Very little in fact.

It mostly involves getting paid to surf the Internet and getting paid to read e-mail. The catch is that you are bombarded with advertisements.

For more on this, type "getting paid to surf" into the seach box at Google and hit "Enter". Take your pick.

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It worked really well until the end of 2000. It's how Yahoo became big. With the Internet bust, even Yahoo was forced to look to alternative revenue streams. Advertisers began to realize that, in most cases, banner advertising is just not cost effective.

Most people don't click banners. I know I don't.

Contextual advertising (like Google's AdSense program) is the big thing in online advertising. If done properly, it is far more effective than banner ads.

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When someone you refer buys, you get a cut.

It's still hard work, but this is probably the most doable of the ways to make money without money.

Affiliate programs are a little over-hyped, but they can really make money. I know. More than 75% of my own Internet income is from affiliate programs. There are a couple of things you have to get right though. In that same $39 book I mentioned above I reveal some of the best ways to make money with affiliate programs.

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It is also the most difficult one of the 4 ways to make money without money. It's difficult and time-consuming. If you're forced to do it without a budget, it will be even more time-consuming. But you're determined to build a profitable, long-term Internet business, right? Hard work is not a problem.

Right?

The most difficult part of this method is the product development.

What can you make without spending a penny? Something that people will still buy from you?

The answer lies in information products. We all have marketable skills. You're an expert in something.

Do you know a lot about cars?
Write a mini-book on basic engine maintenance.

Know a lot about kids?
Write a book called "101 Ways To Keep 2-year olds entertained" - you've already got your first buyer right here!
This is really doable. There are people who'd pay to know what you know.

Want more nitty-gritty advice on creating your own e-product? I've written a 37-page e-book called "Ways To Make Money On The Net " where I get into this in more depth. If you have 39 bucks, this mini e-book will save you a year of trial and error.

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The aim of this article is to show you the most effective method by which to improve the ROI from your marketing spend. The solution will cost you almost nothing, and will not involve changing your online marketing activities at all. The secret is to tune your site to reduce your Cost Per Acquisition. This is done by examining your Conversion Funnel.

Cost Per Acquisition

When people arrive in your site you want them to do something; this is your “Target Action.” Some companies use their site to create leads for their sales team, in which case the Target Action is getting the visitor to fill in a contact form. For ecommerce sites the Target Action is an online purchase. How much it costs you to get someone to engage in your Target Action is your Cost Per Acquisition, or CPA.

Here’s an example using the Web’s average numbers: You’re running Google AdWords and paying 50 cents per visitor, which is the average bid. The percentage of those visitors who engage in your Target Action is 2 percent, the Web’s average Conversion Rate. This means it takes 50 visitors (at 50 cents each) to get one Target Action, so your Cost Per Acquisition is $25.00.

The Conversion Funnel

People arrive at a Landing Page, then go through a series of pages before deciding to engage in your Target Action. The path they follow from Landing Page to Target Action is their “Conversion Path.” At each step in the Conversion Path some visitors will leave the site. This creates a funnel of decreasing numbers at each step in the path. This is called the “Conversion Funnel.”

Case Study: Motoreasy

One of our clients in the UK is Motoreasy, a company that sells extended auto warranties. They sell policies online and they also have a telephone sales team. Thus they have two possible Target Actions in their site; get people to purchase online or get people to fill in a contact form for the tele-sales team.

We run a search marketing program for Motoreasy, consisting of search optimization for native listings, and PPC advertising. There is also a good affiliate program that we created for them, and they have developed special relationships with large online properties (such as major newspapers) that include dedicated content on their sites. Motoreasy also runs TV and print advertising, direct mail, PR and all the other elements you’d expect from a well-rounded marketing program.

Clearly, there is no marketing base that Motoreasy hasn't covered. Our task is to improve the ROI on all this activity without actually changing it or spending any more money.

The way to improve ROI on any marketing budget without changing the program is to decrease Cost Per Acquisition. This is done by increasing the percentage of traffic to your site which engages in your Target Action. This means you have to improve the performance of your Conversion Funnel. You do this by making sure the marketing message you used to get people into the site is consistently and clearly communicated down the entire length of the funnel.

Motoreasy’s Web site is designed to give you a quote for an extended auto warranty on your car. This involves completing three short forms that will then deliver a price. If you decide you want to sign up, there are then another three forms you must complete before you get to credit card processing. This all may sound a little lengthy, but bear in mind that we’re selling a heavily regulated financial product and that there are strict legal guidelines in the UK regarding this sort of thing.

To start with, I split the Conversion Funnel into two parts: from landing page to quote, and from quote to sign up. I then decided to focus on improving the rate of quotes first, because two out of three people who started the quote process failed to complete it.

Analysis of a Conversion Funnel is fairly simple: Look at what percentage of people who see the first page go through to the second one and what percentage of those go through to the next, and so on. It’s more important to know the Conversion Rate for each page than for the path as a whole. What I could see was a fairly constant bleeding of visitors throughout the path. The fact that as many dropped out at the beginning as dropped out at the end told me the customers weren’t simply getting fatigued, so it had to be something to do with the content of the forms themselves.

The design of the forms you had to fill in was fairly formal, as you’d expect from a financial company. There was lots of good stuff before you got into them about the benefits of the product, and a very high percentage of visitors entered the quote process. However, once you got into the quote pages these messages were absent.

I worked with their design team on a new design that kept communicating the message. The first place people look at on a Web page is the top-right quadrant, so we put the primary message there. We moved terms and conditions to the bottom and put content around the form that kept pushing the benefits (which had motivated people to start the quote process in the first place).

In other words, I was selling the visitor on the benefits of completing this form.

This is core marketing: Tell people what you want them to do (fill in the form), and then tell them the benefits of doing so (you’ll get a quote which could save you money).

In addition, we didn’t want to completely lose the people who were going to give up. So we put the telephone number prominently at the top, making it easy for them to call if they found filling out the online form too tedious. We gave them access to a very short contact form that retained any information they had already provided.

These changes reduced the drop out rate from 65 percent to 29 percent overnight. This may still sound high if you’ve never seen these sorts of figures before, but the average across the Web is actually 40 percent, so Motoreasy now was achieving above-average performance. In addition, over half the people who didn’t complete the quotation process used the telephone number or contact form. By doing this, we more than halved Motoreasy's Cost Per Acquisition on delivering quotes.

Having proven that the absence of the marketing message from the forms was the problem, I applied the same logic to the sign-up forms. I wanted to motivate the customer to complete the sign-up process. I already knew that the message appealed to them: They’d gotten a quote and then decided to sign up. Therefore, all I needed to do was keep reinforcing that message. This increased the completion rate from 29 percent to 69 percent. Motoreasy also found that this doubled the percentage of people who completed the credit card processing form, even though this page hadn’t been changed.

In other words, continually motivating the customer by reinforcing the core messages gave them the impetus to go through the commitment stage and submit their credit card details.

By the end of this process of Web analysis and redesign Motoreasy increased its business four-fold, without increasing marketing spend at all.

Conclusions

There are a number of lessons to be learned from this. Your site doesn’t have a single conversion rate. It’s not a monolithic block. People interact with a series of pages, each of which can win or lose the visitor. The messages you use to get people into your site need to be reinforced within the site. You need to analyze the paths from the landing pages to the target action page, looking at the drop-out rate for each step. Where those paths are under-performing you need to examine them to see if they keep reinforcing your core messages.

Marketing doesn’t stop just because someone has come to your site: You must keep communicating with them. You must monitor and improve this performance by analyzing your Conversion Funnel. This is how you get more business without increasing your marketing spend.

Brandt Dainow is CEO of Think Metrics, creator of the InSite Web reporting system. Read full bio.

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This is the best Internet business course I've ever read--I went to college for this kind of stuff, and this course content blows away any book or professor I've had in class.

I've been running an Internet business for eight years, and I made changes to my site as I read this course, and earned an extra $200 the first week alone, before I even got to the end of the course!

If you read this course, you'll most likely save hundreds or thousands of dollars by not making common mistakes, and you'll learn proven marketing concepts to increase the number of sales you make every month.

This is one of the easiest courses I've ever read... it explains concepts and ideas simply, without using complicated business terms. If you can understand this tutorial, you can understand this course.

The course has a money back guarantee so you have nothing to lose. I honestly believe they should be using this course as a marketing guide in colleges and universities around the world.

Purchase a copy of Insider Secrets to Marketing Your Business on the Internet now, or sign-up for the free newsletter to learn more.

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Get Paid -every- time you show an ad: usually referred to as CPM (or cost per thousand shows), this was a once common form of advertising on the Internet. For smaller sites, it seems to have died off, although a few sites still pay it.
Get Paid -every- click on an ad: usually referred to as a CPC (cost per click), this is probably one of the most common forms of advertising on the Internet. Usually payout is from 1 cent per click to 25 cents per click. This means you will get money any time someone clicks an ad on your site.
Get Paid -every- signup for a service: usually called a CPA, this is a form of payment for when someone does something, such as fills out a form or orders a service.
Get paid Commission: Payment when the someone buys something through your link.
And, of course, an obvious way to make money...
Selling a Product or Service Online

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If you're interested in taking it further — blogging for bucks, if you will — here are five strategies that could turn your blog into a moneymaker.

1.
Sell advertising. This is likely the most common means of leveraging a blog to generate income. If yours happens to become a well-known blog, or one that is well-received in a particular niche, it's always possible to sell ad space on your own. For lesser-known blogs, services such as Google's AdSense or BlogAds enable bloggers to establish ad programs.

AdSense's — which lets you select several ads that are consistent with the content of your blog — pays you based on how many readers click on the ads for further information. Even better, it's free. BlogAds, on the other hand, hooks bloggers up with would-be advertisers and levies a commission in return for any ad placements that result. "The nice thing, too, is that the ads are relatively unobtrusive," says Scott Allen, co-author of "The Virtual Handshake: Opening Doors and Closing Deals Online."

2.
Help sell others' products. Here is another click-through opportunity. Affiliate programs enable your blog to serve as a conduit between readers and online sites offering various goods and services. One popular choice is Amazon.com. If, for instance, you offer book reviews or even just mention a book in passing in your blog, an affiliate program provides a means for your readers to click directly from your blog to Amazon to obtain further information about the book. If they break out the checkbook or charge card, you get paid as well.

3.
Solicit contributions. Not every blog-related income opportunity involves hawking goods or services. As Blanche DuBois did in "A Streetcar Named Desire," consider relying on the kindness of strangers. Ask for contributions. If, for instance, your small-business blog supports a cause or issue in some fashion — say you repeatedly mention tax reform, health care or some other topic — you can always ask for reader support.

Even if you've attracted a group of regular followers who simply enjoy reading what you have to say, they may be willing to underwrite their loyalty with a little financial help. Programs such as PayPal make it easy to establish a simple on-site contribution collection button. "There are lots of worthy 'cause' blogs that would qualify for donations from grateful members of the blog community," says Las Vegas communications consultant Ned Barnett.

4.
Market your services in your blog. Many people associate blogs exclusively with a cyberspace-based soapbox — a place to shout your opinions and little more than that. Granted, blogs are an ideal venue to share your thoughts with others, but don't overlook their capacity to generate new business as well. When appropriate, work in references to what you do and, in turn, what you may be able to offer any would-be client or customer who may be reading your blog. That can spread your opinion and your business moxie at the same time.

"Instead of short commentaries that begin a dialogue with readers, as many blogs do, I write the equivalent of journal articles that demonstrate my abilities, strategies and perspectives on specific issues," Barnett says. "When it resonates, it means money. Since starting this approach, I have generated three new paying clients and brought in about $10,000 on revenue — directly attributable to specific blogs."

5.
Use a blog to deepen your existing customer relationships. Nor does any marketing material inserted in blog content have to be limited to bringing in completely new business. By using a blog to regularly communicate with existing clients as well as other readers, you can take advantage of the opportunity to fully inform them about everything your business does. That may expand your readers' understanding of the full scope of your products or services.

"My blog has helped existing clients determine the range of my skills and services," says Ted Demopoulos of Demopoulos Associates, a Durham, N.H. consulting and training concern. "One client who had only used me for training in the past was surprised at my range of expertise and is now using me for a consulting project. Another who only used me on technical projects is now considering me for a more business-oriented project."

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2.Content-targeting technology means AdSense ads are relevant to your site's traffic.
Google uses automatic content-targeting technology to select what ads will appear on your site. This system is quite sophisticated (but not 100% reliable) and generally the ads on your site will be relevant to your traffic. This means the ads are likely to get clicked by your traffic and make you money.

3.Google sells your advertising space for you.
Google has a massive network of over 200,000 advertisers using its AdWords advertising system and when AdWords ads appear on your site they are called AdSense. This means that when you sign up for AdSense, Google offers your site to all its advertisers - at a price that is determined by supply and demand through the AdWords real time automatic auction process. (This auction process is complex - I explain the details in my free course below.)

4.You can maximize your AdSense profits if you understand how the program works in detail.
AdSense is underpinned by Google's AdWords system and in short, if you know how to get high paying AdWords ads on your site, you will get ads on your site that pay you a lot per click. You don't want ads that pay a few cents a time, you want dollars!

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But things can go wrong. Revenues can be disappointing, clicks non-existent and pages designed to put off users instead of encourage them to check out your advertisers. You know when one of the worst things possible has gone wrong when, instead of seeing ads on your page, you get public service ads. These turn up when Google doesn't recognize your keywords or can't find a suitable ad to put on your Web page. Instead of showing a blank box, it puts up ads for all sorts of charities, none of which you choose - and none of which earn you revenue.

You might like the idea of your site working for charity. But you might like it better if your site worked for you and you decided how much of that revenue to give to the charities you choose. That's why smart AdSense subscribers - the ones who understand how AdSense works and make giant revenues from it - make sure that they have alternatives set up to stop their sites being used to advertise Google's favorite charities.

There are lots of different ways you can do that. For example, you could create your own pseudo-AdSense ads and use those as alternate URLs to promote your other sites. Or you could use one of the several companies that will use that space to give you targeted paying ads.

There's nothing mean about using these strategies. The fact that Google makes it possible to use them shows that they understand that your space is for you not for them - and that you should earn from it.

With a little bit of reading, you'll find that it's easy to create a website that always serves high-paying AdSense ads. But even the smartest AdSense users make sure that they've got insurance should something go wrong. It's easy to do and your revenues deserve it.

For more Google AdSense tips, visit

For more Google AdSense tips, visit Adsense-Secrets.com

Copyright © 2005 Joel Comm. All rights reserved

Joel Comm is Dr. AdSense, an Internet entrepreneur who has been online for more than 20 years. Joel is co-creator of ClassicGames.com, now known as Yahoo! Games and is the author of the web's best-selling AdSense ebook, "Google AdSense Secrets (Or What Google Never Told You About Making Money With Adsense)".

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I am happy to say that earning money with your site, no matter the topic, has become easier than it's ever been before - and it's 100% legitimate.

If this program had been available in 2000, I would have NEVER shut down my soap opera fan site that received 200 hits per day. I would have been able to earn money from that traffic and probably turned a small profit.

From Adwords to Adsense

Google.com earns most of its revenue by allowing other website owners to advertise on their search result pages. All this is managed through a program they call Adwords.

Now you can earn a share of the revenue that Google earns from Adwords by placing these same text ads on your site. In other words, you're helping Google advertise and they pay you a percentage of what they earn.

This program is called Adsense.

Every website owner should be involved in this. It's just too good of an opportunity to pass up. Even if your site is just for information purposes, you can still participate and make decent money with Adsense -- or at least enough to fund your website.

So if you are one of those people that don't like the idea of paying for a site, this is an excellent way to earn your money back and then some.

Even if you earned as little as $10 in a month, it would more than likely cover some or all of the costs for your web site. Perhaps you are simply looking for ways to add additional revenue to your website, then it's perfect for that situation too.

This program is getting so popular, people are creating websites just to display the ads and profit from Google's Adsense alone.

I don't usually like to use the term "easy money" because there really is no such thing. You still have to create your own website and learn how to bring in traffic in order to make good money with this program.

I certainly don't want to make it sound like you get something for doing absolutely nothing. There's no such thing.

However, I've got to say that Adsense is probably the closest you'll ever come to fast money on the Internet -- especially if you already have a website that gets a good amount of traffic.

What's even better...the program is completely free. You can also use it on multiple websites and there is no limit to the amount you can earn.

How Adsense Works
If you go to Google.com and do a search for almost any keyword phrase, you'll notice some "Sponsored Links" that appear on the right side of the screen that are relevant to the keywords you just searched for.

Website owners pay Google to display these ads and are charged a predetermined amount every time their ad gets clicked by a web surfer. With the Adsense program, you will display these same text ads on your site just like Google and get paid for it as well.

All you do is copy and paste some provided HTML code into your pages and Voila! the ads will show up. Every time an ad is clicked on your site, you will receive a certain percentage of what Google receives from the advertiser.

Once your account reaches $100, you'll receive a check in the mail.

"Is Google Crazy?"
I know what you're probably thinking...

"What's the catch here? Why would Google just give away money advertisers are paying them?"

The answer...

Because Google is very smart.

Now that I understand how Adsense works, I can see that it's a win-win situation for everyone involved, and the bottom line benefits Google. Let me explain...

Since the advertiser's ads are now being displayed on more web sites all over the internet (instead of just Google's site), they are getting much more exposure. More exposure means more clicks and even more traffic for their site over a shorter period of time.

This is good news for Google because the more traffic the advertisers receive, the faster their advertising funds are used up.

Remember, they get charged every time their site gets a visit; and of course, it is Google's hope that they'll continue to keep funneling more money into their account for more ad exposure.

What an ingenious way for Google to increase the amount of money they earn from advertisers while building loyalty with website owners (like us) who are now getting paid to help them advertise.

Of course, I'd expect nothing less from the most popular search engine on the web. :)

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