I received a note from my friend Jennifer that included a website URL and the question “Have you heard of this – is it legit?“

After a brief look at the site which is promoting a product called “Easy Google Profit”, I could tell why she thought it might have been a legitimate online business opportunity. The site looks very professional. With the title Canada Job Journal and a newpaper-like appearance (see screenshot below), most business opportunity seekers would want to trust that the information is both authoritative and objective.

Unfortunately, nothing could be farther from the truth, in this particular case.

To weed out legitimate online business opportunities from scams, you need to fortify yourself with a healthy dose of skepticism and be prepared to dig deeper to discover the truth before you lay out your hard-earned money on such offers.

In cases such as this one – you’ll quickly discover that the writer is less than honest.

Immediately below the article title “Jobs: Is Working Online At Home The Next Gold Rush?” was a line that read “Posted by Anthony on March 15th, 2009 and filed under Finance“, yet there are no links to this supposed journal’s categories, Finance or otherwise.

The next item is a graphic stating “As seen on ABC, AOL, CNN, MSNBC and USA Today”, along with each of those companies logos. You might think “WOW! This must REALLY be good if CNN is endorsing it“, however, if you do a search for the product name and any one of those company names, you’ll come up with a bunch of Google search results about what a scam this product is.

My B.S. meter went into High Alert while reading the second line of the first paragraph, “Mary, a mother from Penticton, BC is thriving…“

ANY time you see the name of your hometown on a business opportunity website, you should be alert to the fact that the webmaster is probably using a little programming trick.

Sure enough, when I used WorldProxy202 to see what surfers from both the U.S. and the U.K. would see when reading the same page, the sentence changed to “Mary, a mother from ,is thriving…“

If that isn’t sufficient proof, do a View > Page Source on the page and you’ll see the javascipt coding as follows:

<code><script src=”http://j.maxmind.com/app/geoip.js”></script><script type=”text/javascript”><!–
document.write(geoip_city());
// –></script>, <script type=”text/javascript”><!–
document.write(geoip_region());
// –></script></code>

If that little bit of trickery doesn’t convince you to close the page, then this next discovery definitely should have you running away.

You’ve seen ads on websites thousands of times, right?

Normally, clicking on the different headlines will take you to DIFFERENT sites. Well, in this case, they AREN’T ads. It’s a picture that leads to only ONE link which is easy enough to discern if you see the ‘hand’ come up on your cursor everywhere within the ad area, and not just when you cursor over a link.

As a matter of fact, if you take the time to cursor over every link on the page, you would notice that each one is exactly the same – and they all go to the same offer.

If you need MORE incentive to reject the offer, take a look at what appear to be comments from site visitors.

Each one is either favorable to the offer, or there is a question that someone answers with a ‘proof of earnings’ graphic – because of course a professional journal wouldn’t be posting images from inside someone’s Google account.

Moreover, the comments are always ‘closed due to spam’, (see bottom of the screenshot) because the webmaster wouldn’t want REAL visitors posting REAL comments or asking REAL questions.

To up the ante, the webmaster adds an article from the Vancouver Sun (CanWest Publishing) about the current state of the economy as it relates to employment. Of course, the news is pretty dire and therefore gives visitors incentive to WANT to make ‘Easy Google Profit’ working from home on their computers.

However, the Copyright Permission and Rules on Canada.com pertaining to Canwest newspaper Web sites clearly specify that “commercial uses including publication, retransmission, broadcast, posting to newsgroups, mail lists or electronic bulletin boards, circulation, selling, reproduction or redistribution in any medium are prohibited, except with the prior written approval of the copyright owner“.

Here’s what Google actually had to say about these systems…:

Of late, we’ve received a few emails from new AdSense applicants about not being accepted into the program despite paying a specific amount of money or buying a CD package.

We’d like to take this opportunity to state that we’re not affiliated with any third-parties that solicit payment to join the AdSense program or that sell CDs with money-back guarantee offers. AdSense is a free product offered to publishers by Google Inc., and there’s no cost or obligation involved. As a result, we recommend that prospective publishers exercise caution when presented with such offers.

Bottom line – scammers exist only because there are legions of people who still believe in “overnight riches” with no work involved – aka “suckers”.

Don’t be a sucker – do your homework!

While Google Adsense is one way to make money online, you’ll earn only pennies for each person that clicks on those links. To make dollars instead, learn how to sell real products and services from your website as an affiliate marketer – read the Super Affiliate Handbook – a real step-by-step guide that teaches you how to build a real and sustainable online business in affiliate marketing.

Get just TWO items and you can be in business online.

One thing I love best about Internet marketing is that the financial barrier to entry is low. In other words, it doesn’t cost much at all, meaning that anyone with a little bit of money can start a business.

Assuming that you already have a computer that is connected to the Internet, here are the TWO basic services that you’ll need along with their estimated costs:

1. A domain name

   You can register your domain name at GoDaddy for as little as $9.99 for a .com name, or get it included when you set up your web hosting service (see next item).

2. A web hosting service

   My favorite web hosting service to recommend to new webmasters is BlueHost which is as little as 6.95 per month (when you buy a 2-year hosting package) and includes your domain name registration. I also list a number of other recommended web hosts here.

Of course, in time you’ll probably want to add other services such as an autoresponder and maybe buy some content for your site if you don’t like to write.

But just getting a web site started doesn’t require anything beyond having a domain name and web hosting.

Total cost?

About $7.00 a month – or $27.00 per month with the autoresponder.

Do you have specific questions about doing business online? Here’s your opportunity to ask!

Here are examples of questions I’ve been asked of late…

• How do I find a profitable niche?
• How do I put an email capture form on my blog?
• What’s the difference between WordPress and Bluehost?
• WHY should I use WordPress?
• Is this the right time to start a new business?
• Is PLR safe to use?
• Where do I find a good ghostwriter?

Ask your question via the comment section below and I’ll do my best to answer it as quickly as possible.

Note: Please post a separate comment for individual topics, i.e. “What are the 3 best traffic generation methods and how do I build my list faster?” should be posted as individual questions.

As the economy worsens and the price of basic goods continues to skyrocket, an increasing number of people are asking whether it is feasible to do business as an Internet marketer with a poor or bad credit rating.

The short answer is a big fat “YES!”

Sure, building an online business with bad credit or without a credit card is going to be somewhat more of a challenge than if you had unlimited resources and a Platinum Business Credit Card from American Express, but it IS possible.

Internet marketing is actually an excellent choice for those with little or no credit.

Most of the tools and services that you need to run an online business are either free or very inexpensive – and some services will accept checks and money orders for payment.

Provided you have access to a computer with an Internet connection, the most basic tools of the trade are a web site and a way to build your subscriber list, both of which can be obtained through free services such as Blogger and Feedburner.

You can make your site look attractive using free templates, graphic and photographic images which are widely available online. Simple software such as file transfer utilities as well as text, HTML and graphics editors are available for free through download sites such as Tucows.com.

Basic market research and writing your own content costs only time. Partnering with online merchants as an affiliate is also free. Lastly, there are numerous ways to get traffic to your site for free, including article marketing and social media marketing strategies such as blog commenting.

An important caveat about using free domains and hosting.

Using free hosting services is a bad plan for the simple reason that after building a profitable business your site may be taken offline without warning. I share a story in my book about having that happen to one of my sites.

Furthermore, many merchants do NOT accept affiliates who don’t have their own top-level domains, i.e. mydomain.com. The programs that you can join with a free site generally need tons of traffic to produce even modest earnings. Such programs include Google Adsense which pays for people to click away from your site; and Amazon, which offers relatively low commissions on low-priced products such as books and videos.

Another huge drawback to free hosting services is that when you do decide to move to your own domain (and you will), you’ll lose most of your feed subscribers. Because the list you build and the relationships you establish with your site visitors will become your most valuable business asset, it is therefore absolutely essential that you establish a solid foundation for your business from the outset – which means having your own domain.

The largest cost you’ll have for starting a business as an Internet or affiliate marketer is for domain registration and web hosting.

Fortunately, you don’t need a credit card for either service, as BlueHost – which has my highest recommendation – accepts PayPal, checks (U.S. Only) and money orders.

Furthermore, Bluehost will cover your domain registration fees when you purchase either a 12 or 24 month subscription. Respectively, pricing for those subscriptions is currently set at $7.95 and $6.95 per month, or $95.40 and $166.80 due at signup.

Having said all that, your first objective should be to repair, build and re-establish your good credit rating.

You can do that by scrambling together whatever money you can muster and getting either a prepaid debit card or a secured credit card, both of which are specifically for people with poor or no credit.

Both types of cards require that you deposit cash into an account that then becomes the credit line for that account. For example, if you put $300 in the account; you can use your secured credit card to charge up to $300 in purchases.

As you use the secured credit card, your credit rating will improve over time to the point that you may no longer be required to make advance deposits, and become qualified to hold an unsecured credit card.

As the saying goes, “when the going gets tough, the tough get going“, so don’t let a bad credit rating discourage you from starting your own online business. Use the situation to drive your determination to succeed in such a big way that you’ll never have to worry about a bad credit rating again.

Credit Cards for People with Bad or No Credit

As the U,S, economy sinks to new lows and the prices of oil and food rise to new heights, more and more ordinary working people are having a hard time covering the cost of basics such as food, housing and transportation.

After defaulting on a payment or two, many find that their credit rating has plummeted to the point where they are considered a credit risk and have difficulty obtaining credit.

How frustrating that just when you need credit, it becomes harder to get it!!! It’s especially frustrating if you want to start a business to earn more money and can’t get a credit card.

Fortunately, you may be able to get a secured credit card or prepaid debit card even if you have poor or bad credit.

A secured credit card or prepaid debit card requires the user to deposit money into the credit card account before the card can be used.

Once money is deposited into the account, the secured credit card can be used to purchase items. The prepaid debit card or secured credit card will not allow you to exceed the amount of money you deposited into the account.

Check out this prepaid credit card for folks with poor credit.

In summary, don’t accept a poor credit rating as a reason NOT to start your own Internet business. Use the system effectively to rebuild and re-establish your credit rating.