Being realistic as a noobie

14 replies
Hello everyone!

I am new to the internet marketing world and would like some tips on my approach on entering this business. I have set the goal of making money anytime soon out of my head. I have a 6 month goal of hoping to make at least 1000 dollars a month. I am more interested in learning and mastering methods, landing pages, traffic source etc. I also currently have 4 hours of downtime at work which I would put into research as well as 3 hours a night. The weekends it is mostly when kids are a sleep so would be around 10pm - 6 am with little breaks.

My question is I will start out with free traffic I am not planning on investing until I am sure I know what I am doing. I am going to promote offers from peerfly etc etc. These days is it still possible to make good money off products with free traffic as in youtube and other video websites? Is facebook and other social networks worth setting up with no money for traffic.? Also I plan on using content lockers but some of the videos maybe a little misleading. This of course is to get people to fill out surveys which I am not really high up to do but was just a thought.

I am also wondering if this can be done in the time manner I am setting my goal for.

The reasons for my questions are I know these get rich ideas are mainly scams. I know this because my sisters husband owns a cpa company and has been doing IM for over 10 years and makes over 1 million dollars a year. I also know the guy spends about 8-10 hours a day 6 days a week to maintain this type of income. Now for personal reasons we are not close which is why I will not pester him for help.

Thank you for your time reading and any info that will help thank you in advance!
#noobie #realistic
  • Profile picture of the author Joseph Villanueva
    Traffic leads to conversions and leads to sales.

    Traffic comes from everywhere and anywhere.

    The important thing is to have a good system placed asap for that traffic to go through.

    A bribe or lead magnet has to be given in exchange for the traffic to become your leads and give away their most important asset, email!

    The money is and always will be on the list! You will hear that all the time!

    Build your list through organic ways like seo, social medias and forums etc by having a blog which will be your bridge to your world.

    Keep buildin your list and scale fast by investing on solo ads and fb ppc (wisely, not all clicks and traffics are the same)

    So while waiting for your posts and blogs and videos to rank on search engines you can invest on paid ads to get the momentum going.

    Invest back 80% of your earnings for more paid ads to keep scaling bigger and building your list.

    Keep creating value and helping people to create quality traffic(like what im doing here for you)

    80% you give back to your audience as value and help and 20% you get from commissions for recommending them tools you use, believe in and affiliated with

    Thats pretty much my approach from a newbie standpoint to a 1k a day earner
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  • Profile picture of the author GrindingHard
    Nice thank you man. Very good information and 1k a day would be very very nice lol. I am just hoping for 1k a month by 6 months hehe . That response is very helpful thank you!
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    • Profile picture of the author Joseph Villanueva
      Originally Posted by GrindingHard View Post

      Nice thank you man. Very good information and 1k a day would be very very nice lol. I am just hoping for 1k a month by 6 months hehe . That response is very helpful thank you!
      Your welcome

      I want to congratulate you first off on taking first step. Mindset is the most important part before starting online business.

      It is simple but not easy!

      It will test your manhood (womanhood for the warriorettes) because it can be one of the most frustrating career choices to make.

      But the rewards really is worth it because onlinepreneurs have that freedom of working anywhere in the world at anytime they wish!

      All you need is laptop and wifi
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      • Profile picture of the author Steve B
        Grinding,

        Congratulations on being cautious and realistic. You can make $1K a month quite easily and it may not take six months. With the right plan and a good system, you should be able to make quite a bit more.

        Choose your niche carefully. Remember it all starts on the demand side. You can worry about the supply side (what you sell) after you figure out what buyers want (the demand).

        The best advice I could give is to build a list and treat your subscribers like gold. If you do that, they will become a loyal audience and you can sell to them over and over and over again.

        You're on the right track. Begin with market research, set up some simple offers, then test and track everything. Once you know a campaign is going to be successful . . . then is the time to scale up your business.

        I hope you have all the success you want,

        Steve
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    • GrindingHard,

      This takes time, especially if you aren't ready to invest money into your online venture -- Without money, you'd most likely need on your own to configure your domain and host server, to design your site and install scripts, to create onsite and offsite content, to build your niche network of content publishers and mailing list subscribers, to implement traffic generation plans, to respond to inquiries, to track and improve your campaigns and so on. These things take a lot of time to effectively learn and properly do. So:

      Since you're just targeting $1K / month, then I suggest finding local companies where you can pitch your services as a part time telecommuting subcontractor with weekly quota targets (I think the hours that you intend to dedicate to your online venture could most likely allow you to comfortably complete your weekly duties and responsibilities as a telecommuting subcontractor), i.e. If you have expertise in writing technology content, then you could try finding local tech companies with recently launched tech products, zone in on those that could greatly benefit from your services, zone in further on those that could most likely agree with a $1K or more / month arrangement with you as their telecommuting tech content writer subcontractor, and pitch your telecommuting subcontractual proposal to them for say XXX words of tech content per week and YY% of commissions for each sale and / or opt-in that's generated by your content in their site network (for them to most likely agree with your performance-based incentive offer, you could tell them that you'll be trying to drive traffic to your published work by testing various white hat traffic generation campaigns)...

      Perhaps you could also leave a few hours each week of your time for investing in another online venture like the one you mentioned above, since once you start earning your target from your telecommuting subcontractual work, you could use some of your earnings to run your other online venture...
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  • Profile picture of the author drewfioravanti
    Ask your brother in law. Most everyone you'll find here is blowing smoke.
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  • Profile picture of the author PLR Basket
    If I were you, I would start offering my services. This is how most of us got started. Then you can move on to bigger things.

    Focus on what you're good at, web design, content creation, whatever service you feel comfortable offering.
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  • Profile picture of the author GrindingHard
    Thank you for all the responses... I also know it takes a lot of hard work to learn everything that is needed if you do it solo. I am just got my OSCP which is a Pentesting / Ethical Hacking cert as well as been working with networking/computers for about 15 years ( I am 29 years old) . With that being said that is why I want to do everything myself at first, is to learn everything from the ground up then I can start outsourcing stuff later.

    I am more curious on what do you all think about starting out with CPA as well. I would mostly work on CPA offers, click bank, and maybe content lockers, youtube. I am also reading and learning auto responder to build a list. Are these methods still do able for my goal with starting with free traffic and using whatever income off that to learn how to scale and target. If it is not I would like maybe some stuff to look at that could help me reach this goal of at least 1000 dollars a month within 6 months.

    Thank you again for all the friendly advise
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  • Profile picture of the author Nightengale
    Clarity is a HUGE part of IM success. I hope this post brings some clarity. It's so simple when you know it -- and darn difficult when you don't! I owe my mentors a world of thanks for bringing this clarity.

    IM is actually pretty simple: you can sell only one of two things:

    1. Products
    2. Services

    That's it!

    And selling products or services online happens in the same basic way for everyone, no matter what they're selling:

    Traffic > Opt-in page > Autoresponder series (or e-zine) > Sales page

    That's it! It's just that simple. (We IMers tend to overcomplicate things.)

    But no matter what your niche is, or whether you're selling a product or a service, do you know what your business model is?

    A business model is the framework or skeleton of your business. Essentially there are three types of online business models:

    1. Membership-based model

    A membership-based business model allows you to build a community of people (your members) who are as passionate about your subject as you are. Your membership fees can be monthly or annual, but either way, you're building recurring, passive income.

    There are a lot of resources and information out there to help you build a membership-based business if you're interested in doing this.

    2. Product-based model

    Selling products allows you to maximize your time and effort by selling items over and over again. This can be hard goods or it can be information products. Information marketing is it's own business model under the product-based model. Information marketing allows you to take your brain to the bank by creating a product ONCE based on what you know and selling it over and over again.

    Affiliate marketing falls under both models. You can choose to market either products or services as an affiliate.

    3. Service-based model

    Selling services can be great for 1) generating quick cash (as in the case of article writing or video producing) and 2) establishing your expertise and getting testimonials.

    However, in the long run, your goal should be to offer services at a PREMIUM. The biggest advantage of IM is LEVERAGE. You're able to leverage your time, money and expertise exponentially online. We all have just 24 hours each day. Time to get ruthless about what you expect for those hours you spend in IM each day. Expect more of yourself and more from your business friends, clients, partners, etc.

    What results are you getting for those hours you spend online each day? Ultimately, your services should be at the bottom of your funnel and cost the most since they involve your time and personal attention. (We all have a limited amount of time each day.)

    The fun (and confusion) comes in with all of the endless mix-and-match possibilities of the above models. If you're just starting or still struggling to make money, keep it simple:

    Pick just ONE!

    1. Pick ONE niche. (Something you're interested in and know something about.)

    2. Pick ONE target market for your product or service. (Who will buy what you're offering? The more specific you are, the more you narrow it down, the more successful you'll be.)

    3. Pick ONE business model.

    Now that you're clear about what business you're in, FOCUS! (And stop buying any info not related to your niche and target market, period!)

    F -- Follow
    O -- One
    C -- Course
    U -- Until
    S -- Successful

    And remember: build a list, Build a List, BUILD A LIST!

    In IM, it's easy to put the cart before the horse. Take a deep breath, step back and consider what type of business you REALLY want. Don't worry about getting traffic or buying that expensive traffic product until you know 1) what your business model is, 2) what niche you're in and 3) WHO your target market is!

    Successful business people will tell you that MARKETING is more than half the effort that's needed for success anyway. So pick a niche, target market and business model. Then spend most of your time and effort marketing it.

    If you DON'T have a solid plan or system, THAT'S when it's hard. A good system will shave YEARS (and save you big $$$) off of your learning curve

    That's why I recommend investing in at least one good, comprehensive IM course (or mentor who will give you such a system) instead of jumping from one $37 e-book to the next. A lot of people here complain about not being able to make any money. But neither are they willing to invest in their business. (Buying a random bunch of $37 e-books doesn't count.)

    The best thing I ever did was invest in a comprehensive IM course aimed at REAL business owners, not just other IM wannabes. Yes it was $1500. (It's no longer available.) But it was truly some of the best A-Z IM info I ever bought. Everything else I've learned (from the $37 e-books) since has simply been plugged into this system.

    My two best recommendations for phenomenal IM training programs are Ali Brown's Elevate program (ElevateBizTraining.com) and Jeff Walker's Product Launch Formula (ProductLaunchFormula.com)

    Get a solid plan or system and then work the plan!

    Hope this helps!

    Michelle
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  • Profile picture of the author oWEN tEBB
    Hi,

    Welcome to the warrior forum. I already love your realistic approach and goals. I must say you had some fantastic advice and if you follow it ou should do well. But I dont want you to do well, no I want you to achieve greatness. You can do it and that $1000 you want, well your going blow that out of the water.

    great attitude ÷ knowledge = results

    This is how your going to do it.....

    pick a profitable niche. It kind of help if you have an interest in it. To help you find this do a google search for top ten trending topic or you can use resources like dummies.com. Generally though the most profitable and popular niches are

    Losing weight
    Healthy eating
    Dogs
    Horses
    Camping

    once decided your niche then check out your competition. You need to see what theybare doing well and what opportunities they are missing out on but you can take advantage of. From there its time to decide how you going to make money out of this. The options are....

    Build website - small 3 page website or larger page website

    Blogging

    Create a Facebook fan page


    Okay so from there you then research related products. Find affiliated programs that be linked to your website or blog. My advice is find products that has good feedback because the last thing you want is have a bad product on your website effecting your reputation. Maybe consider joining Amazon Affiliate Program, it can be highly profitable, if done write.

    You with me so far?

    Good... So lets move on....

    Its time to build a list. To do this you have 3 steps to consider. Building an effective capture page. Will you do this by offering a free gift or something? Keep your capture page clean, bold colours, if you can a youtube video, then thats great.

    From there its about getting the prospect email address. This is the second step and this is important to get them to confirm that it was them who subscribed. For them to do this they would usually have to go into there emails and click on a special link that confirms there interest.

    Once they have done that its about saying thank you or if you are providing a free gift then this is where they would download it. So let me just go over what I just said.

    Create a captivating caption page. Keep it clean. Less can be more and look to add you tube video
    Thank you page - Confirmation that the prospect interested in joining your mailing list
    Download page - Only applicable if your office a free gift.

    Okay so how do we get people to view your site? How do rank in google?

    Many ways but Im sure you said your looking for free traffic so let start with that.

    1.

    Offer free, original, and quality content on your site. This is the most effective means for increasing traffic to a website; offering people something that they cannot obtain elsewhere, or at least, not to the level of quality that you are offering it. Ways in which to ensure that your content is of higher quality than competitors or is unique include:

    Creating content that is helpful and useful. Simply cobbling together information from another website will not generate traffic. You need to offer visitors the information they*need*to achieve a goal, solve a problem, be entertained, find out quality news or have a good laugh.

    2 Improve your search engine ranking*by focusing your content on keywords related to your topic. This is called*search engine optimization*and will help people find your website when they're searching the Web. Make sure the keywords flow naturally with the text and when you are brainstorming for good words,*ask*around for words that come naturally to people of all ages when looking for your type of site. To help you understand better, realize that the keywords not only go into headings and page names but also into "meta tags". "Meta tags" are the software code that website visitors do not see but search engines do. Finally, don't overdo the keywords; over-stuffing keywords will result in a very low search ranking for your website. Also, be very careful not to place key text inside graphics; search engines cannot pick up graphics

    3Use social media. Post compelling content and you’ll soon build a loyal following. Follow and share with other users, who may reciprocate and follow you. Keeping up to date with social media and finding time to post can be tricky, but it’s well worth it. Let people talk and become part of a community and they’ll promote your content for you. This will save you a great deal of time, and they will share much further than via conventional strategies.

    There so much more but I dont want to overload you with information and of course you always have the option of paying for traffic but remember google and other search engines might penalise you and could potentially harm your ranking.

    so we nearly at the end but one last thing I want to touch on and this is very important. Remember its just as important to look after your current list than it is finding new people to add. Remember to stay consistent, always offer value to your customers. If you look after your list then your list will look after you.

    so whats next?

    Write down why your doing this. Use that to motivate you when things get difficult.

    Write down your goals, both short term and long term.

    Remember the following...

    Open your mind, embrace change, never standstill, always self improve.

    Knowledge ÷ Action = power.

    I hope you are successful in whatever you decide to do. Please let hook up so I can share more of my knowledge.

    What do you think?

    Owen
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    • Profile picture of the author saluca
      @ oWEN tEBB
      pick a profitable niche. It kind of help if you have an interest in it. To help you find this do a google search for top ten trending topic or you can use resources like dummies.com. Generally though the most profitable and popular niches are

      Losing weight
      Healthy eating
      Dogs
      Horses
      Camping
      Whilst I agree that these are the most profitable niches, are these not saturated? Finding a decent domain name for these (even though most of these have been bought to 'flip') is a task in itself. How would you recommend driving traffic to your site if you were to choose one of these niches?

      I struggle with 'analysis paralysis'. I have 3 'decent' products to sell (affiliate marketing), but have scared myself by looking at the competition. While I think that market research is prudent, would it not just show that in this day and age you need to find a relatively untapped niche and hope you have the 'next big thing'?

      I've dabbled for 5 years now (the last World Cup taught me how easy it is to sink without trace), but haven't jumped in with both feet since 2010. In the interim I'm been constantly learning, but struggle to find a niche I am comfortable with. I know that I should pick one of my 3, but cant get past the fact that competition is too fierce and aged!

      Thoughts....
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  • Profile picture of the author GrindingHard
    So it is a must to build a website these days? Is the days of one page landing pages with affiliate offers after opt in not profitable anymore or doable with free traffic?
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  • Profile picture of the author Evan H
    If I had to start all over again I would've built my list from day 1...Find a hungry niche that are looking for solutions to their problems, build your list and sell products through follow-ups (give valuable content to your list)...Also when I first started I found the most success with Youtube...Youtube is a great way to build your list as well as paid traffic like solo ads, PPC etc.

    Keep working hard...

    Best of luck!
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  • Profile picture of the author oWEN tEBB
    To answer the question about the recommendations for the niches. There is a small chance that one or two could be saturated however you could find a micro niche you could tap into within my recommendations, for example

    camping could be...... how to put up a tent in now time or top 10 camping myths. It can be aanything really as long as you dig deep enough.

    Next question was about driving traffic to 3 page web page.

    Although it wouldnt be my first choice, it would a quick way to build a list. List building is without doubt the most important thing. Driving traffic to your website depends on what I said in previous post, however using keywords in your web address certainly helps. Personally I use market samurai but there are others.

    if you want me to go into more detail with free traffic I can. You know how to find me.

    Owen
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