Whenever people are asking about the best ways to make money online, my honest answer is usually "affiliate programs" every time. This will usually lead to questions about which affiliate programs are best, which will make me the most money and how is the best way to promote and sell them. These are probably some of the most common queries from people seeking knowledge and often the answers are either evasive or too generalized to be of much use. The reasons for this are numerous, but it's largely because there really is no simple answer. What is successful for one person may not be of much use to another, and it has to be said that a successful affiliate marketer is unlikely to want to reveal the most successful programs and invite competition.

Before embarking on this long and detailed post, it should be understood that this is article is intended to inform, it provides honest and open details about a system that works for me, and also a lot of other people. However, it does not suggest that anything is guaranteed and I don't claim for one moment that it will appeal to everyone. I hope that having read what I have to say, you will have seen probably the most detailed dissection of the subject written to date.

I should also add that there really are numerous ways to make money online and I recommend that as you learn, you diversify and develop those almost fabled "multiple income streams" because even small checks and deposits to your payment processing accounts add up. Selectively testing and tweaking all your cash generating ideas may see only small returns individually on some, but the collective rewards can often be very worthwhile.

That was a pretty long introduction, but I hope you will persevere! What I am going to introduce you to is a simple concept and in simple terms, it's just another affiliate program....but it's really a little more than that. It all revolves around web hosting and it's even been referred to as an MLM, but before you throw up your hands in disgust at the mention of those three little letters, this isn't another online "Amwayesque" deal at all. Let me elaborate.

A few years ago I dabbled in reseller hosting, but I found that because my technical knowledge wasn't the best, and maybe because I had not chosen the companies I was reselling for carefully enough, I was really doing my customers a disservice and the associated hassles really weren't worth the returns. I decided that when it came to hosting, working as an affiliate was much less time consuming and, although more hit and miss, it would still pay me some decent commissions. As the hosting market gets more and more crowded it has become more and more difficult to sell hosting deals as an affiliate and there remains a lot of mistrust about the whole industry. You don't need to look too far to find people complaining bitterly about their hosting provider's shortcomings and no single company is immune from bad press.

If you have ever been an affiliate for a hosting company you will know that the vast majority pay per sale - commissions can range from anything as low as ten bucks up to a few hundred. There are even a few companies who may offer a two tier structure, enabling you to earn from the efforts of affiliates you have referred to them directly, which is potentially more lucrative. Most however, offer a one off commission for a single sale and that's your lot. This is fine and I do earn some reasonable money this way, but, always looking for more steady returns I wanted someone who would pay me monthly commissions. In other words, why settle for a one off fee, when I was providing customers who might well go on to use their services for many years, and and  who would be paying them on a regular basis. I started looking for programs which would enable me to start earning those much sought after recurring commissions, the often mythical holy grail of residual income. (For anybody not familiar with the term, it simply means something that will pay you over and over for something you have to do only once - think songwriters or authors for example and the system of royalty payments which continue,  to all intents and purposes, indefinitely). 

It was during the course of this research that I found a hosting company, offering a range of shared hosting and dedicated server hosting, based in Canada and now more recently in Texas. The more I investigated the company, the more I liked what I saw, even though I will admit to being a little skeptical about some of the promises they made about their services, which seemed rather bold. Fortunately, they have more than matched their claims, but more of that later.

I have decided to split this article now into two distinctive parts - the hosting aspect first, and then a look at how it can generate an additional income for you, although they do overlap in certain areas. It is my hope that this will be one of the most in-depth reviews you have ever come across, with nothing left to the imagination, so even if you're familiar with the name and regardless  of what you might have read elsewhere this will tell you the full story!

If you prefer to skip the hosting details and just want to learn more about making money, just keep scrolling down - you mercenary soul you!! 

Kiosk.ws Hosting Services and Plans

The first thing I will address, in case you are impatient and want to click through to the company website straight away, is their site design. Despite an overhaul earlier this year, I concede that although far from the worst, it's not great either. However, in the spirit of not judging a book by it's cover, let's take a closer look and open the book fully.

There are three shared hosting options offered by Kiosk.ws ranging in price through $18.95, $24.95 and $44.95. This is not cheap for shared hosting, but when it comes to hosting in general, most would agree that "value for money" is a far more important yardstick. When seeking out a host, this is a mindset I recommend you adopt, rather than "let's find the cheapest deal", much like a lot of general insurance, you do get what you pay for in my experience, and if your websites are important to you, or you are operating some sort of business online, peace of mind is paramount. (The top priced plan includes a reseller plan too).

For this domain thecaymanhost.com I am using the Platinum service ($24.95 monthly billing) and it provides all I need and more in terms of bandwidth and features. Reliability has been 100% and the company's selling point of technical support and customer service has been borne out completely in my time as a customer. I am planning to post regular proof of service reliability on the main site as time goes by, using information provided by a host tracking service. The only thing I would like to see more of in this plan is a few more MySQL databases - they provide 5, which although fine for my current needs could be too restrictive for some who run multiple blogs for example. However, this is all clearly detailed in the individual plan descriptions on the website. 

With all of the overselling in the shared hosting market, I am pleased that Kiosk have not been tempted to join the arms race and continue to provide realistic services with no hidden "small print".  They own their own data center and are not reliant on renting server space from any third parties, and this translates into faster and more responsive technical and hardware troubleshooting although to date I have not experienced any hardware issues whatsoever. That's not to say it will never happen of course, so it's good to know there is no middle man to slow down responses to such issues. Neither do Kiosk overload their shared servers, making CPU usage problems far less likely (although again, not impossible) and this is something that a number of webmasters and bloggers have been complaining about on their own shared hosting plans and is important once you start to grow your site and traffic levels.

So, aside from being reliable and responsive to their customer's needs, what else would I consider make Kiosk a first class hosting company? Let's take a look at the Platinum plan and see just exactly what you will find inside your member's area.

As you can see, the members area gives you access to four main sections and below you can see some partial screenshots of the contents of the Webmaster Tools and Marketing Tools areas.

As you can see there are a number of useful tools available to you as a website owner although you probably wouldn't want to use a lot of them, the options are available should you really want to employ things like pop ups and pop unders (not  always a good idea). The lead capture templates are generic, but very useful if you are building your own mailing list. On the whole someof these tools however are dated and not neccessarily effective as they might have been a few years ago. The most important icon is probably the Fantastico one and users of Cpanel will be familiar with it already. If you would like to see a demo of Cpanel as provided by Kiosk, including all the scripts and tools you need to manage your webhosting account the working CPanel demo can be accessed here. along with full working demos of many features of Kiosk.ws - it's great, go and have a play around in your own Kiosk sandbox, particularly useful if your host doesn't use CPanel and you'd like to know just what it's like as an interface.

The marketing tools area pictured above is notable for some of the excellent business building tools it gives access to. Of particular note are things like the Supersponders (Kiosk's fully featured unlimited autoresponders) and the Three Seat Conference Room which you can use to talk to business contacts, customers, friends and family, whoever you choose really, all with live video and sound. These two things alone are worth a lot of money. The only thing the autoresponder service doesn't provide is confirmation of your messages being opened, but, apart from that, they are as good as most paid services. The conference rooms are great not only for marketing and business, but they can save you a lot of money on long distance calls because there is no charge for using them to talk to anyone, anywhere in the world with an internet connection. See the conference room demo here.

When it comes to support issues, you can contact the company in a variety of ways: telephone, email, a support ticket system which is very efficient, or through the use of the same live conference system provided to you as a customer. The support room is manned 24/7 and genuine 24/7 support is available through all channels. For non urgent queries I have found the response to support tickets perfectly sufficient and prompt and if something really urgent arises, going through the live help conference room is a great one on one experience with a helpful technician, all without phone costs!!This is important, particularly if you are outside the contintental U.S.

Summary Information 

The shared hosting plans in detail can be found by clicking on the following links:-

Overall Comparisons | Titanium | Platinum | Silver 

(The current Titanium offer includes one month of full service/access for $1with no contract or commitment)  

If you are interested in a dedicated server solution I will refer you to the website as the variations are a bit too much to go into here. Maybe in a future article.

I also point you to the testimonials page (yes, some of the video messages are a touch too close to being "hypey" which is one reason why I wanted to write this hype free article) where you will see some feedback from longstanding customers and users. The big marketing names are a bit of a sales pitch, but they do affirm Kiosk's status and ability to deliver, and like him or loathe him, Mike Filsaime is a high traffic, high profile marketer. 

I have not operated as a reseller for Kiosk as yet but am considering doing so having been a customer and affiliate for a good length of time. I think had I started with a company who provided such thorough support when I initially got started, the experience would have been a happier one. However, the time investment is not currently a luxury I can afford. If you are considering entering the arena though, I think you could do a lot worse than working with them.

How Do People Like Me Make Money With This Company? 

Before I read this, what if I don't want a website? What if I have no idea what to do? I wish I could make some money with Kiosk but I'm just not interested in becoming a webmaster. Well, don't worry, that doesn't exclude anybody from participating. However the hosting services will always be there because you will be paying for them. It doesn't mean you have to build a site if you don't want to (but you probably will - once you see how easy it is to set up a blog for example). The point is you can join Kiosk and start promoting  their business as an affiliate straight away. Any customers you bring in will generate commissions for you, every month that they renew their own hosting plan. 

People make money through affiliate marketing. I advertise the companies services using a variety of methods. I am very comfortable promoting their business and my own, because I know from first hand experience that they provide an excellent service.  I'm not just an affiliate in the sense that I stick up a few banners and hope for the best and I don't need to make any false claims that I cannot back up with day to day knowledge and experience. I put my money where my mouth is if you prefer! I'm a great believer in ethical marketing and I hope that this comes across when I communicate with people about services such as this.

So, is this for you? Well, let's take a look at the benefits. Whether you already have hosting arrangements or are looking for another host, or whether you are thinking of finally getting your own domain name and hosting plan for the first time, this is a smart way to work. Firstly, you get a very good hosting deal in my opinion, but, what's more, you have the ability to generate money, - result, free webhosting :-) However, you don't have to stop at covering your hosting costs. You can go on generating money by putting in the work and promoting Kiosk as another part of your online efforts, creating an additional source of income while still doing whatever else you do online - blogging, e-commerce, forums, membership sites etc etc. Your hosting, which you need anyway and is a business expense, is taken care of. Does your host enable you to do this? If so, you're a smart cookie just like me :-)

Taking into account some of the tools mentioned in the hosting details above, you're going to save on a lot of things you might otherwise be tempted to buy seperately and even have to pay monthly fees for, on top of your hosting costs. These are all bottom line expenses you have to consider. Of course, you can buy shared hosting for your blog or website for a lot less than Kiosk's prices but is cheap and maybe not so cheerful the wisest move? Look at the price of conferencing software, check out the pro autoresponders just as two examples. They will cost you more individually than your hosting fees at Kiosk, even for the Titanium reseller plan.

I know of other similar ideas - no Kiosk is not unique - but most are inferior for a variety of reasons. GDI springs to mind and although it's been good for some people it concentrates too much on MLM and isn't really an option for anyone who wants more than a .ws domain - that is all they offer. Kiosk is as flexible as any hosting plan available today and you can host almost anything with them within reason. I remember the whole Google Cash Detective fiasco when shared hosts were closing acounts left right and centre over the resources being used by the script but Kiosk dealt with it in their stride. 

OK, so, you're thinking that you can't make a residual income online, it's all hype and you're not into cold calling, selling etc etc. Think about the market for the services being offered, because it really is huge already and growing all the time. Oh, and I've never cold called or badgered my friends or anything like that. I'll explain a bit more about how the mechanics of the affiliate program work. It's all detailed on their website, but to just provide a link would devalue this article and recommendation.

Once you are a Kiosk customer, you are an affiliate too. You don't have to do anything with your affiliate status if you don't want to, but you probably will want to work at it because the potential rewards are worth pursuing. The compensation plan is based around a fair shot for every Kiosk member at making money. Not only are your referral commissions recurring, but you also stand to earn money from customers not directly referred by you. You will see at the website a full explanation of how this works, but, if you're like me, you'll see words like "matrix" and either switch off or be tempted to run away with thoughts of MLM rattling around your head and memories of dire warnings about scams and networking and pyramids.

So....at this point I will show you some smileys to reassure you, because it really isn't any of those things. Payment of commissions is structured so that everybody gets a bite at the cherry.  

In basic terms, this means that after making four affiliate sales, my next one would go to someone in my first level of direct referrals  and I will receive a 20% cut (recurring) while they receive the bulk of the earned commission, even though they didn't make the sale. Isn't this something that upsets me? After all, I got the customer. No, not really, because I benefit from my "upline" sales too and when people start to see commissions arriving in their Paypal account or receive checks,  it hopefully inpires them too. There will always be those who are less hard working or less able but they still get to see some results from the overall effort. It's a fair way to work in my opinion and keeps affiliates wanting to achieve better results.

So, you say, let's see some proof of your success. Well, I consider my online earnings my salary, and that is my business so no "look at me" screenshots of my own commissions, both for that reason and because I'm not trying to say to anyone you will be as successful or more successful, or that you will make thousands of dollars overnight. This is a business that will need some work on your part, but the better you work it, the more success you will enjoy. It's a sustainable model, with a reliable and established company and my patience as an affiliate has been rewarded. No, it hasn't made me wealthy, but let's just say it's a nice additional income that I'd hate to be without. Like most people, it took me a long time to find things that worked for me and I am pleased to say that working with Kiosk has been one of my success stories. If you make four sales, you will have covered your own monthly hosting costs - everything beyond that is profit. Over time, you will want to develop various income streams, because "all your eggs in one basket" is never a good idea but I believe this is something you should seriously consider as one of your affiliate programs.

The full details of Kiosk's compensation plan for affiliates is detailed on the site and I would ask you to study it carefully. It is a little couched in sales speak, but, in my experience it delivers what it claims. I can't say fairer than that. I hope that if you've read through this review, then you will be at least interested enough to bookmark it or do some investigations of your own. I'm naturally always pleased to welcome new members into my Kiosk family, sure because I have a strong financial interest in doing so, but also because I think it is one of those rare, genuine chances for people to get a great deal and hopefully earn some money too.

I'm happy to respond to any further enquiries via comments or email so don't be afraid to ask. If you have experiences of your own, in line with or contrary to mine, your feedback is welcomed too.

EDIT:- I should have added that the program pays monthly subject to a minimum threshold of $20.00 and payments can be made by check or via Paypal for those who have it.