People Helping People Make Money Online

As a child of the sixties who grew up during that period at a very impressionable age, the current movement toward a new consciousness reminds me of communes, Woodstock and co-ops that were formed mainly for the purpose of obtaining basic needs such as food. The internet has created world wide markets for merchants and vendors of all kinds of goods and services and is now being used to create very similar communities and partnerships.

Big business figured out that sharing their revenue with affiliates helps them sell their product and increases their profits. Smaller businesses are now signing up and some wonderful liaisons are being formed to increase communication between advertisers and affiliates. Commission Junction has probably been around the longest and is improving in this area but still has a long way to go. Affiliates must still visit the site to get help and information. Some advertisers are now e-mailing the affiliate directly with contact information, links and banners. CJ does have more advertisers who provide product feeds, such as the one I created this little online "store" from:

Parthena's Big Little Art Supply Store

Better Communication...we got that! Pepperjam Network.

I'm far more impressed by Pepperjam Network. I receive newsletters and blog updates several times per week that include interviews with successful affiliates along with personal e-mails from programs I've been approved for. Pepperjam features keyword and search engine technology to increase the likelihood of your links being found and has many other enhancements in the works.

Another mover and shaker is Advaliant. Their communication practices are even a step better than Pepperjam's - affiliates receive personal communication from the Ad Manager directly. While the program list is smaller, there's no waiting to be approved after your site is accepted. You are eligible to participate in all of the programs they offer, and they have some great ones.

Affiliate programs are not "get rich quick" schemes. They require knowledge, skills and a willingness to work. Successful affiliates achieve their success only through investing time and research in their campaigns. The good news is that companies are recognizing that affiliate support brings in more money and they're more interested in using these networking tools.

The most well-known and tried and true MLM programs that come to mind for most people are companies such as Shaklee, Amway, Mary Kay Cosmetics and Jafra International. The basic concept of the MLM (multi-level marketing) is that by sharing the opportunity with others, one can receive a lifelong stream of "residual income;" i.e., a percentage of everything that person and the people they sign up purchase or sell. Fortunes have been made and empires built through these programs and again, they require a desire to work and the understanding that you are running a business.

Unfortunately, thee are too many bogus programs out there where the only intent is to sell someone else the same "business opportunity" they bought that doesn't work. Although once you have established a re-order flow and a high-traffic website that generates leads for your affiliate programs you can coast for a bit, beware of anything that promises that you can just sit back and let your website do the work. Unless you "step in doody" as we used to say back east, that is an impossible dream - and these people are selling you nothing more than a dream.

I have run across two newer programs that are very promising, and these are the ones that remind me of the farmers' co-op concept. Everyone wins.

BigCrumbs.com is the free service that pays you the highest overall cash back available at eBay and 270 popular retailers. The site supports both merchants and buyers, so everyone wins. You can earn with the referral program. I can verify that I have actually earned money from this one and have received cash back on a purchase. It took about two months since signing up to see any income. It's not a fortune but it's a start.

Another that looks good is My Power Mall Like BigCrumbs.com, you and the people you refer can receive big savings and rebates on products that you buy every day and commissions from referrals. One difference is that MyPowerMall.com gives you a web page with over 100 stores and the ability to include local merchants in your campaign. To remain active, you need only make one purchase per month and there is no minimum amount. It can be as little as one dollar and can be used on everyday items such as toilet paper and toothpaste. I chose Possibilities By Parthena as my store name, inspired by the unlimited potential that this program could have. Go to the site and watch the inspiring and motivating videos:

My Power Mall

And of course, there is the possibility of affiliate marketing and revenue sharing right here at Squidoo if you work hard at promoting your lenses! I can verify that I've made some pocket change on two of my lenses and that a lens that I helped a friend write to raise funds for her invention earned $10 in the first 24 hours:

The Night Time Helper Potty Watch

These programs are free to join. If I'm wrong, you've invested nothing and if I'm right - well, just imagine the possibilities!

I was very skeptical when I was approached about some of these "get rich quick" sites - I definitely know better. They were free and I joined to be nice to the people who invited me. These sites supposedly earn you money through revenue sharing from their advertisers. Squidoo operates on this concept. I've made a big $1.50 here over the past two months and donate half to charity.

Zenzuu is a new one that hasn't quite launched yet, but I haven't made any effort there other than to set up a profile. I've met people on other forums who have hundreds of friends and have built a "downline" and are very enthusiastic about the site. There is supposedly some huge gathering in Las Vegas to kick off the official launch.

When I initially signed up with Yuwie, there was an annoying glitch so that was that. I recently joked with someone on one of the forums I belong to that "I'll join yours if you'll join mine" and he took me up on it, so I had no choice but to re-join Yuwie out of a sense of obligation, especially since he re-joined as my downline.

Both Yuwie and Zenzuu allegedly pay you to promote yourself and/or your business by simply having a profile and interacting as well as by building a downline to receive a percentage of their activities. I've seen a few blogs where people are complaining that it's not worth it - the "income" is about 33 cents per month. I don't know how to verify that the ones who are claiming hundreds and thousands of dollars are telling the truth, but I realized that these sites have other, more realistic uses.

Yuwie does have almost 700,000 members as of this writing and the number is growing daily. That's a pretty large audience to put your site out in front of. I've found that once you get started, it's not much work at all. I receive a steady flow of friend requests, comments and profile ratings - because the "serious" Yuwies want me to visit their pages in return. From what I've gathered, the money comes from page and profile views. I try to return at least half of them out of courtesy but it seems as though you could never interact and still have the views counted.

Yuwie has all of the same features that MySpace has - customized profiles, blog, bulletin boards, groups, etc. and maybe a few more. I haven't been to MySpace in a while because I began to feel that my time and effort there were wasted. I offer intuitive readings and dream interpretations and received literally hundreds of requests for free services but few had respect for the value of services, especially in time and effort. At Yuwie, I've simply set up a profile with RSS feeds to my blogs and links to my affiliate programs and websites. I'm not actively trying to sell anything. I see it as simply another place to advertise my site for free and leave it at that. Surprisingly, I ended up with a downline within the first week without even trying - again confirming my recent realization that when you let go of the money and just have fun, it tends to work.

There seems to be some discrepancy as to whether the "residual income" comes from referrals or page and profile views. If you'd like to give one of these a try, you can find more information on my website.

They're free to join and you can stop at any time if they're not for you.

I was amazed to find out recently that you can actually buy traffic to your website! I'm sure that method doesn't involve as much effort as the following site.

Traffic Swarm offers targeted traffic to your website and it does work although it's kind of a pain to use. Most of the effort lies in clicking enough times to reach the quota of points that allows you to promote your sites. With free membership, you are allowed up to ten websites, not bad at all. When you set your home page to the site, you automatically get a point every time you open your browser. Since clicking on enough links to qualify my sites, I've been able to get away with spending only about five minutes per day on new clicks. There's a counter on your account page and you can also see whether you're getting clicks and how many times your links have been shown.

"Targeted" traffic means that the site will send visitors specifically interested in your product. When you register, you have a choice of a number of categories that you are interested in to choose from. You can choose a few or you can choose all of them. You will then be shown links that correspond to the preferences you selected.

You can build a downline with free membership and earn points for their clicks as well. There is an inexpensive "pro" upgrade that qualifies you to receive actual cash commissions through building a downline and its activities.

The majority of links that you click on to gather points are for internet "get rich quick" schemes, which I'm already bored with. I am noticing an increase in "real" websites and good affiliate programs that make the clicks far more interesting. I would love to see this continue. I think that this could be a good quality system if there were more legitimate businesses listed at Traffic Swarm

The site/system doesn't claim to give you anything more but increased traffic for free. I couldn't find the exact number, but judging by the number of links the membership appears to be quite large. It may be well worth the effort to get your site seen.

I did not become truly interested in internet marketing until I joined a traffic exchange. Traffic Exchanges are sites where members "surf" each others' websites for credits to keep their own sites in the rotation. Most exchanges have both free and paid memberships. Free memberships basically involve spending a lot of time clicking on links and viewing website pages. Although most sites have eight to twenty second timers to ensure that the traffic is "quality" (seen and actually read by a human being) surfing is very time consuming. If your credit balance gets low, your sites are not seen until you earn them back.

Paid memberships ensure traffic for a fee and since clicking is so time-consuming, those who can afford to can buy their website traffic. This is what traffic exchange owners hope for since it enables them to earn a profit for providing their service.

Just around the time that surfing for credits was starting to feel boring and unproductive, I learned about safelists - again, through traffic exchanges I belong to. Safelists are similar to traffic exchanges, but instead of surfing websites members read e-mails and text ads posted on the safelist website. Safelists ensure that the recipient has "opted-in" to receive advertising e-mails. Like traffic exchanges, there are both free and paid memberships. There are limits on the number of e-mails and ads that a member can post at the free level. Paid memberships allow the member to post more ads and send more e-mails since they are purchasing their advertising.

I belong to both traffic exchanges and safelists, all at the free membership level at present. Since two people have joined my downlines through my safelist memberships, I've no choice but to believe that they are more effective than traffic exchanges at this point. One person has joined through my blog and I have received nothing but website visits from traffic exchanges. I enjoy surfing. It has opened up a whole new world for me and I'm learning the pros and cons and ins and outs of internet marketing. But surfing is extremely time consuming and I don't have the funds currently to upgrade my memberships.

It seems that other marketers are already working to come up with solutions and alternatives to traffic exchanges.

Free Classified Ad sites are becoming very popular. I was skeptical at first and signed up for one with MyFreeAdboard to test the waters. The membership is free and there's not much work involved after the initial set-up, so I had nothing to lose. The MyFreeAdboard network administration adds advertisements for Clickbank products to all adboards and the owner can choose the categories. The adboard owner can also place two prominent ads for their own products or services at the top of the board, and all classified ads are now posted to all of the adboards in the network. I've received one downline referral from a classified ad site.

I'd like to note here that if you thought that Clickbank was nothing but a marketing site for internet marketing opportunities, you really should look again. There are many quality products with very valuable information on topics like parenting, relationships, chronic illnesses, mental health issues, health and fitness, meditation and more. Clickbank can be a great affiliate program to join. I've put together a list of some of the best products I've found and recommend here:

Top 100 Books & Audio For Your Life

Just within this past week, I've become aware of - again, through traffic exchanges - social networking sites for internet marketers and entrepreneurs. I joined Zion5 and was immediately very impressed by the benefits of membership that I found on the site.

Members can easily build thousands of contacts without surfing thousands of sites or reading thousands of e-mails. Instead, members can use the messaging system to send e-mail advertising since members have opted in when they joined. Blogs and e-mail accounts are also available and members can list their personal and business information in their profiles. Members can also list all of their business opportunities and provide details as to how money is earned, whether they have earned money, etc. The opportunity to get feedback from other members will help a lot of people effectively research a program before they join and waste their money.

Upon joining the site, I gained 91 contacts in less than 24 hours without doing anything but joining. All 91 members sent me contact requests.

Like traffic exchanges and safelists, there are free and paid levels of membership. There is so much available at this site that it is highly likely that I will drop the majority of traffic exchanges and safelists that I've joined and use Zion5 exclusively. I've been approached about joining a similar site but this site is so comprehensive and fulfills all of my needs so well that I doubt that I will find it necessary to join an additional one.

Since this type of site is a "social networking" site, it is similar to MySpace and Facebook - but the major difference is that promoting opportunities on those sites can get you banned for spamming the other members. The sites mentioned in this section are safe places to conduct your marketing activities since all members have opted in.

I've put together a list of the traffic exchanges, safelists and networking sites that I've joined and have had positive experiences with. There are many, many more to choose from. To learn about them, join a traffic exchange!

Top 100 Traffic Builders For Your Website

Fearless Friday - Carla Spurgeon, Jafra District Manager1

Join Pepperjam Network today! for access to the Pepperjam Blog and Meet The Affiliates.

The Super Affiliate Handbook

Jafra Cosmetics International - proven opportunity

Barefoot Parties - created for women by a woman

Parthena's Big Little Art Supply Store - an example of affiliate marketing product feeds

Zazzle.com - offers the ability to have your own store and earn commissions from other people's designs

Cafepress.com - have your own store and receive commissions for referrals

Big Crumbs.com - Rebates for buyers and sellers

My Power Mall Cash back for buyers and sellers and support for charities and worthy causes

Pepperjam Network - exclusive merchants and improved affiliate technology

Advaliant.com - exclusive merchants, support and communication

Commission Junction - tried and true affiliate marketing site

Clickbank.com - proven track record

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Whether you want to study up on personal finance, train your dog or learn to fly a plane, SmartFlix has a DVD for you!

The site also runs holiday specials. For Father's Day, they offered 10% off rentals. Join today and open up a whole new world!

Creating Polymer Clay Artist Dolls

Lights, Cameras, Auctions

The Fairy Society - An Enchanted Social Network for All Artists and Their Friends

Learn To Make Wire Sculpted Jewelry

The Night Time Helper Potty Watch - Where Dry Days and Nights Are Born

Premature Ovarian Failure

Barefoot Parties

Beautiful Women Goddess Art