Whether Nigerian Scam actually originates in Nigeria is unknown, but US SEC suggests that investors should be wary of off shore investments. Because of difference in laws, money and so on, you'll have a hard time getting yourmoney back, if you do at all.

One last scheme is classic Pyramid Scheme. You can easily spot these with headlines like "Turn $5 into $300 in 3 weeks. These programs never work unless you're one who started them. So stay away from them.

To sum up, if anything sounds too good to be true it probably is. Through hard work and time there is money to be made on internet, but there is no "easy money." At least I haven't found it.

John Karnish is the founder of the Internet Marketing Resource Center, which offers Free Webmaster Tips Tools, & Resources

Who Are Their Affiliates

Another way to take advantage of your competition is to find out who their affiliates are. If you offer an affiliate program, this may be an ideal strategy for you. Track down your competition's affiliates and persuade them to promote your product or services, instead of your competitor's.

If your competitors offer their affiliates a lower commission percentage than you, then you already have upper hand. How? Affiliates are always looking for away to make more money and by offering them a higher commission percentage, they'll be able to increase their affiliate profits.

How do you find your competition's affiliates? You can use same methods to find their affiliates, as you would trying to locate their link partners, by using Arelis and/or Marketleap's Link Popularity Tool.

Spying On Your Competition

Thanks to power of internet, spying on your competition couldn't be any easier. You can easily find out what their marketing angle is, what they have for products, how much they are charging for their products, and any new products that they may be working on.

If you were to go to your competition offline and evaluate their establishment, while taking notes on their products, you would immediately draw attention to yourself and get thrown out of store. There is nothing worse than letting your competition know you are keeping tabs on them, but on internet, it's completely anonymous. Your competition will never know you are there or what your doing there.

When you pay a visit to your competition's web site, first thing you want to know is, what their weaknesses and their strengths are. That way, you can capitalize on opportunity of making their weaknesses, your strengths.