Nowadays many people are making money working from home via the internet. There are many different ways this can be done but there are also many scams out there so one must be very careful.

First let me start of with a legit no fee work from home business. There aren’t too many of these types of home internet businesses, but this is one of the few. It is called “Niche Marketing” among other similar names. The basic principle is to create a website about a certain topic that has the ability to make it to the first or second page of the Google search results. The main reason being that if you can get to the first or second page of Google then it’s highly unlikely anyone will ever find your site.

This Niche Marketing has no fee whatsoever attached to it. That doesn’t mean however it is without costs. You will need to buy a domain for each site you make (about $10 per year) and also have webhosting. It is by no means a scam but of course it is by no means easy either. You need to have some computing knowledge as you need to buy domains and create websites. Many use WordPress which is fairly easy to use but even for an experienced computer guy setting up your first WordPress website will take some time. Once you have done one, of course, it gets very easy.

Further you will need to do “keyword research”. This is possibly the longest part of the job as you need to find “niches” i.e. keywords where the competition is low so that there is a good chance you will reach the first page of Google, or close to it.

Once you have found your topic then there are a couple of ways you can make money with your new website. The most popular and perhaps easiest is with Google Adsense. This is completely free to join and you basically give Google some space on your website and when people click on the ads you earn money. Very easy!

You can expect to make about $1 per day with Google adsense on a niche site. (Unless you are lucky enough to find a niche with high search traffic – very hard to find). The idea is to have many of these websites so that you can make possible $100s per day depending on how many sites you have. The nice thing is that once the site is set up and running it shouldn’t need any work afterwards. So you spend a lot of time creating the sites but then you just relax forever as the sites earn money.

You can also make money through affiliate programs. So if your site is about Pet Toys then you can find another website that sells pet toys and become an affiliate for that site making a commission off of each sale that is made from the customers you send to that site. Therefore you can have 2 potential forms of income from the same site.

Now perhaps you aren’t very good at creating websites but you are eager to try to make money online. The other very popular way is by joining some sort of MLM or Pyramid scheme. Many people think that these are scams but they aren’t really. Sure there are many that are scams, but just because some are scams doesn’t mean that all of them are.

Things to avoid are anything that sounds like “Google Cash Kit” or “Make Money With Google”, these are very scammy in that they try to sell you a kit for $2-$5 (very low price). They make it out that this is all you pay, a small fee for the shipping but what you don’t realize is that you have just signed up for a subscription service that might cost you $50-$100 per month. The crazy thing about this is that it’s completely legal. The reason being that at the bottom of the page where you provide your credit card details there is some very small writing about the monthly fee. Of course it is never mentioned anywhere else and all the sales pages make you think that it is just a cheap kit you are buying and all you have to do is pay the shipping.

Another scam to avoid is the work from home stuffing envelopes scam. The websites promoting this supposed work from home job make it out to be that many companies are willing to pay people to handle and process their mail for them. This is by no means true. I should know because I used to fix the machines that are used to perform this job. Companies like Francotyp Postalia, Pitney Bowes and Neopost all make machines that automate this process and work infinitely faster than any human can. Further many companies offer this service in bulk (because they have these machines) and it works out to pennies a piece. So what company in their right mind is going to pay anyone $10 or more per hour to do a job that can be done by a machine at 100 times the speed and therefore much cheaper?

If you have seen any sites trying to promote this type of work you will notice that you will need to pay a fee in order to do the work. This is your first alarm signal. They say the fee is to weed out the people who aren’t serious or to purchase the names and contact details of companies who want this work done but it isn’t true. You are just buying into a scheme whereby you try to get others to do the same and earn a commission for doing so. The companies promoting this are not very up front about this so that’s why I would label it as a scam. You can of course make money from promoting this, but you make your money by duping others into falling into the same trap. Not a really nice way to make money.

Other scams should be easy to identify. Any site that has a “guarantee” about the income you can earn is a scam as no one can ever guarantee anything. All success is down to how much work you put in and a little bit of luck. This is something that no one in their right mind can make a guarantee for.

Another very popular way to make money legitimately online is to join a real MLM scheme. One of the most popular and well known schemes is GDI (Global Domains International Inc). You basically pay $10 per month to be a member and that $10 gets you a very basic webhosting service. Illegal MLM schemes don’t give you anything for your money (ie no product), but this is a real product. It just so happens that most people don’t really care about or use the product. Nevertheless it’s real and legal. They have been going for about 10 years now and I even think they are traded publicly on the stock market (I could be wrong).

You earn money by getting others to join, so you advertise on the internet wherever you can. Most people use free advertising like traffic exchanges and so forth. The commission is $1 per month per person. But you also get the same commission if one of your referrals gets a referral. This happens up to 5 levels down. So, simply speaking, if you got 1 person per month, and everyone did the same, you would be earning $1000s per month after your first year. It’s very slow going in the beginning but it picks up as you stick at it and the idea is to get the snowball rolling. Now the goal of 1 person per month seems very easy but in reality it isn’t. Not necessarily for you, but perhaps for others. The numbers all seem very easy in theory, but in practice it just doesn’t happen that way.

However, if you are very skilled in sales and marketing then you will likely be successful with Global Domains International Inc. They also offer a very good bonus scheme. If you get 5 signups within a week you can earn a $100 cash bonus. This is possibly the best bonus scheme available on the internet.

The drawbacks with GDI. is that it’s been around for so long so almost everyone is in it or already has been. The only possible or potential customers are the new people who come to the internet in search of work and haven’t heard of or tried GDI yet (like me a year ago – I am no longer a member now however). These people can be considered “fresh fish” for G.D.I. marketers. The thing is there are thousands of thousands of GDI marketers online. It’s kind of like fishing in a lake where there are thousands of people fishing at the same time. If 1 new fish enters the lake what are the chances that you will catch it ? So in the end I dropped out of GDI as I didn’t see a great future in it. However, that may not be the case for you so by all means give it a try. The most you can lose is $10 per month. Don’t let me put you off if you were considering trying it out. Nothing ventured nothing gained right ?

However before jumping into Global Domains International Inc, you might want to consider some of the new competition that has come on the scene in the last year. One of the best, in my opinion, is Teamwork Revolution. They are very similar to GDI in that they are $10/month and the product is again webhosting. Their webhosting product however is far superior to GDIs. GDI only offer 100MB of web space or 10 pages, whichever comes first. Teamwork Revolution offer full blown cPanel webhosting service with 700MB of space and unlimited pages as well as unlimited traffic and other necessary things like MySQL Databases. Therefore GDI can’t even hold a candle to Teamwork Revolution when it comes to product comparison.

Their compensation plan is also much better. First of all it is a forced matrix program. If you aren’t familiar with what a forced matrix is it basically means you have the possibility of getting spillover. The whole point of these MLMs is to get people to join under you. Well, if you are in a forced matrix it’s possible that you will receive spillover from your upline thereby earning commissions without even doing anything. This isn’t only a great benefit for you, but it is also a huge selling point for future potential recruits. Everyone loves forced matrices, so if you aren’t in one it will likely be much harder to entice people to join as there are so many forced matrices now.

As for compensation, you earn up to 6 levels down, unlike GDIs 5 levels. Further, Teamwork Revolution give you $2 per month per person for the first 5 people which means once you have 5 people on your first line you break even, unlike GDI where you would need double that (ie 10 people) in order to break even. Moreover, Teamwork Revolution give you $2/person per month commission for the recruits on your 4th line as well. All in all, the commission structure is far superior to GDI’s.

The only advantage GDI have over Teamwork Revolution (and pretty much every other competitive company) is their bonus scheme. I already said that GDI pay $100 for every 5 people sponsored within 1 week on top of the $1/person per month residual commissions. Teamwork Revolution don’t offer this so if you think you can sponsor 5 or more people per week into GDI then GDI is definitely for you. However, for most people, 5 people per month is hard enough never mind 5 people per week. So for these reasons I would recommend Teamwork Revolution over GDI any day. I hope I have given you some food for thought if you happen to have been considering GDI as a way to make money online.

Now you may be wondering if I think it’s such a great company and money making opportunity why did I leave? The main reason is that it didn’t quite work for me personally. I tried it out for about 5 months and I was able to personally sponsor about 10 people but the problem was is that’s where it stopped. Those others weren’t able to replicate the process. Possibly because they didn’t bother trying (an unfortunate drawback with forced matrices is that they attract lazy people who think they can get rich purely on spillover – impossible!) or it’s possible they did try but they just didn’t succeed. Whatever the reasons, eventually the people I recruited dropped out after they didn’t see the expected or hoped for success. This is a huge challenge with these monthly payment matrices. You feel like you are constantly bailing water out of a leaking boat. Although you have no boss or anyone telling you what to do and when to do it, you still feel under a lot of pressure to recruit quickly. If you don’t keep the ball rolling then it’s very likely your matrix will implode as people drop out. If you aren’t able to keep recruiting new people and providing spillover then people drop out, which in turn causes others to drop out as they see their own downline dropping out. So for this reason I decided to give up all together on the monthly payment matrices. I don’t like working hard to build a business only to see it collapse. It feels like you are building a house on water. I prefer to build on concrete (so to speak).

Where I have had most of my success and profit is with 1 time payment matrices. These are great and also have excellent potential. You can make just as much money with these MLM programs and possibly even more. What I like about them is you only ever make 1 payment so your risk is limited entirely to that 1 payment as apposed to monthly payment matrices where your risk is dependant upon how long you stay in the program. Further, with 1 time payment matrices if you decide to take a months holiday there is no risk. People don’t drop out of 1 time payment MLMs. If you stop marketing for a while, there’s no leaky boat feeling. Theses MLMs never implode or go backwards, this is like building on top of concrete.

One of the successful programs I tried was 4×1 Fortune. It is only $11 to join and it is a “Cycler Matrix”. What that means is you need to “cycle” before you make any commissions. Once you make 6 sales you will cycle and earn $30. So you nearly triple your money after only 6 sales which is pretty good. If you make 5 sales you earn nothing. The commission doesn’t happen until the 6th person. It is also a forced matrix so you will possibly get spillover or spillunder once in a while but I always stress this should never be relied upon. If you do this you won’t get anywhere. Although it’s possible to get spillovers I recommend just carrying on as if this didn’t happen that way when it does it’s just a nice bonus. The “product” in this case is just some e-books and videos and stuff to help you with online marketing. Most people don’t care about the product, they just want the chance to make some money. So if you are looking for a simple program with low risk and one that actually works and pays, then 4 by 1 fortune is definitely one to consider.

If for some reason you don’t want to risk $11, or you want to try something that is even easier, then I recommend Work for $3 (WF3D). This is only $3 to join as the name implies (well there is a $0.40 alertpay fee). This is basically a mailing list builder. This is a highly useful tool especially for online marketers. As you recruit others to join this list you earn a little bit of money. It is by no means a lot of money but it has the potential to turn into millions. For example, if you recruited just 3 people in your first month and then never recruited again ie retired, and everyone else did the same thing, then in your 11th month you would earn almost $18,000. It seems crazy but it’s a fact. Only 3 people in the first month seems easy, especially considering I recruited about 30 people in my first month. However, I am in my 7th month or so and the reality is that other people are not able to recreate the same success I had. In fact there are many who after 7 months haven’t recruited a single person. Possibly because they haven’t tried or perhaps they have tried and failed, and then there are others who consistently get signups every week which is contributing to the growth of my downline. I have personally now recruited about 100 people, but my downline is about 500 because some of the 100 that I recruited have become successful recruiters themselves. It’s all about what you put into it.

So if you are looking for a really easy program with the potential to turn into decent residual income then give Work for $3 (WF3D) a try. The worse case scenario is that you lose $3.40 right ? But the best case scenario is you will have a residual income for years to come like I am enjoying right now. Even after 7 months I am only seeing about $10/month in residual commissions, but it’s still free money and I’m not really trying hard at it anymore. Further, it definitely has the potential to grow into a lot more than that.

So there you have it. There are many ways to make money online via the internet. Above are just some online opportunities that exist. I hope my experiences and reviews will help you to make your decision as to which online business opportunity you will try out. If you try any of my recommended programs I would love to hear about your experiences good or bad. We can all learn from each other.

July 2010 UPDATE

Unfortunately WF3D have changed their program.  It used to be a one time payment of $3 to join which was one of my favorite features.  But they have dissolved this one-time payment option and changed it into a free program to join or you can upgrade by paying $3 per month.  It’s this change that has caused me to change my opinion of this program.  It used to be my top recommended online MLM program because it was so easy, but that is no longer the case now that they require a yearly payment of $36 or more.  I don’t think people are going to like this.

This change was obviously done in an effort to make more for the company and for everyone else, but I fear that it’s advantages may outweigh it’s disadvantages.  Therefore I will now make my favorite, or top recommended online MLM 4×1 Fortune which used to be my my #2 recommended online MLM.

I like the one time payment MLMs as they don’t create any pressure to perform quickly.  You never have to pay again so there’s no “sinking boat” feeling.  WF3D used to be like this but it no longer is and as a result I expect the sign ups will slow down.  So, have a look at 4×1 Fortune as it is still a good paying program.  Hopefully they won’t change their structure in the the future.

I will leave the original WF3D review below in tact but be aware that a lot of the info is now out of date due to the recent changes but some still applies ie 3×15 structure, the “product” etc.

Original WF3D REVIEW

This has by far been the easiest and most successful of all the online businesses I have tried so far.

It’s basically a 3×15 forced matrix which means you can get spillover and spillunder.  I personally haven’t received any spillover to date because I am obviously underneath someone who isn’t marketing this at all, however I have indeed provided spillover to the people who have joined me and benefited from my success in this program.

Of everything I have tried this has been the easiest of all to market.  In fact the results have really taken me by surprise.  I really thought Teamwork Revolution was going to be something great but then it fell apart.  Then not soon after that my hopes were again re-kindled with the Teamwork Revolution Power System which started out incredible but just as quickly fizzled out.  During that time this simple one time payment $3 + $0.40 alertpay fee program was ticking over making money week in and week out.

In fact this program very much reminds me of the fable of the Turtle and the Hare.  You remember ? The Turtle very slowly but consistently makes his way through the race while the Hare took it in fits and spurts.  In the end the Turtle won the race and that’s kind of what has happened here with my little experiment.

One huge benefit this program has over others is that you only ever make a payment once thereby limiting your expenses and investment.  The monthly payment programs increase your risk but also increase the potential reward.  In my case all the monthly payment programs died out and I lost money on pretty much all of them.  That whole time this program was ticking away making a few dollars every week and has the potential to turn into a whole lot more.  If things continue as they have done so for the past few months then after 6 months to a year this will be earning a decent monthly income.

There are even more benefits to this program than meets the eye.  The product is a list builder.  So you are building a mailing list of people who are interested in making money online.  So not only do you earn commission from the people you recruit and the people they recruit 15 levels down, but you can also potentially earn money from promoting other good opportunities to the people who have joined your list.  This is perhaps the most valuable part of this program.

Further, if you are inexperienced with online marketing this is the PERFECT program to get your feet wet and learn the ropes before trying to take on a bigger fish.  Basically if you are unable to make a profit with this simple program than you might as well give up all together on online marketing because this is the easiest thing out there I think.  It was the easiest for me anyways.  It’s just a surprise and shock to me that it turned out to be the most profitable.

When I first joined this I spent some time marketing placing free ads on some websites.  I did really well during the first couple of months where I averaged about 1 signup per day.  That slowed down after 2 months for whatever reasons but my recruits were starting to get good and I was starting to see some decent spillunder as well.

Now, after about 7 months, I have personally recruited about 100 people and those in turn have brought in 400 people for a total of 500.

When you look at the number of people that is a huge success for someone starting from scratch.  Remember before this I had never done any online marketing before.

The money earned from that hasn’t been much.  Just over $100.  However, for a measily $3 investment that’s a pretty darn good return on my money.

Have a look at the chart below :

This chart shows what your income would be with this program if you were to sign up only 3 people (i.e. convince 3 people to part with $3.40 with the hopes of getting a residual income) in your first month, and then do NOTHING AT ALL FOREVER.  Seems crazy but it’s simple mathematics.

Now for me personally I started off pretty good because I got about 30 people in my first month, but a lot of those people didn’t do anything so the snowball didn’t roll as fast as the chart above indicates.  After 7 months I should have 2187 people whereas I only have 500.

Now I think I am partly to blame for that as part of my marketing campaign was basically telling people to join me and do nothing and benefit from the spillover.  So, were I only to be looking for people interested in marketing for themselves I wouldn’t have the 500 people I have now.   So I’d rather have 500 people join me and do nothing than have no one join me at all.

In actual fact quite a few of those 500 people ARE marketing and doing quite well.  So you never really know what type of people are going to join you in this venture but sometimes you get a nice surprise.

So now that I am not going to acheive the results I was hoping for with the chart above I have my sights on this chart :

1st Month – 1 member in downline (earning $1.50)

2nd Month – 3 members in downline (1 recruited by yourself and 1 by your downline – earning $4.50)

3rd Month – 7 members in downline (1 recruited by yourself and 3 by your downline – earning $5.36)

4th Month – 15 members in downline (earning $6.70)

5th Month – 31 members in downline (earning $8.92)

6th Month – 63 members in downline (earning $12.52)  

7th Month – 127 members in downline (earning $19.32)

8th Month – 255 members in downline (earning $32.52)

9th Month – 511 members in downline (earning $58.52)

10th Month – 1023 members in downline (earning $110.12)

11th Month – 2047 members in downline (earning $212.92)

12th Month – 4095 members in downline (earning $418.12)

13th Month – 8191 members in downline (earning $828.12)

14th Month – 16383 members in downline (earning $1,647.72)

15th Month – 32767 members in downline (earning $3,286.52)

16th Month – 65535 members in downline (earning $6,563.72)

This chart shows what would happen were you and everyone else to recruit just one person per month.  Yet another very attainable goal considering I recruited 60 in my first couple of months.  A goal of 1 per month is easily achievable if you work at it consistently just like the Tortoise in the Tortoise and the Hare fable.

According to the chart above after 7 months you would have 127 people.  Well I have about 500 so I am certainly way ahead of schedule on that one.  So let’s see how things continue over the next few months.  Feel free to bookmark this page and check back as I post updates.

If you decide to join this opportunity you will notice 2 upgrade options one for $10(Gold)  and one for $30 (Platinum).  Basically it just means you earn a little more money each time someone you recruit also upgrades.  However, mathematically it is better to use the $10 to purchase the 3 positions underneath you or use the $30 to purchase the 3 positions on your 1st line and also the 9 positions on your 2nd line.  This is of course completely optional but I am writing this because I feel bad for those who joined and upgraded to Gold or Platinum instead of doing what I recommend above.  My recommendation pays you more commission in the long run than upgrading to Gold or Platinum.  If you aren’t sure why contact me before you upgrade so I can explain in detail.

If you decide to try this opportunity out I will do my best to help you replicate the success I enjoyed.  Your success is my success so don’t expect to be left out in the lurch.  Feel free to contact me via my Contact page or leave a comment below if you have any questions at all about this or any other online program I have tried.

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