How to make money using forums

One of the more popular social web forums online which pays its users to participate in discussions, myLOT has certainly grown rapidly since its humble beginnings in the earlier part of 2006. With over 46,000 users, it’s become a mecca of some sort for users looking to make some extra income online.
Several readers have written in to Dosh Dosh asking for an article on how to maximize myLOT earnings.
This list came about as a result of some research and experiments over a period of a week and I do hope that it helps anyone who’s crazy about myLOT as a option for making some income online. Personally, I’m rather fascinated with how so many people are, shall we say, addicted to myLOT’s earning program.

Getting Referrals: Put your earnings on Autopilot

One of the best ways to make money with myLOT is through it’s referral system, which pays you 25% of earnings for each person you refer to the community. Having a great number of
hardworking referrals definitely automates your earnings without having to spend lots of time online. Referrals are basically like Adsense, you don’t have to do much except monitor your earnings occasionally. The million dollar question: How does one get many active referrals for myLot?

Here are some suggestions:

1. Set up a blog or webpage to advertise the benefit of MyLOT. Promote this blog or webpage by giving the link to friends and families. Also try link exchanging with relevant blogs or websites.

2. Participate in many forums. Always do a topic search for ‘myLOT‘ and read the forum rules regarding advertising and referral links. Nobody wants to constantly read about myLOT over and over again, so take note of that. This will help you to avoid spamming, reposting and getting banned.

3. Send an email to everyone on your Inbox. Keep it polite, simple and short. A pretty traditional method but you’ll be pleasantly surprised to learn how many referrals you canget this way.

4. Leave comments and your link on blogs with a relevant topic/subject/niche. This is a tricky task because you don’t want to come across as a nasty referral link spammer. Make sure the blog post you are leaving a comment on is within the “make money online” niche or specifically relates to myLOT. Do not just leave your link without sincerely commenting on the specific blog post itself. The easiest way to find such blogs would be to do a search about such topics on Blogger, Wordpress.com and Technorati.

5. Advertise. Do it the good old affiliate marketing way. As stated earlier, set up a sell page with information on MYLOT. Create a very attractive banner or button. Spend some money buying prominent ad space on high traffic blogs or websites. If you’re a hardcore myLOT
fanatic, you can even try using Google’s AdWords as an promotional campaign.

6. Stick up posters or one page ads on free bulletin boards or street corners. You could either put down your referral link or just list an email if you want to personally explain the process to
anyone who’s interested in signing up. A tad aggressive and time-consuming but if you’re mad about myLOT, it’ll help.

7. Put up a silly video about myLOT on Youtube or any other social video website. This might sound a little ridiculous but it’s all in good fun and never fails to get loads of attention. Remember to include a webpage which promotes your myLOT referral link.

Discussion Hacks: Maximize your earnings.

Because myLOT does not reveal it’s earnings algorithm or rates, many users have tried to experiment with several techniques to increase their earnings. Here are some of the tried-and-tested methods that do work to noticeably increase daily earnings.

8. Set a target to hit and resolve to complete it within the day. For example, you might decide to start at least 10 discussions and/or write at least 50 responses to questions every day.

9. Divide your work. Work at answering questions before beginning to start discussions. I usually feel that this helps to speed up your rate while keeping you focused.

10. Start open-ended discussions. Don’t ask questions that can lead to a yes/no answer. This increases the overall quality of your discussions.

11. Reply to everyone that responds to your discussion topics. This has the benefit of prolonging the discussion and increases your earnings.

12. Rate each reply to your questions by actively using the + and - buttons at the bottom of every reply.

13. Use a lot of tags for every question or reply. If you always ask questions in a specific area, write down the tags in a notepad so you can copy and paste it immediately after posting replies or discussion topics. Tags definitely increase your earnings while ensuring that your discussion is more widely read.

14. Post interesting pictures to discussions as well as the interests section. You’ll get paid for images too so it’s good to put some effort in that.

15. Don’t only post in one topic, try spending more time on a wide variety of topics. Some users have claimed that posting consistently in one topic reduces the rate of earnings.

16. Maintain high quality posts. The strength of your post partially depends on the + and - rating next to it. Encourage your readers to rate your discussions well.

17. Work with other MyLot fans. Start a group of determined posters and work with them by mutual responding to each other’s discussions.

18. Complete the ‘My Interests’ section and start a discussion by clicking on one of the interest categories. This possibly leads to increased earnings and also greater profile
views/interaction.

19. Rotate posting duties. Get someone to post on your behalf using the same account. Stick with a brother/sister or friend who you can trust. Take turns posting at different hours of the day and of course, try to share the profits!

20. Link off your blog. If you run a blog, lead your readers to myLOT discussions you’ve started by dropping a link at the end of your blog post. If they’re myLOT users, they’ll probably particpate and extend the discussion. If they aren’t, you’ll most likely get a new referral.