The negative connotation of affiliate marketing stems from the persistent gurus, scammers and bad practices within the field. But when done properly, it’s a proven system that works.

How is this for real?

Nearly every major company today has an affiliate program. Amazon, Ebay, Walmart, Target, Apple, Microsoft… the list goes on and on. Why would huge multi-billion dollar corporations offer affiliate programs if it didn’t work? Because it does!

Basically it’s a form of advertising for them. These companies want people to help promote their products, and are willing to pay a commission. The company gets a sale, the affiliate gets a commission, and the buyer is happy because they find what they’re looking for. Win-win-win!

Sound simple enough?

I can tell you first-hand it is a real thing that people make money with. I can also tell you there are both GOOD and BAD ways to do it.

The good side of affiliate marketing

Think about what you do when you want to buy something or find out information. You more than likely type your thoughts into a search engine like Googls (or Bing/Yahoo) …With a wealth of information available at our fingertips, who wouldn’t want to take advantage? Especially if you’re searching for a solution to a problem or considering buying a product or service.

What if you could take advantage of the keywords people were searching for, give them the information they want, and make a commission for helping them solve their problem or guide them to a product?

You encounter this online whether you realize it or not… Let’s look at some real examples of affiliate marketing

Example #1 – Puppy Training

Let’s say you just bought a new puppy. You’ve never owned a dog before and you need some advice. It’s logical to assume you may turn to the internet for answers. You may search for things like…

What’s the best food for puppies?

How to take care of a puppy?

How to train a puppy?

Let’s take a closer look at the Google search “how to train a puppy”above. Notice how the first result is a site called “Perfect Paws Puppy Training”. If you were to visit the site and take a close look, you’d realize they are using affiliate marketing. You’d also realize it’s a very in-depth site with tons of helpful content! The marketing is secondary and the content is primary.

Now, knowing that there are THOUSANDS of new puppy owners every day, what if you as a potential affiliate marketer just happen to know a ton of information on puppies? You could easily take advantage of that and start up an entire niche website on the subject of caring for puppies.

You could even get more specific and focus on caring for one particular breed… German Sheperds, Brittany Spaniels, Jack Russell Terriers, etc. After all, all dogs are different. The narrower your focus with affiliate marketing, the more engaged your audience and the easier time you’ll have gaining their trust.

There are endless companies with affiliate programs. PetSmart, Walmart even Amazon.com. You could provide information on things relating to puppies (or specific breeds of dogs) and build a niche business around the topic while promoting related products and or services.

Example #2 – Espresso Machines

Let’s take another example. What do you do when you want to buy something? You probably do a little bit of research beforehand, and a lot of times you may do such research online.

You may type something such as…

product + review (s)

product + scam

best + product

where to buy + product

Say you were in the market for an espresso machine. You’re unsure of what you want, just that you need one and don’t really know which to buy. So you do a quick Google search for espresso machine reviews.

Notice the first result here is a site called “The Best Espresso Machines” – if you were to visit the site, you’d see tons of information and espresso machine reviews. You’d also notice they were affiliate marketing, but with lots of provided content to really help the reader make the best decision.

This is how affiliate marketing works. If you can capture people in a buyer friendly phase where they’re looking for reviews or information about something, or looking for a solution to a problem, you have a good chance of grabbing their attention and converting them as long as you are helpful and provide solid recommendations.

Why the “bad” reputation of affiliate marketing?

Spammy websites

Affiliate marketing gets a bad rep for many reasons. First off, there’s a ton of spammy affiliate marketing sites. These are sites which are what search engines refer to as bridge pages – pages set up with the sole intention of getting the visitor to the merchant’s site and providing no added value. These are deceptive sites that are set up very similar to large sale sites like Amazon, but if you actually try to buy something from within the site you’ll just be redirected to another site.

Look at this website, chickensouprecipes.org:

This is a deceptive bridge page… it has no purpose other than to trick people into clicking the ads. At first glance it looks like there are real listed recipes, but there is NO content on the site, it is entirely ad space. When you use the search feature you are only brought up with more advertisements. It used to be really easy to get pages like this to rank…but Google has come a LONG way in blocking spam like this.

Search engines don’t like this. If you try to build a website like this, you will not rank. If you try to build a business around deceptive tactics you will not be successful.

Scams and “gurus”

There are also many people out there promoting bad or scammy programs. There are tons of “gurus” and scam artists trying get your money for “affiliate marketing training” when in reality they charge insane prices yet don’t train you in an effective way. The reality is that most of these programs will just take your money and set you up for failure. You’ll find a large number of people promoting such programs because the commissions are generally very high – at 50% – 75%. 

With all the junk floating around, it’s hard for people who are honestly searching for a way to make it online find the right program or information.

Remember that for affiliate marketing to work, you need to provide value and think of “helping” rather than “selling”

Effective online marketing comes with a complete understanding of one’s audience. When you can effectively capture the attention of your audience, give them a unique perspective, and really speak to their inner needs and desires, then you will be able to gain trust and make sales. When you focus on helping your audience rather than just trying to make a sale, that is when you will be successful.

Unfortunately there will always be those willing to exploit legitimate systems, but you just have to fight for the side of good!

Want to learn how to build a successful business with affiliate marketing? Read about my #1 ranked program for newbies.

100% free to start. No credit card. No experience required.

There are two schools of thought when it comes to how to pick a domain name – some people will tell you to buy a keyword rich domain and others will say to choose something brandable. Ultimately it really comes down to what you want out of your business.

Keyword vs. Branding

What’s a keyword domain?

A keyword domain, also referred to as an exact match domain, is a domain that is essentially a good keyword you want your website to revolve around and rank for. They’re often times long and clunky and never personal. When you see websites with names like ipodreviews.com, bestteethwhiteningsystem.com, howtoloseweightfast.com -those are keyword domains. Often times they can be clunky and impersonal.

The theory behind keyword domains is that people assume they’ll rank better within search engines. Back in the day it was true that you could buy a keyword domain and get it to rank high in search without much effort. But Google has since put a stop to that. That being said, it isn’t a punishable offense to have one. It’s just you’re going to need to have a quality website to go along with it.

I will note that Microsoft’s search (Bing and Yahoo) is still a bit more lenient within the realms of EMDs. You can still get one to rank a little easier than you would with Google, but it’s still within your benefit to create a quality site if you want lasting results.

This is why many companies are choosing brandable domains. 

What are brandable domains?

A brandable domain is a unique name that is catchy and memorable, and will grow to be the personal brand of your business. It isn’t focused on a keyword and can really be whatever you choose.

Think of some of the largest internet businesses around today

• Google.com
• Amazon.com
• Facebook.com
• Craigslist.com
• Ebay.com

None of these companies decided to target a keyword as their business name. Google is not called bestsearchengine.com, Amazon is not named bestplacetobuyproductsonline.com – yet they are thriving multi-billion dollar industries.

A brand doesn’t even have to be abstract. It can define your business within the name, but you can make it catchy or personable.

For example, let’s say I were to create a website within the dessert niche:

Brandable domains could be something like…

• Sugarholic.com
• SweetCraves.com
• SugarRush.com

Notice how there is a lot more room within brandable domains to really build out a business. If you’re wanting to build your site into a large authority, a branded domain could be to your benefit. When you’re picking an exact match domain you tend to get locked into your keyword. For example, if you were to choose a keyword as narrow as “best chocolate chip cookie recipes” your entire site would need to be dedicated to chocolate chip cookie recipes. There’s not really much room for growth there… but if you were to choose a brandable option such as Sugarholic.com, you have the opportunity to grow into an authority and really expand your site in whatever direction you choose.

Tips for choosing brandable domains

When choosing a brandable domain:

• Make sure it’s easy to say and spell
• It’s easy to remember
• It’s not too long or clunky

Tips for purchasing domains

Obviously you can’t choose whatever name you want, slap a .com at the end and call it yours. You’ll first need to head over to a registar like Namecheap and check to see if a name is available for purchasing. Your first idea may already be taken, so try to come up with a list of ideas.

• Sometimes private owners will hoard a domain and try to sell it for a ridiculous price, or sometimes you’ll see “premium” domains that are available for thousands of dollars. There is NO need to shell out that kind of cash. You can easily buy a domain for around $12 -$15 for a year, and I would recommend sticking to that limit. Note: the example site above, sugarholic.com, at the time of posting this blog, is “up for sale”. When you visit the website, you can click “buy this domain” and be redirected to a place for offering a price. I would avoid this and alter your name choice to something already available.
• If possible, always go for the .com option. There are a few reasons for this. First off, they rank easiest within search. People have also come to assume a website will be “.com” and tend to prefer it and will naturally type in “.com” when told a website name. If you REALLY want a particular name and it’s available with a .org or .net extention, you can select one of those.
• They’ve recently released more options for domain extentions such as  .kitchen, .technology, .sexy , and many more. Personally I wouldn’t opt for one. It’s most likely a fleeting trend and will never replace a .com or .org.
• I prefer to buy from Namecheap as their prices are good. Some registars may let you buy an extremely cheap domain for the first year, but if you plan to keep it for any longer they can charge you double or triple the price of what it should be. You’re also given free privacy protection for the first year, a free email address, and their customer service is excellent.

So what’s the verdict?

A keyword domain would work better for a very small targeted niche site. Large authority sites are better off branding. However, the decision ultimately remains up to you.

Keep in mind ANY domain can rank. Ultimately it’s the content that will rank your site, not your domain. No matter which option you choose, you’re still going to have to produce content. You can’t slap up a one page website with a matching keyword domain and watch it shoot to number 1 with absolutely no effort. The internet doesn’t work like that anymore.

Choose what is best for your business. Personally I’d say go with a brand!

Any questions or confusion about picking a domain name? Drop a comment down below and I’d be more than happy to help you out!

-Wendy
Owner, SurvivingAfterCollege.com

“47 per month”

“WHOA THAT’S A LOT!”

Actually, it really isn’t.

Now I do understand it’s still a significant chunk of money – especially if you don’t have all that much money to live on to being with. I mean, we all have to eat, right?

When it comes to choosing between being able to pay the rent or pay for a membership to an online business school, you have to choose the basics. I completely understand that.

I know times are hard and we don’t all have extra money laying around, but the truth is, many of us aren’t fully aware of how we are actually spending all of our money…

I admit it – I am 100% guilty of this. I don’t budget like I should, and I spend money all the time on things I probably shouldn’t. I know A LOT of you do the same thing.

However, if you sat down and truly evaluated just where all your money was going I think you’d be quite surprised at the amount you are spending on non-necessities.

Is there something little you buy everyday or each week you don’t think much about?

Are you a smoker? A drinker? A coffee addict? A vending machine junky? Do you like to eat out?Think about how these little habits really add up over the course of a month (or a year)!

Let’s break it down –

• Pack of cigarettes – roughly $6 a pack
• 6 pack of beer – around $8
• fifth of hard liquor – around $10 (for the cheap stuff)
• fancy coffee beverage – $3 – $5
• candy bar – around $1
• daily pop (soda) drinker – $1.50 per bottle
• dining out – around $15 – $25 per person

Pack a day smoker? – $42 per week, $168 per month, $2,016 per year!!!

Drink a 6 pack per week? – $8 per week, $32 per month, $384 per year

Fancy coffee drinker? Whether it’s Starbucks or just McDonalds, it can add up! Just 3 times per week – $15 weekly, $60 monthly, $720 per year!

Vending machine junky? Let’s say you just bought 1 item, 5 days per week – that’s $5 a week, $20 a month, and $240 a year.

Eat out once per week? – $25 per week, $100 per month, $1,200 per year!

It’s easy to make little purchases here and there and think nothing of it, but when you see the accumulated price over a month or a year, that’s when you really start to think twice about where you’re money is going!

Do you think you could you cut down on one small spending habit?

I know, we all have our vices… but even if you just cut down on the small things – bought one vending machine candy per week instead of five, one fancy coffee a week instead of three, or drank just once or twice a month instead of every week – you would find you could save a lot of money!

$47 monthly broken down is only $1.56 per day – that’s the price of a bottle of soda!

Not much when you look at it that way, is it?

And you know what, if you pay for the regular yearly membership, you get the discounted rate of $29 per month -and works out to be less than $1 per day!

Okay let’s think about this – 98 CENTS a day (to be exact) to join an awesome community of successful online marketers, have unlimited state of the art web hosting, unlimited free web domains, 24/7 live chat support, incredible step by step training, weekly video training and thousands of additional training materials added by active members? For the price of a bottle of soda or just a measly candy bar a day?

Trust me, most programs will charge quite a bit of money just to get “in” – you’re not going to find any truly “free” trial anywhere else like you would within Wealthy Affiliate.

Many programs claim they are “free to join” yet AREN’T – there is always a catch. Whether it’s putting down your credit card information or completing some sort of CPA offer – you’re always going to end up spending money to “join for free”!

When you join Wealthy Affiliate, there is NO catch – it truly is free to start.

Even after you sign up to most other programs, quite often the basic membership is only a lure to get you to spend a small fortune more on upsells – which you could easily end up spending THOUSANDS of dollars if you’re not careful.

Many gurus will charge many thousands for their personal coaching and support. However, you get this INCLUDED with your WA membership – not only the coaching from Kyle and Carson themselves, but coaching from many active and successful online marketers that are Wealthy Affiliate members. It’s a community project and that is what help make it the wonderful place it is!

The thing is, you have to think about the price as an investment…

You’re putting the money in now, so you can gain an amazing education in online business. You’ll have access to all the training, tools and support to make it possible for you to EARN IT ALL BACK plus MUCH more! Are you willing to commit to learning online business for the price of a daily candy bar?

Did you go to college or ever take a college course? It isn’t cheap!

Even if you never attended college, we’re all very aware of how insanely expensive it is to go to school these days – a single course can cost hundreds if not thousands, and many students end up 40, 50, 60, even 100+ thousands in student debt! And in many cases end up with a not so well paying job (or no job!) making it nearly impossible to pay back the loans.

However, people will readily take out thousands upon thousands in loans because they know it’s an investment in their future, and if they don’t go to college they don’t be able to do whatever it is they want to do…and most importantly be able to live comfortably.

So apply that same type of thinking to joining Wealthy Affiliate…

$50,000 per year or $359 per year – both for valuable education, what’s a better deal?

The truth is, just being a member of Wealthy Affiliate won’t guarantee you success, just like a college degree can’t guarantee you a job.

Signing up isn’t a free ride towards millions – you have to pretty much do all the hard labor. It’s just a training center aimed at teaching individuals how to start up their own online business – how you use the training and the level of effort you put in is entirely on you.

You have to dedicate yourself to the training and really push yourself out of your comfort zone. You have to be willing to ask for help when you need it and accept criticism when it is given. It isn’t easy, but it’s definitely worth it.

But remember, you can still join and have access to the community and starter training at absolutely no cost.

Even if your really are dead broke, there should be absolutely nothing stopping you from signing up for a basic starter account. You can put away your credit card, because all you need is a name and e-mail address to sign up.

If you’re serious about starting up your own online business, there are definite advantages to being a premium member, however being able to join free to see if it’s a good fit for you is absolutely the best part.

Put away your credit card for now, and sign up here for a $0 starter account.

Don’t like it? There’s no obligations to upgrade.

The basic steps:

Step 1 – Start a blog! 

If you want to make money blogging, you’ll first need your own website! You can purchase your own domain name, which is definitely recommended. On your own domain you have total freedom to do what you choose, plus your website will get favored by the search engines and ultimately rank better.

If you aren’t ready to commit to your own domain, you can start a website on any free source. My recommendation? A free siterubix website is definitely the way to go – it’s fully WordPress functional and you’ll be able to transfer the content to your own domain at the click of a button.

You can make a siterubix site SUPER easy – with just a few clicks!

Step 2 – Blog regularly, and blog for a purpose

The trick to monetizing any blog is to direct it at a target audience - a niche market. You want to appeal to a certain group of people that have a reason to want to read your blog – think about popular blogs on the internet, what are they about? They probably mostly have one thing in common – they aren’t a personal blog.

Think about all the blogs out there – cooking blogs, dessert blogs, weight loss blogs, healthy living blogs, electronic blogs, gaming blogs – the list is endless! The narrower your focus the easier time you’ll have targeting an audience.

Once your blog is up and running and you have some content created – don’t stop there! You need to regularly write and publish content to keep your readers interested!

Step 3 – Get traffic to your site

Another reason posting regularly is going to greatly benefit you is because it’ll give you more chances to obtain traffic to your website.

So, how do you gain traffic from blogging? If you know the power of keywords, you’ll be able to drive a very successful web campaign. Keywords are very powerful, and if you use the right keyword tools you’ll have the secret to LOTS of traffic.

Another way to gain traffic to your blog is through social media – make sure you share your content socially on networks such as Facebook, Google+ and Pinterest.

Step 4 – Monetize your audience

You can have all the traffic in the world coming to your blog, but you won’t make a dime if you aren’t monetizing your audience!

The way a lot of bloggers do this is through programs like Google Adsense, (or similar ad networks), or selling ad space on their website.

Personally, however, I’d recommend affiliate marketing. It’s the simplest and most lucrative way to monetize the traffic coming in.However, some blogs are harder to monetize with affiliate marketing and may benefit more from things like adsense or selling adspace.

It’s important to figure out before you start how you’re going to monetize your traffic.

Step 5 – Whatever route you choose, treat it like a business

Just because it doesn’t seem like a real job doesn’t mean it isn’t – the fact is if you want to make money you’re going to have to be serious about it. Come up with a business plan, set goals, work consistently and be professional. Knowing what you aim to accomplish will help you focus on the task and be successful at making money with your blog!

Step 6 – Have support and help along the way

This is perhaps one of the most important steps along the way! Make sure you have people who support and help you every step of the way – it’s easy to get confused or stressed out when you’re trying to accomplish something on your own. Frustration is a huge reason people give up, so don’t let it be your reason!

Want to know the best place to access a community of people who will help you on your professional blogging journey?

Meet Wealthy Affiliate – an online training program for online marketers, as well as a thriving community of a range of professional marketers – anywhere from beginners to the most advanced in the industry. It’s an awesome place to get help and seek connections – and we all know how important connections are in the professional world!

You can join and get started with the training for 100% free, no credit card required. This is going to be the ultimate secret to your success for making money with your blog!

Click here to join for free!

Any questions or comments, please leave them down below and I’d be more than happy to help you out!

-Wendy

It seems as though every day there is a new program popping out of the woodwork with some internet guru claiming they know the secret formula that will finally make you millions. It can be quite frustrating when starting out to know what exactly is the “secret formula” that will work for you.

Well I can tell you quite honestly, there is no secret.

Not really, anyway. There’s no magical program or button you can push that will make you millions. There’s no “loop hole” in the system, either. It’s going to take time, hard work and persistence, but if you start small and work your way up, you can achieve success over time.

Many starter programs and products teach something called affiliate marketing, it is the most common way to teach beginners how to make money online because it is a proven method that works (if you do it right) and it’s fairly straightforward.

There are good ways and bad ways of doing it, though.

A strategy many training programs and gurus teach is to build several little one pager micro-niche websites. They say you’ll only have to spend a couple of hours at most making the site, then it’ll rank in Google and sit there and earn you money on auto-pilot.

There’s a definite flaw in this system, however, and that is that most of the time, it will no.t work with today’s search engines

Even with proper keyword research, it is quite difficult, especially after all the latest updates of Google (Panda, Penguin, and Hummingbird) to get a site with very little content to rank well in the organic search results.

That is, unless you go the way of PPC, (pay per click) and start paying for traffic. However, that usually takes experience to really get it right–lots of beginners lose BIG money trying to start out with PPC. I personally wouldn’t recommend starting out with that method if you don’t want to risk losing out on a lot of money!

Let me show you some examples from my personal websites…

Website #1

This is the Google Analytics report from a website I created sometime back in July. It was an EMD (Exact Match Domain) I made for purely experimental purposes. It was what I would call an extremely “good” keyword – over 5,000 monthly searches and QSR of 73 (that means there was virtually no competition within the search engines). Theoretically, I should have no issues ranking for that keyword.

I probably spent around 2-3 hours putting it together – did some research, wrote a few pages of content, set up authorship, and sat back to watch what happened.

Well, guess what? With no further invested effort, basically NOTHING happened. As you can see, I received a mere 15 visits over the course of the several months it has been up and running–that’s basically nothing.

Remember, a lot of programs will try to tell you it’s possible to spend a couple of hours on a website and have it magically rank and consistently earn you money – well it is clearly not always the case!

Website #2

Now, here’s another exact match domain style website I created back at the end of August. Again, I used a very “good” keyword in the domain- even better than the previous one. This website, however, I have invested much more time in than the previous example.

I worked consistently for weeks and kept putting up new content, but as you can see it still isn’t really getting much traffic at all – only 87 visits over the course of a few months!

Despite the lack of traffic, I do plan to keep cranking out new content for the website. Why? Because (as you’ll see down below) when you have patience and persistence, your efforts will pay off in the long run.

A website will take more than a few hours of work to produce the results you want!

You can’t expect to just spend a couple of hours slapping together a website and expect it to earn you money! Even in my second example above, I’ve spent weeks putting together the site and after a few months it still isn’t getting traffic.

Let’s take a look at some traffic statistics from my sites I actually have invested A LOT of time and energy into

Website #3

From February 2013, (the time I created the site) to May 2013 (the time the traffic starts picking up) I was consistently creating new content on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. As you can see, it took a good three entire months of consistent work before it started to pick up!

(The rises and dips in traffic are due to the seasonal demands of the particular niche).

But this site has gotten quite a bit of traffic over time, much of which turned into customers (meaning sales) and continues to do well to this day.

Website #4

Here’s a website I created 5 months ago, in June 2013. I spent a lot of time on it, consistently adding content on a daily or at least weekly basis. The result? After four long months of such efforts, the traffic and sales finally started to pour in.

It takes an average of 3-4 MONTHS when starting out before you can expect traffic to start pouring in

…and that’s with consistent effort.

Now, I realize not every case will be the same. It’s dependent upon many, many factors as to how well you will rank. Some websites might take a lot LESS time to rank, others may take more, but I can tell you something I’ve learned….

When you go the route of organic search  – you will win some, and you will lose some

The thing I’ve experienced with keywords is they are always a gamble. The majority of the time, if you know how to do proper keyword research and write decent content, you WILL rank for that keyword – but sometimes you just don’t, or you will have to wait a very long time for your website to gain some authority to rank better.

That’s why it’s really important you don’t build an entire website or campaign around ONE keyword. It’s the cumulative effort of all your content and keywords that will help rank your site and gain traffic, and that is what will lead towards your success.

So don’t fall for an easy solution – you’re going to need to put a lot of work into building a website. Remember, your website is your BUSINESS – it takes time to build up success.

Want to start your own website, for free?

Any questions or comments? Drop them down below.

Wendy

If you’re looking for an online data entry job, whether you’re a college student, stay at home parent, or just needing a way to work at home – you may be in for a sorry surprise. Most of this type of work you’ll see online is either deceptive advertising or a downright scam. While there are a few legitimate companies that hire for this type of work, the need is not desperate and you’re probably not going to find it within the paid advertising space of Google, Yahoo or Bing.

Virtual data entry jobs are extremely popular for those wanting to work from home. If you do a simple search for data entry work from home, you’ll see the results will be plastered with ads practically screaming for applicants. You’d think these companies were desperate, but you have to as yourself, why? The reality is, most work home data entry jobs are scams.

Many of these scams are disguised to lure you in with the promise of data entry work, yet are trying to get you involved in something completely different. Many are really affiliate marketing training programs in disguise, which isn’t a scam in and of itself, (it’s what I do for a living) but unfortunately the internet marketing business is packed full of tricks like these You really have to watch out.

If you’re wondering whether or not that hot looking data entry job is legit or just a false promise, ask yourself a few questions

Is the job promising a high rate of pay? 
Data entry and transcription jobs are not high paying fields. If they’re telling you you’ll make a questionably high salary, I would guess it’s not real. Most online data entry jobs pay per piece which is pretty low, and often times averages to less than minimum wage.

Is it asking you to pay a fee to get started?
Think about it, when was the last time you had to pay to apply for a job? Usually this isn’t the case, and if they ask for money before you even know you’re in the door, don’t fall for it.

Is it trying to promise you a job with no skills whatsoever?
You don’t need a PhD to do this type of work, but you do have to have decent skills for typing and data entry. Companies will normally make you take a test along with your application.

Do they seem desperate?
Legitimate companies offering this type of work keep relatively few employees on hand and have long waiting lists of people wanting in. They have no reason to be crying out for help!

However there are a few legitimate companies that hire data entry employees to work from home

Companies such as VirtualBee, Capital Typing and Accutran Global hire home workers for various tasks such as transcription and data entry. The common theme among all these types of jobs remain the same, though. They don’t hire that many employees, and the waiting lists to get hired are long. Your chances of ever getting in really aren’t very good, and even if you do, they don’t pay well at all. It’s usually paid on a per piece basis, which is quite low. A lot of these companies are outsourcing such work for overseas too, so many times they don’t even pay minimum wage.

If you’re really set out on wanting a job in the data entry or transcription field, you’d have a better chance trying for a physical (in office) job. However if it’s the online job aspect you’re after, there are better alternative which pay more.

Alternatives for virtual data entry work?

You could try looking into freelance work on websites like Fivver and Elance. People lists all sorts of jobs they want outsourced, from data entry to article writing. These are usually legit job listings, but you may struggle to find work in the beginning if you’re just starting out. It takes a bit of time to get established as a freelancer and have people recognize your quality work.

An even better alternative I would recommend if you want to get started out earning money online would be to develop your own online business. It may seem like an overwhelming task, but really all you need to start out is your own website, and with the right training and resources you can take small steps to build up to great success over time. It takes a lot of dedication, determination and positive thinking, so you have to go into it with the right attitude.

Remember, any advertisement that promises overnight success is lying to you. If you want a job that will make you rich, data entry will never be the answer.

Have you ever been mislead or scammed by a “data entry” opportunity? I’d love to hear your story!

Wendy
Owner, SurvivingAfterCollege.com

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Did you know that those with social anxiety are more likely to be unemployed or underemployed than those with depression? A clinical psychologist at Brown University by the name of Ethan Moitra did a study comparing unemployment rates between those with depression, generalized anxiety, social anxiety, and other similar types of disorders. He found that those with social anxiety were more than twice as likely to be unemployed than the others.

While it is possible for some people to overcome social anxiety, it’s easier when treatment is done early. For those who have suffered for a long time, treatment may not help significantly. Even so, not everyone will always be willing to reach out for help. I truly believe that internet marketing is a fantastic career field for people who suffer from social anxiety disorder and cannot get adequate help. As an internet marketer, you have the freedom to create your own business with very little real world interaction.

You can work from home or wherever you feel the most comfortable. Unlike a real world business, you don’t have the in person customer interaction. The ability to talk to your customers over the internet takes away most of the social stress. And if you go into affiliate sales, your actual sales and customer complaints are taken care of by the merchant, not you. It’s actually a perfect scenario for people who hate or intensely fear interacting with the real world.

My struggle with social anxiety and how it affected my career

Something I don’t like to talk about is my social anxiety. It’s something I have been quietly suffering from my entire life. Most people who know me or meet me just think I’m shy or very quiet, but the truth is, it goes so far beyond that. Unless you suffer from it yourself you really have no idea what I and many others with social anxiety disorder have to deal with on a daily basis.

Let’s Talk about Shy vs. Social Anxiety

Being shy and having social anxiety are similar, but are on entirely different levels. While there’s quite varying degrees of social anxiety, even the mildest is above the point of simply being a bit shy.

Being shy is having a few butterflies in the tummy before meeting someone new, being a bit scared to make friends or speak up, or not liking being the center of attention. However, if those feelings are so intense they causes physical symptoms and get in the way of your life, it’s a sign you might have social anxiety. SA can make you fret over little things involving any form of social interaction for literally days, weeks, or sometimes even months before. Some people suffer so severely they have a hard time going out or interacting at all with others.

While my personal situation isn’t that serious, being involved or just thinking about certain social interactions can make me hot, sweaty and sick to my stomach. And still have to fight battles in my head every single day of my life.

I basically coasted my way through high school, college and all my past jobs with as little social interaction as possible, greatly hindering my ability to make connections and form relationships with my professors and supervisors. (These days I’m sure you know how important connections are when getting hired).

My situation was so bad I realized it had been nearly three years since I graduated college and I had nothing of importance to show for it…

I had hit a wall. I was letting my struggle with social anxiety take over my life, and I realized I had to do something. The whole career world out there was really hard for me to deal with, and I couldn’t keep working a crappy job forever. The bad economy made my already terrible situation just 10 times worse. Now not only was I struggling to try and be a normal person in the employment world, the job market was officially crap and even regular people who were friendly, outgoing and knew tons of people were having trouble finding a job. How was I going to ever compete with that?

That’s when I decided to try out online business

I thought about it for a long time and considered all sorts of possibilities, but then I had it. Everything is going online these days, I figured the internet was an excellent place to start making money, and best of all I could do it on my own. I spent countless hours researching and training myself how it all worked, I was absolutely determined to make it happen. I found an online training program and support community for internet marketers like no other place out there, and it did wonders to help me succeed.

I wish I had started this years ago, because lord knows how much time I wasted and how much farther along I could be now.

I would love more than anything to be able to effortlessly interact with everyone around me, but unfortunately I’ve been struggling with it from 27 years and I know it will never be something that comes easy for me. For me, the online business world was the perfect solution.

Do you struggle from social anxiety? Have any questions or comments? I’d love to here from you, so drop a reply down below or get in touch with me personally if you want, you can send me an email at wendyjane@survivingaftercollege.com. I’m always willing to offer my help and support.

Wendy
Owner, SurvivingAfterCollege.com

The Google Adsense Program is the most popular PPC ad network within the online marketing industry. As long as you own your own domain name, it’s fairly easy to get approved. And once you are approved, you don’t have to bother reapplying if you want to use it on additional sites.Many, many people are making money from Google Adsense, but if they’re using it as their only source of income they could be missing out on some serious money.

#1. It’s not the best way to monetize every type of website.

If your audience is looking to buy something, using Adsense is not the wisest idea. Why? Well, if they see your ads and click, you may be getting a few cents here and there, but you’re losing out on the real money. If you were using affiliate ads, you’d be able to earn commission from those clicks if they go on to buy. You don’t get money for every click that way, but you’d be making dollars per sale, not cents

Think about it, if you need to have at least thousands of unique monthly visitors for Adsense to start making you any type of money, you could potentially turn a portion of that traffic into affiliate sales rather than losing them to a few cents per click. That way you’d be making several dollars for each sale instead. With that type of traffic you could earn A LOT more money!

#2. You can be banned at any time, for no apparent reason.

Google has a habit of banning seemingly innocent people from their program and not giving a clear explanation as to why. It seems there are may, many unsuspecting victims getting this message from Google:

The email seems pretty vague, right? No mention of what type of “invalid account activity” and no mention on what websites the activity was suspected on. The likelihood of getting your account back once this happens is pretty slim, once they decide you’re gone, you’re probably gone for good.

But the truth is, it doesn’t matter how long you’ve been using the program or how much money you’ve previously earned, Google has the right to terminate anyone who they feel are in violation of their code of conduct. Being banned for things like clicking on your own ads is fair game, but even if you don’t knowingly violate any of their terms of service, you could still be just a moment away from getting an email informing you of your sweet departure.

The worst part of it all is you aren’t even entitled to your last paycheck. They give it back to the advertisers!

#3. You don’t have exact control over the ads it places on your site.

Basically it does its best to place the ads as it sees fit based on your content, however, you don’t really know what those ads are going to be. If it’s something you dislike or wouldn’t recommend to a friend, do you really want it being advertised on your personal website? Yes, you do have the power to block certain ad types and URLs, but there are so many advertisers it’s probably impossible (or at least not worth your time) to block everything you wouldn’t want appearing.

#4. Their ads are just, for lack of a better word — UGLY!

I can’t be the only one that thinks their ads look like crap? They should revamp their ad style, it’s kind of embarrassing.

#5. You don’t want to make it your only source of income online.

Adsense can be a great way to earn extra money, but I’d recommend not using it as your sole source of online income. Not only could you be using better programs that would earn you more money, but you wouldn’t want your entire income source to come crashing to a halt if they did decide to exclude you from the program.

If you do get banned, there are alternatives to Google Adsense such as Chitika, Kontera and Infolinks. You could even sell ad space on your own websites. That way you could charge what you wanted and get to control what was advertised (and they can’t ban you!)

Better yet, try incorporating affiliate programs. Join networks like Commission Junction, Linkshare and Amazon and promote their products instead. You’ll get higher commissions!

In conclusion…

Google Adsense is a good option for some types of websites, but definitely not all. For informational or entertainment type websites that aren’t selling any sort of product, Adsense (and alternatives) could be a good way to attempt to monetize the traffic. However if your niche has a buyers market, I’d recommend affiliating with companies and marketing their products instead. That way, you’ll receive a decent chunk of commission when someone buys a product. Plus you have control over what you’re marketing!

Do you have any personal experience with Google Adsense, if so was it good or bad? I’d like to hear about it! And as always if you have any additional questions, comments or concerns please leave a comment down below!

-Wendy