Halina Zakowicz

Halina Zakowicz is a full-time freelance writer, investor and aspiring sci-fi novelist. In her spare time, she appreciates the finer points of zymology by brewing various hops-infused concoctions.

How to Survive the Coronavirus Outbreak as a Freelancer

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The COVID-19 outbreak has had a severe impact on freelancers, contractors, and the self-employed, as services like photography, coding, analytics, and marketing are being deemed “non-essential.”

Small businesses and companies are feeling the pinch of forced closure and/or shortened business hours, and are responding by cancelling projects or focusing only on their “internal resources.”

If your freelance work, gig, or side hustle has been affected by the recent coronavirus panic, how can you survive in these uncertain times?

Don’t panic!

The good news is that you are not alone in your concern. Other freelancers and companies have similar worries about their future.

Furthermore, many of these individuals and companies have created resources, job boards, and support networks for freelancers in need. There are even funds being set up to help out those freelancers who are in financial trouble.

Yes, companies are still hiring

As you may have suspected, the focus on working from home during the recent global health crisis means that some companies are in need of individuals who can work remotely and on short notice.
These companies may have had to shutter their physical doors for the time being and focus exclusively on production via digital means.

Consider, for example, the recent cancellation of trade shows and conferences. That means bad news for venues and caterers, but good news for freelance copywriters and coders who can quickly generate online seminars and presentations.

Find freelance and remote work

So, which companies are currently looking for freelancers and virtual gig workers?

AKQA is a large international advertising and marketing company that is not being slowed down by the coronavirus scare. It regularly hires freelance programmers, data scientists, copywriters, and graphic designers to work remotely.

Blend Media is on the lookout for immersive technology (AR and VR) freelancers and has different projects available on its platform. The site is currently suspending its platform use fee in order to attract new talent.

Freelancer has over 13 million users and lists a variety of jobs that freelancers can bid and work on, right inside the website platform. Once you set up your profile, you’re good to go.

Toptal is a job platform that offers top-tier clients and pay. Seasoned and experienced freelance developers, designers, financial experts, project managers, and product managers should definitely submit their resumes here.

VidMob is actively seeking out videographers, designers, analysts, and animators to create digital ads. This startup has physical offices, but at least half of its contractors and workers work remotely. The company has good reviews on Glassdoor.

We Are Rosie is an agency that boasts a network of over 5,000 members and matches its freelancers with marketing, media, content, analytics, creative, and other remote projects. The agency also offers benefits such as 401(k), healthcare, and weekly pay.

Job boards like FlexJobs and Remote.co are essential tools for new and even established freelancers. Both of these websites post numerous remote jobs and virtual work from individual companies and businesses. Remote.co is free to join and use, while FlexJobs asks for a paid membership subscription.

Need more ideas? This list of 95 work-from-home jobs should help you look for and find loads of legitimate online and remote work. Alternately, if you are tech-savvy, you could peruse this list of 23 companies that are hiring tech support specialists who can work from home.

Invest in yourself

During an economic downturn, it’s hard not to wallow in self-pity while watching Hulu and Netflix movies for the nth time. However, you could also look at this period as an opportunity to learn a new skill and/or invest in yourself.

A shift in your daily routine can also become a source of creativity and renewal. Consider the case of Isaac Newton: The forced closing of his workplace (the University of Cambridge), due to an outbreak of bubonic plague, led Newton to retreat to the countryside.

During this time, Newton was the most intellectually fruitful in his entire life and laid the foundations of his theories on calculus, optics, and the laws of motion and gravity.

To this end, there are many online resources that cater specifically to freelancers and others in the gig economy and can help you further your career- or start a new one.

Codecademy teaches coding courses for use in programming, mobile app building, and data science.

There is a 7-day free trial membership offered through the site. In light of the COVID-19 crisis, the site is also offering 10,000 scholarships to high school and college students until the end of the current school year.

Google Analytics Academy offers a crash course in SEO, metrics, audience segmentation, attribution, and data analysis via its online academy- for free! If you are involved in content creation/editing, or ecommerce, this course is worth its weight in gold and will help you boost your advertising and marketing efforts.

Mt. Freelance is offering a set of video lessons, normally priced at $257, for free. Topics include updating your website, social media marketing, and pitching yourself to prospective clients.

Start a new business

Affiliate marketing is a great way to delve into the world of niche products and earn commissions from your referrals. There are many individuals who make a part- or even full-time income through affiliate marketing. Best of all, there is no need to handle the actual product, package it, or ship it out. You only handle the marketing side of the equation, and the product owner does the rest.

Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) is one way that many individuals earn side or even a full-time income from home. You can have your inventory sent to a distribution center, or you can engage in a dropship model where the goods are sourced from manufacturers and sent directly to buyers.

Business grants are another means by which you can assure your own long-term employment. If you are already dabbling in a side business, or just have a ground-breaking business idea, you can use this time to apply for a small business grant.

Are you more interested in owning an online business? Here are at least 50 different online business ideas to try.

Get financial aid and support from other freelancers

It’s OK to feel overwhelmed at times- and this is certainly one of them!

There are various support groups for freelancers and the self-employed that offer career, tax, and financial advice, as well as a compassionate ear. Some are even offering money for freelancers who are hurting financially due to the COVID-19 crisis.

Here are several resources that stand out:

Anti-viral work for freelancers and small businesses is a Facebook group started on March 11, 2020 that already boasts over 15,000 members and 1,000+ posts/day. They are based in the U.K. but list topics universally relevant to most freelancers. Some freelancers on the site even offer free job referrals and educational courses.

Carnegie Fund for Authors offers financial assistance to published American authors of at least one fiction or non-fiction work via a traditional publisher. Other authors, including journalists, dramatists, poets, and successful self-published writers, can apply to the Authors League Fund or PEN America Writers’ Emergency Fund.

CERF+ Emergency Assistance offers monetary relief for legal U.S. resident artists in various media including wood, metal, fiber, and paint. Potential recipients must first fill out an inquiry form to determine eligibility, after which they complete an application.

Freelancers Union is setting up a relief fund for freelancers who are enduring financial hardship or a health crisis due to the coronavirus pandemic. Applications can be filed starting April 2, 2020.

Millo Mastermind is another Facebook group of 7,200+ members that offers support for freelancers and budding entrepreneurs. When you join this group, you get the following publication, “25 Top freelance job sites for finding real clients with big budgets,” for free.

Hang in there!

As the saying goes, “This too shall pass.”

While the current coronavirus situation borders on apocalypse, humanity as a whole has weathered far worse and survived.

We are a ‘can do’ species, and a month or two of downtime will not defeat us. In fact, by clicking on the resources posted above, and delving into new fields of expertise, you might come out of this current crisis even better than you did going in.

Earn Cash While You Travel with These Mobile Apps

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Wintertime is rough. After the holidays pass, the gloomy and cold days of winter settle in and test even the hardiest of souls. Therefore, it makes perfect sense why many freelancers and even employed workers choose to escape to warmer climes.

There’s just one problem with these winter vacations: How do you make money while you’re frolicking in the ocean or drinking your third margarita amidst the cacti? While some of us can take our work with us, many of us can’t.

Luckily, mobile technology has come through with a solution to this dilemma. In fact, it’s come through with several solutions. Here are several mobile apps that help you earn cash while you’re watching that football game in Pasadena (and trying hard not to brag about it to your Facebook friends) or snorkeling amidst the coral reefs of Hawaii.

1. Airmule

Got extra space in your 50 lb limit luggage? That space could end up paying for a good portion of your airfare. Using the Airmule app, you can easily advertise how much space you have available in your personal luggage as well as your flight. Interested parties will then contact you.

If you’re worried about noncompliance with the TSA’s “don’t-accept-packages-from-unknown-persons” rule, know that Airmule vets its senders and their materials so that the items are legal to send and pass all security checkpoints.

Once you land at your destination, you can hand deliver your package to the recipient, or you can request that Airmule complete the handling for you. Hand delivery, incidentally, is compensated extra.

Currently, much of Airmule’s shipping goes from the USA to China; however, other locations are being added.

2. Roadie

Why drive an empty car when you can earn money for that extra space? As a driver with Roadie, you’ll be paid up to $50 for transporting and delivering items locally. However, if you’re about to embark on a long-distance voyage, you could make several hundred bucks per delivery, and especially if that delivery includes a live pet.

Why would someone wish to use your services versus those of the USPS, FedEx or UPS? Oversize items that won’t fit on a plane can cost a pretty penny to ship. Travelers become even more nervous if they’re shipping a prized possession, a delicate family heirloom or a beloved pet. For these reasons, personalized item delivery has become popular through mobile apps such as Roadie.

An added incentive to using Roadie is that you can deduct your mileage, on-the-road hotel stays, and meals as a business expense.

3. Presto InstaShops 

This mystery shopping aggregator works with several dozen mystery shopping companies, so you’ll never lack for an assignment that’s close to you. Even better, the app tracks your geographic location and “points out” which shops are closest to you.

When you click on a given geotag, you obtain a short blurb of information about the shop assignment. Should you be interested, you simply click on the assignment and apply for it. If you’re an experienced mystery shopper and/or have a high shopper rating, you can self-assign your shops without waiting for approval- this makes it even more convenient to mystery shop on-the-fly.

Using this app, I’ve been able to do drive-thru assignments without even leaving my car ($4-$6), receive compensation for shopping at an outlet store ($20 in merchandise + $25), and check out tourist attractions for free with bonus cash (tickets + $20).

4. Field Agent

Another on-the-go mystery shopping and odd job app is Field Agent, which pays you up to $20 for quick jobs completed at grocery stores, gas stations, banks or even in your own home.

Example Field Agent jobs include the following:

  • Scavenger hunt jobs that pay a few dollars to locate an item in your home, store or even at your friend’s house.
  • Photo submission jobs that ask you to locate a certain store product, endcap, promotion, price or display.
  • Survey jobs where you answer 5-10 questions and earn a few bucks.

With Field Agent, not all listed stores in your given area will have the app’s requested products or promos. This is why it’s good to be traveling; inevitably, you’ll locate a store that has what you’re looking for.

5. Shopkick

Are you traveling by a mall or grocery store? Then be sure to download and activate Shopkick, the app that pays you to walk into stores and scan merchandise. Successfully completed tasks are rewarded with points (known as kicks) that can be redeemed for gift cards.

It doesn’t take a lot of scanning before you’ve racked up the necessary kicks for a gift card. Some items give you 100 kicks a piece just for being scanned. At 500 kicks, you already have $2 in gift card money.

One of the best ways to make money with Shopkick is to visit shopping malls. There, you might score points at a handful of stores and be able to redeem your earnings right on the spot, before you even return to your vehicle.

Submitted receipts that feature previously scanned items earn anywhere from 100-2500 points. On occasion, you’ll also score points for watching short product videos.

Earning money while on-the-go is possible

The days of foregoing any kind of money-making activities while enjoying your vacation are over. Nowadays, the person who is traveling has several unique opportunities to make money. Many of these opportunities are available via mobile apps. By making money on-the-go, you not only slow down your ‘cash burn’ rate, you might even find a way to extend your time off.

10 Alternative Selling Platforms to Amazon, eBay and Half.com

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Amazon, eBay and eBay’s book-selling platform, Half.com, are what most people think of when they want to sell their stuff, unwanted holiday gifts, books or other inventory.

Unfortunately, each one of these platforms has been steadily increasing its seller fees over the years, to the point that many sellers can’t make enough of a profit to justify the time and energy spent on listing.

eBay is a prime example of a platform that has been steadily jacking up its rates over the years. Currently, the platform lists the following basic fees for its auction-style and fixed price listings:

ebay

Unfortunately, there is more than meets the eye when it comes down to just how much money you will eventually pay in the form of commissions. In addition to the 10% final value fee, you must also consider Paypal, which is the payment system that eBay now requires all sellers to use.

With Paypal, you’ll be paying an additional 30 cents per transaction, plus a 2.9% fee on the amount transferred in from the buyer. Furthermore, that 2.9% is charged on the entire monetary amount -which could include a significant portion devoted to shipping costs. So, if you’re selling anything heavy, like a textbook, beware: You might just end up giving your merchandise away for free!

In the past, a safe(er) haven for sellers who wanted to sell big, bulky books was the Half.com platform. Here, you could list your books as long as you wanted. If something sold, you paid a more reasonable commission, and you also were reimbursed for shipping costs by the buyer.

Well, Half.com must’ve realized that it could squeeze a lot more money from its sellers because I received the following email today. The bad news? Some fee tiers are about to increase by as much as 200%!

half

As for Amazon, it doesn’t fare that much better. Sellers who don’t have subscription plans with Amazon and who are just looking to sell a few low-priced items are in for a surprise:

amazon-com-help_-fees-and-pricing

Fortunately, other selling platforms have emerged in recent years. These alternate platforms are not as expensive to use as Amazon, eBay and Half.com, yet they offer many of the same key benefits.

1. Etsy

This well-known arts-and-crafts site charges listing and final value fees on its fixed-price listings; however, the fees are significantly lower than those of eBay and Amazon. With Etsy, you pay a 20 cent listing fee and just 3.5% on the final value of your sold item. Also, for the same price, your Etsy listings will run four times as long as those posted on eBay.

2. Bonanza

Like Etsy, Bonanza offers sellers a platform where they can sell unique and quirky items at a fixed price, yet the items don’t necessarily need to be homemade or “crafty.” Also, the site also doesn’t charge any money for simply posting a listing. Once an item sells, Bonanza’s average fee per sale is as low as 3.5%.

3. eBid

If you’re looking for an auction-style platform, give eBid a try. This easy-to-use, intuitive platform charges no listing fees whatsoever and asks for just 3% of your item’s final value. Best of all, if you’re looking to constantly sell items online, you can become an eBid “lifer” for just shy of $50.

ebid

4. Ealtbay

This site looks like eBay, but it isn’t. For starters, Ealtbay doesn’t charge sellers any money to list their products on the platform. The final value fee charged for all items, regardless of their tier, is just 1.60%. And finally, Ealtbay doesn’t force you to use only Paypal as your sole payment method.

ealtbay

5. Craigslist

If you have bulky and/or heavy items to sell and wish to avoid exorbitant shipping costs, your best bet might be to list those items on Craigslist. This platform caters to local sellers who pay no money whatsoever for listing their items for sale. When those items do sell, these sellers don’t pay any final values either. In other words, Craigslist is completely free to use.

6. Facebook Marketplace

This platform operates much like Craigslist but offers both the seller and buyer additional information about each party, ensuring a better sense of personal security. Like Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace is completely free to use. Most sales transactions and item pickups occur locally; however, you could potentially list your items in several geographic regions, then pay for shipping charges out of your own pocket.

facebook-marketplace

7. Nextdoor

This neighborhood-based social network platform and app enables neighbors to message each other about area crime, curb freebies, school news, and items for sale. With Nextdoor, there are also no listing or final value fees. Best of all, you may already know a good majority of your buyers.

8. Newegg

This site started out as a place to buy and sell computers and software, but it has since expanded and now offers other product categories such as apparel, hardware, toys, jewelry, etc. The site has much of the same look and feel as Amazon but without the huge seller fees.

newegg

Newegg features reasonable seller commissions ranging from 8% to 15%; these commissions include credit card processing fees. Perhaps best of all, Newegg offers an Amazon FBA-like service called Shipped by Newegg.

9. iOffer

This platform operates very much like eBay and has been around since 2002. There are no listing fees with iOffer, and the final value fees range from 5-10%. If you have lots of items priced from $25-$100, this is a good site to use because you’ll pay only a 5% fee on sales.

ioffer

10. eCRATER

This online marketplace is not only free to use, it even offers a free online store builder. Sellers have the option of using Google Wallet at checkout and can also import their listings from eBay.

ecrater

Don’t put up with high seller fees

As a seller, you don’t have to tolerate unreasonable seller fees and other required commissions from online marketplaces. Luckily, there are many other selling platforms out there that don’t gouge you for trying to make money by selling your items online.

How to Prevent, Spot and Stop Affiliate Fraud

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If you are a merchant and are selling your products online, you might also be working with fellow affiliate marketers and paying them a commission for every click, conversion or referral they direct to your website and its products. Unfortunately, anytime there is money involved, there is the risk of affiliate fraud.

What is affiliate fraud?

In brief, affiliate fraud refers to the cheating of merchants, affiliate marketers and/or buyers out of money and/or product using illegal practices. Typically, affiliate fraud involves tricking merchants into paying out affiliate commissions for nonexistent purchases.

Affiliate fraud occurs a number of ways. In some cases, the tricksters employ third parties or software to click on CPC/PPC ads while they collect the profits (i.e., click fraud). In other cases, fraud affiliates hijack a sale and redirect it to a duplicate site that then accepts the buyer’s information. As a result, the merchant pays a commission to the duplicate site (and the fraudster behind it) instead of to the original affiliate marketer who generated the sale.

Some entrepreneurial fraud affiliates go as far as using stolen credit card numbers to make purchases from the merchant. Those purchases are eventually refunded to the buyers, but the affiliate commissions have long since disappeared to the perpetrators of these bogus sales.

Buyers can be affected by affiliate fraud too. In some cases of fraud, buyers are directed to checkout pages that contain a typo in the merchant’s domain. These fake checkout pages not only steal buyers’ money upon checkout, they eventually lead to a high rate of chargebacks, resulting in merchants losing out on their profits.

Other fraud affiliates clone entire product pages and redirect traffic there, harvesting clicks and conversions.

Fraud affiliates can also combine their deception strategies, such as by tricking buyers into clicking on a merchant’s banner ad in order to ‘learn more’ about the product or to contact support.

How to spot affiliate fraud

In many cases, you can determine that there is affiliate fraud at play. If your CPC ads are suddenly experiencing a sharp increase in clicks yet their conversion rates remain low, then you might just have affiliate fraud. If you see massive increases in traffic from locations that aren’t your typical customer base, you may have an unethical affiliate on your hands.

You can do due diligence to a point, such as by regularly checking referring URLs to spot typos. You can also examine payments at the transaction level to better understand where that transaction originated and who the buyer actually is.

However, such vigilance only works up to a point and will take up more and more of your time as your affiliates and buyers grow. To this end, your best bet is to invest in affiliate fraud detection software. There are many different platforms available, including ScrubKit, CPA Detective, Improvely, Corsearch, RiskIQ, TypoAssassin, and PlanetPayment. Some of these platforms, as their names suggest, focus on one key aspect of the affiliate marketing process, while others are more generalized and detect many types of fraud.

Also, some affiliate networks, such as Clickbank, offer their own fraud detection solutions for merchants. Before you sign up with various affiliate networks, ask them how much fraud protection they offer as one of the perks of being a member.

How to prevent affiliate fraud

It is highly recommended that you “vet” new affiliates before working with them by checking out their websites and finding out if that website is related to the products your selling.

It also doesn’t hurt to sign up to your own affiliate emails and promo offers to spot spamming issues and/or marketing practices that don’t fall in line with your established rules. Naturally, you should maintain separate and dedicated email addresses for this exercise so that you don’t end up flooding your own personal inbox with email.

Consider having a yearly sales conference with your affiliates to find out how they are doing and to bring them up to speed with developments and issues.

You should also maintain a list of affiliates that you have rejected or excluded from your network. Such affiliates often reapply by simply plugging in a different website or IP; however, if you have some key information on them, you’ll rediscover them long before they start pitching your products.

In some product industries, merchants maintain files on affiliates who have engaged in fraud. It’s useful to ask about such possible records, and to keep those violations in mind should those same affiliates come knocking on your virtual door.

Is affiliate fraud avoidable?

Affiliate marketing is now in its tenth year and shows no signs of decline. Because it is a big business, fraud and scams are naturally going to become part of the equation. However, you can take steps to spot and stop con artists from taking advantage of you, your legitimate affiliates, and your customers. Affiliate networks are also growing more cognizant of affiliate fraud and ways to prevent it.

How to Earn Extra Cash by Sharing Online Coupons and Promo Codes

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You may already use online deal and coupon sites to get discounts on your .com shopping excursions. However, did you know that you can also earn money by submitting discount and coupon codes to these sites? The following deal and coupon sites award you money when you submit promo codes to them.

Coupon Chief

This site’s “Pays 2 Share” program pays out 2% of the sale when someone uses the coupon code you submitted- and that includes you. Cashouts are possible once your account is at $25 or more. The downside with Coupon Chief is that you are limited to making up to $25 per store per month for each coupon code you enter.

pays-2-share

Once you enter a candidate coupon code to Coupon Chief and it’s accepted, you’ll receive a message like this one:

coupon-code

Coupons.com

Find and submit an online coupon code on the Coupons website and you’ll earn $25 in your Paypal account. You will need to submit codes that haven’t been listed before, that aren’t limited to only one retailer or one use, and that aren’t personal referral codes. Payouts are made 30 days after coupon code submission. Additional details are provided here.

coupons-com-savings-guarantee

Dealspotr

This recently launched coupon site and blog offers members points-based incentives for coupon codes and deals that they submit. Those points can be redeemed for e-gift cards.

dealspotr

Dealspotr accepts coupon codes for any brand, not just brands already listed on its website. Also, the Dealspotr community rates submitted coupon codes and deals based on their validity, accuracy and discount amount. So, the better your submitted deals perform, the more points you are awarded. For example, here is a promo code I submitted to the site for free shipping, which earned me 56 points:

Here is a promo code I submitted to Dealspotr for free shipping at Harry & David, which earned me 56 points:

dealspotr

Savelex

If you share coupons and/or product deals on this site, you’ll earn “S-Dollars,” which can be exchanged for real money. Every 100 S-dollars equal 1$, and there is a monthly payout limit of $25. You earn S-dollars by either sharing information about discounted products with your Savelex friends, which earns you 10 S-dollars; alternately, you can submit coupon codes, sales and online deals to the general community and earn 25 S-dollars.

savelex

Hunting promo codes for fun and profit

So, how do you locate coupon, discount and promo codes that haven’t been listed before? Here are some covert methods for finding those elusive promo codes.

  1. Join coupon and deal sites. The first thing you’ll need to do is to sign up with as many daily deal and promo code sites as possible. Big name sites include RetailMeNot, Krazy Coupon Lady, Slick Deals, CouponPro, etc. You are best advised to create a unique email account and use only that address when signing up; otherwise, your inbox will be flooded with daily notices and other marketing collateral from these companies.
  2. Generate checklists of store codes. Maintain an Excel file of coupon codes you come across and to which stores these codes apply. By maintaining organization up-front, you’ll be able to quickly and easily submit codes to numerous sites.
  3. Look for exclusive coupon codes. Individual deal sites often make arrangements with retailers for unique discount codes that are showcased only on their site. However, once these codes are published, they can be considered public domain and used by anybody, including another deal site. Even if the eventual credit goes back to the originator site, the big draw with promo codes is their SEO power. This is why other sites will often publish exclusive promo codes.
  4. Create and/or use a deal aggregator. Many industrious affiliate marketers use or generate apps that scour the Internet and retrieve all kinds of codes and coupons for them. Such deal scraper apps are useful for quickly finding deals; one example includes the Chrome plugin DealTrunk.

Extra credit: Create your own coupon code site

What’s arguably the best way to make money from coupon and promo codes? By using them on your own affiliate website and/or blog. Here are a few reasons why:

  1. SEO. You can use the lure of discounts and coupons to improve your rank in search engine results pages, which will generate more traffic to your website. This extra visibility and traffic will inevitably help you better promote and sell your products.
  2. Audience loyalty. By employing promo codes as a kind of “clickbait” on your site, you create a reason for your audience to return there.  A loyal following of readers is more likely to sign up to your email list and to eventually purchase from your website. By pairing coupon codes with your affiliate products, you also provide a reason for audience members to use your website as a “one-stop shop” for their online shopping and checkout activities.
  3. Retail agreements. Once you have sufficient traction on your website and/or blog, and shoppers mention your site as their referral, retailers will eventually take notice and offer you exclusive deals of your own. These exclusive deals will give you a far better profit margin than the 4-6% rate that Amazon provides. Having exclusive codes will also further improve your site’s SEO and audience loyalty, creating a positive feedback loop.

Online shoppers are becoming ever more price-conscious and coupon-savvy, and you can take advantage of this trend by finding and, in essence, selling coupon and promo codes. These codes can also be utilized on your own website and/or blog to generate extra SEO, traffic and affiliate income for you.

Why You Should Create and Submit Coupon Codes for Your Online Business

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If you have an online store, you know that getting traffic to your pages and products can be a challenge. However, one easy strategy for getting eyeballs, purchases and Google Page Rank to your website is to submit coupon and promo codes on third party coupon and deal sites.

Coupon code business advantages

Posting coupon codes to coupon sites offers several advantages to the small business owner, including the following:

  1. High-quality backlinks. Coupon sites like RetailMeNot boast over 1.7 million users and 30,000+ retailers. Needless to say, such sites have incredible Page Rank. A backlink from such a site can do wonders for your own website’s visibility in the search index.
  2. Increased traffic. Online shoppers are increasingly using promo codes and e-coupons, and couponing sites like Krazy Coupon Lady promote the extreme couponing lifestyle. In fact, according to Statista, 52% of adult Internet users living in the U.S. had used an online coupon in 2013.
  3. Going viral. Most coupon sites offer their members the ability to log-in via social media platforms such as Facebook or Twitter. Because of this link, members that use a promo or coupon code on the site can immediately share that code with their own social network. As a result, the code can go viral and reach a larger audience.
  4. Increased revenue. The goal of publishing a promo, coupon or deal code is (naturally) to increase revenue. With increased traffic to your website via your codes, you increase the likelihood of boosting your bottom line.

Which coupon code is best?

There are many different discounts, offers and promos available, including percent discounts, buy-one-get-one deals, free gift(s) with purchase, etc. How do you choose the promo that best resonates with your audience and generates the most conversions?

According to a 2016 AYTM Market Research survey, almost three quarters of online shoppers preferred receiving money off their purchase over any other promotion, discount or deal. In second place, consumers chose a set percentage off their entire purchase, followed by a percentage discount on a single item.

You could also poll your own audience to learn which incentive is preferred Alternately, you could generate several different codes in order to learn which one performs best.

How to create coupon codes

Most e-commerce platforms offer the ability to create coupon and promo codes quickly and easily. For example, the WooCommerce plugin offers an area where coupons can be created and applied towards specific products on the website. WooCommerce supports four different discount categories, namely cart discount, cart % discount, product discount and product % discount. Such categories consolidate well with the data generated by AYTM.

While creating an incentive code isn’t difficult, it pays to keep code terms and conditions (T&Cs) in mind so as to avoid both shopper confusion and profit loss. Some T&Cs to incorporate into your code include the expiry, applicable product quantities and sizes, and minimum/maximum spend. Other T&Cs you should consider are whether the code will apply to sale items, and if the coupon should be for individual use only (not to be used in conjunction with other coupons).

To create a sense of urgency, you might also consider setting coupon usage limits; for example, you might limit how many shoppers can open and use a particular coupon code.

Where to submit coupon codes

The following sites list incentive codes for free and are ideal locations to submit your coupon codes:

Coupon Chief: You can easily submit your promo or other codes at this site once you sign up via its merchant portal.

submit-coupon

CouponGreat: This site features loads of cash back deals and even product samples. At the bottom of this website’s page, you can click on and fill out the “Submit a Coupon” or “Submit Local Coupon” areas.

coupongreat

My Coupons: This site has been around since 1995 and features many well-known retailers such as Nike, Sears, Old Navy, etc. You can submit your code by going to the right-hand column of the home page or to the dedicate “Submit a Coupon” page.

mycoupons

Promotion Code: This site includes online deals and a blog on saving money. To submit your code, go to the top task bar and click on “Add Code.”

promotion-code

RetailMeNot: This leading coupon site offers members the ability to “Submit a coupon” from their account areas.

retailmenot

To reach markets outside the U.S., you should also consider submitting your coupon codes to Canadian sites like Coupons.ca, Australian sites like I Love Coupons, and U.K. sites like Coupons and Deals.

To reach even more coupon sites and to save yourself a good amount of time, you might wish to outsource your coupon code posting to Fiverr.

fiverr

Finally, in order to gain even more traffic to your codes, and hopefully sales, you may want to post your coupon codes on business cards and leave those cards at local businesses, venues and events. You could also create small stickers that contain your code(s) and affix those stickers to stationary, envelopes and business cards.

Coupon codes and your online business

The months of October and November are typically when consumers shop the most, and likewise look for the most discounts and deals. Give your online business a sales boost by creating some timely deals and coupon codes to go with those deals. Then, post those incentives and watch your profits grow.

Google’s mobile first index is coming: How to prepare your website

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It’s official: at the recent Pubcon event in Las Vegas, Gary Illyes, a webmaster trends analyst at Google, announced that Google would soon be switching to mobile first indexing of websites. That means that Google will be seeking out and preferentially ranking mobile websites over desktop ones.

Until now, Google had deferred to desktop-based websites over mobile ones. This occurred even when users were on a mobile device.

Why the mobile first index?

According to comScore’s 2016 US Cross-Platform Future in Focus report, mobile devices now use 65% of digital media time, with mobile apps taking up a good portion of that time. Desktop media time has receded to an all-time low of just 35%.

Due to this development, Google noted early last year that it was working on a mobile index that was completely separate from its desktop index. Then, the search engine mentioned that it would be indexing mobile sites over desktop ones.

That means that webmasters who have not taken the time to create and optimize their mobile website will soon lose out on SEO. It also means that, even if you have a mobile site, getting that site to rank well will require more work than just making it responsive.

Getting mobile-ready, now

How can you prepare for Google’s newest indexing strategy? Here are six tips.

  1. Don’t rely on responsivity.

Having a mobile-friendly website requires more than just making it responsive. However, responsive content is certainly a step in the right direction, and you can easily check using Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool.

Google has created fact-checking tags for content that it indexes on desktop sites; these tags point readers to references and fact-check organizations that either support or discredit stated claims. Currently used tags are labeled as Highly Cited, Opinion, Local Source, and In-Depth.

Google will be rolling out fact-check tags on its mobile website indexing as well. To pass muster with these fact-check tags, your content’s claims should be backed up with references to primary and first-person sources, not gossip or opinion sites.

2. Add content to your mobile pages.

Many website owners have hesitated to create long form content mobile pages, reserving additional text and keywords for desktop content only. However, with Google now giving preference to mobile pages, it’s high time that those pages get updated with the same content as their desktop siblings.

Long form content need not appear clunky on mobile pages. By creating bookmarks and anchor links to relevant areas, you can direct users to those places that logically follow what was just viewed/read. Meanwhile, the entire scope of the content is available for reading enthusiasts.

3. And make sure it’s the correct content.

Some website owners ensure that their desktop website is mobile-friendly by only checking whether it’s actually rendered on mobile devices. What these owners neglect to check is if their mobile websites are providing correct content.

Keep in mind that websites rendered “mobile-friendly” are actually parsed into columns, with the mobile device displaying a single, scrollable column to the viewer. This means that displayed content may differ substantially from actual site content and deem the page irrelevant.

Within the Google Search Console, you can check your website’s content using Fetch and Render. There, you’ll your website’s pages as Google does. You’ll also be able to switch between mobile and desktop versions of your website to view key differences between them.

4. Organize your mobile pages.

Are your mobile pages organized according to a logical structure? In other words, are the pages layered into rational levels such as L1, L2, L3? If you have a mix of pages that only blend into each other without any order or structure, your site will get penalized by Google.

Create a sitemap of your content and go through your pages to understand how they are organized. Add structural pages to those pages that are insufficiently supported. Repurpose extraneous content into novel categories and topics. Also, delete content that bears no resemblance to the main theme of the website.

5. Check your site’s load speed.

Back in 2015, Google adjusted its search algorithm so that faster loading web pages would be preferentially displayed over slower ones. Google also offered Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) in its search results area so that users could select sites with faster loading content.

Optimize your content for faster load time by eliminating extremely large images, extraneous ads and code and other clunkers. Then test your site’s load speed with Google’s PageSpeed Insights.

6. Your desktop content will still matter.

Unless you have no desktop website to speak of, your desktop website will still be indexed by Google- so don’t let it fall completely by the wayside. Google’s main focus right now is to launch a rapidly updated mobile index of websites. However, it will still index desktop websites, just not as quickly.

Mobile search is here, so get ready

Mobile websites are growing increasingly popular and are the future of online activity. So, if you haven’t updated your mobile website in a while, now’s the time.

How to Get Started in the Website Rental Business

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Most folks think about website flipping as the only way to make money from websites. However, website rental is actually a more profitable and stable form of online income generation, enabling you to make money now as well as later on through residual earnings.

Think about it- if you buy and sell a website, you need to shell out a good deal of money upfront and then also improve the website through content, SEO, etc. You then need to find a buyer who will pay you significantly more for the online property than you originally, as well as compensate you for the time and effort you put into improving your website.

With a website rental, you can build your online property from the ground up, which means you can build it cheap. Once you find some renters, just plug in their businesses and charge them a monthly/yearly fee for doing so. What’s left after this point is routine site maintenance and occasional content development, tasks that any kind of website owner would be responsible for. However, you could get around even those responsibilities if you really wanted to, and this is something I’ll explain later in this post.

So, how do you get started in the website rental business?

What you’ll need to get started in website rental

It goes (almost) without saying that you’ll need the following: Clients!

So, who are going to be your clients?

To get into website rental quickly and easily, you should target local business owners. There are several reasons why, namely:

Local keywords

The competition for keywords is fierce, and especially in businesses like retail, hospitality, restaurant/catering or home building/renovation. However, as soon as you enter the local arena, this competition drops off and your keywords enter into niche categories.

Niche keywords can quickly launch your website(s) to the top of the search engine results page (SERP). People all over the world might use a search term like “roofing company,” for example, but only 100 or fewer will use a search term like “roofing company in Des Plaines, Illinois.”

Business needs

Many local businesses don’t have the time or know-how to organize a proper website that generates leads and converts prospects into customers. Some businesses rely on word-of-mouth and/or newspaper/radio ads to generate leads. Other businesses have a website (or a Google business listing), but the website is outdated and/or not optimized for search.

Lack of local competition

After looking through Google and Yahoo search engines while using search terms like “website rental” and “rent a website,” I located only three businesses that engage in this activity. These results tell me that there aren’t many people doing website rental just yet. Even if more people enter this line of business, it’s doubtful they would compete with you directly because their businesses would need to focus on your locality.

How do you find local business prospects?

Pitching to prospects should start with you perusing local business websites and assessing how well they are performing. That of course assumes that these websites exist.

If you find a business that has no website, you can send that business an email or make a call and tell it about your website rental service. That is one approach that may work to win you a client.

An alternative approach is to actually start building a website that would be targeted at this potential client. To not end up wasting your time in case your sales pitch is rejected, you should first locate at least 2-3 other similar local businesses that would also work with your nascent website.

If the business already has a website, go through it to find out how usable and relevant it is. Could you, as a customer of this business, use it to learn about the services offered and their pricing? Could you reach the owner? How?

If you find any faults with this website, make sure to take note of them. You can politely suggest ways to improve this website to the business owners once you contact them.

If you find several clients who are all in the same line of business, you might even consider adding them all into a “master” website that is optimized for a local area. That is how one rental website business grouped a bunch of Colorado-based roofers.

Once you have some interested prospects, what will you need to start renting websites?

A platform

You’ll start with a content management system (CMS) such as WordPress to launch and build your websites. Within this CMS you’ll need to purchase domain names, website hosting and backup, and malware and virus protection. You’ll also want to cloak your domain name ownership details, which usually costs a few extra dollars.

Website themes

Unless you are adept at website design, you’ll probably be purchasing themes for your websites that are formatted to include specific layouts, graphics and design elements. You could also peruse your CMS for free themes- WordPress offers many decent ones at no cost. However, for a professional-looking website that isn’t a carbon copy of 100 other websites, you will probably need to buy a theme or three.

SEO

You will need to know something about SEO, and especially local SEO, to make good money with website rental. Luckily, locally targeted keywords don’t have a lot of competition and can be used to launch your website to the top of the SERP fast. You can showcase your high ranking websites to clients when you pitch your services to them.

Business services

If your client businesses don’t have their own emails and/or business phone numbers, you’ll want to set those assets up. To this end, most CMS platforms offers an email that goes along with the domain name. To obtain an 800 phone number that redirects to the business phone number, you can use a VoIP vendor like Phone.com. With VoIP, you can also track how many prospects call the business.

When your business websites first start up, their keyword search volume may not be enough to generate steady leads. You could set up online ads through Google AdWords; doing so also gives you an easy way to monitor how well your website is generating inquiries, calls and leads.

Virtual assistance (optional)

As you acquire clients and build additional websites, you’ll find website maintenance and improvement will take up a larger and larger chunk of your time. There will also be the need to perform content creation. To ease your workload, you may wish to invest in a virtual assistant who can do regular site administration for you including updating plug-ins, triaging comments, and completing site backups.

How much do your charge for rent?

You’ll need to consider how much rent to charge your virtual tenants and whether you should also charge any set-up fees. As a start-up business, you could forego charging any rent and instead get paid for each lead you generate.For example, if a roofer values each successful lead at $5,000, you could ask for 5% of that value, or $250.

As you get bigger, you could then ask for X dollars each month; doing so generates a steady residual income for you. The few businesses already doing website rental charge up to $499/month, which is certainly not a bad passive income.

Is World Profit Worth $99/Month?

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World Profit (WP) is an online marketplace and affiliate marketing platform that offers website hosting and domains, paid advertising, traffic exchanges, email safelists, autoresponder programs, etc., that members can both use and sell. This company has been around since 1994, is based in Edmonton, Alberta, and was founded by George Kosch, Sandi Hunter and Jeffrey Lant.

You can sign up to WP as a free member; however, you can’t take advantage of its products, trainings and affiliate commissions until you purchase a Silver Membership at $99.95/month. Membership run month-to-month and can be cancelled anytime; alternately, memberships can be purchased for a full year.

Once you purchase the Silver Membership, you get access to the following products:

  • 20-100% affiliate commissions
  • Sales bonuses up to $1,000
  • Access to affiliate programs, PLR products, web services
  • 12 websites (as part of WP’s FastCash program)
  • Access to a content management system for building websites
  • 9 sales funnels with 100% commissions
  • Landing page builder and 500 pre-built sales pages
  • Sales offer builder
  • E-book builder and cover creator
  • Access to an article directory
  • Ad tracking software
  • 50,000 guaranteed website visitors
  • Email list builder

As a silver member, you also gain access to weekly trainings through the program’s “home business bootcamp” and over 100 self-paced training modules.

Is World Profit worth its $99.95/month membership fee?

Here’s what we found:

1. There are numerous complaints about this program.

Every online business has some negative reviews. However, the sheer mass of complaints about WP has me worried that this program is not all it claims to be.

Complaints range from members not being able to cash their WP checks due to bad routing numbers to WP not honoring refund requests. Other members note that the products offered by WP aren’t quite as advertised; for example, the “50,000 guaranteed visitors” actually refers to ad impressions and not actual visitors. Also, the promised traffic and subscribers are both derived from current WP members, apparently.

WorldProfit review

Other individuals complain that WP promises free traffic and other goodies; however, it doesn’t deliver on its promises. For example, this WP complainant says that the company promises free traffic and email credits in exchange for listening to its sales video. However, this isn’t true and you actually need to sign up for Silver Membership before you get those “free” tools.

Ripoff Report _ World Profit

2. WP uses high-pressure sales tactics.

You can’t peruse WP’s products and sales pages without first signing up as a free member. However, it seems that WP does this so that it can capture your personal information. Once you are a free member, WP has access to your name, email address, and even your phone number (if you provide it in the optional info area).

What does WP do with this information? Apparently, it uses your personal info to track you once you land on its sales pages.

When I went to WP’s checkout page to learn about its membership terms and conditions, I suddenly heard a voice through my computer calling me by my name and asking me to finish the checkout process and to input any questions I might have into the chat box.

When I looked up at my screen, I saw that I had been placed into a chat room. So, I decided to ask my chat room moderator what was WP’s refund policy for canceled memberships.

Unfortunately, despite inputting this question several times into the chat box, I never received a direct response. Instead, I kept hearing how I would get all these free bonuses, traffic, etc. after signing up as a Silver member. My moderator spent a good deal of time telling me and other chat members “how we’d watch the money roll in.”

Worldprofit Member area

I persisted with my refund question and was finally told to contact the head office because the moderator didn’t handle customer service matters.

3. The products aren’t quite as advertised.

WP advertises that it offers numerous high quality marketing products, traffic networks, etc. The products sound good, at least in theory. However, when you start digging into them, you uncover a different reality.

As an example, here are some of the affiliate products that WP advertises on its member site:

Worldprofit Member

When I clicked on the first link in this list, I was taken to Living Off the Net, which is an MLM. Another link took me to EProfits Extreme, which is a scam online business opportunity. Another link took me to a page that brought up a malware alert on my computer, so I didn’t open it.

WP also offers numerous marketing products for its members to support their personal businesses with. However, many of these products are built on outdated techniques such as article spinning and traffic networks. Such techniques are likely to get your websites de-indexed by Google.

4. There are additional upsells.

If you think that paying $99/month is sufficient for gaining access to all of the marketing tools and bonuses that World Profit offers, think again. The WP platform is filled with traffic exchanges, Solo ads, etc. that are all available…but for an additional cost.

worldprofit

Instead of teaching you how to generate traffic to your website, for example, WP’s tactic is to sell you a quick fix product that won’t help you achieve your desired result. However, it will help line WP’s pockets with still more of your money.

Is it worth it?

At a steep $99/month, World Profit just isn’t worth the money and hassle- and especially when there are other online programs that are of far better quality, cheaper, and without upsells- such as our top pick here.

Is High Traffic Academy by Vick Strizheus Worth Its $997 Cost?

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If you are a newbie affiliate marketer or website owner, you know how hard it is to get traffic to your site(s). It can be disheartening when you write a brilliant blog post, publish it, and get no comments or even views.

That’s why High Traffic Academy initially caught my interest. High Traffic Academy is the creation of Vick Strizheus, the “King of Online Traffic,” who also offers group and one-on-one coaching/consulting sessions ranging from $5,000 to $100,000.

A guy who charges such hefty fees for his time and expertise must really know what he’s talking about, right?

So, Vick is now offering an online version of his coaching sessions, called High Traffic Academy.

What is High Traffic Academy?

High Traffic Academy (HTA) is a membership site, created and operated by Vick, that teaches its members how to get quality traffic to their websites. To this end, Vick offers video tutorials, webinars, e-books, traffic campaign examples, and select products.

The HTA operates on three basic pillars:

Website development

Here you learn to purchase a domain and hosting, create your landing page, and link your landing page to an email autoresponder. To this end, Vick gives you access to his landing page builder.

Traffic Generation

This is the meat of the program and Vick tells you of several paid methods that can help you generate traffic to your landing pages. The PPC methods are provided through his software programs and traffic exchanges including Offline Goldmine Traffic, The Penny Traffic, The Underground PPC Traffic.

There is also software that teaches you how to work with Google image ads (i.e., Secret GIA Traffic), software that tells you about buying email lists (i.e., Email Media Traffic), and software that teaches you about using banner ads (i.e., Banner Media Traffic). You are also introduced to CPA networks and ad swaps.

List control

In this section, Vick instructs you on what you need to do after you have paid traffic coming to your landing pages. For example, how do you get a customer to become a repeat customer? Vick also shows you a secret method for following your competitors’ traffic online and building your email list off of this traffic.

You get the following items with your paid subscription:

  • Email autoresponder
  • Click tracker
  • URL scarper
  • Sales page templates
  • Video/YouTube marketing tutorials
  • Social media traffic generation techniques
  • Lead capture techniques

Is HTA worth its hefty $997 price?

HTA isn’t cheap, and a full membership plan costs $997. Even at its occasional promotional rate, HTA still costs $197/month to get started. So, is HTA worth the money?

I say no, and here are my reasons why.

1. Vick focuses on traffic, not content.

The HTA training is focused almost exclusively on generating traffic with PPC ads, banner ads, image ads, etc. There is very little time devoted to creating a quality website and filling it with valuable content. In fact, Vick makes it appear that you don’t even need a website, just a bunch of sales pages.

Google won’t even index your site if it contains nothing but a sales page. You’ll get no organic traffic whatsoever if you don’t have content for your viewers to peruse. And therein lies to key to Vick’s methods…

2. The recommended methods aren’t free.

Vick tells you next to nothing about generating free, organic traffic by creating a quality website, publishing tutorials and videos, etc. He also says nothing about content SEO and how you can get your web pages to rank well on search engines like Google. The only SEO that’s mentioned is ad SEO (e.g., how to match headline and ad keywords).

However, Vick tells you quite a bit about how you should buy traffic and email lists. Most of the recommended exchanges and marketplaces just happen to be his own products, which he generates a profit from when you make your purchases.

3. You’ll be spending more than $997.

The full year membership to HTA costs $997. However, you’ll be spending much more than that after you shell out the $997.

Vick’s trainings and webinars are nothing more than dressed-up sales presentations where he attempts to have you buy paid traffic, paid email lists, paid ads, etc. Even though Vick claims that you’ll get really cheap traffic (“as low as $0.05/click!”), you’ll still need to spend money to generate that traffic.

Vick also proposes that you test out his traffic-generating scenarios within your PPC and ad campaigns. To complete many of these scenarios, you’ll need some really deep pockets. Furthermore, without an optimized website to back up your sale pages, you’ll be paying high fees to Google due to your low Quality Score.

4. Getting a refund can be tricky.

Current HTA members are complaining about their difficulties with getting refunds. For example, here is a complaint posted by Geoffrey:

HTA comment

5. The online reviews might be biased.

Several HTA members report being offered monetary compensation in exchange for a positive review of HTA just days after first joining HTA. It’s one thing to ask for an unbiased review and offer some kind of compensation, but quite another to pay for biased reviews.

6. Some of the material is outdated.

HTA members have made online comments such as the following regarding the outdated nature of HTA trainings:

HTA comment 4

HTA comment 3

HTA comment 1

7. Vick isn’t exactly innocent.

We found this YouTube news video showing his 90-day sentencing on a charge of grand theft in South Dakota.

We’re passing on High Traffic Academy

Affiliate marketers and website/product owners who don’t have thousands of dollars to spend on paid traffic, email lists and advertising won’t find HTA of much use to them. Also, HTA spends little if any time teaching about building quality websites that are indexed well by search engines like Google, Bing, etc. Almost every recommended method has to be paid for, and the commissions from those payments invariably go to Vick.

If you are interested in generating traffic and sales in ways that won’t kill your wallet, there are plenty of other quality affiliate marketing platforms out there, including Wealthy Affiliate.

Our Review of Lead Lightning Marketing Funnel

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Can you really buy into a world-class marketing funnel for just $7? That’s what Lead Lightning promises you when you click on its sales page, including ready-to-go lead pages and emails, a contact management platform, and impressive 85% commissions on product sales. You also get swipe copy, sales banners, commission tracking, and free training.

This nearly $850 starter package is priced at just $7:

Lead Lightning ‎products

So, does Lead Lightning live up to its claims?

What is Lead Lightning?

Lead Lightning is a marketing automation platform that automates several marketing activities for you, including sending emails, tracking clicks, prospects and conversions, and following up converted customers with additional products (often called upsells and cross-sells).

You also get access to a Facebook support group, tutorials, and training. The sales page showcases the program’s many benefits:

Lead Lightning benefits

Supposedly, you get access to all these goodies just by paying $7 for a regular membership in the program.

That’s the front-end sell of this system. However, Lead Lightning also claims that it’s “a lead attraction machine” that “spits out daily commissions.”

Commissions from what, you ask?

From the sale of Lead Lightning memberships to others (ahem, your downline).

The following upgraded membership plans are presented by Lead Lightning, each with a higher and better commission payout:

Regular membership: $7
Payout: $6 commissions on new memberships.

Silver membership: $29.97/month
Payout: $15 monthly commissions on new memberships.

Gold membership: $53.97/month
Payout: $20 monthly commissions on new memberships.

Diamond membership: $147
Payout: $100 commissions on new memberships.

Platinum membership: $497
Payout: $400 commissions on new memberships.

If you haven’t guessed it by now, Lead Lightning is focused on selling one major product through its funnel: Itself. In all fairness, the program does tell you this up-front in its sales page:

Lead Lightning Funnel

lead lightning upsell

Naturally, you won’t make $100 commissions unless you first purchase the Gold membership yourself. Likewise, you won’t make $400 commissions unless you first purchase the $497 Platinum membership for yourself.

So, the system technically costs $7 to start…but you won’t achieve its promises of big money unless you pay a lot more money later on, and also pay money for monthly memberships.

Is this investment worthwhile? I’m a bit skeptical, and here are some reasons why:

1. The “testimonials” are highly suspect.

Lead Lightning lists three testimonials from Richard Dwyer, Dotti Berry and Jeff Gardner as proof that this system is a great way to make money online.

There’s just one issue with these testimonials- the same individuals also provided glowing testimony in an email processing (aka, envelope-stuffing) scheme called Email Processing System.

EPS

2. Where’s the support?

When you go to Lead Lightning’s Facebook group page, you encounter five posts for Udimi (an ad platform), probably posted by an affiliate of the system…and that’s it. There’s no group discussion here amongst the 105 members. Any questions posed by fellow members get zip for an actual response.

Lead Lightning Facebook

3. Lead Lightning is a rebooted Power Lead System.

The Power Lead System, which was introduced in 2013 by Michael Price and Neil Guess, offered a similar marketing product and affiliate payout structure before it was dismantled in 2014 due to affiliate recruitment issues. Interestingly, the domain of that site was plsfunnel.com.

I’m not sure if Michael and Neil parted ways since that time, but Neil is now the creator of Lead Lightning. As for Todd Gross, the guy who introduces himself in the Lead Lightning sales videos, we’re not sure how he fits in.

4. A system with no product except itself is a pyramid scheme.

The creator of Lead Lightning props up the system as a way to market “your business” and the Lead Lightning product if you don’t have your own product. That’s a clever way to avoid litigation, I guess.

In truth, very little is discussed about how you can use the Lead Lightning tools to promote your own product, and there is much more emphasis placed on affiliate recruitment.

In other words, you’re not going to be researching niche markets to promote or studying SEO. No, your goal will be to email as many prospects as possible with spam emails and sales banners promoting membership in Lead Lightning. Although you might get a signup here or there, you’re far more likely to get in trouble for violating the CAN-SPAM Act.

5. Many of Lead Lightning’s marketing tools are free.

The customer management system that Lead Lightning touts as one of its benefits is nothing special- SuiteCRM and Insightly, for example, offer such a system for free. If you’re looking at an email system that can become an autoresponder, there’s MadMimi.

Sure, you’ll be stuck writing your own emails and ads…or for $5, you can hire someone through Fiverr to do that task.

In short, Lead Lightning offers nothing so extraordinary and powerful that it warrants paying nearly $850.

Having said that, you might find sufficient value for your money if you only pay $7 for Lead Lightning and resist investing any more dollars into this system.

Lead Lightning is a big ‘nope.’

If you are a marketing newbie and want to learn about sales pages, email autoresponders, etc., then Lead Lightning might fit the bill. However, as a long-term system, Lead Lightning is tenuous and may disappear at any moment, much like its Power Lead System predecessor. Furthermore, most of this system’s energy is focused on self-promotion and affiliate recruitment. You’re better off looking elsewhere for a long-term marketing software platform.