I began to get involved in making money on the internet back to August, 2005. I still remember clearly how I felt at the very beginning. I was extremely excited to such an unreasonable extent that I thought I was going to make a fortune the next week. My gold rush story began with a network marketing company that sells website package services. I affiliated with it thinking I would be a rich man by sending emails only. Two months later, I gained nothing in my downline but pains and frustrations. Then I quit.



The frustrations I had just experienced did not help me learn the truth about making money on the internet but rather magnify my wild illusions. I jumped into some “fancy” online program. I cannot even remember its name now. The basic rule is that one “deposits” some cash in the program and the amount of cash generates really high interests in a given period of time. For instance, one puts into $100 and gets back $110 one month later. I put my hard earned $500 into it and it was gone forever due to many chargebacks the credit card companies had received from the members of the site.

I could not get over losing $500, so I aimed at another such program. It promised its members they could get 12% interests from their deposits daily for 12 days. Well, the founder of this program was quite a figure then and seemed very authentic to many experienced online marketers. It had hundreds of thousands of members worldwide. I donated my hard earned money again, about $300. Soon later, stormpay made pyramid scheme charges against the founder of this online program and they won the case. The incident made quite an impact on the internet. But I'd rather say the founders of such programs have no more faults than their members who want to make easy and quick money on the net. That is nothing but an absolute illusion.

Part 2 The setback

After I lost about $800 in my illusions, I came back to the company that sold website package services. I did this because I had my faith in it and I had a new upline sponsor who promised to help me recruit members. Though I'm still with this company now, my sponsor didn't fulfill his promise. That's also the important advice I want to give to all the new online marketers. Do NOT expect your sponsor to do the work for you. You can sure ask your sponsor about how to do it, but if you want to succeed in this business, you have to do it yourself.

I turned to traffic exchange websites then. What are traffic exchange websites? You can submit your affiliate program referral web page to these websites and click on the referral links from others to earn credits. And these credits can bring clicks to your page, that is, some traffic to your referral web page. If someone will sign up, they become your downline members. I put my efforts into traffic programs, but the results were not welcome. As you can imagine, most people in traffic programs want to sell something to somebody else. So I personally think it's not an effective way to expand your downline organization.

Then I chose to buy leads on other sites. I once spent around $70 only to recruit one new member. I became more impatient and put more money into improper advertising. Here's another important warning: Impatience is the No. 1 killer in online business.

Part 3 The Right Way

After I wasted 18 months and $1500, I began to realize the truth of working from home online. Many online millionaires are affiliates. This is the best way to make money on the net. Stick with one or two superior affiliate programs and do not be distracted. Working from home online is a business. If you want to get rich in one week or one month, you need to try gambling.

So I finally decided to build my own website so that I can put together my overviews of all my affiliate programs. Now I fully focus on increasing the ranking of my website in search engines. It's no way an easy job, but I know this is what I should do. To tell the truth, I knew nothing about SEO(search engine optimization) at first. Now I've made myself an above-average expert and I'm still learning. My goal is to have my website listed on the first page at Google based on some high traffic search terms. Of course, building a site is not the only way to expand your online business. I know an online marketer who earns more than $20,000 per month only through calling leads.

All the successful marketers have something in common. They have patience and persistence. Many of them did not make any profits until 2 or 3 years later. If you're serious about working from home online, you should stick with a plan that suits you and do SOMETHING everyday. You're on the right way to your financial freedom.