What's your story when your first started out in AM? Here's mine and I need advice

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davids2508

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Hey, OK, i posted this elsewhere, hijacked others' post. So here I am posting the same message under this new thread.

I've seen the newbie guide and forum threads. I have also seen posts elsewhere stating that you guys are starting to get - on a weekly basis - questions similar to what I am about to ask, so I apologise if this is starting to irritate others. I'm sharing more details about my situation probably more than the other posts. Call it a last resort try or desperation if you like :)

Any insights/advice for this newbie aspiring to make money in affiliate marketing would be very much appreciated.

If ever you get to the end of my post, kindly tell me your insights, advices, tips or action plans on what I need to action to realistically earn from the effort that I am expending at the moment.

I’m a 33 year old male. I work for one of the largest international bank earning pretty decent salary compared to most of my peers. I don't mean to brag, but while I'm not exactly the star of the bank, my position is quite respectable. I don't want to appear to conceited, but I'm sharing this to you because I need you to know that I have the learning ability to make this work. What I'm lacking is the technical skills, knowledge, flying hours and mentors like you guys in this forum.

I currently work from 8am and won’t come back home till 7.30pm (it was much later before I found internet marketing).

My family and I got broke when my dad died of cancer last year. Family savings, albeit enough, was soon depleted because we needed to pay hefty medical bills before he eventually passed away.

Money was the main motivating factor for me and family to get back on track. It was in Feb 08 when I found the world of internet marketing.

I’m an informational type of guy – so I spent considerable time (averaging 3 hours a night after work) to educate myself on the web. I’ve since spent close to $2,000 on membership sites, ebooks (mostly craps) and DVDs. I got smarter now and stopped buying them.

I’ve lurked around forums like Warrior Forum, digitalpoint, just being an observer. Then, I found wickedfire, hence this post.

My first real action was 4 months ago, Aug 2008 when I attended a local SEO bootcamp – since then, I’ve been in touch with the community and spent hundreds of hours online after my office hours.

My hours are now like 9am – 7.30pm (office) and 8.30pm – 12.30am (oftentimes it went on to 3am during the first 2 months). So it’s like about 10 hours in office, and 3-4 hours at home. My personal life hasn’t been spectacular thanks to my hours now. This is happening like 4 days in a week and 1.5 days during weekend.

I haven’t made a dime as yet, but this is because I haven’t taken action until 2 weeks back when I decided I’ve downloaded, read enough materials to really start something.

I made $1.36 from Adsense on my first blog – it was more of a test site for me to understand how Adsense works.

Past few months have been very draining. I am extremely frazzled out. Some of you prolly went through the same experience. I’ve wanted to try blogging, Adsense, PPC, building a portal etc. It was information overload at best.

After much consideration on my current situation, I wanna focus on Affiliate Marketing. This is also a result of the research and reading I did during past 4 months, especially yesterday’s inspiration from Kieron Donoghue’ income report posted somewhere in this forum.

Here’s my situation:

1. I like to think I’d still keep my job despite the crisis. I’m still getting my bonus as I exceeded my yearly target at mid-year.

2. My supervisor and the big boss! however is starting to notice that I’m losing the energy and focus at work. I’ve been coming to office late and leaving earlier. The hours have taken its toll on me … and I’m concerned and at times am in doubt if I should ever keep doing what I’m doing now.

3. I've cut down a lot on my clubbing and golf to save up some money to fund my venture. I’m now at a stage where I’m done with much of my research and I wanna start daily action one step at a time. In fact, just a min ago, I got a call from CODEAC (first call from the Affiliate Network - I applied only two days ago with no site reference!)

4. I wanna start an affiliate website probably like Kieron Donoghue’s sites. I am learning to use Wordpress a lot due to SEO factor and cheap cost (am using the free theme now).

5. I have plenty other commitment in life, but for this venture, here is the effort and money that I’m putting in:

- Initial Capital - $2000
- As long as the web is not generating revenue yet, expenses that I can afford to spend is around $300 per month - from my monthly paycheck. My bank is literally becoming my banker to fund my future business.
- Time I can invest is
i. 2 uninterrupted hours a day during weeknites (max. 3 hours a night unless I wanna start screwing up in the office)
ii. 6 uninterrupted hours during Sat and Sun
iii. 3-hour monthly meeting with my local bootcamp community (where I get help and mentoring from top proven SEO engineer and Google Adwords Professional
iv. A 2 week off from work coming year end which I will put to good use to spend more time on this venture.
d. I’m already putting into action my daily plans, small steps at a time, from doing up a Wordpress site, writing 2-3 articles, setting up accounts with the affiliate network (just got my Copeac app approved - told them I heard them from wickedfire ;)

I don’t know if you could more or less relate to my situation based on my post above, but if you do, I would be grateful if the experts here could share some insights or tips on the following questions.

- For those moonlighting when you first starting out, how much time do you spend at nights when you were first starting out?
- And which gave you the most revenue when you were first starting out? Affiliate Marketing? Ad Banners etc? Blogging?
- What’s the most cost effective way to start out: I can’t write well (not yet) as you could probably tell by now, so I’d be hiring freelancers on my topic areas. I’d probably hire a developer to develop a unique Wordpress theme. I’d probably be paying for some autoresponder service etc.
- I'm not that tech-savvy especially with cpanel, but am comfortable with Wordpress and finding info on the net. My local friends can probably help with PPC and SEO

I need to know if I'm on the right track. I'm starting to get concerned with the mental and energy drain. It's becoming harder for me to sell the idea to my family; it's becoming harder to give the same level of energy and focus at work when I've this consuming obsession with my web venture.

I'm aware that AM world is becoming competitive and expensive to promote. How do I find those niches? Any techniques you could point me to?

Your most candid advice would be most appreciated.

Thanks in advance!
davids

"Do unto others as you would want them do unto you"​

What's your story when your first started out in AM? Here's mine and I need advice
 


Since you are allocating time and it seems like you are willing to put money into it in the beginning, I think you would do well buying sites that are already earning a little bit and working with those.

As I say that, I must add that when you buy these sites, you need to know exactly what you are buying. A lot of people register domains, get a budget host, slap some affiliate links on it and try to sell it for its potential. Others use it as a ploy to get you to buy into their hosting plans.

Don't look for potential; you are inexperienced so therefore, you don't know how (at the moment )to achieve that potential. Look for proven earners being sold by those who decided to concentrate their efforts on other ventures. You want to buy sites that have had enough real development to be considered established, and are earning enough every month to cover hosting costs. Look for sites that are 3-6 months old or more, have decent SEO and an income source that can be verified.

If this sounds like something that interests you, then your 2 hours/day can be wisely spent by learning how the process of selling websites works. The buy/sell/trade here is a good place to start; there are usually a few people in there looking to sell. Sitepoint marketplace is another, but I recommend staying away from ebay (mostly people selling turnkey sites on there).

Read through the sales threads and you will see the types of questions that potential buyers ask; you will also figure out how to properly research the sites and their methods of monetization. When you first start out, start small. Keep it within the <$100 range and you should at least break even after the first month or 2. When you learn effective ways to improve the earnings, you will have a better idea how to start one from scratch. Or you can just keep buying more.
 
I remember how I spent A LOT of time reading and learning before implementing anything. There was just so much information to grasp and understand. Though, knowledge is only half the battle.

I spent one week setting up my first campaign, that includes picking the offer, creating several landing pages for the offer, choosing keywords wisely, thinking of different AD variations, and so on. But, when the campaign was finally launched, it ran a positive ROI from the first day; and lasted for close to 2 months. Even though my budget at that time was low, probably around $75-$100 a day; I still profited decently + gained a heck of a lot of experience.

So, what I would just suggest is that once you believe you know enough, put things into action. But don't rush, don't slap together a campaign, and figure to start tweaking later on. Make sure you follow all affiliate protocols from the very start, and then do minor tweaks.
 
I suggest NOT reading anything but actually just trying to run a campaign. After you fail miserably (or get super lucky), you'll have an idea of how it all works. Then you can begin reading more technical stuff which you'll be able to apply. Before you try anything, reading won't really stick.. but if you've tried something and failed, and then read a solution on it, you'll say "ah, that's what I should of done.." and you're more likely to get something out of it.

I share your problem with time. The truth is, you need to *make* time. That means sleeping less, or working less, or working on weekends, etc. Your job will suffer. I'm in college and I'm dropping a class every week just because I can't focus. I sit down in my favorite classes and all I can do is get ideas and jot them down, think about them, etc. Class ends and I get zeroes. Do I care? Of course. But I feel I'd rather focus my time on Internet Marketing and then be able to say "at least I tried" if I don't "make it" rather than always wondering if I should have taken a semester off and pursued this stuff full time every other day.

Not really sure what to tell you though. You learn AM the same way you learn anything.. practice, improving your technique, etc. Just keep at it. Here's my favorite quote:

Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not - nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not - unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not - the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘press on’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race. -Calvin Coolidge
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GL. peace
 
bluebuddha said:
I suggest NOT reading anything but actually just trying to run a campaign. After you fail miserably (or get super lucky), you'll have an idea of how it all works. Then you can begin reading more technical stuff which you'll be able to apply. Before you try anything, reading won't really stick.. but if you've tried something and failed, and then read a solution on it, you'll say "ah, that's what I should of done.." and you're more likely to get something out of it.

I share your problem with time. The truth is, you need to *make* time. That means sleeping less, or working less, or working on weekends, etc. Your job will suffer. I'm in college and I'm dropping a class every week just because I can't focus. I sit down in my favorite classes and all I can do is get ideas and jot them down, think about them, etc. Class ends and I get zeroes. Do I care? Of course. But I feel I'd rather focus my time on Internet Marketing and then be able to say "at least I tried" if I don't "make it" rather than always wondering if I should have taken a semester off and pursued this stuff full time every other day.

Not really sure what to tell you though. You learn AM the same way you learn anything.. practice, improving your technique, etc. Just keep at it. Here's my favorite quote:



GL. peace
Click to expand...

Yes, many do get into the industry through trial and error. But, the tricky part is that you must learn from your mistakes. If you don't, then you will keep repeating the same mistake over and over again, which in return will yield no progress. And, even to understand and fix your mistake, you must have a somewhat decent affiliate knowledge.
 
I was looking for hookers on Craigslist and thought damn sex and money what could be better than that
 
ROIShareTeam said:
Yes, many do get into the industry through trial and error. But, the tricky part is that you must learn from your mistakes. If you don't, then you will keep repeating the same mistake over and over again, which in return will yield no progress. And, even to understand and fix your mistake, you must have a somewhat decent affiliate knowledge.
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Lame. So you're saying that you either learn from your mistakes or you don't, who would've guessed...
 
Webwonder said:
Lame. So you're saying that you either learn from your mistakes or you don't, who would've guessed...
Click to expand...

Yes, that is the overall message in that reply. Though, I tackled affiliate marketing at a different angle, as posted earlier.

Also, there is no reason to act like a smart ass, considering that he was looking for affiliate's personal experiences when it came to tackling affiliate marketing. So obviously, a lot of generic information will be posted.
 
kingofsp said:
I find it hard to believe that any 33 year old man would use the word "prolly".
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My 40 some year old mother uses WTF, LMFAO, and ROFLCOPTER all the time with me on MSN. 33 is far from being out of the loop.

Don't forget to take care of your family, as well. IM gets exhausting with too much time devoted.

2000 dollars should be enough to get some kind of nice SEO rankings for a small-mid size niche. I'd say don't worry about too much about a custom template for wordpress cause you can get a free one to do the job for you until your site is getting the kind of traffic where that could easily be paid for and deemed reasonable. There are themes for every niche now, so it'd be kinda silly.

Get some content up, buy some high PR links, spam social bookmarking FTW. It ain't hard to make monies on the interwebs and it seems like you got the drive. Just get some good research in (in a few hours of one night you could get atleast a couple good niches started) and get started.
 
Here is my question. Is this interesting and exciting to you? Would you like to do nothing other then this? Then throw some money on the table that you're willing to lose and just do it. Get some guidance from you affiliates manager if you have a good one. Let them point you in the right direction and share with you ideas of how to marketing to that vertical/offer. Then just do it! Start with small campaigns and not spending a ton of money. Pick one platform and one vertical. If others are making it work so can you. But as has been mentioned trial and error is the only way to fly. Having that high of success and that low of failure is what truly teaches you.

You can read all you want. But at the end of the day the answers aren't in ebooks or forums. There is a great group of people here to converse with. But at the end of the day the answers in the beginning are right where you want to advertise. If someone else is advertising an affiliate offer on a certain advertising platform for a length of time it must be working right? That's where you want to start. Go to the advertising source and see what other people are doing. That's where the answers are in the wild.

Don't let others scare you or tell you something is to expensive. Lets take tones for example. That niche there's sooooo many ways to promote and drive traffic to tones offers there's always room to get in. People say something is dead or dying 2 years before it actually is. Don't listen to the hype man cause 99/100 times it's uneducated and just not true.

Find a way to put the time in daily. And just make it happen. Hired a friend of mine in house and the next couple days he was doing $5k in sales a day with about 40% of that profit. I never gave him the answers I just told him where to look and he jumped in. It's not hard honestly you just gotta do it.

As always just my 3 cents.
 
don't waste your money on a custom template. There are TONS of free ones.
just google 'free wordpress themes'

Adsense will not be your answer either, it might pay the domains and hosting expenses, but it's not going to be your source of income
 
If you're reading all the SEM and SEO sites, stop. The search marketing community is nothing but a big circle jerk of regurgitated content.

The day I started making real money, was the day I stop reading all the search sites regularly.

No joke, there becomes a points where reading is inversely proportional to your earnings.
 
I would say, focus on PPC, SEO content, or both. You need money, or time to put up content and get links to it, as content is still king. 3 or 4 articles won't do it, but 30-50 will. Just do you your homework and get to work. Spend all the time you can just doing it.

I don't do this full time yet, but I've grabed some money from AM by putting some sites out there. If I would do this full time and optimizing all the way, I'll probably have several hundred sites earning a little each. It's not what I'd like to do for now, but just so you know you need to start and keep doing.

Also, you don't need to buy a thing if you don't want. You can create a lot from free resources.

Good success!
 
medicalhumor said:
don't waste your money on a custom template. There are TONS of free ones.
just google 'free wordpress themes'

Adsense will not be your answer either, it might pay the domains and hosting expenses, but it's not going to be your source of income
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Totally agree.

100 Excellent Free WordPress Themes | Developer's Toolbox | Smashing Magazine

If you want to learn SEO and play with adsense at the same time, pick a niche that you can legitimately throw a few thousand posts into, get a cheapo hosting account aside from your main hosting, register a throwaway domain, get a datapresser subscription, and start throwing content up, both autogenerated content and your personal posts. I found a lot of fun and harmless tricks to get content ranked when I did something similar to this. Fun, easy, and with adsense on each page, you can generate hundreds/thousands of posts that in some form/fashion can be easily indexed depending on niche. Not a ton of cash from adsense, but a few hundo each month if you work hard to rank the pages, plus you learn a shitload about the organic side of the aisle.

Use something like sheerseo.com to track ranking.
 
smaxor said:
Here is my question. Is this interesting and exciting to you? Would you like to do nothing other then this? Then throw some money on the table that you're willing to lose and just do it. Get some guidance from you affiliates manager if you have a good one. Let them point you in the right direction and share with you ideas of how to marketing to that vertical/offer. Then just do it! Start with small campaigns and not spending a ton of money. Pick one platform and one vertical. If others are making it work so can you. But as has been mentioned trial and error is the only way to fly. Having that high of success and that low of failure is what truly teaches you.

You can read all you want. But at the end of the day the answers aren't in ebooks or forums. There is a great group of people here to converse with. But at the end of the day the answers in the beginning are right where you want to advertise. If someone else is advertising an affiliate offer on a certain advertising platform for a length of time it must be working right? That's where you want to start. Go to the advertising source and see what other people are doing. That's where the answers are in the wild.

Don't let others scare you or tell you something is to expensive. Lets take tones for example. That niche there's sooooo many ways to promote and drive traffic to tones offers there's always room to get in. People say something is dead or dying 2 years before it actually is. Don't listen to the hype man cause 99/100 times it's uneducated and just not true.

Find a way to put the time in daily. And just make it happen. Hired a friend of mine in house and the next couple days he was doing $5k in sales a day with about 40% of that profit. I never gave him the answers I just told him where to look and he jumped in. It's not hard honestly you just gotta do it.

As always just my 3 cents.
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One of the best posts I've read on this forum. Ever.

Seriously.
 
I've been where you have before and I swear I was there for ages. I remember being over-loaded with information too, wanting to try this and that, starting projects half finishing them and then trying something else.

Different things work for some people whilst others it's not really up their alley. Ie. Some people are fantastic at making heaps of niche sites and getting organic traffic whilst others are PPC masters, all I can say is just go with your gut, pick something, go for it, trial and error the shit out of it and don't give up.

I'm by no means a expert or big earner and I've only just started to make what I would consider decent money over the last couple of months but I can honestly say it really is just about sitting down, sticking to it and working your ass off until you start seeing results. If a college kid like me can do it than so can you.
 
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