How to Get Referrals, the Key to Earning Money Online

As prices for just about everything continued to rise I decided it was time for me to look for some new ways to earn some extra money. I wasn't interested in finding a new career; I simply wanted to earn a little extra money each month to help with all the rising costs. I also didn't want to be away from the house any more than I already was. Like many other people I decided to look for some ways to make some money on the Internet. I actually did quite a bit of research and explored numerous ways of earning on-line. I tried survey sites, paid to click sites (PTC), review writing sites, paid to post sites, and social networks. Basically any program which was free I was willing to try. The one most important lesson I learned was that to have any real success with any of these earning sites a person needs to have referrals, and the more the better.

Referrals are people who join sites or programs under you and because you referred them to the site you earn a small percentage off of whatever they earn. Some sites give you a one time bonus for getting others to join and some sites let you earn up to 10% of whatever your referral is earning. There are can be catches involved such as your referral must spend money or sign up for extra programs before you can actually benefit so knowing the specifics from any one site are important as well. I really didn't appreciate the difficulty in finding referrals until I actually began trying to get some myself. Of course I suspected that certain people would be skeptical of joining any site that promised to pay them; I just didn't realize so many people would be so skeptical and sometimes even rude when the topic was even mentioned. However, I continued to look for ways to find referrals, and much like the earning sites I was open to trying anything I could. These are the various ways I have found to actually get referrals for my programs.

The first way to get referrals is the most obvious, ask people you know. It might be a friend, a coworker, or even a family member but generally you know these people well enough to know which ones you can discuss these sites with and which ones would be totally opposed to the idea. Personally I don't want to ask a lot of family or friends to sign up for programs under me. For the most part they do it just because you ask them to but usually they are not very active. I don't like feeling frustrated that my referrals aren't doing enough and I don't want this to be a topic that interferes with our relationships. From there point of view, I would understand how they could get angry from doing a lot of clicking or what not and really not seeing any results. Also, if you give them a bad site that turns into a scam or is anything other than what you promised then they are going to blame you. So for me, while this is the easiest place to look for referrals it isn't one I use very often.

The second method of getting referrals that I have used with mixed success is doing a referral trade. Many people do various types of on-line earning and they are always looking for referrals. Trading sites or signing up under each other can work. One problem with this is staying active. If you join under someone they will want you to be active or they most likely won't be active for you. That sounds fair, but if people are signed up for 20 different programs yours may not be on the top of their priority list. A second problem is that most of the really good sites and programs are already being used by most people who are willing to do referral trades. This leaves you with joining new programs and again ads to the lists of things you have to do. However, there really isn't much to lose with referral trades except if you don't keep up your end of the deal you can't expect others to help you much either.

A third method for finding referrals is by advertising your sites, links, and programs. There are many ways to advertise for free but actually getting anyone to sign up under you through this method is really just a matter of luck. Places to advertise for free include putting links in your signatures, posting on discussion boards, putting links on your various profile pages, and even using the forums available on the sites you are using to make extra money. All of these are free and require very little effort but again there are no guarantees of success. You might even want to consider putting up flyers or something along those lines in high traffic areas like malls or colleges. Often times there are boards available for just this sort of posting opportunity. This may or may not bring you any referrals but it is generally free and another way for you to try and build your downline.

This brings us to a different way to get referrals, purchasing them. I find it sort of ironic to be spending money to make money on sites that say a person can earn for free. However, many people choose to purchase or even rent referrals for their various programs. The problem with this is that there aren't any promises that the referrals you rent or buy will be active. If only a few of them are active it can end up costing you money. Then again, if you get ten active members it can easily make up your investment and then some. Most of these earning money sites also offer a person the option to upgrade his or her account. This also costs money. Some programs do it monthly and some do it yearly. This is not an option you should consider unless you are in it for the long term as it can often take many months to earn back your investment. With the upgrade generally comes the ability to earn more by doing the same things you were doing as a free member and also many of these sites will reward you with "free" referrals for upgrading. Again, if you get the right referrals under you this can make your earnings add up much more quickly, but there are no sure things.

Finally, the last method that I have found and have had some success with is a traffic exchange. A traffic exchange is a hybrid of the free and paid method of getting referrals. A person can pay these sites to advertise his or her links, sites and/or programs. The cost for advertising on these sites is generally very cheap and with these sites comes the guarantees that your pages will be viewed. There is no promise anyone will join your program but if you have pages that are earning based on page views at least you are assured to get visitors. A person can also earn free page, banner, and sites views to his or her pages by viewing other pages. Every time you surf other people's advertisements you earn credits. These credits are then used to show off your own pages. The only real downside to these programs is that most of the people using them are doing so for the same reason you are, to gain referrals. They typically aren't looking for new sites to join rather they are just surfing to earn credits of their own to advertise their sites. However, sometimes people do use your links to join, you are gaining free page views guaranteed, and you might even find some interesting programs to use for yourself.

I have personally tried many different ways of earning online as well as many ways of getting referrals. I have had mixed success with both. For earning it is best to find a few really good sites and maximize your efforts on those. If you join too many it can get frustrating and you can end up spending way too much time on the computer. Finding referrals however requires you to use as many different methods as possible since these are the real key to making money on these free money making sites. There will be times when you seem to have no luck at all and there will be times when you are pleasantly surprised, but you need to stick with it because you can never know when or from where a referral may come. The last suggestion I have is to not plan on getting rich quickly using any of these free money making sites. If you think you will then you will only get angry and end up wasting your time. Building a strong referral base to start making some real free money takes time and you should always do plenty of research about the sites you are interested in before you sign up and especially before you decide to spend any money on them.