Working Online From Home? Here Are 5 Basic Rules To Avoid Being Scammed

Avoid Scam

Many people who desire to work online from the comfort of their homes are discouraged by the many scams floating around in cyber space. This fear is justified believe me but there are several genuine work online opportunities out there. All one needs to do is due diligence before expending with any cash. I have previously written this article (2 Free Tools That Would SaveYou From Being Scammed Online). I recommend you read it in addition to this one so that you can avoid any obvious pitfalls in this game. With this piece, I only intend to give the fingertip guidelines that one needs to hone in order to spot a scam from a distance. I shall also give you a very good review website which you can use to gauge the authenticity of websites. It all boils down to doing due diligence and being highly aware of what scams smell like so let’s get down to it.

1.    Too good to be true

If it smells like a fish, it’s a fish, believe me! Have you ever seen those edited videos that switch from people standing by big mansions with swimming pools and luxury cars, to them taking luxury cruises? Well, most of it is make believe to capture your imagination and arouse your curousity using acting, don’t buy it!! Life isn’t that easy my friend. You’ve got to work hard in the right direction and it would take time to get there. Unless you win the lottery, there’s no easy route in this game, people.

2.    Email capture with just a brief explanation of what the business is about

Don’t get me wrong, there are genuine emailing systems designed to capture emails and increase sign-ups for their clients through affiliate links. But, you need to ask yourself if it is wise to sign-up for a ‘work online’ venture without knowing the details of what they actually do. Don’t sign-up on any website that’s just designed to capture your email with just a brief explanation of what they do and where you don’t have access to their ‘About Us/About Me’ and ‘FAQs’ (Frequently Asked Questions).

3.    Disclaimers

Closely related to the video thing are the disclaimers. How many of you have ever taken the time to look for and read a disclaimer on a website. This is basic! So, you get this well crafted video, showcasing ‘highly successful’ people, who started working online just two months ago but you never read the disclaimer on the website (usually in tiny, almost invisible fonts at the bottom of the page) that is telling you that, the owners of the website or business are not responsible for any losses you incur. Note – promising instant success, yet issuing disclaimer screams high risk and danger!!! Run for your dear life!!!

 

Trust Pilot Reviews

4.    Read Reviews

This is usually the first approach most people adopt to find credible work online opportunities. The common trend is to use search engines like Google. Unfortunately many of these results that Google would generate are likely to be well optimized websites littered with favourable reviews and affiliate links. It usually consists of people selling their affiliate links without having really tested the product or a platform. This does not make it wholly reliable so let me make life easy for you and narrow it down to a website that I have found very useful. Having used it for over 3 three months I have come to really trust this website Trust Pilot.  If you’re still unconvinced after using my 2 tools to protect you from scam  and would like to see some genuine reviews, then Trust Pilot is the place to go. All you need to do is to type the web address into the search console and if there are reviews they would be generated in the results. You should also consider writing reviews there to help others if you have some experiences. What makes Trust Pilot trustworthy is that, you’re not allowed to spam-advertise affiliate links which makes the reviews genuine.

5.    Only invest what you can afford to lose

After taking these basic steps, are you fully insulated against scam? Hell no! There are many online opportunities like these Free Bitcoins where you don’t require financial investment to start but anything is still possible. That’s why it’s very important to test the waters first if you’re ever required to invest any cash, with only the amount you can afford to lose. If you have $600 and you don’t mind losing $50 to test the waters in an online venture, then fine. But if you can’t afford to lose any of that amount, don’t do it. Basic!

The whole point – view any work online opportunity as a starting point of any entrepreneurial venture. By all means, develop a product, find the online opportunities, take measured risks but remember there is no overnight success like some websites would claim. It takes long to build online credibility and it’s not easy. All in all, don’t give up. If you found this article useful, feel free to share it and share your opinions.

Resources: Trustpilot.com

Where And How To Get Free Bitcoins Every Week With Speed

Bitcoin

Hey, how’s the going? I am sure by now you know what bitcoins are. Just in case you don’t, here’s a brief description. Bitcoin is a form of virtual currency with which you can purchase and pay for goods and services. It belongs to a group of virtual currencies together known as crypto-currency. There are several types of crypto-currencies like litecoin, dogecoin, altcoin and lately Ethereum and Bitcoin Cash. But, bitcoin happens to be the first and most valuable of them all. Bitcoins have peculiar units of measurement. They are BTC (Bitcoins), mBTC and Satoshis. 1BTC(1 Bitcoin) = 1000 mBTC and 1 BTC =100,000,000 Satoshis. It can be mined online using the processing power of a computer (old method) or buying a specially designed hardware with huge processing power or even buying and selling them on an exchange. You require a virtual or hardware wallet to store the currency and there are several credible exchanges online where you can change virtual currency into real cash. If you want to know more about crypto-currencies, I suggest you do some further research online.

Mining vs Trading

Before I break things down, here’s a bit of very important information. When I first wrote this piece 15^th August 2016), the price of 1 bitcoin on CoinDesk was valued at $588.53, down from $600 about a week or two earlier due to a hacking incident of a bitcoin exchange in Hong Kong. Today 6th August, 2017, the price hovers back and forth between $2,600 and $3,000. So the question at this point would be, should you mine or trade bitcoins? Okay, here’s the deal! It’s believed that about 70% of all bitcoins have already been mined and by January 2018 80% would have been mined. People have actually pulled resources together to purchase ultra powerful processing hardwares purposely to mine therefore individual mining is no more cost-effective. Infact it’s considered a waste of time unless you join what is called (pool mining). How about trading? Yes you can trade in bitcoins but how wise would that be? Bitcoin has reputation issues. In some countries, it’s not been fully accepted as a legal tender

1.      Crypto-currency is still not fully developed and no one knows the direction it would take in the future.

2.      Black-hat hacking issues (Criminals hacking into exchanges and stealing crypto-currency).

These and other uncertainties tend to make the price of bitcoins and other crypto-currencies highly unstable and high risk. Therefore it would not be very wise to buy and sell bitcoins at this moment but well if you are not risk averse, you can give that a shot because experts believe bitcoin will go up to $10,000 soon. Well, you can still do it if you don’t mind the risk involved. There is a great alternative though and it’s totally free.

The best alternative (How and where to earn free bitcoins)

Okay, I know you have been waiting to read this portion, so grab a chair, sit tight and pay rapt attention. Ever heard of PTC (Paid To Click)?? This is just a way of getting paid by viewing adverts. After personally investigating and participating, I have come to the conclusion that it’s the best way to earn bitcoins for free without any hustle. All you need is about 2hrs a day or better still, if you can spare more of your time, the better. After a couple of weeks investigating online, I came up with three websites that offer these services but pay in bitcoins. Note that, this does not in anyway, necessarily mean that, these websites are faultless. It only means that by my experience, it remains the safest method to earn free bitcoins if you have the patience, that is. Afterall, there’s no risk involved except your time, electricity and internet bundle. Here’s the list of three that I consider credible.

1.      ADS 4 BTC

ADS 4 BTC

 ADS 4 BTC is my favourite. They display the real unit of BTC you receive, not in Satoshis or mBTC. Ads are delivered into your account to be viewed as and when they become available so there’s no limit on how much you can earn. Click here ADS 4 BTC to sign up. The good thing is that some of the ads come with some substantial amount of BTCs, implying also that, the amount you can earn for viewing an ad is not fixed. The only downside is that, on sign-up, you’re asked to choose the best time you would prefer ads to be delivered. Once that is done, it can’t be changed. This is very important because it makes the difference between the number of ads that would be delivered and those you might miss out on because of the set time. 

2.   COIN ADDER And FAUCET HUB

Coin Adder

Faucet Hub Payment Proof

From my experience I have concluded that Coin Adder is another good place to earn some free bitcoins. You get to earn a maximum fixed amount of 75 Satoshis and a minimum of 25 Satoshis (equivalent to 0.00000075 BTCs and 0.00000025BTCs) for every ad viewed for just 14 seconds depending on your location. The only problem with Coin Adder is that, a set of between 6 and maximum 15 ads only, are delivered to be viewed daily and that’s it. No ad would then be delivered again until the next day. If you have no time to sit around waiting for ad delivery then this is great for you. It is a sort of touch and go platform. They require that you sign up for Faucet hub to receive your payment. Not only that, you can also earn bitcoins doing similar tasks on Faucet hub  if you wish but you need it for payment vetting and approval. The beauty of it is that, you can then shift to other projects. Click here Coin Adder  and here Faucet Hub to register and start earning.  The above images display my payment proof..

Genesis Mining

If on the other hand, you’re thinking about mining? Here’s where to go - Genesis Mining. They have existed for over two years and it looks like they are here to stay. Theirs is cloud mining which is a form of pool mining (all the purchased hash power is pooled together for the mining and shared according to one’s contribution). They do the mining on your behalf with their machines. What you do is that you buy what is called hash power at a certain minimum price. Hash power is basically the speed at which you want the mining to be done for you. Have you heard about the “doubling bitcoin” craze that’s going on around the world? That’s what this is all about. You can even customize the amount you want to buy and you can also either buy with credit card or with bitcoin.  I joined recently and here’s my strategy. I use the bitcoins I earn from the freebie platforms to buy the hash power on Genesis Mining and then bingo I am off.  However, you can also buy hash power directly with cash so go ahead give it a shot and make some money right away. This is where i want to offer you some quick help. If you want to buy hash power with cash, use this secret promo code -(mj20UV)to get a discount on your purchase. Not so fast though because there is a downside.

Downside of Cloud mining

However, there’s a downside even to cloud mining that you need to be aware of. Those who had set up the hardware would require that you pay maintenance fees which include electricity, cooling, maintenance and more. The fees vary on platforms. Platforms like Genesis Mining would cancel your contract without giving you any profit if the maintenance fees exceed profits from the coins being generated by the hashpower you bought, simply requiring that, you need to invest more to buy hash power. This should tell you that, a single bitcoin isn’t easy to come by so always beware of those promising to double what you have. Before you invest it’s important to determine the profitability of the investment. This website Crypto Viral can help you do that. 

Conclusion

PTCs are great for people starting from ‘ground zero’ (no money to invest) in any online venture and in this case, earn bitcoins. Besides if you are a novice at making money online, it’s never advisable to pay and join any website that promises to make you ‘rich quickly'! It’s high risk! PTCs are a safe place to start since they don’t require monetary investment. The trick is to sign-up for 2 or 3 of such sites that are credible, withdraw earnings when you earn the required minimum and invest it in other ventures like Genesis Mining . The whole point to this is that, the $5 worth of Bitcoins you hold to today, could become $200 tomorrow. However, if you have the resources then purchasing hardware, setting up a mining rig and joining a mining pool is probably the best option of them all. The whole idea with PTC is to raise capital and invest somewhere else. Anyway, share this article if you found it useful. Feel free to comment or ask any question as well. The investigation continues!!

How To Choose The Best Clickbank Affiliate Product To Sell In 5 Minutes

 Are you a beginner digital marketer, maybe even experienced, trying to sell affiliate products from Clickbank? Do you log in to the site to find a whole ‘bank’ of different products that you believe you can easily market and pocket some daily commission? Have you created your blog or website, tweaked it for maximum search engine presence, done all the social media marketing etc., but somehow, you’re still struggling to make your first sale? Did you know, it is very possible that, you’re not picking the right product to sell, even if it’s within your passion, interest or niche? Well, unless you’re a genius marketer who can sell ice to an Eskimo, you would need some help. This short article is intended to give you a simple and basic guide to helping you pick the best product to sell from clickbank in 5 minutes, even if it’s within your niche or passion.

CBENGINE.COM

Of course you can go directly to Clickbank.com and pick a product to sell as an affiliate. However, the platform can be pretty complex even for experienced marketers, how much more new marketers? Infact, there’s a whole Clickbank University where how to use the platform to maximum benefit is taught, therefore, you can imagine what happens to those who can’t afford to pay for such a service. That’s where cbengine comes in handy. Cbengine offers a platform where you can quickly research the status and sales trend of clickbank products to enable you make a sound choice. It has a paid service but most importantly, it can also be used entirely for free even without signing up. Infact, you can even pick your clickbank affiliate link directly from cbengine if you so wish. I am a free user and it has really helped me in making the best choices. Visit the website and follow these steps.

Note that, in the images presented, all the notable portions have been highlighted either with a line, circle or arrow in red or yellow, therefore, they are not part of the main website content of cbengine.

1.     Paid Sponsors

How to choose clickbank the best products

Upon visiting the home page, you would find some prominent clickbank products on the first page, reaching out to affiliate marketers as indicated in the image above. These are all paid ads. As a good strategy, I do not recommend picking any of these products because they have already saturated the market but if any of them drives your interest, you can still follow the research steps I am about to show you before you make a choice. The strategy would be, to find existing products with significant growth prospects. So, how do we find them? This takes us to the next step.

2.    The Search Panel

How to choose the best clickbank product

Once on the home page of cbengine, locate the search panel on the right side. It’s in a sidebar format and has several features that would enable you pinpoint your search based on keywords and all but remember that, we want to do this in just 5 minutes so that we can quickly move on to other things. Therefore, our focus would be on the top three portions of the panel. These are, “Top Category”, “Sub Category” and “Ranked In”. In the Top Category drop down menu, leave it at ‘All’ but for Sub Category and Ranked In, choose “Top Only” and “Top 20” respectively. Do nothing else after this. Just find the search button at the bottom of the panel and click on it.

cb engine

From the generated results, click on category at the top to display the important details of the results. Now pay close attention here because this is the most important part of making the choice. Locate “Earn” and “Gravity” at the top of the results content. Which product should you choose? You can notice from the image that some of the products are offering some pretty high commissions per sale. These are worth taking a close look at. However, you need to compare the commission these products may be offering to the ‘Gravity’ of the product. So, what is the ‘Gravity’ all about? I would not bore you with the technical details of how the gravity is calculated but basically, it’s an indicator of a product’s market strength, in terms of its marketability and earnings. It measures the product’s market strength on a daily basis based on its sales and revenue from the day it was introduced therefore, the higher, the gravity, the higher, the market strength of the product. It is more or less the market growth analytics of the products. All this, does not necessarily mean that a product with a low gravity has a low market prospect, per se. It could be that the product is new. The gravity needs to be compared with the time the product was introduced before any conclusion can be drawn. This leads us to the next step.

3.    Analyzing The Results

cb engine

Once you’ve sieved through the results and decided which product to research, click on the product link for further details. As can be seen in the image above for an example, I picked a product with a gravity of 30.28 but with a negative outlook of -2.14. This implies that, its market strength had dropped a few points, probably in the past few days, weeks or months, albeit it’s paying a commission of 75%. To ensure that I am making a good choice, I would click on ‘graph’ at the top for further details.

gravity

gravity

As can be seen in the images above for our example, there was a study rise in gravity from the introduction stage in the year of 2011 but it peaked in 2014.  Since then, there has been some decline in market strength. On the other hand, the referral rate as indicated in the  graph image immediately above shows some sturdiness, which is an indication that, with the right marketing approach, a marketer can still earn some good commission by bringing in referrals. The length of time the product has existed may also prove its strength.

There you are, we’re done! Based on this simple step, you should be able to choose a clickbank product in 5 minutes. Do I have an advice on the best product to choose? Personally, I have found that products with gravities between 30 and 50 are study to market and sell. However, I have also gone for some products with gravities as low as 6 with ‘rising star’ prospects or statuses and I have been pleasantly surprised. All said and done, the ultimate decision rests with you.

If you found this article useful, feel free to share it across social media. Also feel t share your opinion or any other additions in the comment session. You never know who may be helping.

‘1.65 Billion Reasons’ Why Start-Ups Should Take Facebook Seriously

Facebook Stats

Hello!! Did you hear the great news a couple of weeks or so ago, the research that revealed that, Facebook had 1.65 billion users monthly in the first quarter of 2016? Check out the stats here: Facebook Stats 2016.  Are you an entrepreneur struggling to find market for your products? Do you have a website struggling for traffic, leads and conversions (sales). Well there-in lays your answer if you don’t already know. Imagine finding a readymade market of a mere 1000 of this amount of regular users every month for a product that sells at just $1.

Facebook leads and conversions

Oh yeah, you’re nodding your head right? Sometime last year, I took a break from Facebook and wrote this article Five Things I Achieved After Deactivating My Facebook Account. Do I have a change of mind? Absolutely not! What has changed is that by taking the break, I was able to discover what to actually use my Facebook and other social accounts for as a digital and social entrepreneur.  Listen, it’s all good if you want to solely indulge in social engagement on Social media. Infact, some strategic social engagement as I have broken down in this article The Uncensored Guide To Getting Massive Direct Traffic, is actually important for business success as long as it’s done with much tact and prudence. Afterall, that was what social media was created for. However, if you’re a serious entrepreneur who wants to succeed at all cost, then you should also look beyond pure social engagement.

REASONS

1.    1.65 billion Monthly users would be any search engine’s dream but the good thing is that, it’s social media so you don’t need to be found through some SEO strategy. You don’t have to be worried about messing up your website whilst doing SEO. You don’t have to worry about search engines penalizing your website based on some false suspicion that you’re trying to manipulate them. You can basically spread the word and get found by friends and friends of friends through tags, sharings and likes. This creates a chain of views and possible leads for your product or content across the world. Better still you can use paid ads to get a well targeted audience for your products.

Facebook Likes

2.    I know a lot of people hate the ‘like’ button.  I used to hate it too until I understood its real use for content and business promotion. I have seen many complaints by Facebook users to have it taken down but Facebook would simply not budge. Infact, Facebook tells you not to like something if you don’t want your friends to see it in the ‘ticker’. I know a few great relationships that have ended because of the ‘like’ button, if you know what I mean. Sad as it is, that is not the topic here. Why wouldn’t Facebook take this down? Now, this opinion is purely based on observation and hunch, not research. Facebook’s main source of revenue is through ads so they need to assure advertisers, content or product owners that there’s a feature that would ensure that their product or content would go viral if they stay on Facebook and spread the word. The ‘like’ button is one of them. How many times haven’t you been curious about something a friend liked once it appears in your ticker? Yeah, that’s what Facebook wants to happen. They want to drive your curiousity with the ‘like’ button and have you click on that link to find out what it’s all about. And how does that happen? By seeing it ‘liked’ by someone else!! That’s how virility is created with the ‘like’ button and that, I suspect, is one of the reasons why Facebook would not take it down. It also, in a way, indicates what your interests are so that they can target such products to you on the advert panel. Simply put, it’s a major feature for contents to go viral and reach a larger audience which in turn, is very reassuring to business owners and advertisers. The more people they reach, the more leads and conversion they make.

3.    Facebook’s ‘bot’, if there is any, seems to ‘spy’ on people’s search interests even outside Facebook. If you pay close attention, you would realize that, very often, you see adverts for products you might also have searched for on other search engines appearing as ‘right in your face’ ads on your Facebook newsfeed or the advert panel on the right. Yeah, they seem to ‘spy’ on your search requests outside Facebook, thereby enabling them to determine what your interests might be so that they can deliver them to you once you log in to their platform. Great for business owners, isn’t it??

4.    Finally, Facebook would not issue page warnings at will or block your usage of any of their features just because you tried to get ‘commercial’ on their network. They are very flexible with commercial activities because they know that, at some point you might want to pay to get further exposure. Infact, with all its numbers, Facebook still advertises for more users around the world. They know how to find scam accounts too and quickly delete them.

As an entrepreneur, I see Facebook in a different light now than I used to and I am getting a piece of the pie in my own way. By the way, if you want to know how to do this without paid ads, read this How To Make Your Facebook Page Go Viral Without Paid Ads. In my opinion, though a few new Social networks have sprung up with the intention of providing stiff competition for Facebook, it still remains the ultimate Shangri-La for start-ups and even long existing businesses who desire guaranteed success and that is the reason why, I would not close my account ever. On the social front, I still have some problems with Facebook, though. Facebook sometimes refuses to remove abusive racist content by individuals. There also remains the issue of secret groups created by paedophiles to prey on innocent children. These and a lot more abuses are inexcusable but in my opinion, it remains the best free platform to grow a business out there. If you found this article useful, feel free to share and comment.

How To Get A Piece Of The 1.65 Billion Facebook Pie Without Paid Ads

Hey listen, getting things for free do not come easy, I must warn you. Facebook offers paid ads which are well targeted to your desired audience so if you can afford at least $5 a day, I recommend you pay to promote your product after I have taken you through these steps because it’s a guaranteed avenue for sales. Nonetheless, the free process still works very well if you have the patience to spread the word and go viral.

CREATE A PAGE:

First off, you need to create a Facebook page to spread the word about your product. Creating a Facebook is pretty easy. Facebook provides you the basic action buttons in the drop down menu on your profile at the top right corner. Just click on ‘create page’ as seen in the above photo.

Facebook page

Facebook page

The page creation involves four basic steps -  “About”, a “Profile Picture” for your page, “Add to Favourites” and choosing the desired “Audience” for your page. Of course you must add appropriate pictures (profile and cover) that correspond with your product and also add the page as a favourite. This would make it possible for you to quickly locate it among the list on the right-side panel on your newsfeed page so that you can quickly make changes or post new content. Now, you should know what to put in the “about” section. Here, make sure you input the most important keywords of your product within the write-up and then if you have a desired audience for your product you can specify. This is especially good if you intend to “promote”(pay to advertise the page) because you can directly research for high converting countries and target them directly. For the free version however, I recommend you keep it open for all locations. Then pick the gender, age range and interest for the page. The interest should be what your page is actually about. See in the pictures above.

Facebook page

Facebook page

Your page is almost ready. If you want to promote the page, which is highly recommended, click the promote button on the right and choose the price at which you want it promoted.  There’s something very important you can add that would help your conversions greatly. On the cover photo click on the “add a button” menu and find a variety of actions that you can take as seen in the images above. I recommend that you  pick the “learn more’ button and insert a ‘shortened’ affiliate url using any of the good url shortening services out there, if your page is about a blog on an affiliate product, that is. I have found this to work very well for me. Facebook, now offers you the opportunity to promote only that button directly from there.  Of course, if you have a personal website you can do same.

HOW TO GET YOUR PAGE TO GO VIRAL AND GET PEOPLE TO JOIN!

Facebook post page in groups

Facebook schedule post

Now here’s the difficult part and this requires patience since you’re not using ‘promotion’ for your page. Of course you can spread word around about your page and invite friends, family etc. to join but what if these people are not really interested in your content? That makes it very important for you to dig deep and find the right audience for your product. How do you do this? Use the Facebook search button to find groups and other pages similar to your product. Join and like them respectively. I suggest you find groups or pages with active members of at least 2,000 or likes. Join as many as you can. Now here’s the crucial part! Everytime you post new content on your profile, share this content directly from your page into these other groups or pages of the same interest as yours that you have joined as seen in the picture above. A lot of people make the mistake of just posting content on their pages or walls and expect that people would find them by searching Facebook. Yes, that’s possible but it would take a hell of a long time for your content to go viral and attract likes. However, once you post directly from your page after you have posted new content people get curious and trace the link back to your page and like it. You may get lucky and have people share your page too. I have personally done this with great success. The ‘likes’ trickle in bit by bit and then sooner than later your audience would increase as long as you have the patience and keep churning out fresh content and engaging with fans of your page. On the publish button, you also have the option to schedule posts. This helps to keep the page active whilst you’re away. Don’t directly advertise your page in other groups or on other pages. Many page admins don’t like that. You may get deleted and blocked if you’re not lucky!  Keep the page active everyday with new postings. These postings do not necessarily have to be about your product. You can find links related to your product online and share as long as it would keep the page active or people would leave.

TRAFFUP

Get leads with traffup

Finally, Traffup is a website you can join. It’s a place, where you can add your page or website and gain credits that you can in turn use to promote your page. It has several action features for Facebook likes, Tweeter retweets/follows, website viewing and instagram follows/likes but let’s focus on the Facebook portion of it. When you sign up you can undertake any of the activities mentioned and gain credits to use for Facebook likes. The good thing about Traffup is that, people are not obliged to like your page based on an exchange. When someone likes your page, it was more likely because that person was interested in what you have to offer. You can really garner some real leads with this one and this is all for free. As your following grows, Facebook would be forced to recognize your importance and put you on top of the search pile for further growth. 

There you have it! Go ahead and go viral but be patient and follow the sharing policies of Facebook if you don’t want your content to be deleted. Are you going to get 1000 followers in one day with this approach? No, unless of course you’re Usher but it’s a great approach to start off and gradually climb to the top.  If you found this article useful, feel free to share it and comment.

RESOURCES:  Facebook

   Traffup.net