Found My Niche: Making The Most Money From Your Affiliate Links

So you've joined some of the paid to click, paid to read and paid to complete offers sites and you can also get credit and residual income from your referrals. You only have so many family and friends and they may not be interested. So, how do you get referrals without having to pay for advertising?

Social Networks

If you're online, chances are you belong to a few social networks and forums. Most have strict rules against spam, but you are usually allowed to put a link or two in the signature that people see when you post or send private messages. Take advantage of this, and post often! Here are two where you can actually get paid for your posts and page views, so your ads are automatically targeted since the members are interested in these programs. I love Yuwie - everyone tries to help each other and there's very little drama. MyLot has hundreds of very interesting discussions going on all the time.

Yuwie.com
MyLot.com

E-Mail

Again, you don't want to spam, but you can add a link and brief message about your program to your e-mail signature. Be aware that e-mails you send to people who are not on your contact list will likely end up in their spam inbox because of the link, but this is still a good way to promote.

Free Classified Ads

There are several sites that offer free classified ads and even the opportunity to have your own ad site.

Adpost.com
MyFreeAdboard.com

Save Your Points and Cash For Advertising

Order advertising from the sites you belong to. Most have very reasonable packages and allow you to save your points and cash and redeem them for advertising. Here are just a few of my favorites:

Hits4Pay.com
HoneyAdvertiserPro.com
Donkeymails.com
No-minimum.com
Matrix-Mails.com
ClixSense.com

ClixSense has recently begun to encourage people to advertise their eBay auctions, which is a great idea. A lot of people will see your ads because they're paid to click on them, so your listing will really get some exposure.

Traffic Exchanges

Some don't allow paid to promote affiliate pages from PTR/PTC sites in the site rotation, but they do allow banners. These two traffic exchanges have some extra features I haven't seen anywhere else, including cash:

TrafficTaxis.com
Moonlight Fairy Traffic.com
Super Surf The Top Five Traffic Exchanges Together And Earn An Extra 10% Or More

Marketing Pond's program list includes many more sites like these as well as more ways to advertise for free. When you join Marketing Pond, you can promote all of them with just one link.

Although I've chosen Marketing Pond as my focus, I'm a member of two similar sites that I joined prior to signing up. Both are very good and some of the programs cross over. You can give your income a little boost by joining all three:

Free Money Team
Daily Niche Idea

Did I mention that all of these programs are free to join? Upgrades that allow you to make even more money and get discounts on advertising are optional and the fees are very reasonable. Upgrades are usually well worth it if you can afford them.

You could even print up some business cards with a catchy title such as "Make Money Online," which is one of the top keywords for internet searches, with a link to one or two of your programs to distribute locally.

Pyrabang is another site where you can post news stories, promote your music, blog, business or whatever. I'm really excited about this one because I'm still a free member and I'm earning! I plan to upgrade very soon: