Online Investment Fraud

The types of investment fraud seen online mirror the frauds perpetrated over the phone or through the mail. Remember that fraudsters can use a variety of Internet tools to spread false information, including bulletin boards, online newsletters, spam, or chat (including Internet Relay Chat or Web Page Chat). They can also build a glitzy, sophisticated web page. All of these tools cost very little money and can be found at the fingertips of fraudsters.

Consider all offers with skepticism. Investment frauds usually fit one of the following categories:

The "Pump And Dump" Scam

It's common to see messages posted online that urge readers to buy a stock quickly or tell you to sell before the price goes down. Often the writers will claim to have "inside" information about an impending development or to use an "infallible" combination of economic and stock market data to pick stocks. In reality, they may be insiders or paid promoters who stand to gain by selling their shares after the stock price is pumped up by gullible investors. Once these fraudsters sell their shares and stop hyping the stock, the price typically falls and investors lose their money. Fraudsters frequently use this ploy with small, thinly-traded companies because it's easier to manipulate a stock when there's little or no information available about the company.

The Pyramid

Be wary of messages that read: "How To Make Big Money From Your Home Computer!!!" One online promoter claimed that investors could "turn $5 into $60,000 in just three to six weeks." In reality, this program was nothing more than an electronic version of the classic "pyramid" scheme in which participants attempt to make money solely by recruiting new participants into the program.

The "Risk-Free" Fraud

"Exciting, Low-Risk Investment Opportunities" to participate in exotic-sounding investments – such as wireless cable projects, prime bank securities, and eel farms – have been offered through the Internet. But no investment is risk-free. And sometimes the investment products touted do not even exist – they're merely scams. Be wary of opportunities that promise spectacular profits or "guaranteed" returns. If the deal sounds too good to be true, then it probably is.

Off-shore Frauds

At one time, off-shore schemes targeting U.S. investors cost a great deal of money and were difficult to carry out. Conflicting time zones, differing currencies, and the high costs of international telephone calls and overnight mailings made it difficult for fraudsters to prey on U.S. residents. But the Internet has removed those obstacles. Be extra careful when considering any investment opportunity that comes from another country, because it's difficult for U.S. law enforcement agencies to investigate and prosecute foreign frauds.

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Ways to Bring Traffic to your Home Business Website

Most Home Business Owners realize that once they have created their website, the real work then begins. It is one thing to build a website or hire a designer to do it for you, it is quite another thing to bring traffic to it on a consistent basis.

This can be a tricky task. This is not to say that building, tweaking, tracking visitors and otherwise testing your website is not very important, because it is. In fact it is essential, because the amount of quality content that your website contains will be a significant factor in how many sites link to your site and how much traffic you recieve (also known as the stickiness factor of your site).

But ultimately, the job of consistently promoting your home business website will almost certainly be the more challenging side of the coin for you, so this is where you will need to concentrate much of your efforts.

Of course the easiest way to achieve your traffic goals is to hire an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Firm to do the bulk if the work for you. But you will still have to monitor their progress intensely to make sure you are getting your money's worth. And speaking of that, SEO Firms are usually relatively expensive for the home business owner and small business entrepreneur because they are primarily geared toward the the large and midsize firms which are generally better funded.

Most home business owners I know cannot afford to pay $1500 a month for a typical service. Therefore most of you (and myself as well) will have to accept the fact that the marketing burden will fall on our shoulders. The good news is that you can probably generate adequate traffic to your website on your own with little investment. But it will cost you some time and effort.

I recommend that you submit your site to directories first since they will take the most time to approve you. While you are waiting for their approval begin lurking and then posting to relative forums with your signature line (which contains your website url, of course). Only post if appropriate but if the forums are relevant to your business then there should be plenty to talk about.

The forums will give your site instant links, which will not only provide traffic but also help your site get indexed in the major search engines faster. If you post to at least several forums you will not have to even submit your website to the search engines.

In short, posting to forums will provide the initial thrust that will help you with the visibility of your site. The next thing you will probably want to do is get blogging. You can get a free blog with no ads at places such as blogurple dot com. Set your website as the permalink and every time you post to your blog you will be creating a new backlink to your site, even if it is just a short post. This will work even better toward your website's relevency if you post about subject matter related to the general theme of your site. Now you will want to repeat the process as time allows. Just wash, rinse and repeat.

Every time you do, you will increase your home business website's pagerank and link popularity that much more.

About the Author

Aaron Wilmont is a writer and home business entrepreneur. More home business info. at The Small and Home Business Entrepreneur Matchmaker

Article Source : Featured Articles

Technorati Tags : traffic, seo

The Easy Way

I came to visit Dare to Fail site and i'm really interested to share the article which is written by Billi Lim. Read and you'll know what he wants YOU TO KNOW about MAKING MONEY.

Long ago there was a King who wants to know a lot about a lot of things but he was a bit lazy. So one day, he summoned all the wise-men in his Kingdom and asked them to compile all the knowledge and wisdom in the world and put it into one place so that he can study them.

So off went all the wisemen to do the King's bidding. After a year, they came back with 100 volumes of books of knowledge and wisdom. Upon looking at the huge number of volumes, he began to think "I need an easier way".

So he ordered the wisemen to condense the 100 volumes with one. Finally after another year, the wisemen came back with one volume. But the single volume was very thick - about 1000 pages.

When the King saw it, the thought came into his mind again, "I need an easier way." So he told all the wisemen that it will take him too long to finish it what more to remember it.

So he ordered that all the knowledge and wisdom to be condensed into just one single page. There was a hue and cry among the wisemen but they have no choice. They either have to do it or have their head chopped off!

So the head Wiseman gathered all his colleague together to have a meeting to resolve this predicament. The meeting last through nights - finally they came up at last with one single page - all the knowledge and wisdom of the world!

Upon hearing this, the King was so delighted and quickly ordered that the page be brought before him. At last he is going to learn all the knowledge and wisdom of the world by just reading one single page.

When the day arrived, it was not only the King who was excited to know about it. The whole Kingdom came out to want to know about it.

The King took the single page from the head Wiseman, open it and learnt the greatest wisdom of the world. On it was written just one sentence:-

"There is no FREE Lunch!"

Everybody today seems to feel that there is an easier way out. Sure there is but there is still no Free lunch! Everybody thinks that with the internet, it's very easy to make money. They hear stories like Bill Gates, Steve Job, Jerry Yang, Amazon dot.com, Yahoo, and think that these people make their money without much effort. The problem is the real tough side has always been covered by all the Hipe.

Do you know that these very people work as much as 16 or 18 hrs a day in building their businesses? Do you know that for every one who succeeded, 1000 failed?

There is no such thing as something for nothing. You have to work it. I know many people are being introduced to many kind of opportunities. And if you all think that you can get money just by sitting- you are in for a big disappointment.

In my last article, I mentioned about a time-tested opportunity which I offered. Many called but when they realized that certain "effort" has to be put, they stopped calling.

Remember one thing, there is only one person in the world that can get result by just sitting
- the HEN!

Your fellow traveler in Time.

Regards,

BILLI LIM

Pick a Topic, Pick a Date

by: Alicia Forest

Have you been thinking about offering a teleseminar, webinar, or live workshop, because you know that it will increase your list numbers, showcase you as an expert, bring you new clients and customers, and be just plain fun, but you haven't actually moved forward with the idea?

Maybe you have too many topics to choose from and you don't know which one to do first. Maybe you have a general idea of what you want to do, but you haven't actually spent time giving some structure to it. And maybe you're a little afraid of putting yourself out there in such a public way.

So even though you know what a boost holding an event like this would give to your business, still you hestitate actually implementing it.

That's exactly how I felt about leading a teleseminar about Google Adwords. Here was a topic that I only knew a little about, and which can be pretty complex. But I also knew how powerful Adwords could be for my own business growth, and I decided that I really wanted to learn it inside and out - someday.

Then I was presented with the opportunity to teach a class for someone else's membership list. I could choose my topic, so I took the leap and offered to teach a class about Adwords. I knew that "someday" would eventually come, but here was a chance to do what I said I wanted to NOW. So I committed to teaching the class, which meant that I was committed to learning what I needed to by the date of the class!

If I had waited until I had time to learn Adwords, or until I decided that I was ready to teach what I knew, I'd still be thinking about it as an idea of something I wanted to do - someday. But because I picked a topic and then picked a date, it actually happened.

And because it did, I now have two new clients and I'm developing a series of classes on this topic. And as a bonus, my conversion rates for my own campaign are at 27% (which is really good!) because of what I learned in order to teach.

What ideas are populating your mind but not your product funnel at the moment? Pick one, take out your calendar, pick a deadline for having it completed, and then make a public commitment to having it ready by then to your coach and your colleagues.

Then write and post your sales page, and start registering people for your event. Once you do that, I guarantee you'll have it done and ready by your deadline!

Technorati Tags : sales, coaching

Blog And Ping Does It Work?

by: Douglas Titchmarsh

I have been doing an experiment with blogging and pinging, one of the ways which supposedly gets your site listed and ranked higher quicker.

Firstly I'll explain what blogging and pinging is. Blog and ping is a technique you can use to get your site listed in search engines. The idea is that search engines like blogs because of the ever updating content, so they keep going back. By writing a blog and placing some site links in the posts, the search engines will spider the links, and pages shortly after you blog.

Pinging is when you send a "ping" to let the directories, which keep lists of blogs, and when those blogs are updated, know that you have added content to your blog. These are allegedly closely watched by the search engine spiders, so they can spider any new content and add it to the search engine which controls them.

Anyway, back to my experiment, does blogging and pinging really get your site noticed?

Well my results have been encouraging. I have tested by only using a blog as the front page of a new information site I started. http://www.informationpagesonline.com has only been advertised by way of the blog to announce new content, and then pinged through http://www.pingoat.com which distributes the blog entries to several large ping sites.

Following a week of adding content, and then posting an announcement of the new content to the blog on the front page and pinging with pingoat, the site seems to be getting visitors to most of the sections, which I can see from the log files. I can also see some of the traffic is coming from search engines, and also a lot of spider activity can be seen on the site, where the search engines are crawling the content.

So I have to conclude that blogging and pinging is a way of getting listed on search engines, or at least of getting noticed by them quickly.

Should you be blogging and pinging?

Of course that's up to you, but for the time it takes, it maybe worth trying blog and ping for yourself and tracking the results. A quick blog post (use http://www.blogger.com if you don't already have a blog) and then ping with pingoat takes only a few minutes, and may help a site into all the search engines quickly.

Technorati Tags: ping, blog

How To Make Money Selling Ebooks

By: Biana Babinsky

Many people have told me that they want to make money by selling ebooks, but they don't want to write an e-book. If this describes you, I have great news for you! You can still make money by selling e-books written by other people by using affiliate marketing.

What is affiliate marketing? Affiliate Marketing is an agreement between a merchant (the person who wrote and owns the ebook) and you (an affiliate). You agree to use your web sites and blogs to promote the merchant's e-books and to link to the merchant's web site. In exchange for this, the merchant pays you a commission on all sales that were generated by the affiliate web site. A referral occurs when a customer clicks on your product link and makes a purchase.

So now that you know what affiliate marketing is, start looking for a few affiliate products that you would like to sell. You might already know someone whose ebooks you would like to sell, and who has an affiliate program. In this case, just register for this person's affiliate program, get your affiliate links and start promoting the e-books.

If you don't know of anyone who has e-books and an affiliate program that you can use to sell them, just use your favorite search engine to find them. For example, if you are looking for e-books on gardening that have an affiliate program, just type in gardening e-books affiliate program into search engines. Chances are, you will find what you are looking for.

Once you find e-books that you would like to promote, start promoting them. Here is information to help you promote them:

Create good web marketing copy for the e-books on your web site. It is not enough to list the e-books on your web site and then link to the seller’s web site. The people who come to your web site are not looking for links to other sites; rather, they are looking for useful information for themselves. Having useful information on your web site increases the changes of your web site visitors buying the e-book, and will generate affiliate commissions for you.

Once you have good web site copy, start promoting your web site online and drive traffic to it. One way to do that is by optimizing the site for search engines. Search engine optimization is the process of modifying web page content and meta-information to improve the search engine ranking of the page. Successful search engine optimization will greatly increase the number of visitors that come to your web site. The more visitors to the web site you have, the more affiliate products you will be able to sell, and the more money you will make. Make sure you optimize every page of your web site for search engines, especially the ones that provide the information about the e-books and sell the e-books; that way you will get more web site visitors.

Another way to drive more traffic to your web site is by creating a blog to promote it. A blog is your business diary, in which you share the information about your web site, as well as the e-books you are promoting. Your blog is an excellent tool to let the world know about the affiliate products and to connect with potential customers who would want to purchase them.

In order to bring the most online traffic and make money with your blog, make sure that your blog consistently and create blog posts that are of interest to your past as well as potential customers. Regular posts that are interesting to read is what will keep your readers coming back and buying from you.

Use the tips discussed above to make money selling e-books written by others. That is an excellent way to make money online.

Article Source: http://www.articledashboard.com

Technorati Tags : ebook, blog, traffic, making money

It's Never Too Late To Learn

By Jan Wilhelm

Have you ever heard someone say, “I’m too old to learn”? Did you believe them? I hope not. There are many people in their 50’s and 60’s going back to college to earn their degree. At that point in their life they are probably doing it because it is something they want to accomplish. The likelihood of improved earning power is no longer the motivating factor.

Computers are now such a part of our lives. Do you know anyone who is very uncomfortable around computers? Chances are it is an older person. Younger people have grown up with computers and are very knowledgeable of them. Share your knowledge with them. Even if you only have basic knowledge, share it. They will think you are a genius. Teach them to e-mail. Teach them the basics of MS Word. Teach them to surf the web. What a wealth of knowledge is available online. Teach them to find it. It will enrich their lives.

I recently began an online business. I spent months researching businesses and ended up joining this opportunity. It required very little investment, which suited my budget. A fully set-up website was included. Now I had so much information at my fingertips. I was overwhelmed! I couldn’t concentrate on one thing. There were so many things to investigate. Fortunately, as a member of this organization, I had access to an excellent Forum. People are so helpful. You get answers and encouragement. The downside of this is that I then felt pulled in many more directions. I was learning a lot, but not making much progress.

Then a gentleman posted a thread on the forum. As I said earlier, share your knowledge with others. He is very successful. He offered to help any members who felt like they needed help. I was amazed! This man could sit back and do nothing and still make good money. Here he was, offering to help a newbie.

He is sharing his knowledge and I am working hard to learn everything that he says I should learn. A couple of weeks ago “HTML” didn’t mean much to me. Now (after studying) I can go in my website and make changes. WOW! I never thought I would ever be able to do that. My confidence is growing and I know I will succeed.
Thank you!

Again I ask, as I did at the beginning, are you ever too old to learn. In a few weeks I turn sixty. I have learned a lot in the last few months. My brain seems to work even when I am asleep. The other night I could not fix a problem on my website. I finally gave up and went to bed. When I woke in the morning, I had the answer.

I do not care what age you are: EXPAND YOUR MIND. FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS, GO AFTER THE IMPOSSIBLE! You won’t be sorry. You will grow, even if you don’t succeed in a particular endeavor. You will try again and you will make it.

Technorati Tags : lesson, dream, success