I’d like to set some time aside today to talk about one of my latest projects that is currently in final testing: Pirate Cash! This is going to be a new competitor in the “Get Paid To (GPT)” industry, which has had a long history of many boom-and-bust companies. However, I feel that my unique position as a former watchdog of the businesses in this niche gives PirateCash.com all the advantages in the world.

But Why GPT?

There are many reasons why I have chosen this niche to start a new project, but at the very core I would say that the reason is purely passion. When I was growing up, I remember that I wanted nothing more than to score $10-20 for free online… I had a lot of time on my hands and wasn’t eligible to get a job anywhere. Nowadays, many demographics… from teenagers, to work at home moms, to the unemployed looking to re-enter the workforce… are heavily active in this industry. The role of a “get paid to” website is literally to provide a means of profit for people that have a bit of spare time on their hands, and it really works out quite well. Read the rest of this entry »

Ever wanted to start your own Get Paid To (GPT) business on the internet? Completing offers and surveys for money online has been a thriving industry in 2009, as more people have begun to look for reliable sources of alternative income in recessionary times.

In part one, we talked about how you should come up with your concept and lay the groundwork by signing up with affiliate networks and filing licensing agreements. Now, we will talk a bit more about setting up the actual system, and how you can eventually get your website designed and marketed professionally to have long term success. Let’s get started!

What You’ll Need

In order to successfully make your corporate vision a reality, you will need to do a few things. First, we need to find a compelling script to run our website. There are many pre-made software platforms online already that can get you started with your own GPT website, so picking the right one is especially important. I wouldn’t recommend that anyone go out and hire a coder for a custom-built platform until you start pulling in at least $1,000 in net profit every month. Second, we have the issue of design. It is very important that your website is not only functional, but easy on the eyes, so make sure you hire a reliable designer from the get go if you can. Finally, we will need to market our business once it is online, so I will discuss some of those tactics as well.

Our steps to success:
1. Choosing a Platform
2. Designing the Website
3. Growing Your Member Base

1. Choosing the Right GPT Platform

There are many so-called “incentive” or “GPT” scripts floating around on the internet. The most popular is without a doubt a service called “ShiftCode.” I highly advise against using this platform, as it is one of the worst. On top of lacking the customization ability, ShiftCode is easily sniffed out as “amateur” and many people will be immediatly turned off from using your website. If you are looking for the easiest path, go ahead and order up… but I would only hope that you aren’t looking for the easiest option, but the best option.

Instead, I would highly recommend that you go ahead and purchase a professional system for $100-$500. If you are serious about owning your own company, this will be pennies to you in a few months time. I have tried and tested many of these, and I believe that these top three options are truthfully your best options:

1. FSRevolution (Editor’s Choice! - USE COUPON “THENETFOOL”)
2. Cash Crusader
3. Aurora GPT Script

I actually own and currently use FSRevolution, and it is definitely superior to it’s peers. First off, I wouldn’t recommend that you use anything other than these “top three” as most systems nowadays are broken down with no more support available. FSRevolution actually has people posting on a daily basis in the forums, and they are actively signing into new partnerships so you can have offers available for you to promote to your users faster than ever.

2. Designing the Website

Going along with the first part of this series, I believe that if you don’t have a great design in place, than you simply won’t be getting the kind of traffic that you deserve (and crave). The bottom line here is that visitors don’t trust websites that look like they were built overnight, so you should spend an extraordinary amount of time shoring up your website and making everything look as good as possible.

Color scheming is very important with any GPT website, and I have seen some pretty bad combinations (none of which have ever succeeded as websites). In addition, it is essential to use the most lively graphics and high-tech logo/identity options that are available. I, myself, am in no way a graphic design professional. Therefore, I typically contract out all of my work. There are many websites where you can go to hire freelance designers, and they honestly do great work. I have worked most with, and would conversely recommend, either oDesk.com or GetAFreelancer.com. With both combinations, you get a way to interview your candidates beforehand to see who is really the best man (or woman) for the job. I’ve had some great work done very inexpensively here, and will actually be displaying a design I had made in an undisclosed project I have been working on shortly.

Don’t be hesitant to pour in $200-$400 for an initial design. You can always upgrade, but I find that sticking in a lower range keeps things reasonable on your books… allowing you to get “net positive” on your investment sooner rather than later.

3. Growing Your Member Base

Now that you have the software in place, along with a killer design, it is time to pick apart the daunting task of marketing. Honestly, because the industry has so many “crash and burn” websites around, it is very difficult to have much success in posting randomly throughout the internet like you could potentially do in another niche. Instead, I recommend the following:

Jimvesting’s Cookbook for GPT Site Traffic:

1. Join other GPT websites and participate
2. Focus on Google search engine keywords
3. Start up a contest, and advertise it around!

If you are starting up your own website, the first thing that you will want to do is actually to join your competitor’s websites. Why would this make sense? Well, by becoming a member of other websites, you can use this to turn their users against themselves and steal them away! I would join up any GPT website that has a forum, and slide a link to your own website in your forum signature. Start forum marketing from within your competitors’ businesses, and you can get a great user base coming in for lasting success. After all, if they are active on another website, they will make you more money than the average user.

Your second option, and perhaps a trickier option, is to get focused on Google keywords. If you can hit on the top of Google search results for things like “complete surveys for prizes” (just a random example), you could start to rake in new users that don’t know the big sites from the small. Because of this, I feel that it is imperative that you start to open up a Google SEO campaign to get your website on the top of the charts as soon as you can. I don’t want to get into marketing too much here, since this post is not about that, but you can check out more information in one of my old articles on Google SEO.

Finally, you should be offering some incentive to switch, and I would recommend a contest. Many of the people who you will be recruiting are going to be members of other GPT websites. Because of this, you need to prove yourselves to everyone that you are truly the best in the business… you are the company that they want to trust to pay them time and time again. In order to encourage users to sign up to your gpt website and use your services, you should start by giving away lots of prizes and gift cards (on top of the money that members are already earning) to boost your stats. Why not offer them extremely high payouts for a time? It will hurt your margins, but it will really drive your growth.

Bottom Line: I hope that you enjoyed this two part series on making your own GPT website. Hopefully, you have all learned a lot about making your own GPT company, which is something that I have actually done myself and have been mildly successful in. Once everything is up and running, you really start going when you gain entry into new affiliate networks, and more and more users start to come in. Eventually, it will be a momentum story and you will start to make money with little to no work!

-Jimvesting

Heading into the end of the year, we have a lot of great GPT websites all claiming that they were “the best.” Highest payouts, best bonus programs, fastest checks and best customer service… we’ve heard it all. But the bottom line is: some paid their members, some crashed and burned. From a guy that has been around the GPT arena to study and has actually USED almost every “get paid to” program on the internet, it’s time to nail down the best for 2009.

With that, Jimvesting dot com proudly presents our 2009 “Get Paid To” (GPT) Power Rankings. We’ve ranked the top ten GPT websites by six categories that we feel properly demonstrate the best qualities that you should be looking for in every program that you use. All of the following are trusted paying GPT websites with a solid track record… because there is nothing worse than getting burned by a GPT and wasting your time (and money). Lesson learned, if you are looking to make money by taking surveys and more… stick with the best programs on the net.

Official 2009 GPT Website Power Rankings

* Referral program includes a cash bonus for each referral — Graded on a 5.0 scale

After a few weeks of research and industry analysis, the 2009 GPT Power Rankings are based on personal experience, observations, community data, user opinion and hard facts. Get Paid To websites can be the biggest scams on the internet, or your best friend. All of the top ten are programs that I feel are best geared for 2009 and will end up paying you the most bang for your buck without risking a loss. We want as much upside as possible while limiting downside loss. Let’s have a closer look:

• Payout: This is a measure of the relative amount paid per offer. Since all GPT websites are paying you a percentage of their income for every survey you complete… the higher the percentage they offer, the higher their rank.
• Bonus: Most GPT programs nowadays provide extensive incentive programs to encourage user activity. The websites with the best bonus programs are oftentimes the most worth your time.
• Offers: Since making money with a “get paid to” program is largely a function of the number of available offers, I have analyzed which companies provide the most opportunities and ranked them accordingly.
• Referrals: As an affiliate, I sometimes make money by referring new users to GPT websites… and so can you! The companies with the highest paying referral programs will, ultimately, make you more money if you tell your friends about a particular site.
• Ease of Use: Some sites just look ugly, and turn you off of working with them. Others are hard to navigate. We ran a survey to figure out which sites were the best in terms of accessibility and understanding and ranked them here.
• Trust: Reliability is the single most important factor used in this ranking system. Why? What good is a site that never sends you your check! The trust ranking is based on industry standing, traffic rating and likelihood that you will get paid in the long run.

Top “Get Paid To” Programs Analysis

Emerging as the top two programs on the internet, Cash Crate and Treasure Trooper have been stand-out leaders for the past two years. Now that things have consolidated in the industry, Cash Crate has emerged as the best GPT website on the internet because of their simplicity, consistency and high bonuses. Treasure Trooper is the next-best GPT website with a great “treasure hunt” contest and a user community that provides decent bonuses… though not near the level of Cash Crate.

Among the new contenders, I have been very impressed with the level of support and high payouts from Deal Barbie Pays, Gangster Greed and Squishy Cash. Deal Barbie and Squishy Cash have very similar models based off Shiftcode (which I don’t particularly like)… with Deal Barbie providing some amazing offers and bonuses to get the #3 slot on our ranking list. Gangster Greed has some of the best bonuses in their forum that  Ihave seen out of a mid-sized company, so they are worth a look if you are looking for the highest payments in our list and can stomach a bit more risk from a lower “trust” level.

About GPT Programs and the 2009 Rankings

So-called “get paid to” (gpt) programs are still reliable programs that can make money on the internet. If you are looking for a secondary income and have a bit of free time (without the skills to do formal “freelancing” work online)… try some of these programs and see how much money you can make!

The 2009 rankings have been compiled as a case study here at Jimvesting dot com, and is the intellectual property of JRR Enterprises LLC. If you would like to re-post this list, please contact me for more information.

-Jimvesting

Bad news for the get-paid-to (GPT) community earlier this morning as one of the top names in the industry, SWATcash, filed for bankruptcy. SWATcash was one of my biggest money makers here at theNetFool.com, so it is going to hurt seeing them out of the picture. However, I have thoroughly analyzed the problem and have talked to a few of the employees in upper-management at SWATcash… and as it turns out it was simply poor business planning that got the best of them.

The Story of SWATcash

SWATcash was formed in 2006 by a couple of average joes pictured below. I was always on good terms with the members, namely “SWAT AP” and “SWAT Brian” (the owner), and they definitely had all the competitors beat on customer service hands down. It’s kind of funny how fates reversed here, as they seemed to be on top of the world giving out an Xbox a day… until it all blew up in their faces. Clearly, the recession has made an impact on far reaches of the markets, even where many people thought they were safe.

The problem? Amusingly enough, it was exactly the same problem that caused the economic crash… risk management. Just like the greedy investors that bought, packaged and sold junk-status investments, pretending that everything was rosy, and individuals that took out huge loans (that were backed on literally nothing), they had it coming. What SWATcash was doing was trying to grow too fast… in effect, they were a victim of their own success. Rather than keeping a nice reserve of cash into the future like other companies did, they forced money outbound to fuel growth with extravagant contests and high payouts.

Owner’s Confession: Risk Management Problems

This was great while it lasted, but on the morning of December 1st… thousands of users were blind-sighted as Brian, the owner, revealed:

“Due to all of the recent events I am sad to say that SWATcash will be shutting down effective December 1st, 2008. We will strive to do all we can to get payments out in a timely manner. Unfortunately if all goes well we will only be able to pay out Offer Earnings, Referral Commission, Shopping Earnings, and Click Earnings. With shutting down we have to end our contracts with the company that runs our servers which is really putting the strain on the company’s wallet and possibly charging us more than we will have coming in, in which case we will have to file for bankruptcy. We hope that they will be glad to work with us and get that number down so we can payout all of the members who have made payout through December 1st.

We know this sucks, you don’t have to tell me twice. We are still waiting on checks that are now almost 2 months late to us. I have been told recently that a check was over-nighted Wednesday only to find out today that it still hasn’t even been sent. That is just how it has been going lately for us. We are doing everything in our power to get what is owed to us so we can get what is owed to you. We realize that this is a terrible time for this to happen as Christmas is just around the corner, but believe me that this is hurting us just as much as it is hurting you. A lot of you may think that we have a mound of money in the company that we are sitting on but the truth of the matter is, is that it’s just not true. With paying to keep the site up, paying our employees the money is going down just as fast as it is coming in because every lead is being scrutinized more closely than ever and it is taking a longer time for payments to be processed. Now days all a advertiser has to do is say “I think we have some fraud here” whether it be one lead or 100 and your full payment is held till it is figured out which can take months.

Like I’ve answered before, “Why don’t you have an emergency fund?”, we did but it got taken out when we paid out in August and we later received word of fraud from the month of July and August. That’s just how it goes in this industry and for a long time we took small hits here and there but never one this big. We always put the members first throughout this whole 2 year run that the company has been around and don’t intend on changing now.

We really appreciated working with all of the truthful members that stuck around on the site and forums from the very beginning. Without you guys we would have never made it anywhere. The forums were always active and fun to be around and it truly made my job a little bit easier with all the helpful members answering questions when a mod or admin wasn’t around to answer them. I want to thank all the mods for doing a great job around here keeping the forums clean and informative. I’d love to thank Jeremy and Will for doing an excellent job keep the site new with cool features and making the site as unique as it was. Thanks to Soylagringaloca who did a great job handling support and making sure it was done in a timely manner and keeping it as upbeat as possible. And also thanks to SWATAP for providing us with pictures for visual representation of topics and posts. He kept the forums lively and bursting with activity. I hope I didn’t miss anyone but thanks to everyone involved with SWATcash it was like one giant family even though sometimes it got a bit out of hand.

The site will go down sometime tonight or tomorrow morning. I apologize for how everything went down and how this ended up, but I give you my word that we will try to payout members what they deserve and rightfully earned.”
- SWAT Brian (Former Owner, SWATcash.com)

So what happened here? They were blind sighted by a rush of fraud within their major affiliate suppliers (the guys that pay SWATcash) and are now unable to pay out anything to their users. After having missed payment for two months, they have now officially filed for bankruptcy… and will more than likely not be paying their members. Since the consumers are always the bottom rung of the bankruptcy-payout, I’m a giving “reimbursement” a 15% possibility.

Jimvesting’s Take on the Crash

Okay, so this obviously begs the question… Jim, why are you recommending a GPT website that is going to crash and not pay me. First, I want you to realize that SWATcash was a great company. The guys that worked there were top-notch, and their promo offers and high payouts gave you a high high margin. Assuming that you have used SWATcash for even a few months, you would know that you get 3x the payout on 1/2 the work with this website. I made about $2500 with SWATcash.com, whereas I would have made less than $750 equivalent with any other alternative.

“SWATcash was, in effect, a victim of its own success”

Is it over for the GPT industry? Heck no. This is a business that actually IS recession proofed (in a sense)… and the only mistake here was an over-confident investment approach by management. I know that competitor Treasure Trooper has a 3-month repository account that it doesn’t tap into unless there is an emergency. Cash Crate has a similar deal going on within their system. Neither Treasure Trooper nor Cash Crate has much of a liquidity problem as they don’t offer as many crazy prizes as SWATcash did. I’d still judge the whole arena safe as a whole.

Where Do I Go Now!?

The get-paid-to (GPT) industry as a whole is a great way to make money on your own to get a secondary income if you have some spare time after work. These sites present great opportunities to users who can casually pick up cash, and I have a new recommended base of websites that I will be evaluating over the next few days. I don’t want to declare a new recommendation lineup so soon, but it will be different. Rest assured, you can stay in GPT to make money for the holidays.

Hopefully, this crash won’t send major shock waves through the online space. They had a great loyal following, and were very much tied down to social media… creating almost a “cult” of users. Because they took so little profit, they gave so many people lots of money… very generous guys. If you were a member of SWATcash.com, I invite you to express your thoughts in the comment space here. So stick around, because I want to get everyone effected back on their feet and into the next-best-thing on the net!

- Jimvesting

I’ve had tons of people come to me and ask simply “how can I make money online?” A simple question at first, there are literally hundreds of answers. Most typically, I will first suggest to them that using a get paid to (GPT) website might be the best option.

First things first, anyone telling you that GPTs are a waste of time is on a high horse and doesn’t understand that not everyone has a network of friends to leverage, the know-how to start an ad campaign or the time to create their own blog. Using an incentivized GPT website allows you to have a reliable secondary income stream. You can make money when you want, and be paid for the time you put into it. I’m here today to show you the best way to maximize your gains and minimize the time that you spend working!

What is a Get-Paid-To (GPT) Program?
Much like a lot of internet marketers go out and start up ad campaigns, some websites compile systems where you can simply complete the ads yourself and get paid! The basic idea here is as follows: advertisers pay for leads and trial product members; the money goes to the GPT website gets divided up and kicked back to the member who completed the offer. Understandably, “good” GPTs pay out most of the money that advertisers give them… bad ones horde all the cash for themselves. At any rate, you are getting paid and making money with your spare time.

But Why Not Just Do It Yourself?
Let’s not get carried away here, completing offers yourself using your own affiliate network program is fraud. Don’t do it! GPT websites run off the basis that some advertisers allow “incentivized” offers. In other words, they allow you to pay other people to complete them. A lot of advertisers really only want people to get leads or to sign up for trial offers, and will pay based on that alone.

What’s great about having a GPT website is that you get all the customer support you can handle, and you get your own member area where you can track how much you’ve earned, what offers are completed, what offers are still pending, your bonus earnings and more! They make it very easy, and typically offer creative bonuses along with the offers they pay you for. Many utilize a credit-based system, so that the more offers you complete, the more points you have to cash in for free prizes and the like. Best of all… you don’t need to mess around with any affiliate networks, they provide all the latest offers and incentives for you!

Jimvesting’s Top Five GPT Websites That PAY!
Truth be told, there are a good number of scams out there. Meaning GPT websites that won’t pay you, GPT websites that pay half their members or simply websites that take 90% of the profits. You can check out my Approved GPT list for those websites that won’t rip you off… and here are my top five in order:

1. Swat Cash
2. Cash Crate
3. Treasure Trooper
4. Fusion Cash
5. This Site Is For Real

You shouldn’t be using a website that isn’t approved here first, it simply isn’t worth wasting your time as I am already aware of nearly all legitimate GPT programs. I recommend sticking with the top three because of their extensive bonus programs which are actually a lot of fun!

How Much Money Can You Actually Make?
Many people scoff at get-paid-to services, claiming that the money isn’t worth the time. I beg to differ. If you are doing things correctly, the cash flow can be outstanding! Just a quick example, my next check from SWATcash is going to come in just under $1,900 for the month… yes one month, and I’ll have the check to prove it. This isn’t typical; however, it is more than possible to achieve earnings in excess of $10/hour on a consistent basis (will be more at first)… which is a nice secondary salary to compliment your overall household income.

Three Steps to Maximize Your GPT Efforts
There are certain ways to go about the offer completing profit that can really boost your earnings and cut down on dead time. The following are some neat tricks and tips that you should follow when you sign up to your go-to GPT websites before you start.

1. Register Multiple Email Addresses
Lots of offers that you will be completing work off of the basis of emails to store data on who has and hasn’t completed an offer. Therefore, you can use multiple email addresses both to protect yourself from spam advertisements and to ensure that more offers that you complete give you the credit you deserve!

2. Buy a PrePaid Debit Card
There’s no secret about it, you can literally be making upwards of $20/hour with relative ease if you are completing offers with credit cards required. Typically, these are trial offers… so you just need to cancel your subscription before the trial period expires and you will make a bundle. Buy a prepaid Visa from Simon.com or another provider, and you will limit your downside and eliminate the potential credit rating hit. Basically, these trial offers operate on the presumption that most people forget to cancel their membership, and they charge you an excessive amount if this happens to you. So make sure that you cancel after the offer credits to your account, and you’ll be making 2-3 times more than your would be if you did only free offers.

3. Don’t Overkill It!
Lots of people that are new to the GPT industry log into their accounts and start completing the 100% free $0.50 or $1.00 offers like clockwork. This will work for the first few days, but will eventually get your IP address and mailing information blacklisted from servers.. which means you’ll have a harder time getting offers to credit. Instead, you should complete just 2-3 offers per research company per day.

If you have done a few offers, you’ll soon notice that a lot of them are run through the same company (like “myrewards.com” or “offercentral.com”). These guys aren’t fools, and they’ll pick up on your attempts if you are completing 10 offers at a time through their website. So play nice, and hop around from network to network to keep your offers approving.

Bottom Line: By applying for and completing offers on a GPT website, you really can make money online. This is really becoming the “everyday man’s” technique at making an extra buck on the internet. While it’s definitely not the most profitable, it’s something that everyone can do with confidence to make a nice additional income. So if you are looking to purchase some extra web hosting, a shiny new watch or even pay off some debt, a  well paying get-paid-to program might just be what you are looking for!

-Jimvesting