As you and I both know, the Internet abounds with sites that promise huge cash rewards for doing “data entry” from home. Some even go so far as to suggest that you can earn a full time wage for less than 30 minutes work a day.

The owners of these sites all offer to reveal the secret to their limitless wealth – provided you pay them a nominal fee of around R400. They claim to make six-figure incomes sitting at home, in front of the computer, performing what they may term “data entry”, “typing at home”, “data processing” or “home typing”.

The sceptic that I am, I set about investigating. It all sounded so good, I felt compelled to ask – if this is true, why isn’t everybody doing it?

Some of the smarter marketers address this question head on in their marketing letters. The answer, they maintain, is that only a select few have the courage to quit their “JOB.” and take up this amazing opportunity. So, I probed a little further and this is what I found.

All of these web-based “get rich quick” schemes, work according to a set formula. They offer you similar information, similar stories, similar promises and almost identical marketing letters. And you can be rest assured that every one of them is offering exaggerated and unrealistic rewards for the mundane tasks they claim you’ll perform.

So, what is it about?

Don't fall for this scam!

In fact, these sites have little or nothing to do with data entry and everything to do with affiliate marketing using Google’s AdWords programme. When these sites say “typing” they mean that you’ll create (and pay for) the Google AdWord adverts that appear whenever someone performs a keyword search on Google. The appearance of ads is linked to keywords matching those written into the ad. The “companies” you’ll work for are, in fact, people who list digital products for sale on the Clickbank website, www.clickbank.com.

The way it works is that you write and pay for advertisements via Google AdWords and direct people who respond to your ad, via your affiliate link, to products in the Clickbank marketplace. The aim is to sell products (primarily e-books and software) to people who search for related topics. How does it work? First, you have to select a product, in the Clickbank marketplace, which covers topics you believe people would pay money to learn about.

You’re paid a commission by the product owners for each sale you make. Commissions range from 50% to 70% of the purchase price. Next, you set up an advertising campaign in Google AdWords. The key here is to pick and pay for the correct keywords which will trigger the appearance of your advert. Whenever someone searches for your chosen keywords on Google, your advert will appear.

If anyone clicks on your advert, you’re charged per click, but if they buy the product, you get paid 50% of the purchase price. The money is credited into your Clickbank account. In an ideal scenario, each click costs you 75c, but commission on a sale is R300. Even if only 1% of your clicks led to a sale, you would still make a profit. One hundred clicks would only cost you R75, but you make R300 per sale, therefore you would earn R225 profit. Sounds great… but…

You’re led to believe that you’ll write adverts for different companies, who will not prescribe to you how to word the ads, will never reject your copy and will always pay you. They make claims such as: “For writing just a few ads like the one above and submitting it to the companies I get paid R200-R400.” Of course, this is utter nonsense.

You’ll not submit ads to different companies. You’ll submit them to Google. What’s more, no one will pay you R200-R400 for writing a handful of adverts! You’re expected to make your earnings from the commission you earn from successful clicks on your ad – IF you sell anything. If you don’t make any sales, you don’t get paid! No sales means no commission.

That’s the harsh reality of it, but worse still is the fact that, even if you make no sales, you still pay per click on your advert. Popular Google adwords are quite expensive per click so, you could end up with a huge bill for advertising and no sales.

Don’t be fooled – there is NO guarantee that you’ll ever make any money. This is not a simple “data entry” opportunity. It involves a complicated and costly way of advertising which, to be profitable, requires a huge amount of tracking and testing – not to mention in-depth knowledge of affiliate marketing. In fact, you may end up losing a lot of money through this scam!

If you want to make real money with a legitimate business opportunities then you have come to the right place. We have archives full of 100's of part time and full time business opportunities to make you at least R180 000 richer by this time next year.