Operation Bob

Make a lot of money, a little at a time?

Anymore it’s rare for me to actually spend money on a ‘make money online’ program or income opportunity. But something about $7 Secrets got my attention so I decided to give it a whirl. After all - worst case scenario - I’d have a review to write and only be out $7 (about the cost of a value meal.)

So let’s get to it. $7 Secrets is an ebook (with an important bonus - more on that in a minute) that details a method of producing and marketing short, low priced information products. The author offers some hints and resources for coming up with topics or ‘niches’, as internet marketers love to call them. He explains the benefits and complications with information products, along with some tools and tricks for getting the whole thing done. One of the most important features of the method is how to get a sales force eager to promote your product by offering them 100% commission, paid immediately (may sound weird, but makes sense)

As a bonus, included with the ebook is a script that makes the affiliate payments (and much more) in place to happen auto-magically. The script alone is worth a lot more than $7 if you ask me.

The guy behind this method hosts a forum with an active user community discussing all aspects of their endeavors and the owner himself is a regular participant, which is refreshing since most internet marketers who sell information or ebooks online offer little to no support.

One thing I wasn’t in love with was that after I paid my money and was redirected to the download page I was presented with another offer and had to scroll all the way down the screen to a little link that said something like ‘no thanks - just download what i bought’. It wasn’t major ordeal, just a minor marketing inconvenience and I can’t really complain because just about everyone (including me) tries to upsell.

Overall, I don’t regret spending $7 on this product vs. the value meal. I didn’t get indigestion or clog my arteries (any more) and I found some solid internet marketing wisdom which will pay for itself over and over again. This book is not an ATM - it will not just shoot money at you for nothing, there will be some work involved. I don’t want to give you the impression that it’s a do-nothing get rich quick - those do not exist. However, if you’re willing to put a little effort into it, I believe this method offers an honest, legitimate, and viable opportunity to make a lot of money, a little at a time.

Go check it out and decide for yourself… $7 Secrets.

CashCrate is GPT site that’s been around for awhile and become very popular with regular GPTers. The site layout and design are very professional, easy on the eyes, and easy to navigate. The offers are sorted well and filters are easily applied to display only what you’re looking for. Whether a credit card is required and what the offer might cost you (some do) is clearly posted in the offer list, so you don’t have to dig a few clicks deep before you find out you’re not interested.

In addition to completing offers you can also earn on CashCrate through rebates from online retailers. I won’t name names, but there are definitely some big name stores on there and most folks will find it easy to get a little cash back on purchases they would likely be making anyway.

While they have more than enough cash offers, they also have points offers. Points can be redeemed for gift cards. I like that those offers are completely separate and don’t mingle with the cash offers and cause confusion.

The variety of offers is good - just what you’d expect from a site that’s been in business for awhile. The minimum payout is $10, which is very reasonable. Payment is made around the 20th of the month following the month in which you reach the minimum.

They pay well for referrals, 20% for those you refer and 10% of their referrals, plus a $3 bonus when your referrals reach the $10 minimum payout. Overall this is a trusted GPT site with all the right things going for it. Certainly one where you can easily make the minimum payout and then some. You can sign up with CashCrate here.

The price of gas here in my town has gone up 30 cents in the last 4 days, currently at $3.75 for a gallon of regular! Now I don’t profess to know what’s behind the spike in gas prices but I know it’s been steadily climbing for way to long and it’s getting beyond ridiculous. A year ago the average was $2.89 and that hurt. Now it’s a dollar more and they tell us it will be over $4 this summer.

The cost of fuel makes me think twice before going anywhere. I really feel for the folks who have a moderate to long commute - this must really be eating into their pocketbooks.

I’ve heard a lot of theories about why the prices continue to rise, and I don’t know that I buy any of them.  I just know that the impact to regular folks everywhere is not a good thing.

I have the attention span of a gnat on crack, and I suspect that’s the underlying problem.  Anyhow, before I lose my train of thought and go off on a rant about gnats, let me tell you why I’m a bad blogger.  First, I don’t get out and comment on posts on other blogs nearly enough.  I read a lot of other blogs and enjoy the content, but before I add my two cents something else catches my attention and then something else happens and I’m off on another project.  I suppose I need to slow myself down a bit.

My second offense as a blogger is that I don’t check my spam queue often enough.  After almost a week I checked it today and found about 5 real comments in there.  Many apologies to those of you whose comments were temporarily swept into the bin.

So, my latest mid-year resolutions are to attempt to be more focused on what I’m doing at the time and pay more attention to the spam queue!

Here are my favorite 5 income opportunities - places you can make money online. When I say *easy* I don’t mean there’s no work involved, I just mean that they are fairly simple and straight-forward and shouldn’t require you learn a new skill or have a lot of experience. Nothing I promote is get-rich-quick, I don’t believe in hype. So, let’s get right to it…

CafePress -  I’ve been working with CafePress for about 6 months now. I put some work in at the beginning and since then I’ve literally just cashed the checks every month. With CafePress you create a design or image in any image editing software like PhotoShop and upload it to your shop on CafePress. You pick from a wide variety of products to offer your image on. When someone purchases it, CafePress prints your item on their product, ships it to the customer, and sends you the commission which you specify.

If you don’t have PhotoShop you can download a free alternative like GIMP or use Paint.net. You can setup a free shop on CafePress - or upgrade for about $6 per month.  ( read my full review here )

EasyMazuma - This is a Get Paid To (GPT) site where you get paid for completing offers. What sets this one apart is that you can “cash out” at just $1. In my experience I get paid within 24 hours of cashing out. It’s really cool when things are down to go make a few bucks and get it in your account almost immediately.

AssociatedContent - If writing is a hobby, you can turn it into cash with Associated Content. After you sign up just submit an article and they will either buy it from you for an up-front payment and/or agree to pay you royalties based on page views.  ( read my full review here )

FusionCash - Another GPT site. What earns this one a spot on my list is the quality of offers, ease of use, and reliabe payout. They only pay monthly, but are a very good and trusted GPT site.  ( read my full review here )

Constant Content - This is a content broker where you can offer your writing (everything from blog posts to long articles) for sale to buyers. You set your own price. There’s no up-front payment, but you can get a lot more for your work offering it this way.

Constant Content is what I would call a content broker. They don’t buy content directly, but offer a marketplace where writers and buyers come together. Writers put their work up on consignment, so to speak, and if/when a customer purchases it, the author gets paid and CC keeps a cut. The author sets their own price, but their are guidelines to give you an idea of what to charge.

Authors can write on whatever topic suits them. There are literally more categories to chose from than one could imagine and places for everything from blog posts to full-length feature articles. Constant Content writing standards are higher than many of the other so called ‘be a writer’ sites. Each submission is manually reviewed by an editor and either approved or rejected. If a piece is rejected, it’s very easy to talk to the editors and find out why. Often a few small changes will do the trick. (more…)

If you have a website or blog you probably want to know if anyone is looking at it, and where they are coming from. I know I do! I use two different statistic applications.

StatCounter - (free) What I like about StatCounter is that it’s realtime and I can know immediately if how my traffic is running right now. This is really handy for spotting and capitalizin on a traffic spike. The free version (which I use) only holds 500 records, so it isn’t good for true analysis. They do offer a paid version for $9-$29/month.

Google Analytics - (free) Where the free version of StatCounter leaves off Google Analytics picks up. The stats seem to update the next day, not in realtime. But, it’s a snazy looking tool and easy to use. There are more than enough ways to analyze the traffic and see what’s working and what’s not.

See all posts in the Tools of the Trade series.