On many sites I have got thousands of referrals when the average user has 5-10 referrals, so when competition time comes around and I win month after I month I always get asked the same question, "How the hell do you get so many referrals?". I have received so many 'getting referral' related questions that I have decided to write this article so that I can simply link back to it.

Getting referrals / building your downline really isn't as hard as you imagine. All it requires is a bit of time and use your imagination to come up with new ideas that others have not yet thought of. Below is a list of my favourite methods to get referrals:

Email everyone on your email list telling them about what it is you are promoting. Explain it to them a little bit, tell them about what they can get if they sign up and tell them that they can earn even more if they refer others to do the same. An alternative to this is simply by speaking to friends and family and later on emailing them your link as 99/100 times if you write down your reg link (E.g.freestuff.com/r=846239376) They are not going to bother writing the whole lot into their internet browser, they will just type in freestuff.com and therefore, you will lose a referral. The same goes for business cards with referral links on them.

Business Cards. Now I know I said in the previous comment not to put ref links on to business cards so I'm not going to tell you that. Instead register a free domain name and simply redirect the domain straight to your referral link. This makes you seem far more professional and the other advantages of this being that you can submit the site to search engines and people will not accuse you of spamming so much as you will be linking to the homepage of a site!!!

Get your own website. Having your own website is one of the most effective ways of getting referrals as then people searching the net will come across your site, click on your ref links and become a referral if they like the content on your site. It is free advertisement for your ref links via search engines. Check the link in the resources box for advise and tips when starting up a website like how to submit your site to search engines for free

Social Networking. Site like Facebook, MySpace, Yuwie, Zenzuu etc have millions of users that could potentially become your referral. The easiest way to get referrals through social networking sites is by creating a group with great content that people are going to enjoy, (make sure it is related to your referral site though!), invite your friends and family and then ask them to do you a favor by inviting everyone on their lists.

YouTube / Metacafe. Video social networking sites. Making a referral video is a very effective way of getting referrals. Why? Because all you have to do is make a video and sit back while you get the refs, no further work is involved. You could go to some referral sites and ask for your video to be rated also and maybe pick up a few extra referrals like that. With youtube there is a program called tubeincreaser that boosts your video views so to put you onto the most viewed videos page which will obviously attract a great deal more attention to your video and therefore, more refs.

Paid Ads. This method is not very effective and usually costs you a lot more than you receive back. Adwords I definately do not recommend for getting referrals, paid banners on relevant sites can be quite successfull. One of the best ways to get a free spot on a site is by starting up your own free website and offering to have a banner exchange.

Referral Exchange Sites. I have listed one of my favourite ref exchange sites into the resources box at the bottom of this article, it's called GetRef. The idea of it is to signup and earn credits which you can then spend on getting others to sign up to your downline. You can earn credits on this site in one of three ways. 1) Signing up to other users free programs. 2) Clicking on websites, golding for 30 seconds and confirming the view (Very low payout). 3) By referring others to the site you can earn 10% commission 5 levels deep!!! This is probably my favourite way of getting referrals and GetRef has some great contests so giving you an even greater chance of getting free credits

I will be adding a part two to this guide in my sites forum (YourDownline.co.uk)