How to make money from nothing

Your first step should be sitting yourself down in front of a computer with internet access.

You'll then want to register for a Gmail account so that you can start sending and receiving email. That's going to be important.

Once you've got the email address sorted, start registering with some of the free blogging platforms. Blogger.com is always a good place to start. If you haven't already, you should also join up with Squidoo (obviously!).

Squidoo also run a referral program, so once you've joined Squidoo, send then an invitation to start their own Squidoo pages and when your friend's lens earns its first $15, you AND your friend will each get $5, free! To give you an idea of what's possible I set up a lens about my favorite comic book character, Deadpool, that has only had 33 visits in it's lifetime, yet it's made $1.13 already. Set up 20 lens like that, and there's $20.

As an alternative to Squidoo, you can also try hubpages, I've also set up a Deadpool page there as well (can you tell that I like Deadpool yet?). Check out Swollenpickles - Hot Hubs. I'd recommend using Hubpages to supplement your Squidoo lens and blogs etc.

Need to drive traffic to your site? Then you will find a quality traffic exchange site very useful!

Looking for free web traffic? I'd recommend joining these two:

Link Referral.
Nice interface and also gives you the opportunity to earn from referrals as well if you want to opt for premium membership.



www.TS25.com. They are the one I've been with the longest.

Now comes the section of the class where you're going to need to come up with some ideas.

The formula for making money online isn't a complicated one:

UNIQUE/INTERESTING CONTENT = VISITORS = $$$'s

What people consider to be unique/interesting content can vary person to person. For example, my number 1 Squidoo Lens is about belly button lint for goodness sake! Do you find belly button lint interesting? Maybe not, but someone out there obviously does.

In terms of blogging, it's often a good idea to give readers something that they can use.

For example, on my main blog, Swollen Pickles, my most popular posts include things like this:
10 tips to becoming a Make Money Online sheep

How I stopped a bandwidth thief

How to embed Project Wonderful ads into WordPress themes

Yes, it is possible to get visitors without having unique content, however a majority of those methods are going to cost you money, but that's not what this is about. Money from nothing remember??

So, now comes the part where you need to decide what topics your sites/blogs/pages will cover.

In a perfect world, you'll identify a niche that is not jam packed with competition and is also of interest to you. Having an interest in something makes it a lot easier to develop content for. You will want to think ideas in conjunction with the next step, selecting the right affiliate program for you.

Sending visitors away from your site for no reward? Try LinkBucks.com and you can earn money from every outbound link from your site. It really doesn't get any easier than that!

There are a massive number of affiliate programs out there, so finding something that suits you shouldn't be a problem. The key is matching the affiliate program with your content. The better the alignment, the better chance you'll have of getting conversions.

For example, if you're writing an exercise blog, consider joining affiliate programs that feature exercise equipment or weight loss products. It's common sense really, but sometimes common sense is not all that common.

Pepperjam Network - one of the fastest growing networks, Pepperjam also offer a range of tools to help you get started.

MoreNiche - If you're targeting a more 'adult' audience, or looking for the poker market, you need to join MoreNiche.

Market Leverage - has been around for a little while now and has a good roster of programs. Something for every niche.

LinkShare - this program is an absolute "MUST JOIN" if you want to earn some commission from iTunes sales.

Share-A-Sale - have a growing number of programs. I like it due to their comic book affiliate that I run on my comics blog, Things From Another World.

Click Booth - Relatively new but offer a range of different programs as well as paying out via PayPal.

NeverBlue - One I've only recently joined but they appear to carry a number of high converting offers.

Deal-Dot-Com - an interesting program to look into if you get a lot of "webmaster" or "make money online" type traffic.

For some people the easiest way to make money online is to do a bit of paid posting. This can be a double edged sword, as a lot of opportunities are based on a sites Page Rank, and Google are known to frown on buying/selling links, so if they catch you, you're Page Rank is likely to take a hit. With that in mind, taking paid post opportunities can be profitable.

When it comes to paid post/reviews programs there there are a few to choose from, but here are three that I've used an made money from.

PayPerPost - without a doubt the most profitable paid to post program I've used. I've personally cracked the $1,000 earning mark with PayPerPost, and as of writing this the top PPP earner had made over $20,000.

ReviewMe - I've also done quite well with ReviewMe, although you really need to wait until Advertisers approach you, which can be annoying if you're chasing quick cash.

Link Worth - another program that I've done well with, also allows you to sell link ads in the same way Text-Link-Ads does.

Do you have a blog? Do you have a Facebook account? Do you have a MySpace page?

How would you like to make money from every outbound link from your blog or profile page? Join Ucash.In and then you can!

What is Ucash.in?

Every day millions of links are posted in forums, emails, chat, social networks and websites.
Ucash.in provides the ability to combine three important aspects, social bookmarking, a url service that converts long url links into shorter url links, and a service that turns your existing links and new links into cash!
Great for bloggers, forum users, webmasters, business users and more. Ucash.in makes it easy and simple to get paid for posting and sharing links.

Turn Links into Cash

When your Ucash.in links are clicked on, you make revenue from a redirect that can be an interstitial or top frame type advertisement. The current Revenue Sharing Rate (RSR) is $1 US for every 4000 top banner ad impressions, and $1 US for every 2000 intermission ad impressions (how much can I make?).

Predictify is a prediction platform where users can predict the future and build a reputation based on their accuracy, and marketers can post questions to collect actionable, forward-looking data "from the crowd". Basically the steps you need to follow are:
1. Browse or search for questions that interest you
2. Predict the outcome - it's free, no points or bets required
3. Build a reputation based on the accuracy of your predictions
4. Earn real money - payouts increase as you achieve higher levels of expertise

The beauty of Predictify is that it's simple, free, quick to use and actually quite fun.

Learn more about Predictify here