Three years ago, when I was desperately looking for ways to make some money online, I found out about InboxDollars, an American based website that signs up people from all over the world to read emails and fill out surveys.

At first, I read hundreds of emails and filled out a ton of surveys, only to make a few bucks here and there. While I was making some money, it was nothing to write home about. Reading emails paid pennys, but taking surveys and getting your friends to sign up paid handsomely.

I was never any good at referring people to anything. So I never thought I could benefit from their referral program.

But then I noticed that InboxDollars had something called a “Gold Membership”. Basically what this meant was I was able to buy a set amount of referrals for my InboxDollars account.

So what did I do? Everytime I was eligible for a payout, I turned around and purchased a Gold Account.

Well, after some time I forgot about my account.

Years went buy and one day I decided to log on to my account and see what had happened. To my surprise I had a nice chunk of change waiting for me.

Unfortunately they don’t allow you to purchase Gold Memberships anymore, but now my Inboxdollars account is generating a little over a dollar a day….without me reading an email or taking a survey….all thanks to my referral base. How cool is that?

But don’t get me wrong, InboxDollars is a steady earner and I’ve had positive experiences with this program. There are a lot of things you can do to earn cash, and over time, the money really adds up. While I’m not making enough money to quite my day job, I have a little extra mad money to carry around with me.

If you have a mailing list or a lot of friends, I encourage your to join Inboxdollars . You get a $5.00 sign-up bonus, $5 for every referral you recruit and cashes out.

But remember, just as with any other paid to read/paid to take survey sites, always sign up using a separate email account…instead of your main one since you will get a ton of paid to read emails.

How would you like to make money doing something you do every day?

A new website called Mahalo is willing to pay you money to do something you know how to do - search the internet.

Mahalo is a human-powered search engine that creates organized and comprehensive search results for the popular search terms. In essence it is a mix of Google, Wikipedia, and Squidoo all rolled into one.

Mahalo aims to incorporate the human element to search, based on a concept that there is a difference between human generated content and automated content in it’s ability to identify what is valuable to a web surfer and what is junk.

There are some paperwork you must fill out and send in to Mahalo in order to be paid. Before you can be paid for the accepted SeRPs you create, you must complete the Master SeRP Purchase Agreement (MSPA) and send it to Mahalo.com. You will not be paid for your work until we receive your Master SeRP Purchase Agreement completely and correctly filled out. You will also need to fill out tax information before you get paid.

To become a guide visit http://Greenhouse.mahalo.com

Do They Pay?

From what I’ve been told, Mahalo is very strict in accepting search pages, but once they are accepted they pay their guides well.

Mahalo Greenhouse Guides are paid for the search results pages (SeRPs) they create that are accepted for use on the Mahalo.com website. Each search result page is paid at the rate stipulated on the Most Wanted List at the time of acceptance.

Mahalo Mentors and Mentor Directs are paid for the search results page they create. They are also compensated $10.00 for each reviewed search result page from Greenhouse Guides ranked PTG-New and PTG, and $5.00 for each reviewed SeRP from Greenhouse Guides ranked PTG-Plus.

What do you think?

I am interested to know what your experiences are being a Mahalo Guide. Since it is a fairly new program, there is little feedback from current guides.

No doubt about it, Google Adsense is a very hot topic on forums, newsgroups, and ezines. Does it seem as if others are making a killing with Adsense each month except you? With all the people getting online and clicking away everyday, it is no wonder why Google Adsense has become an instant hit.

But how is it that some publishers are making $1000 paychecks each month, while you’re lucky to get $1 in clicks?

There is a simple formula to Google Adsense success.

Traffic + Content +Proper Ad Placement & Format= More Clicks & More Income $

1. Targeting high traffic is a very important factor in getting more clicks to your website. The more traffic, the more clicks….it’s really a numbers game.

Check on your stats. What are your daily impressions? What are your monthly impressions? Most importantly, what can you improve these numbers?

2. High Quality Content will help you improve your traffic stats. People surf the Internet to get free information. By providing quality content on your site, you are giving your visitors what they are looking for.

The key is to provide quality, targeted, and unique content. Never think that by copying and pasting articles from free article directories is enough to get by. Your best bet is to write your own articles or at least rewrite PLR articles.

3. Proper Ad Placement and Format can improve your click through rate. The biggest mistake I see with newbies is poor Google Adsense Ad placement and format.

Step back for a moment and look at your website through the eyes of your visitors.

Placing an ad unit after your first post will likely catch your readers’ eye. Google also suggests placing a Skyscraper (120×600) or vertical link unit on the right side of your blog. But remember, these are just suggestions. To

To increase the likelihood that your readers will see and click on your ads, blend your ad units into the background of your blog. Choose a bold color for the ad title to help draw attention to your ads, then make sure that the background and borders of your ads are the same color as the background of the area where the ad is placed.

There is one more thing to keep in mind with it comes to your Adsense income. Some keywords pay higher than others. For example, the keyword “cat toys” most likely pays a lot lower than the keyword “debt consolidation”.

What I’m trying to say here is that if you run a site based on low paying keywords, you won’t make a lot of Adsense revenue UNLESS you get A LOT of traffic.

The key to success with Adsense is the placing of ads on pages that are receiving high traffic for high demand keywords. The higher the cost-per-click to the advertiser, the more you will receive per click from your site. Obviously, it does not pay to target low cost-per-click keywords and place them on pages that do not receive hits.