TradeLet

Double-back again! Been out of the scene for quite a while.
I just started my own website, trying to some small business you might say. It's called TradeLet or Trade Outlet here. It's a site where I let people post their items for sale . classified adverts where I charge them only RM1.50 or USD$0.5 per post which is permanent for as long as they want. Here in this blog maybe I would start chronicling my progress and steps I've taken to get publicity, adverts etc so that other people may learn from it and may one day be more successful than I did? or maybe they have things to advice me? Anyways will start tomorrow with a post on it!

Making Money with Online Surveys - 1st Oct

I'm sure many of the netizens out there have heard of making money online through surveys. It is said that you can make money by just answering some questions posed to you on either a product, or a service, or  anything else where the customer's opinion matters. The concept is fairly simple, a retail / services company contacts the survey company which you've joined and asks them to do a survey where the retail company will pay the survey company for doing so, and in turn, the survey company will pay their users a small amount for participating in the survey. No doubt, the survey company acts as the middleman and takes most of the profit. Sounds like a good deal? It sure does to me.

I don't know what about in the United States or any other countries, but making money out of taking surveys here in Malaysia is utter nonsensical, in my experience. Many people here, I've seen, promoting on e-books which claims to teach you about this and help you to find places where you can get money taking surveys. The thing that we've never thought about is that these guys probably scooped up the information somewhere and with a little word-processing magic, produced another so called 'guide'. Heck, it may happen that they were conned to part their money for a similar book and therefore now looking to scam other people with their supposedly 'valuable' information. I'm guessing that they haven't actually tried making money from taking surveys and are trying to market their e-books of their alleged experience.

In my case, I've been into at least 4-5 survey sites that claims to help you make lots of extra cash to spend. So far, all this has just been dreams of heavan. It never happened. Why? you ask. Well, I'm not sure about other people, but it seems that I'm constantly not elligible for the surveys that they get and sent to me to participate in. After answering several questions, the survey itself found that I'm not elligible for the survey. I wouldn't midn missing out on some surveys if the surveys are aplenty but the thing is the surveys that they ask me to participate in is so scarce to the point that I get a survey invitation like only once every 2 months? I mean, if you're looking to make money out of surveys, yes you can, but don't depend on it too much, it won't put food on the table. The things is that you'll have to wait until you have earned a certain amount before you can cash out and with surveys once every 2 months and each survey is approximately $1-$2, I think you probably can buy that item you've wanted for so long, only after it has stopped production.

Well, I can't say the same for people from other countries, but in this country, you might as well set-up a stall by the roadside selling tidbits, it much easier than making money with surveys. I wonder if anyone has a good experience with making online money by just taking surveys?

Mega Red Packet - 10th June

I came across this website:-

MegaRedpacket.com
(I'm not linking it as I don't believe them)

Anyways, another blog claims that they've made RM1 mil in 10 days selling just the 'junk' they promote. I was thinking to myself while looking at their sales pitch page: "A lot of this stuff, I can get for free elsewhere", why are they charging people for it? RM1 mil in 10 days? Are you really sure or its just a marketing ploy?

Sometimes I wonder, sales pitch pages these day all focus on selling e-books or cds that have to do with Google Adsense or 'Making money Online' or SEO or 'Techniques to Generate Traffic' or 'Buy Now and Get a thousand dollars in check' and the likes of it. Why doesn't anyone sell e-books on more useful stuff such as Dreamweaver Tutorials etc? In my opinion, that is something that more people would buy. Selling e-books of those kind is not to say it's a bad idea, but considering that the market is overflowing with them now makes it seem like a scam.

And most of them speak of: "We will help you!" Yeah right, like they will. Technical Assistance help through the phone is already hard enough, what will this people do? Come over to your house and show you step-by-step? That's not a problem if you live next door or in the city they are in but if both of you live in both ends of the world, I don;t think that's possible. How much can they say through the phone or through online? They don't know what you don't know and they don't know is your cursor is now on the 'Delete Account' button as they can't see what you're doing. Even the phone bills may turn out to be more expensive than the stuff they're selling, so, why should they?

So, tell me, what's the point? Are the netizens too shrouded in mists of fantasy and hope that they forgot the basic of reward is working towards it? What is too much about learning how to sell, how to setup websites and learning to market? What you learn is a lifetime. If they help you out by setting you a website, by running the thing for you. What do you get? Money and that's all there is. What if they suddenly decide to dump you and use the website for themselves? And then you're left in misery of your own doing by not learning the thing that makes it tick.

The point is: Somethings you can get for free. Search for it or its alternatives. The contents of these e-book do not vary very much among each other. If you need help, contact me and I'll teach you hoe to start your own business free-of-charge. If you don't acknowledge my help, I won't even care a least bit. After all, I am in the same boat as you are.

Get Rich Claim for Dummies - 9th June

Recently, I've been reading lots and lots of sales pitch pages and I was wondering why these people are letting go a golden opportunity to waste. First: they have their own website, their own domain (which some of them are really nice names) and they're using it for sales pitch pages? What and Why? They can use the domain name for so many other purpose to make money, such as an e-commerce store or a forum or even a blog but they're just selling just one product? What a waste...

Anyways, due to the sheer number of sales pitch sites, I've decided to say this: These are mostly scams! Yes, they do send you the e-book when you pay them but what I'm saying is that the contents are scams. No doubt that buying your first informative e-book is a nice thing to do to learn something, but the second and third will be a waste of your time as most of the contents and so called tips are in fact the same. Well, here's the summary of what I know so far:-

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1>
Claim ->
"You can earn thousands with only 2 hours a day in front of the computer without having any computer skills and anybody can do it!".

REBUTTAL ->
What? 2 hours a day? Anybody can do it without computer skills? Oh my, this is great! RELAX? NOT! Without computer skills, how would they understand what's happening on the screen? I can hear these people saying "Where's the 'Press Any' key on my keyboard? How would they check emails? Payments are done mostly online, how would they know if they have any money coming in if they don't even have an account? And 2 hours a day only? Won't everyone be rushing to do this instead of their boring 9-5 job since it promises to earn you so much?

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2>
Claim ->
"We have proof of the earnings! See chart below

REBUTTAL ->
I used to believe the charts too. They were in fact from 'Clickbank', an online place to sell internet stuff such as e-books, softwares / programs and services. Later, I found out that the charts were everywhere. Almost every sales pitch page I saw has one. How better to promote your product then using a earnings chart by Clickbank? SMART? NOT! Those charts have two possibilities:-
i> They're stock charts taken from other sites and claimed as theirs.
ii> The charts are real, but not the actual earnings from using the e-book tips but earnings from selling the e-book to other people who believed in them.

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3>
Claim -> Affiliate Marketing is the way to go! You do not need any of your own product to sell!

REBUTTAL ->
It sounds so simple, just promote other people's products and if you get sales, you get commissions and sometimes may reach up to 75% of the sale price. Imagine that, all you have to do is to attract people to your site, get them to buy what you're promoting, and there you go! SIMPLE? NOT! To get traffic, you have to do advertising. To do advertising, you need money. To get money, you have dig your own pocket or make sales. See the pattern? You will be stuck pretty fast and unless you're willing to shell out tonnes of cash, might as well you start your own business. Sometimes, for Affiliate Marketing, you're shelling out more money than those coming in which equals to loss. No own product to sell? Selling other people's stuff isn't that bad, but if the person you're representing sell stuff that are pretty useless and scamming, well, that may cost you your reputation and your future business prospects even if you make a new one.

===========

4>
Claim -> Imagine earning a million dollars! and here are the testimonial of people who have succeeded!

REBUTTAL ->
Imagine that! A million dollars! Wonder what I can do with a million dollars? Maybe a Lamborghini perhaps? Thats NICE? NOT! Again, the argument here is that why wouldn't anyone else follow suit and get a million dollars in no time? Wouldn't that be so easy and the government would be so happy to have less poverty to deal with. The sales pitch even has pictures and testimonials of people who have made it big with the program / e-book secrets. Do you realize that sometimes you might say: Hey, I've seen that guy before somewhere but wasn't his name John or Joe but how come his name now is Peter? The culprit here is stock photos. They just pluck it from anywhere and paste it into their site and hey presto! Another person! And the cars and house? I've found plenty, try Google. Sometimes, they take pictures of themselves next to luxury or sports cars and claim that's theirs...yeah buddy whatever...they're just taking pictures of cars parked somewhere, and they even have paid the owner some cash to let them take pictures.

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Well, I think I've written long enough. Hope anyone reading would not fall into scams. But anyways, although I do claim that mostly are scams, I do not deny that there are real opportunities out there that I may not have found out, but rare for sure. If any reader out there that comes across a sales pitch that do not use either of the claims above, let me know. For all I know: Nothing is free and there's no such thing as Easy Money or No Work gets you Money.

Monetizing Your Blog With Ads - 8th June

Taken from:- http://onlinebusiness.about.com/od/monetization/a/monetize-blog.htm
by Lynn Truong

Once you have a site up that is regularly updated and gets a steady amount of traffic, you should start thinking about monetizing. The list below provides ways to monetize that won't take up a lot of your time, so you can focus on building your site with good content and growing your traffic. These are the most basic (and arguably the least profitable) methods, but they are effective interim monetizing strategies.

As with most strategies regarding money, diversification is key. Try a combination of these methods to maximize earning potential (without making your site too ad heavy). Play around with your layout, if it's flexible, to give different ads more or less exposure (don't let them overshadow your content). Test a variety of networks. Make sure you are being paid accurately and in a timely manner. Monitor your performance and if you are not happy with the service or results, try another company.

1. PPC Ads (Pay Per Click)

Google Adsense is the most popular and widely used option. They serve contextual ads (image or text) based on your content, and pay when someone clicks on the ad. How much you make on Adsense depends on several things. First, advertisers bid on keywords, so if you happen to write about a topic that has high paying keywords, then each click will be worth a lot more than another topic with low valued keywords (keywords that has really low bids). Also, people who came to your site from search engines are more likely to click on these ads than people who are repeat visitors. It makes sense then to spread out your Adsense ads to provide easy access for search visitors.

Other PPC options include Bidvertiser and AdToll.

2. CPM Ads (Cost Per Thousand)

Unlike CPC ads, CPM ads pay per impression. Viewers don't need to do anything for you to be paid. You just need to serve the ad to them. The downside is that you're paid almost nothing for each impression. Rates can go as low as $0.10 per thousand impressions. But it's still a good option to use in conjunction with CPC ads. CPM ads can be placed in less prominent spaces (below the fold) whereas CPC ads should have better position. Most ad networks that offer CPM ads have CPC ads thrown in as well. You can set your own prices and remove unappealing ads.

Networks that offer CPM/CPC ads include AdBrite and ValueClick Media.

3. CPA / Affiliate Ads (Cost Per Action)

CPA ads pay per action. Viewers don't just need to click on them, but they actually have to do something, either sign up/register or make a purchase. Not surprisingly, they are the highest paying ads. However, how likely your visitors will click on the ad and perform the desired action will depend very much on how relevant the ad is to your content. For example, a site about digital photography may do very well showing digital camera CPA ads. Some sites are much better suited for CPA ads. Consider whether any CPA ads would add value to your visitors.

Popular affiliates networks include Commission Junction, Adfish, and Amazon Associates.

4. Text Links

Text links work the same way as the above. You set aside a space on your page and text links will start showing up when they are purchased. You need to submit specific pages into the inventory, so enter your most popular pages (homepage, category pages, and very popular articles). Rates are based on your PR, which has to do with how many other sites link to your page. If you often get linked and mentioned, text links may be profitable for your site.

Some text link companies are Link Worth, TNX.net, and Text-Link-Ads.

5. In-text Advertising

In-text ads don't require any additional real estate, which is attractive to many site owners. Ads are attached to text in your content, showing up as underlined or double underlined words that are clickable. Some will pop up a little advertisement when the word is moused over. Many viewers, however, find these ads distracting.

Popular companies are Kontera and Vibrant Media.

6. RSS Feed Ads

Offering a feed of your content is essential. More and more readers are using feeds to catch up with their favorite sites, and not offering one will alienate a lot of readers who would be interested in your content. There is yet to be a lot of advertising options within feeds, but for now you can still monetize the traffic to your feed.

FREE COMPANY SHARES - 27th May

Recently, I've just joined a site where you can get free shares of the company:-

Quoted from site:-

" I just became a shareholder in me2everyone and I never had to pay a single penny for the shares! Pre-launched in January 2009, more than 30,000 new members are discovering me2everyone every week: and when the full site launches we are expecting a huge surge in new memberships. You can register for free and it never has to cost you a single penny!

me2everyone is going to be a cool new virtual world where you can meet friends, chat, shop, play, watch videos, create an art gallery, open a virtual newspaper, play the free inworld lottery and make money from your own online store! You and everyone you know make the decisions, shape the world, create real incomes and share in the profits. It’s a new place where you meet new people or invite your friends. Learn new skills or expand your business. Find the love of your life or help the planet.

It will eventually become a hybrid between a 2D social network and a 3D world. There will be scope for business and there are plans to put 72,000 people into work over the next 3 years. This is something that you simply have to consider registering for. You details are 100% safe and the Company is run by professional directors. This is an excellent chance for all of us to make some real progress in 2009 and beyond! Please do not miss it.

If you are looking for something really good in 2009: something that changes your view on the world, then you really have to spend just one minute and look at this website."

Not sure whether its true, but worth trying since it's totally free:-
Go here!

Seperate Posting - 26th April

I just realized my blog is not generating enough traffic. For this particular blog, it is my own particular experience and feelings, so it doesn't really matter if no one reads it....but I guess I'll have to make a new blog for making money stuff. What to name it?

"Free Make Money Online Programs Reviews"

That should do it. For all I know, 99% of the programs are scams. And there are wonders of programs out there including:-
i) Paid Surveys
ii) Multi-Level Marketing (MLM)
iii) Read Emails
iv) Data Entry
v) Get Rich Quick Schemes [ Ebooks etc. ]
vi) Misc. Programs [ Other than those above or I do not know the category ]

Since I've received so many emails from other people stating that their programs are the best ways to make money, I'll review them, and maintain no-paying policies throughout. If they request payment, I'll just look over their sales pitch and try to see what makes them 'tick'. The only thing / program that I will not review are 'Forex' as I'm not a Pro myself. So, to anyone that cares about this, stay tuned!

Google AdSense - 24th April

I found out today that I've generated a measly $0.10 from Google AdSense. After my blog has been online for so long, and only a CTR of 3.33% and income of $0.10? This is definitely very very little. Converted to my currency, its only 40 cents. You can't buy much in my country with that amount. But anyways, I would like to thank the 1 person who clicked on the ads.

Thank you! At least I know 1 person was reading my blog...

The Money Source - 15th April

Since the other day I've bought the Get Rich e-book, I've been more interested in getting money from online. Some deals with setting up websites, some with paid surveys, some with PTCs (Paid-to-click sites), some on affiliates, some by blogging and some on e-books. But, so far, my search has been fruitless for a couple of reasons:

1> I don't have a debit / credit card.
I do not know whether is this a blessing in disguise. I stumbled upon a number of sites which offers greats deals / programs but they require payments and yet I do not have a credit nor a debit card which means that I could not pay for the offers. Sometime later I find that the offers or programs were actually scams.

2> I haven't made up my mind on what to start with.
Since there are so many ways of getting money online, I still have not made up my mind on which to start with. All of them looks so tempting and for each of them I have a couple of ideas swimming in my mind.

3> 99% of online money making is a scam
I've been warned over and over again from various forums and sites that 99% of the programs are scams. There's no doubt as to why these people would do that. They probably want to get rich, but in an dishonest way. So, sometimes I come across programs that claims to be able to make money and lots of them, I don't know whether to trust them or not.

Well, I think the best way now is still: Keep Looking...I believe there must be a real way to make money online.

The Next Chapter - 2nd April

It is only yesterday that I've purchased the "Only In Malaysia Mah" e-book program, promising that I can earn a lot of money online. I'm downloading the file now and still don't know what the contents are. Actually, to be frank, I've joined a number this form of "get-rich" schemes that promises good money with little capital. So far, none worked...and I've always been dissapointed by what they were promoting. So far, I've not invested in something that costs like a couple of hundred bucks due to the risk and I'm glad that I did not as they don't work.


Some may ask: Why do you want to join these systems? My simple answer: I really don't have much money to spend on my favorite items. Things that I want to buy: A car, a more powerful computer specs, an a house. As I write this sentence...its moving and moving.....really wonder how much it would change my life. I really hope it would.

My WishList
==========

1. A better computer:
- Quad core processer
- 3-Way Crossfire with HD 4870 x2
- 8 Gb DDR3 RAM
- Cooler Master liquid cooling system

2. A car:
- Maybe a Nissan Skyline would be nice
- A cheaper car would be A Honda City in cash

3. A double-storey house in Petaling Jaya

4. Some property to invest.

Hope all this can be achieved with the steps explained by the e-book!