Make Easy Money Online – The Siren Call Of Internet Marketing

“Make Easy Money Online!” “3 Easy Steps To Internet Riches!” “The Secret Money Making System That Google Doesn’t Want You To Know About!”

In Greek mythology the seductive song of the Sirens lured sailors to their doom. Orpheus played his lyre so loud that it drown out the sound and his ship passed on safely. Odysseys had his men stuff their ears with wax to avoid the sound and had them tie him to the mast of the ship so that he could hear their song and resist temptation.

Wading through the world of Internet marketing you sometimes need the strength and cunning of these mythic Greeks to avoid being seduced by the promises of instant wealth.

Yesterday I received an email for a website that promised to show me first hand a money-making site being built and promoted. (they also promised I could make a bunch of money by trying to convince you to watch the videos as well.) A series of videos promised to show me everything step-by step from the keyword research, to building the site, promoting the site, tracking the traffic and profits, and then refining the site for improved performance.

How could I resist such a promise? I look at the stats from my own sites and the slow trickle of income from ads and affiliate sales, and I want to find a new trick that will unlock the secrets of wealth – I watched the videos until 3am.

The system appeared to work. The author collected a series of free articles for content and then used an automated tool to wrap keyword rich material around it and plug in Google ads and affiliate ads. He used social bookmarking sites to bookmark the pages in his own site, and then used another automated system to generate a blog that would automatically add new keyword loaded content every day, ping the blog directories, and link to pages in his main site. Within 72 hours he was getting traffic from the bookmarking sites, Google, Yahoo!, and other search engines. He also made more ad money than I did all last month.

It was all so easy. He didn’t have to write a single piece of content – just plug in the keywords and a handful of free articles and push a button. Out popped hundreds of website pages targeting his list of keywords. I was tempted to buy the software tools immediately and sign-up for membership to his website. I knew I could have a site up within 24 hours and be making easy money online! But I started getting a sinking feeling in my gut. Something wasn’t right.

There is only one way to generate thousands of keyword targeted web pages from a handful of articles – it’s called content spam. Even though this website wasn’t full of keyword gibberish or content scraped from other sites using sleazy tools, it wasn’t adding any value to the web. It was just re-directing traffic and grabbing a little toll money along the way. There wasn’t much trickery involved (no bait and switch content, no site cloaking gimmicks) just another duplicate site that lured visitors in without giving them what they hoped for.

I want to find ways to make money online and build my own business. I don’t believe that you have to suffer for every penny to be a legitimate business person and make an honest living. But, I want to add value along the way. I want to point to the work that I’ve done and be proud of it. This type of ‘business’ just doesn’t feel right.

I’m trying to keep myself lashed to the mast so I don’t fall victim to the siren call of ‘Making Easy Money Online.’ But a part of me still argues that it won’t hurt anything just to give it a try. Nothing but my reputation, that is. Still, I’m straining against the ropes.

Thank goodness I’ve got a good day job. Otherwise the temptation might be to great and I wouldn’t take the time to learn a better way.

The Go-To Guy!

P.S. Don’t give me the last word on this subject – leave a comment and let us know what you think!