Looking for a free home job?

A free home job brings to mind images of sleeping 'til noon, then checking online accounts until the chef serves lunch by the pool. Visions of truly passive income dance behind exquisitely expensive Oakley sunglasses.

Does it really work that way? Can you find a free home job worthy of your time? Read on and find out.

Every possible domain name containing the words "free", "home", "job", "easy", "work", and "online" has been registered and exploited. Someone somewhere profits immensely setting up web sites for hopeful free home job referral services. Many such sites represent shell corporations for affiliate marketing systems. Affiliate marketing requires a 'product' (in the loosest sense of the word) working in conjunction with mechanisms to convince would-be entrepreneurs to purchase the opportunity to sell the product. Significant profits arise from recruiting affiliates rather than actually distributing the product. When considering an affiliate marketing system, pay heed to these bullet points:

• What are you really truly selling?
  If you can't figure out what they (and you) are selling, point your browser in another direction. Give yourself 5 good minutes to study their system. No company is ashamed of its product, unless that product provides a good reason to be ashamed.
  
• What is the buy-in cost?
  Sure, some affiliate marketing plans offer a free home job. And some do not. Aside from the loyalty of your puppy dog, most free stuff is worth exactly what you pay for it. Even McDonald's wants 99 cents for a cheeseburger.
  
• How many other affiliates are involved?
  Many legitimate marketing systems include a territory. Each territory includes arbitrary limits on the number of affiliates who may do business there. One one hand, a territory limits your customer base. However, a territory also limits your competition.
  
• Don't confuse exclusivity with secrecy.
  Owning a McDonald's franchise puts you in an exclusive club, but none of their restaurants have an unlisted telephone number. Any affiliate marketing plan requiring an up-front payment as a "show of faith" or an "indication of interest" might be an affiliate marketing plan that realizes its profit by requiring up-front payments.
  

Google Pomegranate Juice to see the first 10 of about 3,050,000 results. Is the pomegranate fruit worthy of 3 million web sites? Affiliate marketing companies believe so. Surely the landscape of commissaries is not populated with 3 million pomegranate juice assembly lines. We imagine one very busy grandmother in her kitchen with a Jack Lalane Power Juicer Deluxe, but the truth probably lies somewhere in between.

Bottom line: many many many affiliates flog Pomegranate Juice online. Entry costs are minimal and competition is fierce. Don't expect to launch MyPomegranateJuiceRocks.com and then lounge by the pool while the filet mignon sizzles.

Certainly someone somewhere makes a comfortable living selling stuff online and convincing others to also sell the same stuff. Undoubtedly it can be done. Find the free home job of your dreams by following these simple guidelines:

• Be confident in your product. Don't sell South American Bee Pollen unless you're married to a South American Beekeeper who never gets a cold.
  
• Be prepared to flog your site. All it takes is 10 other people selling South American Bee Pollen to push your site onto the second page of Google Results. Actually, it only takes 9 other people selling South American Bee Pollen and one person blogging about how sick they got when they bathed in it. Anyway, you will need mechanisms for driving Internet surfers to your site.
  
• Be patient. You cannot go to bed poor and wake up wealthy by selling pomegranate nectar or bee superfood.