Two years ago, an online forum community was created with a unique opportunity. Simply put, it pays its members to post and share its ideas with the entire community. Its name; MyLot.com.
Two years and over 125,000 members later, MyLot is still going strong, despite them getting mixed reviews about its earning potential. Many members within the site ask frequently how they can earn substantially and consistently. Both on and off-site some people have resolved that it’s too difficult to earn from MyLot. I’ve even heard from a small few that MyLot is a scam, a pipe dream that you will never reach the end of.
I have been a member of MyLot for over fourteen months. I have already received payout once before. I am currently awaiting a second payout to come in the next few days, and am only a stone’s throw away from next month’s payout as well. I am living proof that you can earn each and every month from this site!!!
In my time on MyLot, I have devised a simple strategy that anyone can follow; not easy, mind you, but simple. Follow it and you, too, will be able to reach payout month after month.
Getting Started
Since I am showing everyone how to maximize their earnings and experience in MyLot, from A-Z, the best place to start would be the beginning; registration.
To sign up for MyLot, you will need a valid e-mail address, and either a PayPal or Moneybookers account to receive payments from the site. I would like to note that MyLot accepts members from across the globe, but, due to regulations set forth by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), there are a small number of countries that they are not allowed to pay members in. These are usually countries that are not services by one of these payment processors. If you happen to live in one of these countries, you will still be allowed to join and participate; you just won’t be paid for it.
Once you click the referral link, you will come to the front page of MyLot. On the left-hand side, just below the log-in fields, you will start your registration with one of the most important aspects of your MyLot persona, your screen name.
Choose something clever that represents your personality. This will be one of the attributes that other MyLot members will come to recognize you by. You want to have a screen name that will stick in people’s mind when they read it.
Next, you will fill in the rest of your personal information, including your e-mail address. It’s very important that you use an e-mail address you will check on a regular basis. There are a lot of things that you will need in the beginning of your membership, and having e-mail notifications makes a lot of it easier. As we go through this article, you will see why using an e-mail that you check often is so important; but for now, just know that with this site and my method, a readily-accessible e-mail is key.
The next screen you will come to will be about inviting friends to MyLot. You will see a screen where you will be able to add your friends’ e-mail addresses, and send them a short e-mail describing MyLot and asking them to join. Although it isn’t necessary to have referrals under you, it is nice because you earn 50% of their earnings for referring them, and who better than your friends to tell how they can share ideas and get paid? If you know some people to add, go ahead and put their addresses in. If you can’t think of anyone at the time, you can skip this and come back to it later. Just click the link “Invite new friends” at the bottom left-hand portion of every screen in MyLot. You will be taken right back to this page.
Now comes the most important, and the longest part of registration, the selection of interests. As tedious as this becomes, it’s very important that you pay close attention to which ones you add to your profile. These are the categories where members place their discussions, and where newbies will come to to respond to discussions before they add friends to their profile. When you go through each page, be sure to add each and every interest that fall in line with what you like, even if it’s the second or third time seeing it. The reason is that even though the names of the interests are similar, people start different discussions in each. Since you want a big a pool of discussions to choose from as possible, it would be beneficial to add each interest you like, no matter how many times they are listed.
Whew!!! Now that we got that out of the way, we have a couple more things to do before you get started. You will come to the front page again once you are finished. When there, go to the link on the left-hand side under your screen name and temporary avatar that says “Edit Your Preferences.” Once you are there, you will be on a screen that says, “Customize your profile.” Here, you will choose the next important tidbit of your persona, your avatar. As with the screen name, a well-chosen avatar separates you from the faceless members who haven chosen one, and shows your dedication to the site. Your screen name and avatar are your calling card on MyLot. Once you have been here for a while, members will come to know it as they would know the familiar face of a personal friend. So just like your screen name, choose an avatar that fits your personality, and upload it to this page.
You also have the opportunity to write a slogan and input a link; both will be shown on your profile page, above and below your avatar respectfully. We will talk more in depth about your profile page shortly, but know that most people who are adding you as a friend, or responding to a friend request you sent will be looking at this page, so you can promote just about anything here.
The next page, Account info, is pretty simple. You’ve already added most of the information during registration. But at the bottom of this page is one point of interest. There is a checkbox that asks if you want to allow mature content, if you are over the age of 18. What this means is, if this box is checked, you will be allowed to see discussions that have the tag, mature content, attached to them. If not, these will be blocked from your view. This one is totally up to your discretion whether to check or not.
The next tab, and the one that most of you have been waiting for, is the payment information tab (yay!) This is where you input your payment information for when you reach at least $10 in a month, so they can send your payout. Make sure that all your information here is correct, or they will not be able to send your payment.
The final tab is Email notifications. This is the first reason why using an e-mail that you check frequently is important. I do need to tell you now that you should make a folder in your e-mail separate for MyLot, and direct all your MyLot correspondence to go there. After being with this site for a while, the e-mail load can get a little heavy, and it makes things a lot easier having them all go to one folder, instead of having to search through your inbox for each and every e-mail.
I suggest checking all the notification boxes available. You will need every chance you get to respond to discussions, and this way you will have a broad array of them to choose from in the beginning. Also, you will know what is going on with your account simply by looking into your e-mail, rather than having to search through MyLot blindly.
Finally, the last part of the registration process, your Profile page. Go back to the left-hand side of the screen, and click the “Customize Profile” link. You will be taken to your profile page in edit mode. This is the last important aspect of your MyLot persona. Your profile should continue where your screen name and avatar leave off. It should give a small glimpse into your personality, and your interests. Here, you can upload pictures of yourself, family, and friends. You can also post banners and links from other opportunities you may be involved in. You can move the modules around to suit your tastes. The profile here is very versatile; you can do pretty much anything with it. The main thing to remember when editing is to make sure it represents you in the way you want to be perceived on MyLot. Again, this is the first thing that most people will go to concerning friend requests, and is a big deciding factor.
Last thing before we get started, go back to your inbox, and look for the e-mail from MyLot. It should contain a link that will validate your account with MyLot. This is necessary, because you won’t be allowed to post anything until this is done.
Posting
Now that we got all the technical stuff out of the way, its time to get to the meat and potatoes of this site; discussions. This is the main thing we get paid for on MyLot, posting thought-provoking discussions and giving meaningful and informational responses. Since this article is written with the newbie in mind, we will start from the ground up, starting with responding to discussions.
Log in to MyLot. Once you are logged in, on that good ol’ left-hand side you will see a list of your interests, beginning with the interest most recently posted to. Start clicking on the interest, and looking through the discussions posted there. Pay close attention to the discussions with the most responses, these are the members who you will want to model your posting style after when you start posting your own discussions.
Once you find a discussion that really interests you, click on it, and read the responses, if any. This is not only for you to see how to post, but also it will keep you from duplicating a response, which MyLot frowns upon. Don’t worry about that too much, if you are posting from your mind, your posts won’t match another’s exactly. It’s just when there are responses that are exactly the same, known as plagiarism; MyLot will delete that response, or the entire discussion, which means lost earnings.
Once you have gotten the idea of what the poster is asking, click the box that says “Respond to Discussion”, which will be under the body of the post. Please make sure that you are clicking here, and not the “Add comment” box of one of the respondents. You want to make your own response, not comment to another’s. First if you do comment, it doesn’t earn as much as if you post a response to the discussion. Secondly, if your post is well written, you will get a best response from the discussion starter. This cannot happen if you accidentally post in another’s response, because the link won’t be there for them to use.
Once you click the box, you will come to a field where you can write a response to the discussion. When doing this you want to make sure that you write at least four lines of response to the discussion. MyLot wants to keep its earning algorithm a secret, but one thing we do know is that if you post at least four lines of text to a discussion, you will earn at least a penny for your trouble. Don’t let this limit you either. If you feel that you can write more than four lines of text, by all means do so. The more content you provide, the more you earn, but you should have at least four lines of text so you will get at least something for your trouble.
Also, MyLot likes having posts that are spelling and grammatically correct. I know that most of us don’t have the best grammar, but doing your best will really help your earnings, so start working on it if you have trouble. Trust me; MyLot will give you plenty of practice.
After you are finished with your post and have submitted it, you will come to a screen that will ask you for tags for the discussion. This is important to do, because it links this discussion to others with similar tags. Try to come up with a few, but know that MyLot only accepts ten per response.
Since you have turned your e-mail notifications on, you will be notified if the poster, or someone else, has commented on your response. It’s best to go back and re-comment on those. Not only does it earn you a little extra money, but it shows that you are a responsive member that likes to hold conversations. Remember, there is no such thing as a one-sided discussion.
After you have responded to a few discussions in your interests, you should have a feel what MyLot is looking for, and should be comfortable enough to start a discussion of your own. To start, pick an interest that you either know very much about, or something that you are curious about. Same as responding, make sure that you post at least four lines. Also, ask a question for your respondents to answer for you. This gets people involved and will make them want to respond. Just like when you post a response, when you post you will get the tags screen. Choose these words carefully, as it will group your discussion with ones of similar tags, gaining you more exposure.
Here’s a trick of the trade that usually comes with experience. Since you will be getting notified each time someone responds to your discussion, go back and comment on every response that you feel brought some value to your discussion. If they respond with another comment, you respond again; back and forth until one of you runs out of things to say. This does a few things for you. First, you get paid a little for each comment made in your discussion. Second, each time you comment, your discussion goes back to the top of the list in that interest, giving you more exposure to members that haven’t seen or responded to your discussion yet. Finally, this further lets members know that you are very responsive and conversational. These people get very far in MyLot!!!
Adding Friends
Even though responding to discussions can be fun, it can be a little tedious having to search the site looking for ones to respond to. This is where adding friends come in. Once you have a group of friends, with the e-mail notifications turned on, you will have a steady stream of discussions in your e-mail that you can go to. The more your friends list grows, the less you will need to search the site for discussions to respond to, until finally you will be doing all your responding from your e-mail box.
Now, before you go sending thousands of friend requests all willy-nilly, let me tell you that there is a method for getting the best, most responsive friends that will be more likely to accept your request, and be the most help to you in earning from this site.
We’ll have to backtrack a little for this. Go back to the first few discussions that you responded to, and click on the screen name of the person that started it. Check out their profile. Are they very active? Do they usually post four or more lines to respond? Do you share more than one interest? If the answer is yes to all of these, this is a person that you would want to add to your friends list. Click the button under their avatar that says “Add As Friend”.
For people that have responded to your discussions, you basically do the same thing. You should check out every person that responded to your discussions and see if they would be a match for you by checking the same criteria.
You should also do this for people that send you friend requests. You don’t want to add just anybody. If you see that someone has sent you a friend request, you go to their profile and see that all their discussions are either meaningless questions like “Do you like apples?” or they post a lot about their opportunities and not much else, you don’t want to add this person as a friend. They probably will not respond to your discussions much, and may fill your Private Message box with all types of program links that you will never use.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s okay to post discussions about your opportunities, but they should really be discussions, and not blatant attempts at getting sign ups. When you post about an opportunity, you should explain the opportunity as fully as possible, without giving the name of the opportunity. You should ask questions about it for people to respond to. Also, try not to post the actual referral URL in the discussion, or any comments you make. This will get your discussion deleted. Just put a note at the end saying if you are interested, add me as a friend (if you haven’t already), and send me a Private message. I will respond with the ref URL.
You also don’t want to post ref urls in other’s discussions, even if they are asking for them. This will get their discussion deleted as well, meaning not only a lost sign up, but lost earnings as well. Again, you want to add them as a friend, and should they accept, send the ref URL in a pm.
Routine
The best way to make your earnings consistent in MyLot is to set yourself to a routine that you will follow every day for activity. Building up to payout takes time the first time around, but if you start off in the right way, earning becomes easier and easier until you are making payout each and every month.
I am on MyLot almost every day, no set amount of time, just long enough to respond to the discussions I get in my e-mail that I am interested in. This may take me from 2-3 hours. I know everyone doesn’t have time like I do, but one hour a day to start should be sufficient time to get your earnings up. Take the time to respond to discussions of interest first, and then move on to starting discussions if you have any.
Well there you have it. This is the same system I have devised through fourteen months of trial and error that has gotten me to the point where I can earn payout every month. I’ve taken the sting out of the learning curve for you, so I hope to see many of you in the months to come with your own payout. Happy posting!!!
Self Improvement 
