If you have a website of any kind, then you probably use it to either sell or promote some of your products. One of your main concerns as a webmaster would be how to make the user experience more enjoyable for your website visitors. Also, you are probably looking for ways that you can use to improve your overall search engine ranking for the keywords that your website is targeting. Both of these things can be achieved by allowing user interaction with your website. This is not something unique or radical, in fact many of the world’s biggest websites such as Amazon and eBay follow these tips, so learn from the successful guys and implement them.

• Allow User Ratings on Your Items

If you sell merchandise, allowing your users to give a rating, usually in terms of stars, can be a very good way to have them interact with your website and give feedback on products and services that you have and that they have used. Unless you deliberately sell junk and don’t really want your customers to come back to your site (well… they might kind of complain and this annoys scammers, you know), then there should be no problem with letting your site visitors rate your products.

• Allow Comments, Reviews and Testimonials From Users and Encourage them to Participate

This is good for SEO, as it creates unique content which is user generated, so you didn’t really need to take any action in order to put it there anyways. So it saves a lot of effort for you. Are you selling some products? Let buyers post some reviews of them. Many big name shopping sites do that, such as Amazon. Did you post a news article, blog post or made a YouTube video for your website visitors? Let them comment about it and encourage them to leave feedback, by using a call to action such as “What Do You Think of This New Service? Let Us Know Below!”. Monitor your comments to delete spam and obvious trolling or stupidity, but also keep an eye out for visitors that have a question or concern. You can then either respond to them in the comments, or ask them to communicate with you in a private way such as by email or by sending a message through your website.

• Include Social Media Buttons

This really isn’t complicated at all. All you need to do is include buttons for social media, such as your Twitter and Facebook profiles, or your YouTube channel. You can incorporate these to your website very easily and many large companies and even government agencies now have them on their sites due to the prevalent use of social networking sites. You also don’t have to use the icons provided by the social networking sites, instead you can use custom ones that would better match the layout of your website. Of course, you could always download the trial edition of Photoshop and design the logos yourself too. Social media buttons will allow your visitors to get social with you on various networks that your business participates in.

One term that is often mentioned when it comes to online business is “passive income”. However, many newcomers to the industry do not really understand what it means or why you should work to create such a source of income for you. While the definitions will vary somewhat, passive income for me would mean income that will come to you without you having to make ongoing efforts to get it. Too many people get discouraged when it comes to operating their own online business for one main reason : it takes too much work. After all, who wants to trade a $15 an hour job to make $15 an hour online, even if you are working for yourself. Furthermore, nobody wants to spend their entire day in front of the computer to run their business.

There are many ways to make money online, some of which require more interaction from you on a regular basis, some less. Let’s explore some of the ways that you can create an online business that will not require you to spend 10 hours a day in front of your computer.

• Creating your own product

Of course, creating an information product and selling it will require a lot of time and effort in the beginning. However, once the product is created and you have sent some traffic to it, the amount of work that you need to devote to it will diminish as well. This is even more so when you have affiliates that are promoting your product. They will be the ones who will work to create advertising campaigns and get some sales for you, while you can simply sit back and spend an hour or so every day checking your stats and making sure that everything is going ok.

• Selling on eBay

While many would say that selling on eBay is not a “passive income” activity, it all comes down to what you sell and how you do things. Let’s say that you have found a product that is very popular and that you can sell for a $50 profit on eBay. If you get just 2 sales a day, that will mean $100 a day of profit. To allow this to happen, all that you need to do is to work with a drop shipper. The buyer pays for the item. You then place an order with the drop shipper and tell them to ship the item to the client. The deal is done. All you would need to do is to place the orders as necessary and also place new listings. All of this would take you less than an hour a day on average and can bring you very nice profits with little effort. For you to make this work, you would just need to spend some time at the beginning finding a product that is in demand and that can be shipped to your buyers by a supplier which does drop shipping.

Now that we have explored some ways to find dropshippers, let’s take a closer look at how you can evaluate a particular supplier to see whether they are legit or not. Here are some of the things to watch out for when you are looking at a dropshipper. These are not conclusive proof that the supplier is just another scammer, but should be seen as red flags telling you to proceed with extreme caution.

• A recent join date and low amount of feedback from clients

Many dropshipping sites and some online marketing forums have a feedback system that will allow people to leave feedback for each other after completing a transaction. You will also be able to see exactly when somebody became a member of the site.

One thing to watch out for is a member who has recently joined and has no or little feedback on the site. Scammers frequently create new accounts after they begin receiving negatives from clients that they scammed or get banned from the site. Also, don’t let the fact that they’ve completed a few transactions fool you into thinking they must be legit. Some will complete a few transactions successfully at the beginning to build up their “reputation” on the site and then when they see people are starting to trust them, they will simply turn to scamming.

• Insisting on paying using methods such as Western Union or bank wire

It is true that in some countries where suppliers are based it is not possible or practical to use a payment processor such as PayPal or Moneybookers. However you should be careful about using one that insists on being paid with a method that is not reversible such as by Western Union or Money Gram. Even bank wires are not really safe, as banks in foreign countries will seldom want to help you in the event that you’ve wired a few hundred dollars to a scammer. If possible, make use of escrow facilities that will sometimes be advertised on dropshipping sites. However, here again check to see if the escrow service is legitimate too, as some fake ones have been spotted.

• Offering items at prices that seem too low

Well if it looks too good to be true, then it probably is. If you see that a supplier is offering merchandise at prices that are far below what others charge for the same item in the same quantity, then you need to ask yourself some serious questions about them. Most probably, the deal is not legitimate and even if they do send something, it may be merchandise that was stolen or is counterfeit.

• Not providing contact details

If you are going to do some high volume business with a dropshipper, then you should at least have their phone number in case you need to call them if there is a problem with one of your orders. A supplier that doesn’t want to provide one should look instantly suspicious to you.

Previously, we have seen some tips on how you can test the dropshipper that you intend to use and the fact that it is much better to have more than one dropshipper to do business with. But how do you find a good dropshipper? There are a few ways to do this. Here are some of them:

• Look through dropshipping websites

There are some website out there such as DH Gate, TradeTang and Alibaba that are a real treasure trove for all kinds of merchandise. Anything like clothing, electronics and jewelry can be found there. The good thing about these sites is that they are mostly aimed at business owners who are looking to acquire merchandise rather than at individual consumers. This means that you can easily find dropshippers or buy merchandise in bulk. This is the good thing. But the bad thing about these sites is that they also contain many scammers who will either rip you off and not send anything, or ship something different than what they advertise.

But there are ways to protect yourself from that. Obviously, you can apply what we covered in the previous article which would be to make a test order first to see if they deliver. But you should also check the seller’s feedback on the site. See how long they have been active and how many positive comments they have from others who have done business with them. Also, look to see whether they have a website and phone number. While this is not a guarantee of safety, it does make it more likely that you will be dealing with a legitimate supplier rather than a scammer. If possible pay with PayPal or a credit card and avoid sending money through Western Union or Money Gram, as these services are preferred by scammers due to the fact that the transaction cannot be reversed.

• Look at internet marketing forums

Most “make money online” forums will have a section that is dedicated to eBay selling or dropshipping. Check it out to see what others are saying. You may find the contact information for some good suppliers, complete with comments from forum members who have used them and were happy with their transaction. You might even find some members of the forum who are suppliers for a wide variety of merchandise and who can drop ship to your eBay buyers.

Dealing with someone from a forum can be safer than dealing with a seller on Alibaba, as the supplier will often be well known in the forum and have members who can vouch for him. But this is not a guarantee that everything will go well. Don’t forget to use common sense when you are looking for a dropshipper, no matter where you find him. Always try to check their reputation out before you decide to use them as a supplier for your eBay online business. If you are careful, then you will reduce the chances of getting scammed when doing business with one.

If you are going to be dropshipping and selling items on eBay, then you need to be really careful as to the dropshipper that you choose. Selecting the wrong one could rapidly ruin your reputation and cause untold problems. Even if the dropshipper that you are looking at claims to have the products that you want to sell to your buyers at great prices, there is still more that you need to do in order to be sure they will be able to deliver. Here are some tips to avoid any problems when dropshipping on eBay:

• First, start out slowly

When they notice an opportunity to make money online by selling things or by any other means, a lot of people go all in from the very beginning. This might be good in some cases, but with eBay selling this is not the best idea that you could go with. Why is that? After all, isn’t it good to make as much money as fast as you can? You can always try, but if you later find out that you have chosen the wrong supplier for your products, then you have just created a big mess for yourself.

What is a better way to get started? Actually, it’s simple: first make a test order for yourself. Buy one of the products and have the dropshipper send it over to you. You will then be able to see whether you have received the right item in the right condition and whether you have received it within the specified time frame. If you want to be even safer and make sure that the supplier will perform just as well when shipping things to your clients, then you can always list just 1 or 2 items for sale and then see if your buyers have received the item and were satisfied with it. In this scenario, in the worst case you would simply refund your buyers if they did not receive the item as promised or if they didn’t get exactly what you put up for sale.

Once you have determined that the supplier for the goods that you are selling is reliable, you can then start doing business at full scale with them.

• Try to find more than one dropshipper for your items

This will serve as a good backup in case one of your suppliers experiences problems or has run out of the items that you normally sell. It is much better to do business with more than one supplier, as your own business will not be disrupted too severely if you can’t use one of them anymore. Being in a situation where you have lost one of your suppliers and need to scramble to find another one is not good, as very often sellers fail to do their due diligence in this case and will choose a replacement without even bothering to check their reputation and whether they are any good.

One main part of succeeding as an eBay seller would be to keep your buyers happy and satisfied with the products that you offer as well as the service you give them. Now how do you do that? There are a few simple ways to accomplish this.

• Provide a Good Item Description

Many, if not the majority of, cases of customers being unhappy with what they purchased on eBay arises from the fact that they either misunderstood the item description or it wasn’t clear enough. This is a common source of conflicts between buyers and sellers, but it can be avoided relatively easily. Here is how:

• Upload clear pictures of the item

Avoid using stock photos. It is much better to put up pictures of the item that you are selling that you took yourself. A cheap digital camera or a cell phone cam will do. If applicable, take pictures of the product, as well as everything that will come with it such as accessories, etc. This will give the buyer a clear idea of what they will be receiving.

• Describe the condition of the item accurately

If the item is brand new and in the box, then obviously it can be sold as “new”. Don’t try to pass off a refurbished item as a new one, as it simply is not. There are times where you need to open the box and use the item to test it or to prepare it for sale. One common example is a cell phone that you’ve unlocked with software. Obviously, you need to take it out of the box and use it for that to happen. While it is still a “new” item, you should include that in the description. Most buyers won’t mind and actually understand the logic behind this. However, if you don’t mention this you may very well one day end up with a buyer leaving negative feedback and saying “OMMGGGG!!!!! the seller said it was brand new but there was a fingerprint on the side of the phone and a spec of dust on the screen! Liar! Thief!!!”

• If there is some damage to the item or something missing, mention that

If the item that you are selling does not come with items that would normally be necessary or at least useful to operate it, then you should let the buyers know in your description. For example, selling a laptop without a power cord or a gaming console without its controllers. Make sure that this is mentioned in a clear and visible way in your description.

Also, if you are selling an item that has some damage to it or is not fully functional, then you need to advise buyers of this as well. For example, if you are selling an iPhone that has a broken screen (many buyers get these to part them out or to repair them), then make sure your listing says in big bold letters that the screen doesn’t work.

When looking at full time online business opportunities, many people ask themselves whether affiliate marketing is a good thing to go into. While there is definitely a lot of money to be made in this business, it is not the most simple thing to set up. One of the reasons behind this is that you will have plenty of competitors who are going to be after the same kind of traffic that you are and pushing the exact same types of affiliate offers. So what do you require in order to become a good affiliate marketer and make a profitable business out of it? Here are certain things you will need:

• Patience

While some people did make a few thousand in their first months, there is nothing guaranteeing that you will be able to emulate them. Becoming a successful affiliate marketer will take some time. First, you would need to make various efforts to make your business become profitable. Next, you would need to consider the fact that most affiliate programs pay you one month after the end of the current month, so it is not instant money like if you would be selling things on eBay or offering services. If you need to make some money right away, like cash to pay some bills, you can try a different business model for the time being and then move onto affiliate marketing later.

• Money to invest

While it is possible to get started here with just a few dollars for a web hosting account, if you want your business to be successful, you will need to invest a lot of money into it. Some of the things that you may need to pay include: hosting, advertising as well as paying other people to do some tasks for you, such as creating landing pages or putting up ads if you don’t want to spend too much time doing these yourself.

• Ability to stay on top of things

The world of internet marketing is one that is always changing. As such, there are new offers for you to promote, new networks for you to do business with, new advertising opportunities, etc. that appear regularly. If you want to maximize the amount of profit that your business will be making, then you will also need to spend some time scouting for new opportunities in addition to running your existing campaigns. This will require some good planning and time management on your part.

• Having no fear of failure

There are many great methods to make money online, however no one will tell you the exact steps that you will need to take to build a successful affiliate campaign. This is something that you will need to figure out on your own. Along the may, it is very well possible that you will make mistakes. The important thing here is not to be afraid to try new things and to learn from your errors so that you can gain a better understanding of what works and what doesn’t.

If you want to start an online business and make a relatively decent amount of cash, without spending thousands of dollars or working full time on it, there are some ways to accomplish that. While there are many ways of earning money online, here are some examples of methods that have been shown to be profitable for many online entrepreneurs. These can be used to build a part time online business, however there is nothing that is really stopping you from turning these ideas into a full time online business if this is what you wish to do.

• Providing services

We have seen this in the micro online business article, and it really is the same concept. You provide services that are useful for business owners and online marketers and you get paid for it. Popular examples include: article writing, backlink creation, web design, ebook writing, etc.

The main difference is that you will be spending more time doing the work, around 20 to 30 hours per week should give you a very good part time income.

• Outsourced service creation

Same thing, but with a bit of a change. While you can do some of the work, you will be outsourcing most of it to other people for less than what the client is paying you and you will pocket the difference. So let’s say that someone pays you $12 to create a 1000 word article for them. You find a worker that can create quality articles on a forum or freelancing site and pay them let’s say $8 for it. You will then keep the $4 difference as profit. While this seems insignificant, if you get orders for 10 articles a day at $4 of profit, that’s $40 per day, and you didn’t do much work besides co-ordinating the work between what the client orders and what the outsourcer produces.

• Light Ebay selling

Ebay is the most popular online marketplace in the world, where some sellers have made millions by selling various kinds of merchandise to consumers. Of course, it’s not easy to earn 7 figures from the site, but it is well possible to make a few dozen dollars per day from it with a bit of effort and investment.

Selling on Ebay is the electronic equivalent of you having a stand at a flea market. You buy goods from a distributor at a low price and then re-sell them at a profit to the end consumer. All you are doing is applying the concept of buy low/sell high, which has existed for thousands of years.

So, for example, you would buy 10 cell phones at $300 each from a distributor that sells wholesale goods. You then resell them on Ebay for $400 and you keep the difference minus Ebay and PayPal fees. Basically, to be successful, all you would need to do is to find goods that are easy to acquire, in demand and easy to sell at a profit.

There are a lot of people who want to earn some money on the internet. There are also plenty of guides, some free, some paid, which describe various ways to do so. The problem with these is that they often tend to take a “one size fits all” approach and make no difference between someone who just wants a few extra dollars to pay their bills or someone who wants to make a six figure income by building a complete online business.

Also, the issue is that these guides, courses and ebooks, while useful and interesting, tend to focus exclusively on one online money making activity, such as affiliate marketing, digital product creation or eBay selling. This, in itself, is not entirely a bad thing. After all, if someone wants to learn how to be a Power Seller on eBay and make thousands of dollars in sales each day, it would be much better for them to have a complete guide on the topic, rather than just reading a few pages in a more general money making ideas guide.

However, for those who do not yet know which specialty, or specialties of online money making they want to get into, this may not be the best choice. In that case, it would be much better for these people to read something that describes various ways to make money on the internet, so that they can choose which activities they would want to perform to earn.

Even though many individuals with no knowledge of online business wouldn’t know much about different money making activities, they typically know what their objectives are in terms of income. Some people only want to make a hundred or so dollars each month, while others want to make a thousand dollars each day.

There are basically three different categories of objectives in terms of income:

Micro online business: $0 to $500 a month.

This is for those who only want a few extra bucks at the end of the month, to do things like pay some bills, buy a few extra things that they want, etc. These people typically do not want to invest much time or money in their business and just want methods that will bring them a bit of cash without being too complex.

Part time online business: $500 to $2500 a month.

This is often used by people who want to supplement an existing income or those that are willing to put in a bit more effort in their online activities and spend about 15 to 30 hours a week on it. Some investments might be required, but they will usually be relatively small sums of money.

Full time online business: $2500 a month +

Here, things start getting serious. Those who have this objective need to know that they will essentially be building a complete online business and they must be willing to put in 30 or more hours per week into it, as well as make the necessary financial investments to get their business off the ground and to keep it growing.

We will keep exploring some money making ideas for each of these categories tomorrow.

There are many people who are new to internet marketing and the whole “make money online” scene and who naturally, have many questions about online earning opportunities. Here are some answers to questions that are frequently asked by newcomers.

• How do I earn money online?

There are plenty of opportunities, which are quite varied. The most common earning opportunities found online are:

• Becoming an affiliate of another merchant and getting a commission on sales that you get for them.
• Creating a web site, then selling ad space and getting paid for each click on the ads, for the number of views they get, or a fixed amount per day, week or month.
• Creating your own (digital or physical) product and selling it to customers.
• Reselling someone else’s product through your website or a marketplace like eBay or Amazon (buy low/sell high concept, similar to what a physical retail store does).
• Providing services to others (writing, web design, graphic design, translation, etc).

• How much money will I make? Are these ads that say I can make $1000 a day online true?

The amount of money you will earn will depend on what you do specifically. The earning potential is technically unlimited, but it will take a lot of work and dedication to reach good results. While some people can make $1000 a day, it will take much more than simply buying a product or signing up for some course to do the trick.

• Are all of these guides/courses/ebooks/membership sites about making money scams?

Some of them are, but the majority can’t really be considered a scam. Rather, they do give you some ideas and information that you can put to good use and start an online business of your choice. However, most of them stop short of holding your hand to the point of telling you exactly what to sell, exactly how to word your ads, etc. This is something you will need to figure out on your own.

• Do I need any startup money? Can I get started with nothing?

This depends on what you are trying to do to earn money. Some forms of online business can be started with absolutely $0, some others will require a small investment of $10 – $20 for a website and domain name, while others will need you to pay a few hundred or a few thousand for things like advertising, merchandise to re-sell, etc.

• Where are the best places to find information on earning money online?

If you do a Google, search, you will find that there are quite a few websites or blogs that provide useful information, but make sure that they are not simply a “front” that is trying to sell you some guide or get you to join a membership site. The best sources of free information remain internet marketing forums such as Digital Point, Warrior Forum and Wicked Fire.

If you want to be an online freelance writer, the main thing that you will need are clients that will pay you to write articles and other content for them. This is the 3^rd part in the series which will present you some ways to find work:

Online freelancing sites.

Online freelancing sites are marketplaces where both clients and service providers meet. Think of it as a marketplace for online freelance work, kind of like eBay is for buying and selling merchandise. Examples of sites include RentACoder, GetAFreelancer, oDesk, Fiverr and Microworkers. In general, you would create a profile that includes information about you and samples of your work. With the exception of Fiverr, on most freelancing sites you would actually need to bid on projects to show your interest in doing them rather than the client seeing your profile and then contacting you.

Advantages:

• Lots of work is available in the writing field. This includes not only articles, but also copywriting, ghostwriting ebooks, translating documents and web pages, etc.
• Good security. Most sites have a system that prevents the client and service provider from scamming one another and have a dispute resolution process. This decreases the chances of not getting paid for your work.
• Ability to build a positive reputation as you complete projects, similar to iTrader on forums or the eBay feedback system.
• Multiple ways of cashing out your earnings. Freelancing sites offer you payment methods such as PayPal, check, bank wire, Western Union or can put your earnings on a Visa or MasterCard debit card. This can be very useful if you would like to be paid by something other than PayPal. Take note, however that certain withdrawal methods, such as Western Union or bank wire could carry a relatively large fee so it is best to check the withdrawal fees before you select a way to get paid.

Disadvantages:

• Lots of competition. You won’t be the only one offering your services and far from it. If you live in the “West”, know that you will be competing against writers from countries such as India or the Philippines, who often take up projects for far less due to differences in the economy.
• Can be quite difficult to get accepted for projects if you are new and have no feedback. Clients will be wary of assigning an important project to someone new who has not yet built a reputation on the site. Therefore your first projects will probably be small ones worth a few dollars, such as writing one article.
• Possible delays in getting paid. While the money will be credited to your account at the freelancing site as soon as the client approves your work, the freelancing sites sometimes require a waiting period ranging from a week to a month before you can withdraw the amounts that you’ve earned to your payment method.

Do you own a physical business and want to take advantage of the power of the internet to sell your products? Or do you want to start a completely new online business that will ship products to consumers? In either case, this can be a very profitable move for you. However, you will just need to do a bit of planning beforehand to make sure that everything goes well for you.

One of the main decisions that you will need to make when setting up such an enterprise is choosing whether you will sell your products on your own website or through an existing marketplace such as eBay or Amazon. Both have their unique advantages and drawbacks which you need to consider.

Selling via an online marketplace.

The advantages:

• Very high amount of traffic and basically free advertising. Those on the site are already in buying mode and all they have to do is to search for a product that you are selling. This means that you will save money on advertising.
• Easy and quick to get started. There is no need to set up a website or an ecommerce solution, all you have to do is list your items.
• Depending on the terms of the site used, offers some protection in case of fraud or disputes between you and the buyer.

The drawbacks:

• On most sites you would need to either pay a fee to get your item listed, a fee based on the final sale price of the item or both. While these fees are relatively small, they do add up if you sell many items and will also cut in your profit margin.
• Online marketplaces may have restrictions on the types of items that you can sell, where you can ship to, or the payment methods that you can accept from clients.

Selling via your own website.

The advantages:

• You can fully customize the look and feel of your site in order to better suit your business.
• You decide on your own business policies, such as the types of payments that you accept, the shopping cart software you use, etc.
• No fees to list items for sale and no fees to pay on the final sale price.

The drawbacks:

• Building an ecommerce site takes some time and effort. If you don’t want to do it yourself, you may need to hire someone else to do it, which will add to the costs of getting started. You will also need to register a domain name and find a suitable webhost.
• You will need to find a suitable solution for payment processing, as well as install an ecommerce suite on your site.
• Buyers will not just magically appear at your site. You will need to advertise your website using various methods to get traffic. This takes some time and many advertising methods, both online and offline, will also cost you money to implement and get results.

Promoting free biz opp offers by using online classified ads and various offline methods can be quite profitable indeed, you just need to know what to do in order to attract people’s attention and encourage them to sign up.

Basically here are the things that you will need:

• CPA offers to choose from (they need to be free biz opps that don’t require a credit card)
• A hosting account and domain (could be a cheap .info domain)
• A good looking landing page
• An free email account
• A PLR product related to the niche of the specific Biz opp offer you are targeting.

What you will be doing is offering the client a free download (usually an ebook or some training videos) that are related to the biz opp. So if you are promoting an offer about earning cash with eBay, you would offer a download that is related to selling on eBay. If it’s an MLM offer, you would give something related to network marketing, such as a guide on “getting unlimited leads for your network marketing business”.

Now you don’t have to write an ebook or even pay for one. The “gift” that you will be offering will be a free PLR (private label rights) item that you can find for free just by doing a quick Google search for [insert your niche here] +PLR +free.

If you are promoting the offer by online classifieds, you would write an ad that looks like this: “Looking to earn some extra cash? Contact me for FREE information – No obligation and no payment required – Plus, get a FREE training guide worth $299 that is yours to keep no matter what!”

However, instead of linking to a website, you would ask the client to email you for more info. You will probably get a few dozen responses for each ad. Respond to everyone individually, calling them by their name and write something like “Hi Bob! This is John from Craigslist. To join this business opportunity for free and receive your free training guide (normally worth $299) go to [your site here]. Thank you for your time and wishing you great success, John Smith.”

For your website, simply use a free template that looks appropriate for a business opportunity page. Write some information presenting the opportunity in a very good light and emphasize on the fact that it is completely free to join. Include your CPA affiliate link. But also say that out of your great generosity and due to the fact that you want the visitor to succeed, you’re giving them a guide that normally sells for $XXX totally free and that it contains invaluable information on succeeding in online business.

You could also use offline marketing in order to promote your website. It is possible to either give out fliers in public places or place an ad in a local newspaper. Remember to emphasize the free guide that you are giving to draw people’s attention and want them to visit your page.

Here’s another way to earn money quite easily from a certain category of CPA offers. This method focuses mainly on business opportunity (biz opp) lead offers. Before we begin, let’s take a look at what these offers are and how they work in order to gain a better understanding of what we will be doing here. Biz opp lead offers are CPA offers where the visitor fills in some contact details in exchange for information about joining a business opportunity or getting some tools to make money online. This could be anywhere from a single field email submit to complete contact details with name, address, phone number, etc.

The main difference between these and other biz opp offers is that the buyer will not be required to provide a credit card number or pay anything for you to get credit. The merchant makes money either by trying to upsell a paid membership (similar to dating offers) or by attempting to have the client join a paid business opportunity (most often used for offers related to multi level marketing programs). In any case, you don’t earn any additional money if they buy something later on and you also don’t lose anything if they don’t. The goal is just to get the visitor to provide their contact info.

How much do these offers pay? The exact payout will vary from offer to offer. It can go anywhere from $1 for a simple email submit to $6 for submitting 2 pages of information.

Now that you know a bit more background information about these offers, the question remains, how to get good quality traffic to them? Of course, there are various ways to send traffic to CPA offers. However, they won’t all be profitable for you. Advertising via Google Adwords is pretty much out. The competition for keywords such as “make money online” or “make money with eBay” is very intense and the price per click can get very high. Due to the fact that the payout is only a few dollars per lead it will be quite difficult to make a decent profit.

You will need to use a traffic source that is both free and can bring a relatively large amount of visitors to your site. There are two traffic sources that you can use for this: offline marketing and online classified ad sites.

Now in online classifieds it may sound easy to just post ads and send clicks to your website, this is not the way to go. Your ads will often be either ignored by the viewers or marked as “spam” and deleted. There is another approach that you can take in order to increase the effectiveness that your ads have and make viewers much more willing to sign up for the offer you are pushing. Check back tomorrow for part 2 to see more details on how to give people that extra “something” to convince them to pay attention to your ads and offer.