Money Schemes - Learn How To Make Money Online

So is the Waterhouse Report worth the money then? In my opinion, no, certainly not if you’re already making money! There we go, quickest review ever!

The Waterhouse Report is marketed as the greatest review of “Work from Home”, “Make Money From Home” and “Online businesses” to date. In fact the claim is that – After testing 384 “Work from Home”, “Make Money From Home” and “Online Businesses”, the simplest one creates a monthly income stream of $5,685.12 and requires less than 1 hour per day and in the Waterhouse Report the author is going to tell you which one to follow. Well I wanted an extra $5,685.12 a month for less than 1 hour a days work so I went ahead and bought it. I spent my money on this more than a year ago and in that time I’ve read it several times, mainly for comedy value, I can hand on heart say that by following the advice in the report I am not earning $5,685.12 a month from an hour a days work. Then again I found it very hard to follow all the advice in this report because it was constantly pointing me in the direction of other paid products and having paid for this report and so little content I didn’t really feel like spending more money.

So what you actually get for your money here is a 34 page PDF file that seems to meander from general motivational talk to how to invest money to eventually some completely un-biased (hmmm) reviews of a few products and services that are gonna make you rich, rich I tell ya! The first thing I noticed was that there was no contents section, then again at only 34 pages long why bother? The actual bulk of the report is taken up with how to go from nothing to being rich and covers such areas as selling things on e-bay all the way up to purchasing shares, all covered in such an amazing lack of detail but yet managing to recommend that you pay for a course or product to help fill in the blanks. The only reviews featured are for those products that he highly recommends you pay for and again the amazing lack of detail in each review is startling.

Overall this entire report seems geared towards pushing you onto other much more expensive courses and products. As somebody who had extensive knowledge of how to make a dollar or two online before reading this I found it useless. However, what I would say is this, if you’re completely new to the world of online money, don’t know where to start and have a bit of money to throw at something then perhaps reading the Waterhouse Report and following up on some of the courses might not be the worst idea in the world. If on the other hand you’re doing OK then the Waterhouse Report is not going to bring you into that next level.

I’m sure we’d all like to make an extra $300 each and every day just by sitting at our computers? The Kid over at www.bcmblog.com thinks that he can make this happen, the question is scam or no scam can you resist giving it a go, I know I couldn’t. Whilst I’ve been around long enough to know that making money just isn’t that easy it’s a case of weighing up risk versus potential benefits. The only risk involved to me is the e-mail address I had to give out and the time I’ll be putting into the project, the potential benefits could be zip, on the other hand it could be worth $100,$200 or even $300 a day. When put like that it’s a no brainer for me, might work it might not but either way I’ve got very little to lose (especially if you use a secondary e-mail address to sign up). He’s already given away $100 worth of software to those that are coming along for the ride so if you’ve not already I’d suggest you give it a go.

Tomorrow I’m going to be reviewing the Waterhouse Report, marketed as one of the best must have “How To Make Money Online” products out there. This guy was “Voted the Internet’s #1, biggest selling & most respected tester of Work from Home, Make Money from Home & Internet Businesses” Is it worth $27 or not, I’ll let you know tomorrow.

Quoted from Google’s own philosophy:-

“The perfect search engine,” says Google co-founder Larry Page, “would understand exactly what you mean and give back exactly what you want.” Given the state of search technology today, that’s a far-reaching vision requiring research, development and innovation to realize. Google is committed to blazing that trail.

Bollocks. Complete and utter bollocks. I’d like Google to own up and change this to “would understand exactly what you mean and give back exactly what you want, unless you are looking to spend money in which case use our sponsored results, keeerrrching!”.

I’ve read so much about Google in the last couple of days that my eyes are bleeding Red, Blue, Yellow and Green. Lets get things clear from the start, this isn’t all about the recent kick in the knackers for websites selling links, it’s about Google’s driving mission to remove business based websites (that includes anybody looking to make money online) from it’s natural search results. You see in Google’s eyes people trying to make money through Google without giving Google a cut are bad, very bad. The first hit came about with the removal of the emphasis from on-the-page to external based factors. Why did this happen? Was it to produce better results or was it to negate people who had a vested interest in ranking well i.e. businesses. Lets face it Mr and Mrs Smith were not going to pay an SEO expert to optimise their family website, businesses would, did and do. The best way of removing this “problem” is to make on the page SEO almost useless. Of course the basics are still there but anybody can do these, the truth is that if you’ve read the free resources that are openly available and implemented that advice then there is very little an SEO expert can do to your on-page factors that will have much influence with Google. At the same time Google liked to put forward the notion that “content is king”, remember this for later.

The next big victim in Google’s attempt to remove business was reciprocal linking. Getting links was vital to ranking well in Google’s new world, obviously the people with the most to gain for ranking well could employ SEO experts to manage link building campaigns. Swapping links was a big industry not so long ago. What was Google’s solution to this problem, devalue reciprocal links, make them worthless, emphasise the importance of one way links and re-iterate that “content is king”.

So comes the next step in the campaign. As soon as Google mentioned one way links then a certain class of website had a problem, the business website of course. How could a business website attract one way links? When your website comprises of fairly static who you are, what you sell and some recommendations or even worse several hundred products, a shopping cart and some basic contact information how do you get people to link to you? The simple answer is you pay them. It’s a tactic I’ve used for clients and still do, the simple reason is…NOT PAGE RANK, but customers. My clients want customers, customers come from visitors. You’ll notice that in my TLA experiment I didn’t bother mentioning page rank or search results, my results were based on visitor statistics. Google’s determination to kick sites selling links is going to have a major affect on a lot of websites. Forget link love, juice or whatever you want to call it, when those sites selling links get fewer visitors then so do you. Not only does buying links no longer boost your own search popularity but you are now almost guaranteed to get less traffic from a bought link. This leaves people looking to run business websites with very few options. Perhaps the best one is to buy their ranking in Google with a sponsored result? A sponsored result where all Google’s rules go out the window. Who’d have guessed!

Content is king, well here’s some news for you, a lot of the searches on the internet are by people not looking for “content” in the form of 350-500 words as such, but just looking to buy something. How long is it going to be until you search for “Sony Digital Camera” and Google’s natural results are dominated by blogs spewing crap about Sony Cameras? Want to buy a camera, look for the sponsored links at the top and right. If you want to rank well write a blog, forget static content, shopping carts, fancy interactive features, and just spew out nonsense in a blog! Don’t believe me? It’s the exact tactic I used on my own business. There were phrases I wanted to rank for so I optimised my actual business site to within an inch of its life with little affect on Google. I started a blog in a subdirectory with the odd casual mention of the phrases I was targeting. Within a month I (my Blog) was placed in the top 3 for every phrase in Google’s results. The problem was converting these visitors into customers; obviously they were looking for a website that was centred on selling what they were looking for and not a blog. It worked for me because I could shape that traffic to where I wanted it with some clever internal linking. It’s a crazy situation and one entirely manufactured by Google. So I’m a detective Agency based in New York, I want people looking to hire a detective to be able to find me so how do I do it. Whatever you do don’t try a business website selling your services unless you want to pay Google, if you want your visitors for free start a blog about Being A Private Detective In New York and just hope that your visitors will dig deep enough to find what you’re selling.

There are the exceptions to the rule, the big shops that have lucrative advertising deals with Google will always feature as will those that have been around since the year dot. As Google remove more and more of the factors that they take into account when ranking, punish people for promoting their businesses then their results are going to become dominated by text filled nonsense websites. In the last 2 years Google had the balance just about right, if I wanted to find John Chow’s website I did a search for John Chow, there is a nice mix of business and private websites amongst most search results. I can’t see that lasting much longer.

If this all sounds a bit doom and gloom it’s because I’m sick of reading and hearing about Google. If they could just be honest (they have shareholders to answer to and are just running a business at the end of the day) then I’m sure we’d all adjust, but with all the bull shit about “best search results” and doing no evil it’s just plain annoying. In fact it’s almost enough to make me turn to Yahoo, almost!

Are there any ethics when it comes to making money online? It’s a question I sometimes have to ask myself, normally when I’ve just thought of something that will make a lot of money, isn’t illegal but just doesn’t “seem right”.

A very good example of this was something that happened today. I’m a member of a fairly hard to get into affiliate scheme for one of the UK‘s biggest brand retailers on the internet. The way it works is the usual planting a cookie for a set amount of time and you get a percentage of whatever the person buys, nothing very exciting there, just normal affiliate stuff. What I’ve been noticing though is that people tend to click on the special offer banners I use, not buy that “special” product but then just by the law of averages go back and buy something from that online shop several weeks later. It’s a big, popular online store and lots of people use them. Of course by using those banners the actual number of referrals I have is quite low and so are my earnings.

I was thinking what would happen if I changed the rules of the game. For example say I have a page that gets hit 1,000 times a day by people searching for “boob tubes”. Now what if right near the very top of that page I including a link in the body with the text “the best boob tubes I’ve ever found”, using my affiliate link. Of course anybody clicking that link is taken to the website that has nothing to do with boob tubes but by that point my cookie is in place. No real harm done to the visitor right? Probably just a duff link or something? Instead of 5 referrals a day we’re now more likely looking at several hundred. Over the next month they shop, I earn money. In theory it’s a great idea, it’s just a shame that it just doesn’t feel “right”.

I suppose in a situation where you’re desperate (or evil as some people call themselves) then this would become acceptable, maybe? For me, at the moment I just can’t bring myself to do it.

I’ve had to break away from Halo 3 to make this official announcement, Agloco as a money maker sucks big time! They have finally got around to announcing how they are going to make payment to their members (or as they like to call them “owners). If you were banking on using this as a way of escaping the day job I’ve got some really bad news for you.

Agloco Payment Distribution

At a first glance the figures don’t actually look that bad, to date the payment amounts are as follows:-

June – $0.48 an hour

July – $0.42 an hour

August – $0.54 an hour

That doesn’t look too bad does it? Except when you realise that each payment is to be spread over the next 10YEARS! Say for example you have no referrals in your network and you did the full 5 hours in June. That means you made $2.40 Spread that over 10 years and it means each month you receive $0.02 a month, woo hoo! During the last 3 months of running Agloco with no referrals (as 85% of current members are doing) you have ensured a grand total of about $0.05 a month, think about inflation and how little your money is going to be worth in10 years time and it just gets worse. Did I mention also that it looks like the minimum payout is going to be $100?

But What If I’ve Got Thousands Of Referrals And Hours

Even if you’ve worked your ass off on promoting Agloco, have spent money and have a substantial active (active is the key, only 1 of my referrals actually uses the toolbar) referral network you’re not going to be making that much. Lets say for example you’re putting 5000 hours in the bank each month, for June you’ve just made $2400, but here’s the kicker, spread that over 10 years and what you actually see is $20 a month. After 3 months you’ll be earning around $60 a month so even with them numbers it’s going to take 3 months before you see any money from Agloco. How many people are going to earn 5000 hours a month, not many I would guess! What’s even worse is that people with larger networks are going to have real trouble holding onto their networks thanks to Aglocos payments news, how many of your referrals are only earning 5 hours a month? How many do you think will carry on using a toolbar that searches via the Ask search service for the princely sum of $0.02 a month? Expect to see the number of active uses in your referral network decrease in the coming weeks, Agloco have taken a good idea and made it bad. You’ll not find any Agloco affiliate links in this post, there is no way that I could recommend Agloco as an online money maker.

As you might have noticed I’ve been happy to big-up DealDotCom, as I stated earlier in the week they got of to a great start with a couple of quality products, one of which even I bought (And I’m a tough man to please). So it was with a sense of guttedness (is that even a word?) that I logged in this morning to find todays deal of the day being…………a dodgy e-book! Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!! You know the type, it’s an e-book that will make you mega rich, even better it comes with not just resale rights, but master resale rights. How am I supposed to contain this excitement? Quite easily as it turns out. I’ve been suckered into buying e-books in the past with the inevitable gimmick being that you can then sell the same book onto to any potential suckers customers. I really had high hopes for Deal Dot com but if they’re selling this sort of rubbish in the first week then good luck to them, i’ll still check in from time to time but this is the last time I’ll be mentioning them here unless then do come out with a really remarkable offer. Yes I am fickle.

Just in case you are wondering there is only one e-book I’ve ever bought that has been worth the money and that’s the SEO Book.

I’m getting a hell of a lot of link requests at the moment so I’d like to take this opportunity to state something.

Dear Owner Of Built For Adsense Software Directory,

I couldn’t give a flying monkeys ass that you’ve decided to rip-off my content to create a “no original content” page full of Adsense. Further more if you think for 1 minute that I’m going to link to your shit, no rank, no traffic website (that has ripped my content) all because you send me a pro-forma e-mail telling me how great I am then you’re either stupid or mental. If I wanted my software in your new “cutting edge with nobs on” directory then I would have submitted it, as I didn’t I don’t.

Thank you and have a nice day,

Paul

ps Have I mentioned how much I hate directories and the spam that goes with them????

You must have seen it? One of the many adverts that abound the internet for an exclusive rich club. Some arrogant bloke ranting at you via the medium of a black on yellow filled squeeze page? The talk of millions of dollars a month, fast cars, expensive holidays all just by signing up to their exclusive limited number, members only get rich website!

Well a long time ago when I was a bit stupid (ok, maybe not that long ago) I decided to give one of these Rich Jerk clubs a go. It was at a time when I still had the stability of my day job, my internet earnings were bonus money and $30 a month was neither here nor there. I was making a very good amount from Adsense and affiliate earnings but there was always just that niggling thought that I was missing out on my fortune. My first impressions of the Rich Jerks club were mixed.

For A Millionaires Website This Looks A bit….Amateurish

If a picture paints a thousand words then all the words I could see were cheap. It looked like a badly put together template hovering slightly off centre above some sort of CMS. Each of the menu options brought you to a page that looked just as bad as the previous. What made it worse was that just as I joined there were switching templates, this resulted in broken links a aplenty and lots of lost forum posts. For a billion-squillionaire you’d think they could afford a half decent web developer to put their site together? Anyhoo, I wasn’t here to look at nice things, the content was what would matter, the forums and downloads and at a first impression these looked good. Lots of downloads and lots of forum posts from active members and I couldn’t wait to get stuck in.

Bugger

As I started to read the exclusive members only forum it soon started to become apparent that I’d made a mistake. For a completely full members club with hundreds of members very few people were posting. There seemed to be 2 groups, those fan boys that did nothing but shout out praise for the owner of the site in any situation and were always on the look out for people to exchange links with. The other group being those asking questions about how to get the various free software tools and content he was giving away working. A few hours of reading through this was enough to kick me into action, I decided to have a look at the downloads myself. Various things ranging from PLR content and software tools for disguising links, making random paragraphs, other junk, I think the idea was that you would download the stuff for free to re-brand and then sell. To be fair there really was a lot of this stuff. The trouble was that you could find hundreds of copies of the same articles and content plastered all over the net. You’re not going to do a lot with the search engines with that. The software all seemed rushed, buggy and if you were willing to try and sell if for the $60-$90 that they recommended then you’re a braver man than me.

After several weeks in the club it became obvious that the real way of making money here was to make your own members only exclusive internet Rich Jerks club. The only people in the forums who were making real money were all talking about setting up their own clubs. The owner himself was constantly on about setting up at least 1 other club for us all to join. It was also clear that the majority of the “Rich Jerks” here were earning a lot less than me in an average month. The talk of dollars here and there was enough to give that away. The promise of an exclusive club of rich jerks all making money and sharing advice sounds great, until you realise that there is only 1 jerk actually making the money. I did what anybody else would do, downloaded everything (just in case 1 day…you never know) and left the club before my second payment was made.

As part of the deal it is made very clear that once you quit you’re never allowed back, I guess it’s some way of trying to scare people out of quitting. It’s such a shame, because I’m desperate to get back in…

(I’ve just had a thought, if I was a real millionaire guru type I should have posted a great review with an affiliate link, damn!)