasters earn money is probably contextual programs like YPN and ADSONAR. But mainly ADSENSE. It's simple, quick, doesn't involve any complicated new skills. You simply put up a website with useful/informative content and some Google provided code, get a few links to the page and wait. Traffic will start flowing to it. The volume would depend on the topic and quality of content. Visitors would see ads served by Google and related to the content of the page. Each time they click on an ad you get anywhere from a few cents to several dollars. I personally know at least 20 webmasters who earn in excess of $10,000 per month this way. There are thousands of other
The 101st method is my personal favourite because I find it hilarious:
There was this bloke who bought an email list of one million email addresses. He sent half of them a stock tip that a certain stock was going up, the other half got the same message predicting that the stock would go down. 50% of them saw him proved right. He ignored the rest and split this 50% into two groups. Half got an email with another up prediction and the other half got the same email with a down prediction. He rinsed and repeated a few times till he was left with about 15,000 people who saw him get it right several times in a row. They were obviously very impressed. He then invited them to pay $5,000 each for a seminar with him on picking stocks! :)
CONCLUSION
I make a healthy living online, and with multiple income streams (no I won't tell you how much. Remember, I'm not trying to sell you anything). I put this article together originally because friends and family kept harassing me to show them what I did for a living so they could do it too. I collected some of the ideas for things I had done myself, got some more from the thousands of site-for-sale threads (and detailed conversations I've had with those sellers), and threw some more obscure/zany ones in here for good measure.
Don’t Fall Into Traps When Looking To Make Money Online
It can be very rewarding getting involved in internet marketing and starting your own online business, but one must be careful not to fall into some of the inherent traps that come with starting out working on the internet. There are plenty of people out there that design programs to target beginners and take their money. It is very real that fortunes can be made on the internet but care must be taken to identify these scams and steer clear. Only when one has found a suitable program with the support required that one can start to make money online.
The number of people looking for ways to earn extra money online has increased dramatically and so has the number of clever people looking at ways to scam them. If you entered a key phrase into the search engines relating to working from home you will be presented with millions of businesses offering their services or products that will make you rich. It is difficult to find the legitimate ones out of all the scammers. Dont fall into the trap of thinking that you can get rich overnight like many of these businesses claim they can do for you. People do make money on the internet and lots of it, but overnight successes stories are far and few between these sorts of programs should be avoided. Never part with your bank details unless you are 100% sure that the website is genuine and secure, it is not unheard of for these people to loot your bank account and vanish from the web never to be seen again.
Identify scammers
The program must tell you exactly how you will be able to make money on their program. It is important to understand exactly what you will do or how will you make money prior to make commitment. Scam websites will just keep on telling how much money you will earn. But the details of how the process would be are missing since they themselves dont really know how they could earn that much money in a certain period of time. In addition, a legitimate money making program should offer you training program to help you get on the right track. If you are dealing with a money making program which do not offer training, it is better to move to the next program.
A genuine money making business should have no problems with providing you with contact information, in fact a genuine business will be bending over backwards to contact you. You should look for an email address that is immediately associated with the company in question, (ex.name@companywebsite.com) also one should be looking for telephone numbers and an address. Testing the telephone number is a good idea and if it is genuine you should be able to speak to somebody regarding the business. If there are no contact details then it is almost certainly a scam and should be well avoided.
How do I start to make genuine income.
The best and real method to earn money online is to create your website and blog. This will be your very own business. If you give more dedication to it, it will surely help you in earning sufficient income. At the start, the income may be slightly lower than what you would expect but as time passes by, you will receive more traffic which will result in more income. Apart from blogs, there are other genuine jobs like freelancing which includes jobs like paid surveys, data entry jobs, article writing, web designing, etc. If you are looking for a more simple way to earn income then you can go marketting
Marketing another company to gain commissions is by far one of the best and most rewarding ways to earn a living from the internet. affialate marketing as this is known is when you refer more people to become affiliates of the same company for which you receive commissions on the joining fee. These programs differ from one to the next and their training and compensation plan is important to investigate. Once you find the right program and you build your team, residual income is imminent and will snowball in its entirety.
About the Author:
Adam Woods has searcwasd for ways to earn money online for many years. Many of twas programs that Adam tried simply didn’t have twas support or training that was required. It wasn’t until Adam partnered up with Eric cole, one of twas U.K. and U.S.A’s top earners, that everthing changed.
Introduction To Online Business 1-2-3
As you read these words, there are millions of people making a full-time income on the internet, working part-time hours from the comfort of their own home. These people set their own working hours, live wherever they choose to live and have a ton of spare time (and money) to spend with their family and friends, simply doing things they love to do.
Does this sound like something you would like to be doing?
Well, rest assured, you’ve made the right decision if you would… Because you’re about to learn everything you need to know to get started on your internet business and be pointed in the right direction towards online business success.
In this guide, you’ll not only learn the basics to starting an internet business but you’ll also learn about the many different online business models you can choose.
You can even analyze over 50 successful online businesses which you can then imitate!
But before we get started, just so you’re as excited as I am about doing business online.
Here are some of the main reasons most people decide to start an online business:
• It takes very little money to start
Unlike a business in the “real world”, an online business DOES NOT need a lot of start up money. All you need is an idea, a domain name, internet access and hosting…all of which can be obtained for very little indeed.
• You choose when you work
Who says you must work from 9 to 5 everyday? People who are NOT Internet Business owners!
The Internet Business is the biggest proof why the statement “working from 9 to 5” is no longer true. With an Internet Business, you don’t have to wake up in the wee hours of the morning so that you can get to work by 9am anymore. You can start work at anytime since you’re your own boss!
• Work from the comfort of your own home
Where you put your computer is where you’ll be working! And since you’re going to be working from home, you’ll be saving at least two hours of your time each day by not having to travel to and from your work place – during rush hours when everybody else is going to work or heading home.
That means you’ll be saving at least 730 hours a year! Wouldn’t you shudder at the thought of wasting 730 hours a year doing nothing productive?
• With the internet, the whole world is your market!
By sitting in front of the computer, everyone in the world is now within your reach. You leverage on free or low-cost software and hardware and the Internet Infrastructure, all of which when combined will give you leveraging power that far exceeds any conventional business, allowing you to achieve more and more with less and less work!
• You can fully automate your online business
If properly set up, some Internet Business models can be fully automated. I have a number of fully automated income streams at present.
• No need to work 8 hours a days every single day
Once you’ve automated your Internet Business in some way, you can use the time you save to start other income streams, improve your existing business, or however you like.
You just spend the time online checking your e-mail, promoting and expanding your business – all in front of your computer. And there’s absolutely no need to spend even more than four hours online.
• Spend more time with family and friends
Owning an Internet Business allows you to spend more time with your family, or watch your children grow up. This is what most busy parents crave for.
If you’re one of them, then you’ll do well to seriously consider starting an Internet Business.
• Your online business can be all about your hobbies and passions
And this is my favorite reason for anybody wanting to start an Internet Business! The Internet Business allows your passion and dream to come to life, which is also the most important component of any businesses.
• Online businesses have very little expenses
Believe it or not, some Internet Businesses can be set up and running at zero cost, if not a very low cost. Other Internet Businesses can be run with monthly operational expenses so low that they’re negligible!
• You can have more that one!
Since the cost of setting up and running an Internet Business is so low, and you can automate their operations, you can operate multiple Internet Businesses as a one-person Internet Business owner. You don’t need to hire employees since your Internet Business system is doing most of the job, if not all, for you. It works 24/7 for you. It won’t call in sick. It won’t give any excuses. And it definitely won’t blame you if it ever had problems!
• The internet is a huge market (the whole world) and it’s getting bigger as you read these words
According to the Computer Industry Almanac, there were 934 million Internet users up to September 2004; and there will be 1.07 billion in this year.
Now, is there any doubt that a 934 million-user pool is a very attractive target given the leverage you have on the Internet?
Given all the wonderful reasons for starting your very own Internet Business, I’m sure that by now you have already made up your mind whether starting an Internet Business is for you…
TIPS TO INCREASE BLOG TRAFFIC & RANKINGS
How To Boost The Rankings Of Your Pages
It is worth cataloguing the basic principles to be enforced to increase website traffic and search engine rankings.
Create a site with valuable content, products or services.
Place primary and secondary keywords within the first 25 words in your page content and spread them evenly throughout the document.
Research and use the right keywords/phrases to attract your target customers.
Use your keywords in the right fields and references within your web page. Like Title, META tags, Headers, etc.
Keep your site design simple so that your customers can navigate easily between web pages, find what they want and buy products and services.
Submit your web pages i.e. every web page and not just the home page, to the most popular search engines and directory services. Hire someone to do so, if required. Be sure this is a manual submission. Do not engage an automated submission service.
Keep track of changes in search engine algorithms and processes and accordingly modify your web pages so your search engine ranking remains high. Use online tools and utilities to keep track of how your website is doing.
Monitor your competitors and the top ranked websites to see what they are doing right in the way of design, navigation, content, keywords, etc.
Use reports and logs from your web hosting company to see where your traffic is coming from. Analyze your visitor location and their incoming sources whether search engines or links from other sites and the keywords they used to find you.
Make your customer visit easy and give them plenty of ways to remember you in the form of newsletters, free reports, reduction coupons etc.
Demonstrate your industry and product or service expertise by writing and submitting articles for your website or for article banks so you are perceived as an expert in your field.
When selling products online, use simple payment and shipment methods to make your customer's experience fast and easy.
When not sure, hire professionals. Though it may seem costly, but it is a lot less expensive than spending your money on a website which no one visits.
Don't look at your website as a static brochure. Treat it as a dynamic, ever-changing sales tool and location, just like your real store to which your customers with the same seriousness.
Experts feel that web pages have to be search engine friendly in order to improve search engine rankings. Having a well designed and relevant web copy is crucial. This will help search engines easily index your web pages and rank them high.
It is worth cataloguing the basic principles to be enforced to increase website traffic and search engine rankings.
Create a site with valuable content, products or services.
Place primary and secondary keywords within the first 25 words in your page content and spread them evenly throughout the document.
Research and use the right keywords/phrases to attract your target customers.
Use your keywords in the right fields and references within your web page. Like Title, META tags, Headers, etc.
Keep your site design simple so that your customers can navigate easily between web pages, find what they want and buy products and services.
Submit your web pages i.e. every web page and not just the home page, to the most popular search engines and directory services. Hire someone to do so, if required. Be sure this is a manual submission. Do not engage an automated submission service.
Keep track of changes in search engine algorithms and processes and accordingly modify your web pages so your search engine ranking remains high. Use online tools and utilities to keep track of how your website is doing.
Monitor your competitors and the top ranked websites to see what they are doing right in the way of design, navigation, content, keywords, etc.
Use reports and logs from your web hosting company to see where your traffic is coming from. Analyze your visitor location and their incoming sources whether search engines or links from other sites and the keywords they used to find you.
Make your customer visit easy and give them plenty of ways to remember you in the form of newsletters, free reports, reduction coupons etc.
Demonstrate your industry and product or service expertise by writing and submitting articles for your website or for article banks so you are perceived as an expert in your field.
When selling products online, use simple payment and shipment methods to make your customer's experience fast and easy.
When not sure, hire professionals. Though it may seem costly, but it is a lot less expensive than spending your money on a website which no one visits.
Don't look at your website as a static brochure. Treat it as a dynamic, ever-changing sales tool and location, just like your real store to which your customers with the same seriousness.
Experts feel that web pages have to be search engine friendly in order to improve search engine rankings. Having a well designed and relevant web copy is crucial. This will help search engines easily index your web pages and rank them high.
ATTRACT VISITORS TO YOUR BLOG OR WEBSITE
TOO MANY WEB MARKETERS work on the if-you-build-it-they-will-come model. They won't. Once you build a Web site you must give them a reason to come. A Web site is a passive form of marketing: providing a signboard which points visitors to your products and services. To be most effective, a Web site should be used in conjunction with seven active forms of marketing which we will examine briefly in this article. Just how do small business people on a limited budget entice visitors to their Web site?
First, advertise your Web site to Web search engines that index the Web, such as Yahoo, Lycos, WebCrawler, and InfoSeek. The actual registration process can be deceptively simple. A service called SubmitIt! (http://www.submit-it.com) provides a way to submit information to approximately 15 of the most important indexes. If you do this late at night when Internet traffic is at its lowest, you can transmit your business's on-line address and description to all of these within three-quarters of an hour. Done right, a person who is seeking a consulting engineer in Northern California with experience in large electrical systems will quickly locate your name. Widget customers will be able to pick you out from the increasing crowd of on-line vendors.
The danger is that the untutored can construct a carelessly-written 25-word or 200-character marketing description that blows their opportunity to be seen by vast blocks of potential customers. These 25 words must be written to include the chief keywords by which customers would locate you. If you want to change your description in a month or two, it takes much longer than an hour to contact each of the services separately, and then convince or nag them into making changes.
You can pay modest amounts to several services to perform this important task for you. For example, my company, Wilson Internet Services, offers as part of our website packages to carefully register your Web site with the most important indexes.
2. Second, you must give them a good reason to come. A tried-and-true marketing approach is to offer something of value for free. A number of well-financed corporate Web sites offer an entertaining fare which changes constantly. While most small business Web marketers can't afford to compete, you can afford to offer valuable information. If you take the time to provide up-to-date information about your industry, for example, you'll find people returning again and again to your site, each time increasing their chances of doing business with you.
3. A third approach is to find industry-wide linking pages and negotiate reciprocal links to and from their Web pages. Your trade association probably lists members. Several on-line craft centers, for example, offer free links to other crafters. If you are a hotel, be sure to get a link with "All the Hotels on the Web" Consultants will seek links with The Expert Marketplace, or try for a listing in the Virtual Trade Show. The entire list can seem endless, but specific for each industry. Surf the net enough to find which are the key sites for your field, and then seek links there.
4. A fourth method is to purchase Web advertising--usually a rectangle ad with a clickable link to your site on a carefully-selected, high-volume Web site. A certain percentage of their thousands of visitors will explore you Web site, and hopefully like what they find. A whole industry has sprung up to act as brokers for such ads .Small business people will need to find ways to test the effect of specific ads on the bottom line, perhaps by sending people from each ad to a different Web page "front door" so you can monitor traffic from each ad.
5. A fifth important way to let people know about your Web site is to become active in several of the thousands of Internet news groups and mailing lists. Find the groups that are most likely to be frequented by your potential customers--groups can be very narrowly targeted--and join in the discussion. You might find groups that relate to your industry by doing a bit of research with DejaNews (http://www.dejanews.com), which searches messages about particular topics or companies voiced in thousands of news groups and mailing lists.
"Lurk" for a few weeks so you understand the particular culture of the group you are targeting. Then find ways to add constructive comments to the discussion. At the bottom of each message include a "signature"--a 4- to 8-line mini-advertisement with your product, phone number, and Web address. Every time you contribute to the discussion, your mini-ad is seen by hundreds. You'll find considerable fruit this way, but like anything, it comes in response to hard work and persistence. Resist the temptation to send bulk e-mail messages to dozens of news groups--"spamming" in Internet parlance. People do it, but while it may bring customers, it doesn't offer the solid reputation and respect which will build your business in the long run.
6. Sixth, make your Web site part of one or more of the many "malls." Businesses in physical shopping malls benefit from the traffic flow of multitudes window shopping. The same can be true on-line.
Some malls only include businesses who subscribe to a particular Internet Service Provider (ISP) or pay a fee or percentage of their gross revenues. Others take any business that fits their particular criteria. Dave Taylor, for example, developed The Internet Mall (http://www.internet-mall.com/), a collection of upwards of 30,000+ businesses that meet under one roof. The mall is illusory, however, since businesses in the mall are hosted on separate ISP sites all over the world. Perhaps the largest mall, if you will, is Yahoo (http://www.yahoo.com), which doesn't charge anything, but gets its revenues through advertising. Make sure you have a good link there.
7. Finally, include your e-mail and Web addresses on all your company's print literature, stationery, and display advertising. If people believe they can find out more about your products or services by looking on-line, many will do so.
There you have it, seven important ways to increase traffic to your company's Web site. If you use most or all of these forms of marketing, the chances are that two years from now you'll be bragging about your foresight in developing a Web site when you did, rather than trashing Web marketing as just another fad where you threw good money after bad.
First, advertise your Web site to Web search engines that index the Web, such as Yahoo, Lycos, WebCrawler, and InfoSeek. The actual registration process can be deceptively simple. A service called SubmitIt! (http://www.submit-it.com) provides a way to submit information to approximately 15 of the most important indexes. If you do this late at night when Internet traffic is at its lowest, you can transmit your business's on-line address and description to all of these within three-quarters of an hour. Done right, a person who is seeking a consulting engineer in Northern California with experience in large electrical systems will quickly locate your name. Widget customers will be able to pick you out from the increasing crowd of on-line vendors.
The danger is that the untutored can construct a carelessly-written 25-word or 200-character marketing description that blows their opportunity to be seen by vast blocks of potential customers. These 25 words must be written to include the chief keywords by which customers would locate you. If you want to change your description in a month or two, it takes much longer than an hour to contact each of the services separately, and then convince or nag them into making changes.
You can pay modest amounts to several services to perform this important task for you. For example, my company, Wilson Internet Services, offers as part of our website packages to carefully register your Web site with the most important indexes.
2. Second, you must give them a good reason to come. A tried-and-true marketing approach is to offer something of value for free. A number of well-financed corporate Web sites offer an entertaining fare which changes constantly. While most small business Web marketers can't afford to compete, you can afford to offer valuable information. If you take the time to provide up-to-date information about your industry, for example, you'll find people returning again and again to your site, each time increasing their chances of doing business with you.
3. A third approach is to find industry-wide linking pages and negotiate reciprocal links to and from their Web pages. Your trade association probably lists members. Several on-line craft centers, for example, offer free links to other crafters. If you are a hotel, be sure to get a link with "All the Hotels on the Web" Consultants will seek links with The Expert Marketplace, or try for a listing in the Virtual Trade Show. The entire list can seem endless, but specific for each industry. Surf the net enough to find which are the key sites for your field, and then seek links there.
4. A fourth method is to purchase Web advertising--usually a rectangle ad with a clickable link to your site on a carefully-selected, high-volume Web site. A certain percentage of their thousands of visitors will explore you Web site, and hopefully like what they find. A whole industry has sprung up to act as brokers for such ads .Small business people will need to find ways to test the effect of specific ads on the bottom line, perhaps by sending people from each ad to a different Web page "front door" so you can monitor traffic from each ad.
5. A fifth important way to let people know about your Web site is to become active in several of the thousands of Internet news groups and mailing lists. Find the groups that are most likely to be frequented by your potential customers--groups can be very narrowly targeted--and join in the discussion. You might find groups that relate to your industry by doing a bit of research with DejaNews (http://www.dejanews.com), which searches messages about particular topics or companies voiced in thousands of news groups and mailing lists.
"Lurk" for a few weeks so you understand the particular culture of the group you are targeting. Then find ways to add constructive comments to the discussion. At the bottom of each message include a "signature"--a 4- to 8-line mini-advertisement with your product, phone number, and Web address. Every time you contribute to the discussion, your mini-ad is seen by hundreds. You'll find considerable fruit this way, but like anything, it comes in response to hard work and persistence. Resist the temptation to send bulk e-mail messages to dozens of news groups--"spamming" in Internet parlance. People do it, but while it may bring customers, it doesn't offer the solid reputation and respect which will build your business in the long run.
6. Sixth, make your Web site part of one or more of the many "malls." Businesses in physical shopping malls benefit from the traffic flow of multitudes window shopping. The same can be true on-line.
Some malls only include businesses who subscribe to a particular Internet Service Provider (ISP) or pay a fee or percentage of their gross revenues. Others take any business that fits their particular criteria. Dave Taylor, for example, developed The Internet Mall (http://www.internet-mall.com/), a collection of upwards of 30,000+ businesses that meet under one roof. The mall is illusory, however, since businesses in the mall are hosted on separate ISP sites all over the world. Perhaps the largest mall, if you will, is Yahoo (http://www.yahoo.com), which doesn't charge anything, but gets its revenues through advertising. Make sure you have a good link there.
7. Finally, include your e-mail and Web addresses on all your company's print literature, stationery, and display advertising. If people believe they can find out more about your products or services by looking on-line, many will do so.
There you have it, seven important ways to increase traffic to your company's Web site. If you use most or all of these forms of marketing, the chances are that two years from now you'll be bragging about your foresight in developing a Web site when you did, rather than trashing Web marketing as just another fad where you threw good money after bad.
HOW ALEXA COMPUTES PR TO A WEBSITE OR BLOG
Alexa computes traffic rankings by analyzing the Web usage of millions of Alexa Toolbar users. The information is sorted, sifted, anonymized, counted, and computed, until, finally, we get the traffic rankings shown in the Alexa service. The process is relatively complex, but if you have a need to know, please read on.
What is Traffic Rank?
The traffic rank is based on three months of aggregated historical traffic data from millions of Alexa Toolbar users and is a combined measure of page views and users (reach). As a first step, Alexa computes the reach and number of page views for all sites on the Web on a daily basis. The main Alexa traffic rank is based on the geometric mean of these two quantities averaged over time (so that the rank of a site reflects both the number of users who visit that site as well as the number of pages on the site viewed by those users). The three-month change is determined by comparing the site's current rank with its rank from three months ago. For example, on July 1, the three-month change would show the difference between the rank based on traffic during the first quarter of the year and the rank based on traffic during the second quarter.
What are sites and Web hosts?
Traffic is computed for sites, which are typically defined at the domain level. For example, the Web hosts www.msn.com, carpoint.msn.com and slate.msn.com are all treated as part of the same site, because they all reside on the same domain, msn.com. An exception is blogs or personal home pages, which are treated separately if they can be automatically identified as such from the URLs in question. Also, sites which are found to be serving the "same" content are generally counted together as the same site.
What is Reach?
Reach measures the number of users. Reach is typically expressed as the percentage of all Internet users who visit a given site. So, for example, if a site like yahoo.com has a reach of 28%, this means that of all global Internet users measured by Alexa, 28% of them visit yahoo.com. Alexa's one-week and three-month average reach are measures of daily reach, averaged over the specified time period. The three-month change is determined by comparing a site's current reach with its values from three months ago.
What are Page Views?
Page views measure the number of pages viewed by Alexa Toolbar users. Multiple page views of the same page made by the same user on the same day are counted only once. The page views per user numbers are the average numbers of unique pages viewed per user per day by the users visiting the site. The three-month change is determined by comparing a site's current page view numbers with those from three month ago.
How Are Traffic Trend Graphs Calculated?
The Trend graph shows you a three-day moving average of the site's daily traffic rank, charted over time. The daily traffic rank reflects the traffic to the site based on data for a single day. In contrast, the main traffic rank shown in the Alexa Toolbar and elsewhere in the service is calculated from three months of aggregate traffic data.
Daily traffic rankings will sometimes benefit sites with sporadically high traffic, while the three-month traffic ranking benefits sites with consistent traffic over time. Since we feel that consistent traffic is a better indication of a site's value, we've chosen to use the three-month traffic rank to represent the site's overall popularity. We use the daily traffic rank in the Trend graphs because it allows you to see short-term fluctuations in traffic much more clearly.
It is possible for a site's three-month traffic rank to be higher than any single daily rank shown in the Trend graph. On any given day there may be many sites that temporarily shoot up in the rankings. But if a site has consistent traffic performance, it may end up with the best ranking when the traffic data are aggregated into the three-month average. A good analogy is a four-day golf tournament: if a different player comes in first at each match, but you come in second at all four matches, you can end up winning the tournament.
How are Movers & Shakers Calculated?
The movers and shakers list is based on changes in average reach (numbers of users). For each site on the net, we compute the average weekly reach and compare it with the average reach during previous weeks. The more significant the change, the higher the site will be on the list. The percent change shown on the Movers & Shakers list is based on the change in reach. It is important to note that the traffic rankings shown on the Movers & Shakers page are weekly traffic rankings; they are not the same as the three-month average traffic rankings shown in the other Alexa services and are not the same as the reach numbers used to generate the list.
What is Traffic Rank?
The traffic rank is based on three months of aggregated historical traffic data from millions of Alexa Toolbar users and is a combined measure of page views and users (reach). As a first step, Alexa computes the reach and number of page views for all sites on the Web on a daily basis. The main Alexa traffic rank is based on the geometric mean of these two quantities averaged over time (so that the rank of a site reflects both the number of users who visit that site as well as the number of pages on the site viewed by those users). The three-month change is determined by comparing the site's current rank with its rank from three months ago. For example, on July 1, the three-month change would show the difference between the rank based on traffic during the first quarter of the year and the rank based on traffic during the second quarter.
What are sites and Web hosts?
Traffic is computed for sites, which are typically defined at the domain level. For example, the Web hosts www.msn.com, carpoint.msn.com and slate.msn.com are all treated as part of the same site, because they all reside on the same domain, msn.com. An exception is blogs or personal home pages, which are treated separately if they can be automatically identified as such from the URLs in question. Also, sites which are found to be serving the "same" content are generally counted together as the same site.
What is Reach?
Reach measures the number of users. Reach is typically expressed as the percentage of all Internet users who visit a given site. So, for example, if a site like yahoo.com has a reach of 28%, this means that of all global Internet users measured by Alexa, 28% of them visit yahoo.com. Alexa's one-week and three-month average reach are measures of daily reach, averaged over the specified time period. The three-month change is determined by comparing a site's current reach with its values from three months ago.
What are Page Views?
Page views measure the number of pages viewed by Alexa Toolbar users. Multiple page views of the same page made by the same user on the same day are counted only once. The page views per user numbers are the average numbers of unique pages viewed per user per day by the users visiting the site. The three-month change is determined by comparing a site's current page view numbers with those from three month ago.
How Are Traffic Trend Graphs Calculated?
The Trend graph shows you a three-day moving average of the site's daily traffic rank, charted over time. The daily traffic rank reflects the traffic to the site based on data for a single day. In contrast, the main traffic rank shown in the Alexa Toolbar and elsewhere in the service is calculated from three months of aggregate traffic data.
Daily traffic rankings will sometimes benefit sites with sporadically high traffic, while the three-month traffic ranking benefits sites with consistent traffic over time. Since we feel that consistent traffic is a better indication of a site's value, we've chosen to use the three-month traffic rank to represent the site's overall popularity. We use the daily traffic rank in the Trend graphs because it allows you to see short-term fluctuations in traffic much more clearly.
It is possible for a site's three-month traffic rank to be higher than any single daily rank shown in the Trend graph. On any given day there may be many sites that temporarily shoot up in the rankings. But if a site has consistent traffic performance, it may end up with the best ranking when the traffic data are aggregated into the three-month average. A good analogy is a four-day golf tournament: if a different player comes in first at each match, but you come in second at all four matches, you can end up winning the tournament.
How are Movers & Shakers Calculated?
The movers and shakers list is based on changes in average reach (numbers of users). For each site on the net, we compute the average weekly reach and compare it with the average reach during previous weeks. The more significant the change, the higher the site will be on the list. The percent change shown on the Movers & Shakers list is based on the change in reach. It is important to note that the traffic rankings shown on the Movers & Shakers page are weekly traffic rankings; they are not the same as the three-month average traffic rankings shown in the other Alexa services and are not the same as the reach numbers used to generate the list.
Selling an e-book
E-books always have and always be big sellers
online no matter what anyone says. The fact that
you can get information in your possession in a
matter of minutes makes e-books a big winner over
physical products.
Of course there are down sides to every business,
and the e-book business is no different. The
biggest complaint about e-books are the fact people
are either A) buying them and asking for refunds or
B) illegally giving away and selling the authors
work without their consent.
But even though there are downsides, it is still
more than worth it to sell your own e-book. Because
the upsides greatly, and I do mean greatly outweigh
the downsides.
To start, it costs virtually nothing to create e-
books. All you need is to think of a hot subject,
do some research and make that research into a
book.
If you want more info on creating e-books, here are
a few good resources:
http://www.ebook-marketing-revealed.com/
http://www.7dayebook.com/
online no matter what anyone says. The fact that
you can get information in your possession in a
matter of minutes makes e-books a big winner over
physical products.
Of course there are down sides to every business,
and the e-book business is no different. The
biggest complaint about e-books are the fact people
are either A) buying them and asking for refunds or
B) illegally giving away and selling the authors
work without their consent.
But even though there are downsides, it is still
more than worth it to sell your own e-book. Because
the upsides greatly, and I do mean greatly outweigh
the downsides.
To start, it costs virtually nothing to create e-
books. All you need is to think of a hot subject,
do some research and make that research into a
book.
If you want more info on creating e-books, here are
a few good resources:
http://www.ebook-marketing-revealed.com/
http://www.7dayebook.com/
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1. Invite Friends and get them to invite theirs. Mint Money! (Rs. 110 for 20 friends)
2. Choose to receive relevant SMS Promos. Mint even more money! (Approx Rs. 650 a month)
3. Send Free SMS to anyone in India!
4. Its fun find out unlimited free wallpapers and pictures messages for your mobile phone
YouMint is backed by international investors of great fame and the same guys who started the mobile short code revolution in India!
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Today's Currency World
In the 30 years since the collapse of the last gentlemanly agreement on currency rates, many momentous events have occurred that have affected currencies worldwide. The Japanese yen gained prominence because of Japan's heavy export relationship with the United States. The USSR collapsed. We have had several undeclared wars, the south Asian economies have risen and collapsed, and several investor bubbles have come and gone.
Each time, currencies have come away with a newly earned respect by the masses. There has also been a constant element of surprise that keeps you guessing what's next.
Current conditions, such as the United States' perpetual war on “terror”, the permanent introduction and dominance of the euro currency, the steady O.P.E.C. increases in oil prices, and gold's renaissance as a store of value, will likely have a tremendous impact on the future of what it means to trade currencies.
This could be a fundamental shift in the next phase of currency development.
Each time, currencies have come away with a newly earned respect by the masses. There has also been a constant element of surprise that keeps you guessing what's next.
Current conditions, such as the United States' perpetual war on “terror”, the permanent introduction and dominance of the euro currency, the steady O.P.E.C. increases in oil prices, and gold's renaissance as a store of value, will likely have a tremendous impact on the future of what it means to trade currencies.
This could be a fundamental shift in the next phase of currency development.
New Rules of Currency
In 1971, the Smithsonian Agreement replaced the Bretton Woods Agreement and authorized “forward currency contracts”, adding validity to the Eurodollar phenomenon. It didn’t work. A year later the European Joint Float was established. It, and the Smithsonian Agreement, were scrapped in 1973. Even though they were dissolved the concept of “forward currency contracts” stayed as part of the banking system.
Once currencies began to “free-float”, they immediately moved away from their gentlemanly 1% fluctuations on either side to huge price ranges, going anywhere from 20-25% daily.
From 1970-1973, the total foreign exchange volume went from US$25 Billion to US$100 Billion. With oil prices up, gold prices up, and an economy still reeling from the rapid currency shift, “stagflation”, rising inflation while real incomes remained the same, soon hit the United States.
Once currencies began to “free-float”, they immediately moved away from their gentlemanly 1% fluctuations on either side to huge price ranges, going anywhere from 20-25% daily.
From 1970-1973, the total foreign exchange volume went from US$25 Billion to US$100 Billion. With oil prices up, gold prices up, and an economy still reeling from the rapid currency shift, “stagflation”, rising inflation while real incomes remained the same, soon hit the United States.
The 1970's United States Currency Policy Meltdown
Once again, we are hit with the triumvirate of war, the restrictive gold standard, and dollars in foreign banks.
This time, each problem was feeding directly off of the others. The Vietnam Conflict had drained our gold reserves heavily. By 1970, Fort Knox only held US$12 Billion.
The growth of the oil business and the increase in foreign trade caused a boom in the demand for US dollars in foreign banks. Over US$ 47 Billion was sitting in overseas banks.
On paper, our gold reserves were over-leveraged by almost 4 to 1. As a nation, we did not know how to react to such an overbearing assault on our currency. Then along came the invention of the Eurodollar to make our nightmare worse.
Foreign banks with US dollars would make low-interest loans in US dollars to importers and exporters. Although the dollars were never repatriated, the US was still on the hook to exchange these “credit”-created dollars for the gold we kept on reserve.
Then came a miracle in disguise . The Bretton Woods Agreement collapsed. In the over-leveraged gold-dollar environment, many countries began to feel frustrated with the artificial peg.
In blatant defiance to the agreement in 1971, Germany declared that they would float the Deutsche mark. They were tired of the artificial peg that was keeping their economy depressed.
In the first hour of trading, over US$1 billion were exchanged for Deutsche marks. For the first time, the public had voiced their opinion against being so heavily weighted with dollars.
With Germany completely ignoring the Bretton Woods Agreement by floating their currency, the US government had nothing left to do but put the final nail in the coffin of the U.S.'s currency policy. The Bretton Woods Agreement was dissolved.
Three short months after the Deutsche mark began to float, the US moved off of the gold standard. Gold was allowed to float freely like any other currency. Oil, although priced in US dollars, soon switched to a peg against gold. Gold and oil prices jumped ten-fold.
The currency dynamics were soon changed on a global scale and it became accepted practice that countries began to float their own currency.
This time, each problem was feeding directly off of the others. The Vietnam Conflict had drained our gold reserves heavily. By 1970, Fort Knox only held US$12 Billion.
The growth of the oil business and the increase in foreign trade caused a boom in the demand for US dollars in foreign banks. Over US$ 47 Billion was sitting in overseas banks.
On paper, our gold reserves were over-leveraged by almost 4 to 1. As a nation, we did not know how to react to such an overbearing assault on our currency. Then along came the invention of the Eurodollar to make our nightmare worse.
Foreign banks with US dollars would make low-interest loans in US dollars to importers and exporters. Although the dollars were never repatriated, the US was still on the hook to exchange these “credit”-created dollars for the gold we kept on reserve.
Then came a miracle in disguise . The Bretton Woods Agreement collapsed. In the over-leveraged gold-dollar environment, many countries began to feel frustrated with the artificial peg.
In blatant defiance to the agreement in 1971, Germany declared that they would float the Deutsche mark. They were tired of the artificial peg that was keeping their economy depressed.
In the first hour of trading, over US$1 billion were exchanged for Deutsche marks. For the first time, the public had voiced their opinion against being so heavily weighted with dollars.
With Germany completely ignoring the Bretton Woods Agreement by floating their currency, the US government had nothing left to do but put the final nail in the coffin of the U.S.'s currency policy. The Bretton Woods Agreement was dissolved.
Three short months after the Deutsche mark began to float, the US moved off of the gold standard. Gold was allowed to float freely like any other currency. Oil, although priced in US dollars, soon switched to a peg against gold. Gold and oil prices jumped ten-fold.
The currency dynamics were soon changed on a global scale and it became accepted practice that countries began to float their own currency.
Pre-Currency Trading Era – The 1950s
Entering into the 1950s, the United States of America had a distinct advantage over war-torn Europe. While Germany was heavily sanctioned, England, France, Italy, and several other Old World nations were just coming to terms with the heavy investment needed to rebuild their countries.
As a way to make it easier for the rest of the world to rebuild, the Bretton Woods Agreement was adopted. It was innocuously simple: in an effort to keep the United States of America (USA) from buying everything in sight, the Bretton Woods Agreement kept the USA in check by requiring all foreign currencies be pegged to the US Dollar. Some pegs were strong, some pegs were weak, but at the end of the day they never moved more than 1% in any direction. Like today's problem with the Chinese Yuan, forced to a peg against the dollar, it kept a constant, controlled flow of US dollars out of the country.
The peg would not have been so bad if not for the fact that the US dollar also had a unique relationship with gold. Just like currencies, gold was pegged to the dollar at a fixed value of US$35/ounce. What made it even worse was that US currency, at the time, was directly exchangeable for gold. This strategy was fine as long as the Fort Knox gold reserves exceeded $23 billion.
After World War II, the USA became the primary economic super power. Many foreign countries began to acquire US currency in lieu of gold. The dollar gained prominence in a way no other currency ever had before.
At the same time, we began to see the rebuilding of the Old World and foreign trade began to gain momentum. In 1950, foreign countries held US $8 billion. We also saw the oil business begin its ascent as a prominent import/export industry.
As a way to make it easier for the rest of the world to rebuild, the Bretton Woods Agreement was adopted. It was innocuously simple: in an effort to keep the United States of America (USA) from buying everything in sight, the Bretton Woods Agreement kept the USA in check by requiring all foreign currencies be pegged to the US Dollar. Some pegs were strong, some pegs were weak, but at the end of the day they never moved more than 1% in any direction. Like today's problem with the Chinese Yuan, forced to a peg against the dollar, it kept a constant, controlled flow of US dollars out of the country.
The peg would not have been so bad if not for the fact that the US dollar also had a unique relationship with gold. Just like currencies, gold was pegged to the dollar at a fixed value of US$35/ounce. What made it even worse was that US currency, at the time, was directly exchangeable for gold. This strategy was fine as long as the Fort Knox gold reserves exceeded $23 billion.
After World War II, the USA became the primary economic super power. Many foreign countries began to acquire US currency in lieu of gold. The dollar gained prominence in a way no other currency ever had before.
At the same time, we began to see the rebuilding of the Old World and foreign trade began to gain momentum. In 1950, foreign countries held US $8 billion. We also saw the oil business begin its ascent as a prominent import/export industry.
The History of Forex
The Forex trading market is a relatively new phenomenon. Never before in the history of the world have we seen such an amazing event. In only 30 years, this industry has developed from almost nothing to a daily US$1.5 trillion market. How did this happen? Was it by design? Or was it by accident?
Well the answer falls somewhere in between. There are three distinct time frames that set the stage for today's style of currency trading. The first time frame is the pre-currency trading era of the 1950s. The second time frame is the worldwide, politically volatile atmosphere of the 1970s. The third time frame is what has occurred in this free market economy since the demise of the gold standard 30 years ago. In each time frame, there have been three catalysts: war, gold, and foreign banks- that have played a significant role in propelling currency development.
Well the answer falls somewhere in between. There are three distinct time frames that set the stage for today's style of currency trading. The first time frame is the pre-currency trading era of the 1950s. The second time frame is the worldwide, politically volatile atmosphere of the 1970s. The third time frame is what has occurred in this free market economy since the demise of the gold standard 30 years ago. In each time frame, there have been three catalysts: war, gold, and foreign banks- that have played a significant role in propelling currency development.
Friday, July 3, 2009
Forex Trading Secrets: How to Profit from the G8 Summit
Forex Trading Secrets: How to Profit from the G8 Summit
From the beginning of the week until 06:00pm GMT Thursday, virtually every currency was rising against the U.S. dollar. Demand for riskier, higher yielding currencies like the AUD and NZD, along with concerns about growing US debt and future inflation, drove the USD lower despite better than expected news on retail sales and unemployment. Even the lower yielding euro and British pound were in strong multi-day up trends against the USD. Crude oil continued its surge upwards (over 100% since the beginning of the year) as the weakening dollar (in which oil is priced) and lower than expected inventories continued to feed its uptrend.
Then around 06:00pm GMT the dollar got stronger. Why?
Mr. Geithner Goes To Beijing: The Dollar Love-Fest, Part I
Think back to the beginning of June, when Treasury Secretary Geithner made his first trip to China. The Chinese have been one of the principal buyers of US bonds for many years. Thus a very large portion of their cash reserves are in U.S. dollars. Given the rapidly plummeting value of these holdings due to exploding levels of U.S. debt and money supply, they were not pleased, and no doubt wanted to, ahem, politely but firmly express their concern. In order to set the proper mood, in the days prior to the meeting, they publicly suggested replacing the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. No doubt poor Tim got an earful, and perhaps learned a few new Chinese expressions beyond polite greetings and goodbyes (though perhaps common to Chinese translators of Gangsta Rap).
Not surprisingly, then, Geithner proclaimed that the U.S. would support the dollar. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke chimed in a few days later with similar words, though he did backtrack ever so slightly by mentioning something about the banks still possibly needing some help. Reuters mentioned that Chinese and other unnamed “Asian monetary officials” (happy to play their part in covering their own assets) would continue to buy Treasury bonds even if the U.S. lost its AAA rating.
Given at least these token signs of support, the USD strengthened for a few days, as the below hourly chart of the EUR/USD shows in the early days of June.
From the beginning of the week until 06:00pm GMT Thursday, virtually every currency was rising against the U.S. dollar. Demand for riskier, higher yielding currencies like the AUD and NZD, along with concerns about growing US debt and future inflation, drove the USD lower despite better than expected news on retail sales and unemployment. Even the lower yielding euro and British pound were in strong multi-day up trends against the USD. Crude oil continued its surge upwards (over 100% since the beginning of the year) as the weakening dollar (in which oil is priced) and lower than expected inventories continued to feed its uptrend.
Then around 06:00pm GMT the dollar got stronger. Why?
Mr. Geithner Goes To Beijing: The Dollar Love-Fest, Part I
Think back to the beginning of June, when Treasury Secretary Geithner made his first trip to China. The Chinese have been one of the principal buyers of US bonds for many years. Thus a very large portion of their cash reserves are in U.S. dollars. Given the rapidly plummeting value of these holdings due to exploding levels of U.S. debt and money supply, they were not pleased, and no doubt wanted to, ahem, politely but firmly express their concern. In order to set the proper mood, in the days prior to the meeting, they publicly suggested replacing the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. No doubt poor Tim got an earful, and perhaps learned a few new Chinese expressions beyond polite greetings and goodbyes (though perhaps common to Chinese translators of Gangsta Rap).
Not surprisingly, then, Geithner proclaimed that the U.S. would support the dollar. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke chimed in a few days later with similar words, though he did backtrack ever so slightly by mentioning something about the banks still possibly needing some help. Reuters mentioned that Chinese and other unnamed “Asian monetary officials” (happy to play their part in covering their own assets) would continue to buy Treasury bonds even if the U.S. lost its AAA rating.
Given at least these token signs of support, the USD strengthened for a few days, as the below hourly chart of the EUR/USD shows in the early days of June.
The History of Forex
The History of Forex
The Forex trading market is a relatively new phenomenon. Never before in the history of the world have we seen such an amazing event. In only 30 years, this industry has developed from almost nothing to a daily US$1.5 trillion market. How did this happen? Was it by design? Or was it by accident?
Well the answer falls somewhere in between. There are three distinct time frames that set the stage for today's style of currency trading. The first time frame is the pre-currency trading era of the 1950s. The second time frame is the worldwide, politically volatile atmosphere of the 1970s. The third time frame is what has occurred in this free market economy since the demise of the gold standard 30 years ago. In each time frame, there have been three catalysts: war, gold, and foreign banks- that have played a significant role in propelling currency development.
Well the answer falls somewhere in between. There are three distinct time frames that set the stage for today's style of currency trading. The first time frame is the pre-currency trading era of the 1950s. The second time frame is the worldwide, politically volatile atmosphere of the 1970s. The third time frame is what has occurred in this free market economy since the demise of the gold standard 30 years ago. In each time frame, there have been three catalysts: war, gold, and foreign banks- that have played a significant role in propelling currency development.
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