29/11: How Not To Make Money Online

I have lost count of the number of "programs" I have been pitched with over the years, all taking a similar line and baiting their hooks with the same visual and audio psychology. Each time I see a squeeze page with a picture of some tropical paradise (beat you to that one Mr or Mrs "marketer") a flash car, a big house or a combination of all three, I smile inside and walk rapidly away. I suggest you do the same - every time. If you really think something is too good to pass up, check it out thoroughly before you start spending your hard earned money - it usually doesn't take much searching to find some unfortunate people who didn't think and ended up paying the price. Contain your excitement and research it if you really must.

It is nice to believe that we could all sit at our computers for 30 minutes a day and never have to do anything more than check our bank balances every hour to see how many thousands have been deposited. Be realistic folks, this is a pitch, real life doesn't work that way. As a general rule of thumb, those that need to use words like "shocking", "hidden secrets revealed" and similar sensationalist copy, should really be avoided. 

If you want to see evidence of some of the things thousands of people (amazingly) put their faith in, all you need do is visit a few traffic exchanges. It's extremely educational and harsh evidence of how faith overrides common sense for literally thousands of people. As examples, here are just a fraction of things that you see being tried...

1) Set up some free blogger blogs, choose a 'niche' and publish two or three rehashed third party articles. Throw up some affiliate banners and PPC ads - surf traffic exchanges and watch the money roll in. Not going to happen!

2) Sign up for a free "online store", or similar, get your "own website" surf the traffic exchanges and watch the money roll in. Dream on. Remember, when most people want a drink they buy it from a store, usually when they are thirsty - I do - not many of us search online for the latest greatest health food supplement, energy drink etc etc, no matter how many millions might be spent on such products every year, if you really believe that "now it's your turn to profit from this huge global market", fair play and good luck to you.

3) Join Clickbank, grab your "hoplinks" indiscriminately and surf the traffic exchanges - you will soon see the money pouring in from all those 75% commissions. Erm....let's hope you learned that lesson a long time ago.

4) Sign up for every free "downline builder" "traffic generator" and as many "blasters" as you can. Before you know it you will have thousands of visitors all ready and willing to throw money your way. In actual fact, a quick check on any domain will usually tell you just how much traffic these peddlers of "massive website traffic" actually generate for themselves. This should tell you something, unless of course you believe that they're only concerned with getting visitors for you, you lucky devil, thank the Lord you found such an abundance of altruistic experts eh?

5) Join Agloco or similar......ha ha ha ha......

6) Join countless PTP, paid to read email, paid to click programs, surf the traffic exchanges promoting your "affiliate" pages and build huge downlines so that you can watch the cash flooding your bank account.........come on, you know better right?

7) Listen to the experts who tell you that squeeze pages and lead capture pages are the only way forward, that without them you are leaving thousands on the table. They will "sell you" a squeeze page and a year's hosting for that page.....blah blah. Use a splash page that redirects to.....erm, yeah, that generic, same as thousands of others free program - because this will make a REAL difference. Buy into all this, you'll soon be making.......nothing if not peanuts. One of the most common pitches on the traffic exchanges is for things that will help you be more successful with....you guessed it, traffic exchanges. Usually by the owners of traffic exchanges......odd.

8 If the free blog idea didn't work, grab a free hosting deal and slap up lots of banners and links to every useless program you ever joined and believe that this will somehow make those useless programs more attractive to others and people will flock to them, thus making you rich almost overnight.

9) Join a program where you pay for a "cookie cutter" website to promote more useless programs, opportunities and Clickbank products in the guise of "reviews" and watch the floods of cash....the excitement will be too much, trust me.

10) Increase the chances of all of the above ideas working by adding video and photographs of yourself. Don't forget that people believe what they see and if you use your webcam to film yourself flamboyantly opening FedEx packages full of money for example, there will be enough fools out there who will go to bed envious of your success and dreaming of the same. Some of them might even stump up hundreds of dollars in the vain hope that you are telling the truth as opposed to being a liar and a thief.

OK, ten will do for now, there are plenty more but hopefully you get the message. You might think, in light of the foregoing, that I don't think much of traffic exchanges, but, in actual fact, despite what many believe, they can be a useful avenue of free promotion. It all depends what you are offering, nothing more, nothing less. Before all the cheerleaders accuse me of being anti, I'll just say that I will talk more about that soon. I should also add that yes, people do make money with PTR, PTP and PTC programs - usually the program owners and the very early members who secure large numbers of signups.

For a series about making money online, this might seem a negative and useless post but what I'm asking you to remember is, there are no "magic bullets" and if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it really probably is......a duck. It's all been said before - YES, it has, but the fact is it can't be repeated often enough while thousands of internet users are being scammed or misled by the unscrupulous. In the next post I'm going to get more specific, but that's your warning shot across the bows! In the meantime, if you have personal experiences of any similar ventures, good or bad, why not share them with the rest of us? We've probably, if we're honest, all tried some hopeless things online so don't be shy. If you want to warn others about specific programs, go right ahead.