1. News
Welcome to the latest issue of the Homeworking Ideas newsletter, the monthly
publication which gives you all the latest news from the UK on ways of earning
money from home.
New Page on Site
This month I've been looking at ways to generate an income from a website without needing to make any sales or even generating leads.
Whilst most of you are probably aware of affiliate programs where you earn cash when people you introduce to a site subsequently make a purchase or sign up for information/membership etc. there are now several offers available where you can earn cash just for adding ads or links to your site, in addition to ads where you earn each time somebody clicks on a link. Even though you don't need to generate leads or sales, you can still generate a significant income this way. See http://www.homeworkinguk.com/adclicks.htm for more details.
Scam News
I'm regularly receiving e-mails from people who want me to check out a possible scam received by e-mail or found on a website. Whilst I'm always happy to do this, there are a couple of very basic checks that I always make first, which anyone can do, and which identify most scams very quickly. Firstly, simply key in the name of the company in a Google search and see what comes up. In many cases the scam reports appear higher than the company's own page. If there are too many sales pages appearing in the results, search for both the company name and the word "scam". This won't always turn up anything especially as this sort of company frequently changes their name for obvious reasons so the next thing to do is check whether the address they operate from actually exists. You'll probably be amazed at how few addresses are actually genuine. One address I researched this week not only didn't exist, but they'd used the same address for their previous business name so a search on Google for the address located all the details of their previous "opportunity".
Here is an example of a scam that is comprised of elements of the Nigerian scam, chat room scams, and the overpayment scam. Although this example happened in America it is just as likely to occur in the UK. It's a great example of how scammers can use elements of different scams to form a powerful combination. Here's what happened:
"I am writing to let you know about another Nigerian scam you might or not have heard of. My husband and I started chatting online with a woman known as Mary Smith from Nigeria."She didn't ask for any money up front. We became 'friends' and she had mentioned that she would like to come and meet us. We told her we didn't have any money and she said she would
find a way to come up with the money.
"She had told us she works with computers and had a client in the United States who would be sending us a money order (actually three arrived), and to cash it and Western Union the money to her. "We did, we deposited them into our bank account, took some money for ourselves and wired the rest to her or should I say another name that she told us to send it to. "We got the money which had cleared through the bank in two days and bounced two days later to the amount of $3000.00 (the money orders were $980.00 each).
"Now our account is closed and we owe all that money back and she's nowhere to be found. We tried through Yahoo which is the address that she used and even let the local authorities know but to no avail. "The money orders were fraudulent. I just wanted you to know of that type of scam where we didn't invest any money up front and she got the money free and clear.
"Also, the local police had told us that there are lots of women who use computers to contact people in the US and do what 'Mary Smith' had done. There's no way to stop them since the Nigerian authorities won't cooperate with the US.
Phishing
There are lots of Spoof emails knocking around pretending to be something they are not. Like an email that LOOKS like it's from Paypal, asking you to click on a link and confirm your personal details 'for security reasons'. Problem is that it's NOT from Paypal and if you fall for it you will give your
details to a scammer. The scammers send emails 'supposedly' from all sorts of
organizations such as banks and so forth. Do NOT click on that link. If your
bank really need information from you, just log into your account in the normal
way and you'll find details of any action required.
If you do need further
confirmation that an e-mail is coming from where it claims, I've come across free
software that tells you exactly which Website you are currently on. It's a toolbar
that immediately tells you the Website's name, and you can switch it on and off
whenever you want. I tried it out on a spoof Paypal email I've received a dozen
times to test this tool and a different name appeared in the new toolbar. Download
it from http://www.spoofstick.com/
Writers Needed
http://www.loose-ends.net/
are currently seeking authors to supply articles (500-5000 words) on a
revenue share basis. No investment required; they provide free worldwide publicity
for registered writers and authors. Hundreds of subject and topic areas to choose
from.
Each author has an online profile from where they can be contacted
via email or web site, plus all their articles are listed so readers can follow
up experts on key subjects.
For chargeable articles the viewing fee is
split 50-50 between the author and the site, with all payments being handled by
Paypal. Authors can add any number of articles in various categories to boost
their earning power.
The project is a long term one, so they are looking
for reliable writers for the long haul, who can grow, develop and earn.
New writers welcomed as well as the well established.
Synovate
Synovate is a world-leading provider of market research, information and analysis, with over 50 years of experience. By joining their panel you not only make your opinions count and improve products and services used by millions of people every day but you earn rewards each time you participate - In just the past year, Synovate has awarded panelists over £630,000 in cash and prizes. They typically offer several surveys every month and most surveys take less than 15 minutes to complete. Visit http://www.homeworkinguk.com/synovate.htm for more details.
3. Featured Business Resource
Free Advertising
If you've looked around the various ways of getting free advertising for a website you're promoting you can't have failed to notice that to get more than a handful of visitors you either need to visit hundreds of sites yourself, get hundreds of visitors to your own site (and need to be able to add coding to the site) or need to be able to refer loads of people into the program. This month I've been testing a program that doesn't require you to do any of those things, although it does have the option to generate even more advertising by referring others.
InstantBuzz simply requires you to download a small program which adds an unobtrusive toolbar to your web browser. You then just surf the internet as usual and each time you visit a new page, a single line of advertising text appears in the browser. For every 10 ads displayed your own ads appear once on another member's browser. Whilst this doesn't sound a lot, you'll probably be surprised how many pages you visit if you spend any time at all online. I've managed to earn nearly 1000 credits in a week, all for no effort and without any referrals. You can get more information from http://www.InstantBuzz.com/loconnor
4. Featured Case Study
If you've got young children and are despairing at ever finding a way to balance work and home, this story should give you inspiration.
Rachael Taplin is happily married with a 4 year old daughter. She has been in business for the last 11 years and feels that she has now finally got the balance right with her family and career. i.e. family first, career second.
’After working around the clock and missing out on the first few years of my daughters life (well not quite all of her life) we had to close down the business we had (me and my husband and lots of staff!!!) after spending 8 years building it up (Design and Advertising Agency). After taking the summer off and really reflecting on what I wanted to do next I realised on what I have been missing out on. My family.
I am still focused on achieving but no longer feel I have to justify myself to anyone on my priorities.‘
I looked around for other jobs but everything that was offered to me for the money I needed to earn demanded long hours and my pound of flesh. I didn’t want to go back to that, I was enjoying being at home and realised there was more to life than work and money. So I decided to use the skills and the experience I had from being in business for 8 years.
I started my own community magazine selling local advertising, the response was brilliant the local businesses all came on board and the community loved what I put together. I then developed the idea into a community website so that I could offer more to the community and it saved me the print costs each month giving me more income. The community website www.aboutmyarea.co.uk was just for my postcode area and it had a community news section, a property section, recruitment, you can meet people and loads more, I couldn’t stop my ideas once I got started and the more I added the more the advertisers wanted to spend money with me. Life was getting better I was enjoying spending time with my daughter, I finished work each day at 2.30 to pick her up and made sure between the hours of 2.30 and 7 that was our time and it still is today.
I then also organised my daughter birthday party in January 05 and realised actually how demanding the whole thing was and how many hours it took and what money it costs, booking the venue, trying to find an entertainer, the cake, the party bags, the theme, invitations etc. After going through this experience and not finding any one out there to pay to do this for me I decided to set up another business and become a Little Party Planner and organise people parties for a living.
Things really started to pick up and I could start to see that we would come through this. My husband established another business that was going well and my extra money coming in from the parties and community advertising really did make a difference. I then had the idea that would it be great to offer these opportunities to other mums, that desperately wanted to spend more time with their family whilst still earning decent money and contribution to the household.
I spent the next months creating www.mumsincontrol.co.uk , putting the business model together, trialling it to make sure other people could actually do it and make money out of it and now I offer both of them as a franchise.
Over two years later from one of the hardest times in my life things are brilliant, my focus has totally changed, I am motivated by different things; yes I still want to be successfully but not at the expense of my family. I now work around school hours and evening, I take weekends off and will try to take as much school holiday off with Annabel that I can. I spend all day talking to wonderful mums from all different circumstances and I have made some lovely friends who are now making a good income from my idea. I actually feel now I have never been happier and it's funny that I almost had to lose everything before I realised what happiness really was. I have a wonderful husband and daughter and life now couldn’t get better.
If you would like to contact Rachael to talk about her work life balance opportunities you can visit her website www.mumsincontrol.co.uk and then give her a call on 0870 066 4151.
Free Cinema Tickets
Freetix informs their customers of all the latest available free screenings from around the United Kingdom stretching across 96 Cinemas. You'll receive text alerts giving you a web address with information on the film and how to claim the free tickets. Visit http://www.homeworkinguk.com/freetix.htm to see if there's a cinema near you and to sign up.
I hope you've found something of interest this month. I'll speak to you again next month.
Lynne O'Connor
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