The World Wide Web isn’t a safe place anymore. It is has become a perfect haven for those who thirst for more information or more income, it’s also an avenue for scammers to take advantage of other people.

The same story can be told to online surveys and GPT (Get Paid To) websites. Truthfully, there are legitimate ones. Yet it seems like for every 1 real site, there are 100 fake ones. So which ones should you trust?

• Real survey sites won’t ask for any joining fee.

If you’re trying to earn income through writing reviews of free offers or filling out surveys, then you shouldn’t be paying for any joining fee to a website which has a good list of paid survey or GPT sites. There are still websites out there which can provide you the same kind of information without any cost on your part. They simply enumerate all those paid survey websites, according to what the author thinks are real good. They can even provide you with techniques on how to generate more money through paid surveys.

Other websites do it the other way around: they pay you! Their signing bonus can even go as high as 3 to 5 dollars, once your membership is verified.

• They produce hard-to-believe income.

A lot of fake paid survey sites guarantee you of huge income just in filling out surveys. Their ads will claim that for every completed survey, you can earn as huge as $250. You may even get a staggering $150 just for an hour of criticizing free offers.

Now who wouldn’t be lured? Why sweat too much when you can simply sit in front of your PC and answer yes, no or rank characteristics on a survey? The problem, however, is that this isn’t actually true. In fact, what you can actually earn from real GPT sites isn’t even half or a third of what the ads are saying. Common payouts for filled-out surveys range between $1 and $3 only.

Some well-established consumer companies can give $25 or $75 for every completed survey. Yet this doesn’t happen regularly. They will only request for that 2 or 3 times per year. Furthermore, you should be qualified to answer these surveys. It should be based on your educational background, location, age, gender. So if you’re a woman, don’t expect you’ll be given $50 worth of paid surveys to answer about men’s cologne.

• There’s no such thing as free trial offers.

Free trials are only fitting for software and other computer programs but not on paid surveys. There are fake companies that will provide you of free trial offers. You only get paid if you make a purchase. Aside from this is highly illogical, considering that it’s the survey you’re actually interested in and not really on the product, you may even get billed repetitively if you push through.
Don’t think that all paid surveys are scams. As a matter of fact, it’s a great way to earn money on your spare time. Yet beware of fake ones too. After all, they’re only after your money.

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Not all people basically understand the term “page rank” and why their website should be optimized in order to generate a lot of visitors and hopefully increase their revenues. Thus, their best option is to rely on the expertise of SEO companies.

The downside is that World Wide Web—or SEO, for that matter—isn’t a very secure place. There are a lot of scammers lurking, waiting for their next bait. They normally pose themselves as legitimate professionals, only to wake up one morning realizing they’ve totally drained your account using your basic information. So how do you know which ones are authentic and which are only posers?

Too much advertising. There’s nothing wrong with marketing your services. In fact, it should be considered as your lifeblood if you want to earn lots of cash. But as they say, too much of something is bad. Fake SEO companies resort to mass emailing or cold calling just to get your attention. They bluff on their expertise and how wonderful their services are. This is so, so you’ll avail of their services right away. Successful ones don’t do that. They bank on testimonials of their previous clients or the quality of their services.

Results are hard to find. Well-established SEO companies have proven track record that you basically don’t need to search for any reviews about them. Your fellow website owners can already make attestations. Moreover, their company seems to come up every time you and your friends talk about the best ways in optimizing your websites. Fake ones, however, can’t do that. After all, they basically don’t do any services, so what’s there to speak of in terms of quality in delivering the goods?

You only get to rank in unique names. Supposing you have an online business you call John Doe Teak Furniture Collection. If you’re truly concerned of getting the best results, then you must belong in the first 10 search results of major search engines in generic terms like “furniture” or “teak furniture.” This is the real work of SEO companies. However, scam companies can guarantee you on unique terms, such as “John Doe Teak Furniture.” This is very easy to do since the more unique the keyword is, the better are your chances in ranking effectively with such term.

They bluff—nothing more. There’s a difference between exaggeration and taking pride in what you’ve accomplished. Fake ones do the former. They tend to bluff, even on projects they haven’t actually done. This may come in the form of websites, which they claimed they’ve worked on or on testimonials from clients which are simply created by their staff. So how do you know if their claims are real? You can do your own background check. For example, if it’s a website, then you can right click on its page and choose View Page Source. Try to verify any close association between the website and the company such as digital signatures. You may also use http://www.whois.sc to verify their authenticity of the company: if they have properly registered domain name and who owns it. You may contact the supposed customers, if details such as phone numbers and names are available.

Be forewarned and always on guard. Your money and the success of your business rely on this.

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There are plenty of easy ways to quickly separate a fool from his or her money. The real trick is to perfect your own method for doing this as quickly as possible. In the end though, all the methods are just different sides of the same coin. You just have to offer them their life’s dream for a price that they can afford.

The best way to handle this is to think about what you dreamed of when you were a kid. You might have dreamed about getting paid to play video games everyday, or you may have wanted to get paid to shop. Just follow the standard “kid in the candy store” line of thought. People can get pulled into an old fantasy quickly, and then you’ve got them hooked. I guess you could also promise them piles of money for doing surveys or data entry, but I personally feel that that’s been overdone. This isn’t a perfect method though. You can’t just say “I’ll show you how to get paid to shop, if you give me $29.99.” Your marks will know that something is up with your offer. You have to reel them in. Let the fantasy grow until they’re sure it’s real.

But how do you do that? Build up a little sales page. Try and build something professional too, that old one page with yellow text and an obnoxious headline is so obviously a trap. Build up a webpage that is easy to read and not sensational. Calmly and slowly go over their fantasy. Read out the story slowly and get them excited. You have to make it seem like a real opportunity, and everyone knows that you won’t make $200 an hour 8 hours a day for the rest of your life. Keep the numbers realistic and explain the reasons for why someone would pay them to do this. Bait the hook and wait for them to bite.

Don’t get cocky! You still have to reel them in, and this can be difficult. The golden age of the internet is behind us. People are starting to wise up, since most of them have probably been worked over once. You are going to need to appear serious throughout the article. Feed the fantasy with your own facts. See if you can find an old news article that validates something similar to what you’re selling. Just linking to it will give them a lot of confidence. You also need some testimonials, and I mean good testimonials. The last thing you need is some trashy canned response about it “changing their life, so simple I couldn’t believe it, etc.” If you can’t write a good review, you can just hire a few half-decent freelance writers who will give you a 100-300 word response for 1 cent a word. This should at least give you some extra perspective. Words aren’t that powerful though. A picture speaks a thousand words. Add a little picture and a fake name to each of the testimonials. You can easily grab a portrait shot from any stock image provider, image host, or even myspace if you’re willing to spend a little time looking. The time is well spent, since a lot of people assume that pictures mean real people. You should also look up a few cheap, obvious scams and report them to your loyal readers. Explain why they’re fake and how you are different from them. Good targets are the old survey promotions, data entry jobs, and the old “make millions with adwords” e-books. This should give you a little confidence boost with them.

So, you’ve got the page set up. You’ve reeled them in. Now, it’s time to scale them and take them to the market. I personally hate those little “it was $50, but for a limited time it’s only $19.99.” Those look really fake and I think everyone has caught on to this little scam. It really hurts your credibility too. Just offer a fair price with no pointless frills. I’ve found the $15-$30 range to be just right. Anything higher and they’ll research it, anything lower and they’ll think that what you’re selling is worthless. Also, you should make sure that you do have a half-decent product. The only reason the old survey sites lasted was that they actually did give the buyer a list of other survey sites to use. This should also give them less credibility when they are arguing that they were scammed, since they did get something in return for their money. They’ll gripe about it on a message board somewhere, but they’ll just get a little sympathy.

There is one more step to the process. Why fish for yourself, when you can have other people fish for you. Get yourself listed through Clickbank or any other affiliate marketplace, and then just let a few other people push your little product for you. All you have to do is split the profit with them. It’s your call in the end though. If you are good, you can keep opening up new pages and just let your affiliates focus on marketing them.

This should give you a good step towards your first big paycheck. With this method you can ranke in on the new internet fortune from the comfort of your own home.

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