Done the right way, Paid-to-Click and Paid-to-Read Email programs are the easiest and quickest way to make money from the Internet! Most people fail to succeed with these programs for a few simple and easily remedied reasons.

FACT: For every ONE legitimate PTC site you will find DOZENS of SCAMS

FACT: Beginning in PTC is slow and you will not make much money at first

FACT: In order to create a sizeable income through PTC you will need referrals

FACT: It Does Require some effort on your part to build a sustainable income level

If you are not already familiar with the concept of PTC and PTR; advertisers that use these sites pay viewers to look at their advertisements. With very few exceptions, your pay rate is a penny or less for a 15 to 30-second timed view. Depending on the site, you will either log in to view ads or you will receive emails with the link to the advertisement. Your unique identifier will credit your effort and add the earned amount to your account.

Where you begin to build a sizeable income is that you are also credited with a percentage of the amount paid for advertisements viewed by the people you have referred to the site in your "downline." This is usually 1/2 of the amount you make for your own clicks.

Getting Started Right

Finding a legitimate PTC site to join generally takes a bit of research. To the left is a list of tried and proven Honest and Legitimate PTC and PTR sites that I use myself. Not only will joining these sites through my referral links give you a head start on making money without the worry of being ripped-off, it will be greatly appreciated as you will then be a part of my sustainable business model that allows me to keep this website and its information free.

Once you have signed up for a few of these, send an email with the username and site you joined up with to my public account at village_po[at]yahoo.com and I will get back with you to see what extra help I can provide to get you working toward the success you deserve. No autoresponder message - it will be me personally even if it takes a day or so.

A note about signing up under a referral link: The system works that way. If you were to just take the site name and go there directly to sign up without using the referral link, you will still be put in a downline. These sites make extra money for themselves by renting these unreferred members out to other members. Since you will soon be working to find referrals yourself, do unto me as you will want yourself done unto - use the links - Thanks!

While some of these sites do still send checks, many of them use Online Payment Processors to pay you. You will need to sign up with one (or more) of these sites. I personally prefer PayPal. Started by eBay, PayPal is the safest and most trusted payment processor around. If you are not going to enter the field of Internet Marketing, a Personal Account is Free - You can sign up HERE!

Other popular payment processors include AlertPay and Neteller.

Where To Find Referrals

A critical step in building a sizeable and sustainable income is to find ways to refer others to the site. Once you have joined it and begun spending a few minutes a day clicking through the ads and earning your own money, you will want to investigate the various ways you can advertise your own referral link to convince others to sign up with the site. There are many Free methods of doing this. Traffic exchanges basically work where you view other people's websites and advertising pages for credits to be applied to show your website or advertising page.

There are also many "Safe List" programs you can join in order to email your referral message to other members of the Safe List. Joining Forums dedicated to the PTC and PTR niche also allow you to find out information about new programs and give you the opportunity to meet other PTC professionals for mutual support and downline building. So long as you don't spam, Social Networks like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter can be another source of contact to find new people to sign up in your downline. Remember to let them know how they can profit from the sites.

Getting the Word Out

It is just good business to make it as easy as possible for you to refer new members. To this end, each site will provide you with not only a personal referral link (url) but usually with advertising banners, suggested email and forum messages, and individual advertising pages (called squeeze pages) for you to use in promoting your own referral link.

The easiest way to spread the word is to just use the pre-made pages and banners the sites provide you. This can be a double-edged sword. It is true that people average the seventh viewing of an advertisement before they act upon it. By using the provided standard pages, you will have the advantage of the same ad being seen that other people are using to refer members for their downline. It can be a bit like using a shotgun; luck of the draw determines who's standard referral ad they finally click through to join up.

Custom squeeze pages always tend to convert better than the provided standard pages. The only difficulty here is that you have to make them yourself. RELAX - it is not That Difficult! Most of the Traffic Exchanges provide Free Squeeze Page makers on their sites. While it is a "cookie-cutter" style of creation, they have many options to help you make a page that is uniquely your own.

You can also use any of the Free Website or Blog companies to build and host your page(s) to advertise for referrals from. Blogspot, WordPress, AlFreeWebs, Bravenet and the like will give you a platform to work from without any out-of-pocket expense. The idea after all is to MAKE MONEY - NOT SPEND IT!

Avoiding the Scams

As previously stated, there are a LOT of PTC sites that are only in existence to scam people out of both advertising money and click-thru earnings. This is where the research comes in. Anytime you see an advertisement for a PTC site you are interested in, do an Internet Search using the keywords [sitename scam reviews] It shouldn't take long to see what is being said about it. Avoid the site itself, they will always say they are great. Also check to see if those praising the site (especially new ones) also include a referral link in their post. They may just be looking for downline members and hoping to collect before the site disappears.

There are a number of Forums and websites that specialize in providing information about these PTC sites. My usual first stop is at PTC Investigation to see if they have had time to review the site and to find out what they say about the sites already investigated. Doing a little footwork like this first will save you a lot of time, grief, and heartache further down the road.

Perserverence Pays Off in PTC

It will take some time to start building up enough downline members to start seeing more money coming in from them than you make from your own clicks. However, it will happen so long as you keep spending the time to spread the word and convincing people to sign up with you. While individual results vary depending on many factors, most notably the effort put into the system, it is not uncommon to see people making hundreds of dollars a month from PTC sites once they get a decent downline built.

Really, only a couple of hours a day can be sufficient. You will want to spend the time to do your own clicks. A few sites require you to stay active to be credited with your referrals' clicks. Once you are in a bunch of these programs it may take you as much as a hour's worth of your time throughout the day.

You will also want to dedicate about an hour a day to your own advertising efforts by using the free Traffic Exchanges and Safe Lists. Still, for a couple of hours a day, it will pay a lot better than if you just spent them watching TV or playing video games. After all, once you get this built up to a sustainable level, you will still have 22 more hours in the day to do with as you wish.