Posted on

SFI Review

SFI has been around just about forever, in network marketing terms.

Despite this, I thought a review would be appropriate, since some of my readers are new to the idea of network marketing and Internet marketing. SFI is a good example of a program that has longevity and can be counted on for the long-term.

SFI has a variety of ways for you to make money. Of course, like all network marketing programs, you want to build a downline so you can make money from their efforts as well as your own. Since membership is totally free, getting referrals into SFI isn’t as difficult as getting them into programs that charge monthly fees just to be a member.

If everyone who joined SFI simply got referrals and didn’t actually sell anything, though, there’d be no money made. They provide a number of ways for you to bring money into the program by selling to others.

For example, there’s Nice Offers. The Nice Offers website isn’t particularly inviting, but the concept is simple. Visitors make purchases through the Nice Offers website and get a discount off of what they were already going to spend. You get a commission, and everybody is happy.

You can even create a link for a non-profit organization for fund raising purposes. The NPO refers people to this link, and when people buy from Nice Offers, the NPO gets a commission. You get a small piece of that commission for basically no work at all.

There are also a variety of retail product websites, including ones for natural cleaning products, pet care, and more. You could drive traffic to these in whatever way you wanted to earn commissions on any products sold.

SFI also has a weekly set of training lessons covering a full year. You can go through them faster if you want. The training lessons are relatively short, but cover a lot of ground. For someone new to Internet marketing, they’re a great and completely free introduction to a wide variety of topics.

Another nice thing about SFI is that they specifically support and encourage affiliates who are not living in the United States. They have landing pages tailored to specific countries, which is a level of support you don’t see at most programs.

If you don’t think you can get referrals into SFI, they do have a monthly ad coop. You pay $45 for the month, and get an equal portion of the signups generated by the coop advertising.

As a basic affiliate, you earn 30% commissions on sales made through your websites. As an Executive Affiliate, you earn 60% commissions. Executive Affiliate status is earned each month by referring a single sale through one of the product websites. This is a simple qualification to encourage affiliates to bring some money into the system each month. You can purchase an item through your own affiliate link to qualify.

As an Executive Affiliate you also earn a commission from the company powerline. If you missed my recent post on powerlines, this means that you earn a commission from everyone who joins SFI after you become an Executive Affiliate, even if you didn’t refer them. Like most powerline plans, this one is vague on exactly how much commission you earn. But since the qualification for it is easy, it’s a nice addition to your income from SFI.

I would classify SFI as an excellent starter opportunity for someone new to network marketing and Internet marketing. It’s free to join, and qualifying for Executive Affiliate status is easy enough, especially since there’s probably something at Nice Offers that you would be buying that month anyway.

Building a bit of income through SFI can help to build the confidence of a beginner so that they can branch out into other opportunities.

You can join SFI for free here.

Posted on

Making Money Online with Arbitrage

Arbitrage is the idea that you can make money through the difference between two prices.

Adsense arbitrage works by paying for clicks through PPC advertising, and then converting those visitors into Adsense earnings on high paying keywords. You would typically do this by using PPC advertising to send targeted visitors to a landing page that had Adsense ads on it. In this case you don’t really care about using the landing page to presell a product, but rather to provide enough content to form a framework to pull in Adsense ads for the keywords you’re targeting.

There’s a great post at Greywolf’s SEO Blog about Adsense arbitrage that goes into detail about the process.

Note that you don’t need to use Adsense specifically. Any way of placing ads on a landing page works just as well.

Another form of arbitrage is sports betting arbitrage. In this form, you place bets with online book makers on various sporting events. Each book maker will have slightly different odds, and you’re looking for a difference in odds that allows you to bet both sides of the event and make a profit no matter who wins. The typical sales pitch for websites that will identify sports arbitrage opportunities for you (for a fee, of course) is that you cannot lose.

While that’s technically true, you also have to keep track of the various fees that mount up. Some book makers charge you a fee every time you transfer money into your account with them. You’ll also be paying a fee to the website that’s showing you the opportunities. There may be currency conversion fees, depending on where you and the book maker are located. Make sure that you understand all the fees involved before trying to get into this sort of arbitrage, as they can eat through your profits if you’re not careful.

The Sports Arbitrage Review Site is an excellent site detailing one man’s retirement career in the field. He shares how much he’s made, and warns about related scams on the net. He also reviews websites that provide sports arbitrage opportunties and rates them, so be sure to take a look if you have any thoughts about getting into this field.

With any sort of arbitrage, you make your money in the gap between the two prices. You either need a large gap, or high volume, to make any serious money. Large gaps generally don’t happen that often, so you end up trying to make up for it in the number of transactions.

Arbitrage works any time there’s a gap of some sort. For example, currency arbitrage takes advantage of differences in the conversion rates between different currencies in different regions of the world.

What other sorts of arbitrage opportunities can you think of?

Posted on

New Squidoo Ad-Sharing Calculations

Those of you who aren’t familiar with Squidoo should check out my original Squidoo post, or do a search on Squidoo to find other posts about it.

Up until just recently, the amount of money you made in Squidoo from ad-sharing was quite small. I was averaging 85 cents a month from about a dozen lenses, some popular. The Squidoo folks have just changed their ad-sharing calculations to take into account the PR of the lens. This rewards those lenses that are quality enough to get linked to from elsewhere, including other lenses.

Several of my lenses abruptly jumped to earning $3 a month, totaling about $15 for the month for all of them. Now, $15 a month isn’t a lot, but when you consider that you’re being paid to write web pages that are, essentially, advertising your other online businesses, it’s not such a bad deal.

Ironically enough, though, my highest earning lens isn’t advertising anything! I wrote a couple of public service type of lenses, about subjects I felt needed more exposure, and they’ve gotten enough search engine traffic to be my two most popular lenses. One is my Computer Game Making For Kids lens, and the other is my Roleplaying with Kids lens. Regular readers will remember that the Roleplaying with Kids lens was named Lens of the Day some time back, and I wrote a series of posts about the effect that had on the lens.

You can join Squidoo here to get started making your own lenses. Keep in mind that the new calculations reward quality lenses, so don’t expect to slap something together that’s little more than a sales pitch and an affiliate link and have it earn anything from ad-sharing. Spend some time on the lens itself, and get it listed in as many high profile groups as are appropriate for the topic of your lens.

Soon you’ll be getting paid a bit to advertise your online businesses.

Posted on

Getting Traffic From Expired Domains

There’s been a lot written on the net about getting traffic from expired domains.

The basic idea is that people register domains, create websites for them, build up a nice set of backlinks, and then for one reason or another allow the domains to expire. The backlinks for those domains still exist, and still get traffic. You can buy an expired domain and take advantage of the traffic already coming to it. It’s like getting lots of backlinks all at once.

The problem with this is figuring out which domains has the sort of traffic that you want, finding who owns it, negotiating a price, completing the transaction with some sort of escrow service, etc.

When all you really want is nicely targeted traffic to your site. Enter Revisitors.com. Revisitors.com sells packages of traffic through expired domains they have purchased. They will redirect appropriately targeted expired domains to point to any URL on your website. They have dozens of different categories of expired domains you can choose as your source of traffic.

Keep in mind that these visitors are not expecting to see your website. They’re expecting to see whatever website the link they clicked on was supposed to point to. You’re guaranteed that the topic of the expired site will match yours, so at least the visitor is interested in the topic of your site. But you’re still not exactly what they expected to see.

The same rules apply here as apply to using traffic exchanges. Don’t send visitors to the main page of your site, send them to a splash like page that offers them something of value in exchange for signing up at your website (or for your list, or whatever). You have one chance to convince these visitors that your website will fill their need just as well as the website they thought they were going to see.

Prices for the traffic go as low as 3 tenths of a cent per visitor. This is more expensive than popunder traffic, but is also higher quality traffic since the visitor is interested in the topic.

Revisitors.com is appropriate for people who want the sort of traffic expired domains can give, but aren’t willing to go through the hoops of finding and purchasing expired domains themselves.

I’m going to be running a test this week of some Revisitors.com traffic, and will report on the results. In the meantime, you can also earn a bit of money referring others to the site. Click on the link above and go to their Affiliates section to signup for free, and earn 20% of any sales you make through your affiliate link.

Posted on

When to Not Use Company Sales Letters

So you’ve found an affiliate product you want to promote, and are ready to advertise.

Most companies will provide some sample sales letters you can use for advertising. The theory is that those sales letters will be of a higher quality than what you could write yourself. You can use the sales letters in email marketing, sending to safelists, etc. There are times when using company sales letters makes a lot of sense.

There are also times when it’s exactly the wrong thing to do.

First, make sure the sales letter really is better than you can do yourself. Some company sales letters are pretty bad.

Second, be aware of what other advertisements your target audience may be seeing. For example, if you have an opt-in list, you might think that sending the company sales letter to your list is a great idea. Keep in mind that the people who subscribe to your list probably subscribe to other lists on the same topic. And all of those list owners will be trying to sell them the same product, possibly by using company sales letters.

As a list subscriber, it’s really annoying to see the same sales letter coming from multiple lists. It hurts the credibility of the list owners, and makes it pretty clear that they just care about making money off their subscribers. If you are fortunate enough to have a list, take the time to write a personal letter for your list, addressing why the product is good for your subscribers specifically.

If you have a blog, especially don’t use company hyped sales letters in your blog. It makes you look unprofessional, and will hurt your search engine rankings because of duplicate content (because others will probably do the same thing). Write a proper review for your blog.

Save the company sales letters for safelists and ezine advertisements.

Posted on

The Importance of a Great Sponsor in MLM Programs

Most people look for MLM programs to join based on the details of the program itself.

Typically they’re looking for a program that will let them profit with as little effort as possible, which is certainly attractive. So a forced matrix is good, since you can get spillover from your upline. High commissions on your first level are good, since that puts you into profit soonest. A typical setup is that when your first level is filled, you’ll be breaking even on your membership fees.

What most people don’t consider is the importance of your sponsor in the program.

A good sponsor is more than the source of potential spillover in a forced matrix. A good sponsor will offer you advice, encouragement, and support. A great sponsor will take direct action to help you succeed, knowing that your success is their success.

If you join an MLM program and your sponsor does not contact you, that’s a good sign that your sponsor doesn’t really care if you succeed or not. If someone else in your upline contacts you, that’s a good sign that your sponsor is relying on spillover from above. The person who did contact you is effectively your sponsor for the purposes of this article.

Here are some of the concrete actions a sponsor can take to help you succeed.

Offer Expert Advice

Your sponsor is, in a sense, more experienced than you if only because you joined the program under them. They no doubt have knowledge that can help you short-circuit some of the learning curve in the program, and should be willing to share that advice with you.

Offer Marketing Help

Your sponsor has shown an ability to get at least one referral, you. They should, at the least, be willing to let you know what has worked best for them. They may also provide you with access to splash pages they’ve used. A great sponsor will offer you a spot in a URL rotator that they send traffic to, to help you gain referrals through their marketing efforts.

Not Bombard You with Advertisements

A great sponsor will not send you advertisements about other programs to join. They may, now and then, point you to an opportunity that complements what you’re already doing, but they won’t try to get you to join every opportunity they’re in just to get referrals.

I try to model these actions with my referrals in any program I work. I’ve found that keeping referrals is easier if you show an interest in them and are seen to be trying to help them succeed. There’s nothing worse than joining a program and then feeling like you’re on your own to succeed or fail.

Posted on

Just What Is a Powerline Anyway?

Apparently standard multi-level marketing matrices are old hat, because more companies are using powerlines these days.

A powerline is basically a single line of people, in roughly the order that they joined the company. The marketing hype for powerlines says that you can earn from everyone under you in the powerline. Since the powerline continues to grow as new members join, this sounds like a great deal. You don’t have to hope for spillover from your sponsor, instead everyone who joins after you is automatically under you.

The trick with companies that use powerlines is to read carefully the details of the commissions you get from the powerline.

MyWorldPlus, for example, features “infinity bonuses”. These are the commissions you earn on everyone below you in the powerline, down to infinity. But not really, because it’s only down to the next person who qualifies for your level of bonus. They rate members from 0 stars to 5 stars, based on how valuable you are to the company (presumably how many people you’ve referred, or sales volume you’ve generated). So as a 1 star member you earn commissions down the powerline until you get to the next member who is 1 star or above. This is only really useful if you get up to 4 and 5 stars.

Without the infinity bonus, you earn commissions from the 5 members below you. That’s right, you only earn commissions on 5 people. And the total is a whopping 14%.

Vocalix Direct is another company that uses powerlines. Vocalix Direct just launched recently, and their web pages are vague on the exact commissions earned from the powerline. Since they push you to upgrade to a paying membership to lock in your spot in the powerline, not having details on the commissions you’ll earn is a bit suspicious. They have plenty of details on what you earn from your sales of their product, and from your personal referrals, but no numbers on the powerline commissions.

Powerlines sound great, since you have a continually growing downline, but in practice earning any significant money just from being in the powerline is not going to happen. Yet that is typically how these schemes are marketed.

If you find a company using powerlines and think their offer sounds great, be sure to check the actual numbers for commissions so you know at what point you’ll break even on your membership fees.

Posted on

Review of IMC’s Insider Secrets

I just received my $2.95 Internet marketing package via Federal Express yesterday.

The box is a hefty nine pounds, and has emblazoned across one end, “The ‘Insider Secrets’ to Marketing Your Business on the Internet, by Derek Gehl”. So if you want to keep your online activities secret from your neighbors, be around when Federal Express delivers.

The first thing you see when you open a box is a welcome letter, which is a nice touch. Beneath the welcome letter is an offer for a free phone consulation, for those who “prefer not to read this material”. That’s an interesting approach, but I’m sure it’s probably successful. The amount of material in the box could be intimidating, and offering the first phone consultation free is a good way to get people to call.

Beneath that is a page with some free PPC credits from Yahoo Search, ABC Search, and Miva.com, for when you’re ready to start driving some traffic to your website. Beneath that, finally, is the quick start guide to the rest of the material. The quick start guide has ten steps.

  1. Market Research
  2. Writing Compelling Salescopy
  3. Designing a website that converts
  4. Getting traffic through search engines
  5. Other sources of traffic
  6. Building an opt-in list
  7. Increasing your profits
  8. Using affiliates to drive sales
  9. Creating a buzz
  10. Using social networking

All that’s covered through 90 lessons across six CDs, two large three-ring binders, and a two-foot by three-foot wall poster that lists the steps above to keep you motivated.

Needless to say, I haven’t read through all that yet!

I did skim through the first couple of steps in the first binder. The binder is solid, and the steps are all separated by tabs for easy reference. The first step, market research, is composed of ten lessons. Each lesson has some introductory material, some questions for you to think about, some examples of what other marketers have done, and action items for you to complete.

So far, the material looks solid. The glimpses into what other online marketers have done is helpful, since we all get blocked at times on our own ideas. Seeing what others have done can help to shake loose our own mental blocks.

I’m sure I’ll have more to say about this in the coming weeks, as I continue to read and evaluate the material.

I also just checked the sales page, and the $2.95 promotion is still going on if you want to get a copy for yourself. Click here to order yours.

Posted on

A New Contest!

Since it’s been a little while since the end of my last contest, and I just posted about using contests to entice readers to comment, I’ll start a new contest to encourage comments.

The contest will end July 31st. The winner will be whoever is at the top of the Top Commentators list at the end of that day. My usual comment guidelines apply, and I’ll feel free to delete comments such as “Great idea”, or “Nice post”, or “This is my entry”. Remember that comments are supposed to add value to the post.

The prize will be an original article published on Ezine Articles, linking to two of your URLs with anchor text of your choice. The URLs should lend themselves to an article topic so that the links make sense. You can primarily expect to see some SEO benefit from this, although you might see some additional traffic, too.

A second article, under the same terms as the first, will be awarded at random among the people who link to this post about the contest from their own blog. The same person can win both articles.

Note that I have the Top Commentators list setup to count only comments from the last 30 days. So by the end of July, all the current comment counts will have dropped off the list, so anyone could win.

To enter, just leave comments between now and July 31st.

Posted on

Why Comments on Blogs Are Important

A blog lives and dies by the traffic it attracts.

You can use various techniques to get traffic, but the best way is to get it through search engines. This traffic is free, and they are already interested in what you have to say. Search engine traffic is largely driven by your content.

And your content includes the comments other people leave on your blog. Comments can cause your blog to get traffic you never expected, and attract readers from new audiences. As an example, Online Opportunity recently had a visitor who was searching Google looking for ways a 14 year-old could make money online. They ended up at my post about how to make money blogging.

That visitor wasn’t due to the content I put into the post, but due to a comment left by Carl Ocab. In the comment Carl shared that he was 14 and made money blogging.

These trickles of traffic add up over time to a steady stream. Comments give you content that is different from what you normally write, and help you to attract visitors you might not otherwise have attracted.

Also note that comments on old blog posts make it seem to search engines that the page’s content has been updated. Search engines like pages that update their content regularly.

In the early days of a blog, it can be tough to get people to comment. Later, when a blog has a thousand visitors a day, every post will get some comments. New blogs need to be a bit more creative, though.

One creative approach is being taken by Mr. P over at Cash for Comments. You can find the full details here, but the short of it is that in exchange for 5 comments on his blog and a review, he’ll return the favor and give you a review and five comments on your blog. The scheme seems to be working out well for him.

Other approaches to increasing comments include closing posts with questions, or holding contests for comments. An example of a contest for comments is over at Pure Blogging’s $200 contest. Basically, $100 is awarded to whoever submits the 1,000th comment on the blog. So go comment on Pure Blogging, and maybe you can make an easy $100!

Pure Blogging is also giving $100 to a random blogger who helps spread the word about this contest. This post doesn’t count, since it isn’t in a post of its own. So if you want to enter that portion of the contest for a chance at $100, click the link above and check out the contest rules.

However you do it, increasing the number of comments on your blog is a great way to increase the amount of traffic you’re getting. What are your favorite ways of getting visitors to comment?