There are myths and facts involved and it can become a bit confusing.

This article is just going to cover a few basic facts as well as some straightforward opinions on the subject, from someone who does earn some money online and knows others who work online full-time for a living.

- The “get rich quick and get poor quick later” days of the Internet may be drawing to a close.  Some years ago, there were people who practically became millionaires overnight.  The methods they used were not always honest or even stable so they lost it all shortly afterwards.

Some others began making money online at that time and they continues to earn money online to this day.  They might have even made it very quickly.  Some were working online for only some weeks or months before they started to generate a considerable revenue.

It’s true that there was a lot less competition back then.  It was also more possible to take “shortcuts” which generated short-term spurts of income but didn’t necessarily work out in the long run.  As time went on and the Internet developed, many of these shortcuts were no longer possible.

Google, for example, has been continuously changing its algorithms.  The product that Google wants to deliver when a web surfer types a search term into the Search Bar is: relevant results.

If a visitor types in “dog collars” the visitor wants to see relevant, high-quality, and informative websites about dog collars.

In the past, it was possible for various shortcuts and tricks to be used to get one’s website to the top of the search results for “dog collars” - even if the website was not high-quality.  The owner of that website could sell advertising or could sell dog collars, an thus generate lots of revenue as a result of the high traffic on their site.

Google wants to have high-quality and relevant sites at the top.  So it constantly adjusts its algorithms in such a way that only the best can really make it there.

It’s no longer a walk in the park to get high rankings for a competitive search term.  You have to build your website over time. It takes honest work, building, and standard search engine optimization to get it to the top.

This is one example of the statement that “shortcuts no longer do the trick like they used to.”

Some people crashed and burned when their shortcuts no longer worked.

Others learned from mistakes or were just building and promoting their sites honestly from the beginning.  These people were headed for long-term success - whether they knew it at the time or not.

Now - can I say that you can start working online and instantly earn enough to live off of?

Unfortunately I can not say that.  It may or may not happen to some.  It hasn’t happened to me or anyone I know in the field of Internet Marketing.

So why bother learning how to earn money online or work from home in Internet Marketing?

Well, it may take long to get there, but when you do, it is really worth it.

If you start off with honest marketing methods, good research, and a sensible strategy, and if you work on it regularly and consistently, you can absolutely reach the point of earning all of your income online and working from home.

You could realistically even become like some Internet Marketers and bloggers, who earn $10,000 or more per month.  Some even become millionaires but I won’t get into that now.  Different people have different amounts of success.

An advantage of working online is that you are not tied to a fixed income or an hourly wage.  Another advantage is that your income is virtually unlimited.  You do not have to deal with overhead costs, huge start-up fees, multiple employees, etc.

But your potential is huge.  What if you had a website which one day received tens or hundreds of thousands of visitors per month?  Just in ad revenue that website could earn many thousands of dollars per month.  What if it grew exponentially and began to get millions of visitors per month?  You get the idea.

If you want to get started at earning money online and you truly wish to succeed, I suggest:

1.  Learn how to earn money online from an honest and inexpensive source.  Don’t pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for memberships or training, when you are just starting out.  It isn’t necessary and it’s a waste of time.

2.  Avoid get-rich-quick messages, confusing people, promises of “getting paid lots of money without having to work.”

3.  Do good keyword research before you start.  Better two weeks spent on keyword research than two years spent on the wrong keywords.  Learn how to do keyword research.

4.  Work systematically.  Apply tried and true methods.  Don’t disperse off into many directions at once, but finish what you start.

5.  Make friends with other honest Internet Marketers, and share ideas and advice with them.

6.  Provide good service.  Give something in exchange for the revenue you intend to generate.  This is far more effective than trying to trick or cheat the money into your bank account.  A website or other service offered online (if it is any good) provides a service of some kind - even if it is only information which people are looking for.

7.  Persist, plan, and strategize.

The funny thing is, it isn’t even complicated or difficult.  It’s made to look that way because there are so many diversions, distractions, and dishonest methods being used or promoted.  Earning money online is actually easy - but you have to learn how to do it.  And that doesn’t always happen overnight.  Is it hard to learn?  No.  It’s not nuclear physics.  It’s probably one of the most user-friendly subjects I’ve ever encountered.

The more you learn and implement, the better your income potential becomes.  And the sooner you start, the better your chances of success.

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If you would like to learn how to earn money online the honest way, please visit Holly Mann - Author of Honest Riches and Honest Holly.

What is Pay Per Play?

When someone visits a website with Pay Per Play code embedded in it, a 5-second audio ad is played. When the ad is played you get a commission. It’s as simple as that.

You are probably familiar with “Pay Per Click,” or “PPC,” where a webmaster is paid every time a visitor clicks on an ad on his site. Pay Per Play is similar, but the webmaster is paid for the times an audio ad is played for the website visitor, regardless of whether the visitor clicks on an ad or not.

One of the main advantages of Pay Per Play is that it does not take up any “screen space” or “virtual real estate.” In other words, you do not have to deal with design issues or “trying to fit it in somewhere”. The ad is purely audio, and there are no visual elements to add to your site.

This also means that visitors will not be led off your site in the way they are with PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising. There is no link for them to click on. You are paid when they audio is played.

There is, however, a “Key to Page” option, where a visitor is told to press a specific key on his keyboard if he would like to get more information. If you decide to run these types of ads on your site (it is optional), you will be paid when a person “keys” to the advertiser’s website.

Pay Per Play, or PPP, is powered by a company called Voice2Page.

To set up Pay Per Play ads, once you have registered (which is very fast and also is free), all you need to do is to place the code on the webpage or pages that you want the ads to play on. You can choose to prevent ads from playing on selected pages, choose to play the ads only on a certain page, or choose to place the ad code on each web page.

One thing I like about Pay Per Play is that they do now allow sleazy or questionable ads. They will also not play ads on websites with pornographic, illegal, or hate content.

The ads they play are five seconds long. Per survey, five seconds is long enough to leave an impression about the product, but short enough so as not to annoy one. Testing has also indicated that ads of this length do not drive visitors away. There is also the option of placing thirty-second ads on certain pages, if you decide to do this.  This ads of course pay more.

Why is Pay Per Play such a big deal?

Per marketing trends, the Internet is starting to replace radio and TV to a marked degree. Radio and TV advertising are not as powerful as they once were. We see this when we see Internet TV and Internet “radio stations.” Also, more and more people use their MP3 player, iPod, or cell phone to play their custom music. So Radio Advertising is not as powerful as it once was.

The larger advertising companies have started to realize this, and thus there is a trend toward moving the main advertising media over to the Internet.

Why do I consider that Pay Per Play could be a sleeping giant?

Pay Per Play is just starting up. They have started running ads, but they are definitely still “on the runway.” They are very much in beta, and there are certain steps that still need to be taken before the full potential of the program can be unleashed.

Pay Per Play is a completely new form of marketing. But regardless of anything, their start-up statistics are certainly impressive. It is still in its “beginning stages.” And with these beginning stages comes of course the inevitable - controversy! So you will find plenty of online criticism of Pay Per Play, just as you will find people applauding it.

Personally I think the fact that its beginning stages could be to your advantage. This is due to the following reasons:

1. In addition to commissions for running straight Pay Per Play advertising, there is also a fantastic referral program.

If you sign someone else up to run Pay Per Play ads, you will receive a commission on all the ads played on their sites in the future. And if that person signs someone else up, you will receive a commission on that person’s ads as well. It is basically a three-tier referral program.

In other words, you could wind up with a lifetime residual income just by signing people up to join the program.

This referral program will not be open forever. When it closes, people will only be able to sign up as ad publishers but they will not be eligible to sign up as referrers who can earn commissions by signing up other webmasters.

That means it is a good idea to sign up now.

Remember, the percentage you get paid is a percentage of what the advertiser pays for an ad to play. It is not a percentage of what your referral receives.

Currently, the commission structure is as follows:

Ads played on your own sites: 25% Ads played on your referral’s sites: 5% Ads played on your referral’s referral’s sites: 5%

2. They also give commissions if you sign people up to have their own ads played on other people’s websites. In other words, you can refer people to advertise with this program and generate commissions on that as well.

3. It is free to sign up with Pay Per Play, and it only takes a couple of minutes. So factually there is no risk involved.

4. One of the reasons that Pay Per Play has not yet taken off to its full potential is because there are a lot more webmasters who have signed up to run the ads, than there are ad publishers. This is because the referral program has been so popular to people like you and me!

Voice2Page (the company that runs Pay Per Play) and its affiliates are currently recruiting new ad publishers.

A major accomplishment in this direction was getting the recent BPA Audit completed.  Getting this completed takes the brakes off of recruiting additional advertisers.

5. I did a calculation recently with my own Pay Per Play account. In a given period of time I earned about $14.00. Not very impressive, right? So then why am I promoting this?

Well, in that period of time, my referral’s ads played about once for every twenty page impressions. In other words, if Pay Per Play would be at its full potential, with as many ads as there are advertisers, my commission would be about 20 times as much for that period of time ($280). This is just commissions I would earn for ads which play on other people’s websites. But there is more to it - it only reflects the traffic on websites where the Pay Per Play code has already been embedded. Many webmasters (including my own referrals), have not yet placed the PPP code on their sites.

So what if, a few months or a year from now, Pay Per Play does take off? What if it even begins to replace Adsense, or TV Advertising? At that point we might find numerous companies wanting to participate in the program (which is far less expensive for them, than other advertising methods).

That would mean that anyone who thought fast at the beginning of the program will be duly rewarded.

What if you sign up 50 webmasters for the program? Depending on the traffic their sites get, you could theoretically wind up with hundreds or thousands of dollars per month in commissions, just from the ads played on their sites.

Of course there is always the possibility that Pay Per Play never becomes what we hope it will be. And if we take the trouble of spending a few minutes signing up and promoting it now, we might kick ourselves later for wasting that 20 minutes.

But then again, what if it does take off. What if it becomes the new Adsense? Well, if that happens, I think those of us who didn’t risk wasting those two to twenty minutes will be kicking ourselves a lot harder.

The fact is that Pay Per Play looks like it could become really big. If it does, those who got in early can consider themselves lucky. And if it doesn’t, nothing is lost, as never cost anything to begin with.

Yours,

Anna

Building from Nothing

She has become known as “the Mother Theresa of Internet Marketing.” Her E-Book, Honest Riches, has sold tens of thousands of copies around the world, and has won the hearts of everyday people who want to break free of their daily grind and learn how to earn money at home.

Who is Holly Mann?

Holly Beth Mann is a 25-year-old American girl. Originally from Wisconsin, she currently lives in Chiang Mai, Thailand. She is the single mother of a 3-year-old boy named Josh.

You might ask why Holly lives in Thailand, and how she came to be a leading Internet Marketer.

When Holly was 16 years old she had the opportunity to become and exchange student in a foreign country. She was given a list of countries and was told to to choose which country she would like to go to. She originally chose Zimbabwe.

However, after a twist of fate and a change in plans, Holly was informed that she would actually be going to Thailand. She fell in love with Thailand during her time there as an exchange student.

Holly later became a soldier in the US Army in Iraq, where she was a journalist, a photographer, and a web designer. After she experienced some injuries and foot surgery, she worked in Baghdad for 6 months, and became the youngest female working at the DHL airport.

A few other jobs Holly has held include janitor, laundry room girl, hostess, McDonald’s cashier, pet store clerk, security guard in a paper factory, cook, and vacuum cleaner salesman. sentence 4 (She points out that she considers herself to be a very bad salesman and that she only sold two of these highly-priced vacuum cleaners, to relatives.)

Shortly after leaving Iraq, Holly returned to Thailand. She made friends with a young Burmese girl, named Nuu, who lived next door. Nuu’s family had escaped the war in Burma, and her parents were working long hours to support the family. Burmese children in these circumstances were usually on their own most of the time. So Nuu was over at Holly’s place every day. And this was how Holly met the future father of her son - Nuu’s brother, a poor but hard-working farmer.

Life took its twists and turns, and Holly eventually found herself pregnant and single, but without sufficient finances. She did not want to work at a job which would require her to be separated from her new baby, so she started learning everything she could about how to make money online. She found herself living in a small room in her brother’s house, near Milwaukee, with her 4-month-old baby.

With $650 per month to live on (due to being a disabled army veteran) Holly began to supplement her small income money she earned on eBay.

After living for a year in cramped conditions and in an unpleasant neighborhood, hoping for a government housing subsidy which never came, Holly decided she had had enough. She sold everything she could (even her laptop, which was the hardest part of all) to buy tickets for her and her son to return to Thailand.

Once in Thailand, Holly moved into a cheap apartment. She went to a used computer shop, bought whatever computer parts she could find, and got help from a friend who put a make-shift computer together for her. It wasn’t exactly state-of-the-art, but it worked.

Her landlord would not allow her to set up a regular Internet connection. She had to buy Internet cards and use her building’s switchboard phone line for dial-up. Her Internet connection was very slow, and she was often disconnected. The switchboard she was using had only four lines for the entire complex. Holly would stay online for as long as possible but would frequently lose her connection - even in the middle of uploading a website to the net.

Over a period of four months, Holly stayed up night and day - learning, practicing, and applying everything she could: about Internet Marketing, Affiliate Marketing, SEO, Niches, List-Building, etc.

Within four months, Holly had raised her online income from $0 per month, to $12,000 per month.

It was after this that Holly created her first E-Book on how to earn money online. It started out as a short synopsis and a basic briefing of how Holly had become successful in making money online, and how others could do the same.

But since that time, Holly’s E-Book (and its subsequent editions) has become quite popular. As of early 2008, her E-Book had sold over 25,000 copies all over the world. Holly has changed the lives of thousands of everyday people, and the thanks and appreciation continue to pour in.

Holly maintains interactive contact with her E-Book readers, through her own forum, as well as on her personal blog. She shares not only her successful Internet Marketing strategies and techniques, but also her personal experiences in life.

The third edition of Honest Riches is expected to be released in mid-August 2008. This 2008 edition of Honest Riches, Honest Riches 3, is not the same short-and-simple E-Book that she first created years ago - it is still simple to read and understand, but it is not short.

277 pages long, Holly’s E-Book covers everything you need to know about Internet Marketing, explained very simply and in such a way that anyone can understand.

Holly’s goal is to honestly help people succeed at Internet Marketing. And as part of this, she aims to put the scammers out of business. She holds in contempt the unscrupulous individuals who profess to be able to teach others how to make money online but who only prey on the needs of others and leach off of them financially, without giving anything in return. In other words, Internet Marketing “gurus” who make money “teaching” Internet Marketing but who do not honestly help other people succeed. Holly has, as one of her stated goals on her own website, the purpose to put these people out of business so that honest people can actually succeed and live better lives.

One of Holly’s most notable qualities is that she makes efforts to actually assist others, and to make sure they understand important concepts. Her writings are extremely easy to follow, and she does not write as if she assumes that you already know all about whatever it is that she is talking about. She explains new concepts and terms very simply.

Holly Mann has made a place for herself in history. Not through mere public-relations or more unscrupulous methods, but through her intelligence, diligence, honesty, and her willingness and abilities to help others.

In this day and age, people like Holly Mann are strong assets to our society and set a good example for the rest of us to follow. And in the field of Internet Marketing, honest and valuable help can be hard to come by and is a treasure when it is found.

Thank you Holly, for your decency, your humanity, and your guidance, in this ever-changing and evolving sphere of Internet Marketing, and in a changing world which so badly needs it now.

For more information on Holly Mann’s Ebook, and for a pre-launch review of Honest Riches III, see Honest Riches 3 Review.

What am I referring to?  I am referring to the Internet.  To work from home only requires that one have a computer,  an Internet connection, and of course the knowledge needed on how to make money online using the Internet.

So for anyone who wants to to work from home, this goal is relatively easy to achieve.  Providing that you are willing to put some time into it, and learn how to do it.

Getting a computer and an Internet connection is not hard.

Finding out how to work from home  successfully can be a bit of a stumbling block.  The main stumbling block is not the lack of information,  it is more that there are so many people claiming how “easy it is to work from home” and “be your own boss instantly” etc.   They tend to claim to have easy fast solutions to work from home, without requiring any effort on your part.   This claim is usually combined with a “product” that you should get now, which will of course automate all of your money making for you.

Now, let me make it clear that to work from home and make a decent income is entirely possible and is not necessarily hard.  But it does require some effort on your part and a willingness to learn the needed skills to be successful.

One of the best publications I have found so far, that actually gives a good insight into how to make money online and to work from home, is a book called Honest Riches, by Holly Mann.

It is a very informative E-book which you will walk you through all of the basics you need to know in order to start making money online - in a very understandable fashion.  It actually gets you started right of the bat, with clear instructions and step-by-step tutorials.

Unlike many other Internet publications that claim you can make millions online if you only get their product, this books (as its title Honest Riches implies)  gives an honest and down-to-earth look at exactly how to start up your own online business and to how work from home.  With its clear explanations of the different methods available to earn money online,  this book will really get you on your way toward making money online - without a sizeable investment.  The E-Book contains information on a variety of money making opportunities, home based business opportunities, and everything you need to know to “start a business” online.  But it is not just an E-Book full of money making ideas.  It contains all the basics you need to know about different online income-generating strategies, down to exact instructions on how to implement them, step-by-step.

In fact, Holly Mann reveals many different ways to make money online and work from home without any cash outlay or investment whatsoever.  This is very safe way to learn how to work from home.  Some of the methods covered are: how to make money without having your own website, how to earn income using forum postings or writing product reviews, and more.

Of course there is much more to Honest Riches.  It includes information on how to set up your own websites, as well as marketing research, doing your homework, affiliate marketing,  earning advertising revenue,  and much, much more.

So you want to work from home?  Well this E-Book will get you started, and turn you into a pro.  As stated earlier, all that is needed is:

• A computer.
• An internet connection.
• The willingness to learn how to do it.
• Then the time and effort to put the skills into application.

Wishing you success.

Anna

P.S.  Holly’s newest edition of Honest Riches is scheduled to be made available to the public in mid-August, 2008.    At this time, the price will go up.  But if you buy the E-Book now at the lower price, you will be eligible for a free copy of the updated version when it arrives.

Definition

“Residual income” is income which one continues to receive in repeated payments, after an initial sale, referral, or other action has been taken.
Examples of How to Make Residual Income

Example:

A visitor arrives on your website and clicks a link which leads them to sign up for a subscription to a service or publication. You then receive a percentage of every payment made by that customer, until he cancels his subscription (if he does.)

Example of Residual Income:

In some cases, when you sign a person up to become an affiliate of a particular agency, you receive future commissions on any sale made by that person in the future (in addition to the commissions he earns).

Example of Residual Income:

You sign a person up to run a certain type of ad on his website. You then receive a comission every time the ad is played on the site. A recent example of this is Pay Per Play, which just opened up about a week ago. This is a source of residual income with a free membership, while other programs charge a fee for participation.

Example of Residual Income:

You set up a website and get traffic to it, with a few hundred visits a day. You place ads on the site so that you earn a commission whenever your site visitors click an ad, make a purchase through one of your links, etc. You continue to earn money from this site, even if you go on vacation for three weeks and do little or no work on the site.

Why Residual Income?

Residual income is beneficial as it allows you to step out of the daily grind of being paid for each hour or year that you work. It allows you to continually set up new projects which then generate revenue, so that you can continually multiply your yearly income. It also allows you to stop working for some time, but still continue to earn money during that time.

At Residual Streams of Income you can find further information on opportunities and methods of building up a residual income online.