Many of you have talked about how difficult it has become to join the affiliate networks now.  It use to be you entered your email address, filled in your address, who to make the checks out to and you were ready to start placing affiliate links on your sites.  Not now, today the affiliate networks require you to fill in information about you, your web sites, how your going to advertise for them and most importantly they want to actually talk with you and phone verify your account.

This new phone call method actually scares the heck out of many people. Many of you have asked me to help you, statements like.. What do I say?  I’m afraid.  I’m going to freeze up and not know what to say.  Can you give me some advice on how to get through one of the phone call interviews?

Well, I like many of you have been turned down too, even this week I have been turned down.  I think it’s quite funny sometimes because I’ve probably been doing this longer than the person interviewing me but I don’t reveal to them everything I have done or I’m currently doing.  I just want to get accepted to their network so I can make us both some money.  I really feel their new filtered techniques are hurting them more than they know but that’s a whole new article in itself.  But there are some things we can do  that will get us  accepted into most of the networks we apply to.

The single best snippet of advice I can offer you is to get prepared for their questions before picking up the phone.  Have a plan, know how you’ll be promoting their offers, what type of offers do you like best, make sure you have a nice looking web site too. Write some notes down and keep them by the phone where you can refer to them quickly when the phone rings. But the method I like best, is don’t wait and worry about the phone call, make the call yourself before they have a chance to.  After filling out your application pick up the phone, your notes and give them a call.  They hate calling just as much as you hate having to go through it, you’re just another name to scratch off their list of calls for the day.  But remember, some networks are not going to accept you anyway, maybe it’s your traffic type, not sufficient, your business is too new, etc.  Just accept it and move on to the next one, if you think like me it’s going to be their loss anyways.

As a freelance writer, you are able to design your own work schedule setting both your available hours as well as your own salary. While you may initially have to bid for projects and lower your intended rates to assist in building a client list and getting the word out about your services, after you are established you will be able to work exclusively from your own customer base, offering custom services and catering to return clients, should you put in the effort to develop a brand for high quality, reliability and excellence.

In the freelance writing marketplace, competition is fierce and with so many people willing to provide services at a severely reduced price compared to traditional industry standards, writers who wish to be successful must rely on their ability to provide quality over quantity, showcasing their skills and emphasizing exactly why their rates are higher than newer writers.

To begin as a freelance writer you will want to set up your own website, keeping it simple and on focus. Design a page that will showcase samples of your work ability and be sure to include the topics and subject matter that you are comfortable writing about as well as the various types of projects that you are willing to accept such as ebooks, reports, articles or advertising media.

Next, take the time to create accounts on the popular freelance marketplaces, paying close attention to include relevant details about yourself including your experience, your strengths and knowledge regarding specific subjects or markets.

When bidding on projects be reasonable but consistent. Try to determine, early on, what your price structure will be and do your best not to move too far from your objective and initial plan. If you feel that you are constantly losing projects to lower bids, consider adding additional information to your profile that features samples of your work, and tweak your portfolio site to better showcase and reflect your talents.

In the end, quality will always be the leading factor as to whether you are able to generate a loyal client base or not.

Here are a few of the leading freelance marketplaces online

1) http://www.eLance.com

2) http://www.Guru.com

3) http://www.GetAFreelancer.com

4) http://www.Constant-Content.com

5) http://www.Helium.com

6) http://www.Monster.com

Forums:

http://www.Warriorforum.com

http://www.DigitalPoint.com

http://www.SitePoint.com

The problem with this opportunity is that while there are an abundance of survey options available, there are many companies who end up not remitting payment to those participating, or offer credits or discounts on products and services, rather than paying them as expected.   In addition, the membership websites that offer listings of paid survey sites for a fee are merely providing access to a listing of companies available freely online, just by browsing search engines and work at home community forums and websites.

To help you get started, if paid surveys is something of interest to you, there are legitimate opportunities that will yield a bit of extra cash for only a small amount of your time. Here are some of the ones that people are actively involved in and are known to pay those participating

http://www.Blarry.com
Payment for participation in a focus group ranges from $40 to $150.

http://www.acop.com
Offers top payment for all completed surveys. aCop is a reputable provider and typically has a wide selection of available surveys.

http://www.CashCrate.com
Provides flexible options so you can selectively choose which surveys interest you and fill out various offers from many companies and providers.

http://us.lightspeedpanel.com/
One of the more popular paid survey opportunities, that has been established online for many years. LightSpeed Panel is available only to residents of the United States at this time, however.

http://www.npd.com
Another popular choice among survey participants, NPD is a reputable provider who pays promptly and offers a wide variety of survey opportunities.

http://www.PandaResearch.com
Payment ranges from $3.00 to $15.00 per survey, with many opportunities available.  Panda Research is an established US based company.

http://www.Qsamples.com
Prompt payment via Paypal and pay offers ranging from $2.00 – $15.00 makes QSamples a very lucrative opportunity for survey seekers.

Regardless of the survey companies that you decide to participate in, always take the time to do your research and ensure that there are no outstanding complaints or problems by current users.  Also be sure to complete your profile within each account to ensure that you are able to receive payment promptly and that these survey based companies are able to contact you should they need to.

Best of success with your survey ventures!

I’m talking about Get Google Ad Words Free. The seller of this ebook system claims that by using their secret system, you can make millions of dollars by getting free Google Pay-Per-Click ads. Their pitch page is loaded with success stories, reviews from people with their pictures and stories; note the lack of web site addresses. etc. Their pitch page is the absolute best example of an over-hyped product you can find but I purchased the product anyways just to see if I could learn anything at all from their system.

What do you get? An ebook. That’s all they offer you for this system, which is usually fine. Ok, so maybe the information may have something useful in it. Well, it’s suppose to be secret tactics on how to get millions of dollars in Google Adsense advertising for nothing, free! No way! Here’s what the system your buying does. It’s nothing new, it’s basically Adwords Arbitrage. You grab traffic from the adwords system by bidding on keywords. Then on your site, you either sell the ad space for more money or place adsense ads with higher paying ads.

1. You purchase multiple popular keywords, as many as you can afford;
2. Now you bid higher than anyone else on all of them, grabbing the number one position.
3. On your web site, you place advertising, affiliate programs, links, etc. to make more money.

That’s the way it works! So it’s not free. You’re going to pay lot’s of money for those key words and go through lot’s of trial and error to find any keyword and product match that will make a profit. Most likely you will drain your pocket book before finding anything that will make you money.

My conclusion, this technique is not new and most definitely not free. The system can make money if you have time, a good tracking system, patience, luck and lot’s of money to buy Google ads. You may also like to look at the fine print at the bottom of their page, it actually says that you will get no Google ads for free.

In fact, if you can manage to grow a list of active subscribers, your marketing efforts can be cut in half, literally.  You can generate an ongoing profit just from the campaigns you mail to your list, as long as you work hard to offer value on a consistent basis.

This means that your advertising expenses can be eliminated completely, since if you take care of your list, they will, in turn, tell other people about you who will, in turn, subscribe to your list as well.

It’s a win-win situation if you play your cards right and you learn, early on, that list building should always be the center point to your business, regardless of what market you are in.

So, since list building plays such an integral part of successful online marketing, how do you go about doing it?

An Offer They Can’t Refuse
Offer something free in exchange for their subscription. Be careful to focus on offering something relevant to the niche that you are focused on, instead of just giving any old thing away.

For example, if you are in the wedding planning niche, you could offer a short report on “Ten Ways To Plan The Ultimate Wedding on A Shoestring Budget”, and provide a mini-report showcasing tips on saving money.  Of course, you will follow this up with paid-to-use products or services focused on the wedding planning niche.

Another important thing to remember is that not all niche markets are wide-scope, meaning that you should never assume that just because someone is interested in one specific thing (wedding planning), that they will want to receive promotions on everything to do with weddings (designer gowns, etc).

Try to focus your promotions so they are laser-targeted to what your audience is looking for information on without throwing everything at them assuming something will stick.

Offer Discounts

You could offer promotional coupons to those who subscribe to your mailing list. Then, set your autoresponder to shoot them out an email containing the discount code.

It’s a great way to entice your visitors to join your list and at the same time, you are growing an active list of potential buyers, rather than just freebie seekers.

Auto Responder Courses

If you are in a niche where offering training or ‘how to’ guides would be effective, you can encourage sign ups to your autoresponder by featuring an email-based training module, with sequences going out once a day (or once a week) that include instructions on how to accomplish a specific task.

Co-Registration

There are sites available online that will help you grow a list via co-registration.  With co-registration you are able to receive confirmed subscribers that are ready to be imported into your autoresponder service. These opt-in’s include all information such as first and last name, IP address and even a date stamp.

There are many services that offer co-registration. One of the more popular choices is http://www.ListOpt.com/listbuilder and http://www.CoRegistrationServices.com

Newsletter Offer

If you have a lot of information to offer, or you just enjoy writing, you could offer a newsletter that goes out on specific dates or times (weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, etc).  If people like your writing style, and you are working hard to offer high quality information, you should find it easy to gather up a good size list in no time at all. Depending on your niche market, you should be able to come up with a unique and profitable idea to focus a newsletter on.

Autoresponder Services:

http://www.GetResponse.com

http://www.ProSender.com
http://www.Aweber.com