ChrisBailey.info

One thing that I recommend to people working to make money online is to write about what you know, whatever that might be.

It’s not a guaranteed money maker, but it will help you come up with more frequent and fresh content for your sites to generate traffic.

Last Friday I launched a new site that I will be providing weekly progress updates here and daily notes on my Work At Home Network discussion forums. The first posts will be added tonight and I’ll provide a link from here.

For my own ease in analyzing traffic, the site url won’t be provided for at least a month or two.

I’ll be providing an in depth analysis of all the stats compiled from Google analytics and any income generated from the site.

It may fail. It may succeed. We’ll just have to see.

See you tonight.

Edited on 03/03 to add: Taking longer to get to this than planned. This little experiment should be up soon.

Not that we need more reasons.

Who wants to deal with this at 6:30 in the morning or whatever time you have to get going for work.

First, we have to shovel out of the driveway and warm up the car.

And then it’s out onto the highway dealing with people who drive too slow or too fast for the conditions. Naturally, I drive just right, LOL.

Now, it might be different if work paid me for the extra time. But somehow I don’t think they will.

Yeah, I’d much rather just let it all melt while letting my sites earn money in perfectly sunny cyberspace.

This has been around for a little while, but I just stumbled across it last night.

For those looking to make a few extra bucks, check out the Google Local Business Referrals program. I don’t know how long they will be doing this and there is no guarantee that you’ll be accepted into the program, but it may be worth a few minutes of your time to register your interest.

Here are the highlights of what you do and what you earn, taken from the Business Referral Representative Frequently Asked Questions:

• What will I be doing as a representative?

As a Google Business Referral Representative, you’ll visit local businesses to collect information (such as hours of operation, types of payment accepted, etc.) for Google Maps, and tell them about Google Maps and Google AdWords. You’ll also take a few digital photos of the business that will appear on the Google Maps listing along with the business information. After the visit, you submit the business’ info and photo(s) to Google through your Local Business Referrals Center, and we’ll pay you up to $10 for each listing that is approved by Google and verified by the business.All you need to be a successful Business Referral Representative is a passion for helping local businesses succeed, a love for the Internet (some knowledge of Google is great, too), and access to a computer and a digital camera.

• How much will I be paid? How will I be paid?

You can earn up to $10 for each approved, verified referral you submit. This includes $2 when a business referral is approved by Google; and $8 when an approved business verifies that the information you submitted is accurate. Referrals are approved by Google based on the completeness and quality of data supplied by representatives. Businesses verify their information either by sending us a response postcard or verifying their information online. As long as your earnings total at least $25 a month, you’ll receive a monthly check.

• What are the eligibility requirements for the program?

To be eligible for consideration as a Google Business Referral Representative, you must be authorized to work as a contractor in the U.S., be at least 18 years of age, and be able to complete an IRS Form W-9. You must also have access to a computer and a digital camera.

This obviously won’t make you rich and from what I’ve read so far, that $8 verification carrot is the hardest part to get.

Verification occurs when Google approves your referral($2 to you) and then sends the business a postcard for them to return verifying the info that you provided for Google Maps.

It looks like the average verification percentage seems to run an average of 5%-10% with the highest I’ve seen at about 25%. The high end is achieved by those willing to do a little follow up to make sure the businesses received the post card, filled it out, and sent it back in.

This means your actual income is most likely to average between $2.40 to $4.00 per business referral.

I did sign up and was approved. I think it will be an interesting project and it can also lead to making quite a few business contacts in your own community.

Best of luck to those who decide to give it a shot.

As a Cognigen agent for almost 7 years(start date 03/19/2001), I’ve seen a number of reps concerned about the recent merger/acquisition with Commission River.

IMHO, I think this deal has a lot more potential upside than downside.

As the owner of the Work At Home Network Discussion Forums, I see nearly every “hot” home based business that hits the market.

While I love the fact that Cognigen has always been a no hype, honest home based business opportunity, the simple fact is that their free business model was not a good fit for the traditional style MLM/Network Marketing model.

Because Cognigen was not a pay to play scheme that required us to actually make sales to earn money as opposed to paying recruiting overrides on overpriced startup fees with little focus on sales, Cognigen simply could not compete with the other MLM structured businesses out there.

With the entrance of Commission River into the picture, Cognigen is essentially changing to a model that I believe is a much better fit for the business.

Gone is the 6 level MLM override structure for a much simpler 2 tier pay structure that is much more like the traditional affiliate networks like Commission Junction, ShareASale,  LinkShare, etc.

This will allow agents to earn higher commissions on the own sales and also those of their downline agents.  Since we only have one level of downline overrides, it will also those interested in recruiting sales agents to focus directly on just their front line as opposed to needing to worry if an agent 4 levels down is getting the appropriate help from a dormant sponsor.

Gone is the $100 sales paypoint.  Although I thought this was a very reasonable paypoint that I haven’t had trouble meeting over the last few years, it’s another obstacle removed to gathering agents and keeping them interested.  Now all sales commissions accumulate until you earn enough to get a check.

The owners and primary staff of Commission River are all familiar with the great history of Cognigen and what they have to work with in the agent base.  This should give them an edge in keeping the program attractive to established agents and making the necessary tweaks to help bring back some dormant agents.

I think Cognigen was getting stale and headed towards serious problems.  I hope that the deal with Commission River will help to reinvigorate the program and keep it going for many years to come.

I’ve always been proud to be affiliated with Cognigen and I’m happy to see an effort to stimulate growth.

Those of us who have been around the internet marketing block a time or ten remember more too good to be true scams than we care to count.

Anybody who is looking into one of the latest and greatest we’ll make you rich before you have to pay us a cent offerings called 1on40.com needs to do a little research on two previous similar offerings called Monopolizer.com and MoreThanTraffic.com and use just a little common sense.

Both of those turned out to be scams, as expected.

In a nutshell, 1on40.com guarantees everyone will get to the top of “Google, Yahoo, and 38 other top search engines” within 120 days for 5 keywords. And get this, they get you there for free and then you simply have to be the top bidder for your chosen keywords to stay there. Sounds absolutely wonderful, doesn’t it?

Anyone that has even the slightest knowledge about SEO and how search engines work will immediately be skeptical, to say the least. Rightfully so.

Some of the glaring Red Flags:

• The usual extreme hype geared to people looking to get something for nothing
• Guaranteeing something that simply can not be achieved, or at least can not be achieved via ethical means
• Plenty of awe inspiring testimonials, every one of them anonymous
• A site promising to get me to the top of Google that currently carries a Google PR of 0 and is nowhere near the top, if they are even listed at all, in the SERPs for its own obvious keywords
• Just like the Monopolizer and MoreThanTraffic scams, 1on40.com operates out of a drop box in the UK
• Many of the so called “search engines” listed aren’t search engines and a number of them don’t even exist
• etc., etc.

And yes, free businesses can scam you. They rob you of time and sap your energy getting you excited about results and guarantees that are impossible to honor. You are also providing them with at least some personal info at some point.

As always, time will tell the truth. I already think it’s quite obvious how this one will eventually turn out.

For those who decide to take the chance on this, I definitely recommend a throw away email address and don’t use an established domain for your test.

Good luck