I have found that Fiverr has been a pretty good one for me if you create gigs people really want. At the start I tried ads but wasn't successful, now that I know more however I might try again. Where have you found success online?
Oh yes, Fiverr isn't fraud and it does work. You just need to be patient, it's hard to start with but you really need to think thorough. Because there are already hundreds of people doing the same thing. So you need to be special in two ways, quality and uniqueness. You'll end up getting a few orders in first two months, just do a kick-ass cool job. And you'll soon get plenty of regular orders. It's about creating a reputation and creating your own brand in a way. Best of luck!
I found success through creating a simple software, putting it on my site, and submitting it to every file directory known to man. It got popular, got featured on Ghacks.net, Lifehacker, TechRepublic and a plethora of other software/tech sites. got 26k visitors in a month and I estimate that the current download count for the software is around 35k. All of these natural backlinks and visitors gained my site a PR4, and i am ranking on the first page for keywords like pc repair usb toolkit download usb switchblade switchblade usb switchblade usb toolkit troubleshooting toolkit And various others And a few kind souls donated 100 bucks to me ^^ the software: http://switchblade.helgesverre.com
I use Fiver all the time.. they have some good gigs.. I would stay away from the email list on there though.. you get what you pay for. I used them for various things for our company pchalo.com. Helge, just curious how you software works? Are the 26,000 real visitors of interested people? If so, please share more!!
The software is basically a simple launcher for other softwares with some custom stuff put in(download and see for yourself). The 26,000 users were all refered from Lifehacker, Ghacks.net and various other tech sites, so i guess they were interested in it, Right after the heap of visitors i updated the website to include an email newsletter thing, which atm has 116 people in it(aint much). I still get referrals from lifehacker and various tech sites every day. Although i do not earn anything from the software itself, except donations, 2 companies wanted me to integrate my software into their installer(basically have a bunch of "Do you want to install this toolbar?"-thingies before it actually downloaded and installed my software, which i declined(Because fuck those things!). It took 3 months before it took off, it is at version 0.9 atm(released a week ago).
I like and have success with building niche websites. Although, I'm currently planning to branch out into other areas (email marketing, self-publishing, digital product creation, etc) for future case studies. I'm really looking forward to starting a new case study, once this one is on auto-pilot.
So far I am have making money through email marketing. Building a list is very important -- and can make you lots of money for years to come if you treat your list well.
I find its best to create niche products where you actually sell your own product at high margin. It costs a bit more to signup, but you'll make way more down the line if you do it right.