Spent $5000 on IM but Earned Nothing

[TheGraphicsGuy]

Originally Posted by Content Traders

Really ? Can I sell it for $5000 ? I spent only $2000 on it. (Its a custom coded unique design PHP site) so why not I start flipping websites :P LOL

With a unique and better design, the price tag can be raised to $7-8K easily!

If you can work on the traffic and monetization part over the next 6-8 months (maybe add a forum to it as well), you can hit the - wait for it - $30+K figure for a single flip. And I might be under-stating!

[Content Traders]

Originally Posted by TheGraphicsGuy

Very solid points!

I can help you in all the visual aspects (being a designer) and make it more like babycenter.com (you already have all the programming done - which is the hardest part).

So.. the elephant has passed through my friend, its just the tail you're worried about

Regardless, DO NOT QUIT - dayjobs suck!!

Thank you for your suggestions. Can you please guide me a little which visual aspects needs to be improved ?
Thanks once again

[Vendor-Lock]

Originally Posted by Content Traders

Hello warriors,
I am hell disappointed and discouraged to enter into IM, I have spent more than $5 K so far spending on SEO and buying products, getting content written but I have earned nothing so far. I got only two clickbank sales that added only $46 to my CB account and one sale got refund
Now I am thinking to leave IM and do search a Fulltime Job. But at last wanted to share my story with you , may be you have some suggestion. I currently build a huge pregnancy website Pregnancy Guide | pregnancy week by week | step by step pregnancy guide and was thinking I will be an authority site soon but now decided to abonden everything

What products were you trying to sell ?
and where did you advertise ?

Did you TRY selling here on the WF ???

I recommend you start on the WF and build up the other stuff later !
Send me a PM if you want more help with that.

Yours truly,
Jeff Noyes

Vendor-Lock Software co.

[TheSalesBooster]

This is tough... I know people are trying to be nice by encouraging you, but sometimes someone has to tell the truth.

You spent $5,000 on products and SEO. You probably didn't build that site, you didn't write the content, and you aren't doing the SEO. so you basically spent $5000 and gained nothing in return not even experience, which is the most important factor.

I don't think you have the right mindset for this business. I am afraid you are a victim of hype. You bought a big product then outsourced everything and expected to get rich. I'm afraid there is probably nobody on this earth who has gotten rich in this industry by doing what you are doing.

You have 2 options.

1. You go through everything you can. Learn as much as you can. Which means learning how to build your own websites, design your websites, learn how to do SEO. EVERYTHING. People don't get rich in this industry by paying other people to do your work. You only do that once you become successful and can afford to do that.

Your other option is..

2. quit and go get a full time job. The truth is this industry requires hard work. If you aren't willing to put in the hard work then you won't be rewarded.

[IMHunter]

Man that's a huge amount that you have spent on IM! You must by jumping from one method to another before seeing the results.

[NaturalHealing]

I think she got ripped off by an SEO company, that is part of her cost. I was ripped off by an SEO company also. I was also ripped off by a "web designer" over two years ago.

I would go find a day job and work on your website at night. No matter how hard you work on it, you are subject to the moods of Google.

You can always do websites on the side, but you need to want it REALLY BAD.

This is a business like any other. Most business do not make money the first year and many the second year. You have to have the money to tide you over. Part of ranking websites is the aging factor. Google will not let you rank quickly.

I have to say, for everyone telling her she spent too much money and you would be rich by now, I think that is pretty mean. From what I have read, I do not see people getting rich in their first year of IM. It is a lot to learn and you have to be very determined.

I would rather build carefully than be like some other famous bloggers and lose it all overnight by making spammy made for adsense sites.

[cashtree]

Originally Posted by NaturalHealing

Google will not let you rank quickly.

And that's why they need to become more and more less relevant.

[justin482000]

I spent $8k on IM and have made back around slightly less than $1k.

the one thing I've learned from my "failure" is I need to do a heck lot more research.

I did exactly what you did, buy ton of wso, the WSOs about creating SEO sites seem to click for me, so I went out and spent money outsourcing all the stuffs as instructed in those WSOs,

I managed to get a site to 2000 unique visitors a day, but get only like 1 or 2 sale every 2 weeks (lesson: top ranking and traffic isn't everything)

I think of all the money spent as tuition, just like paying for college.

I've learn something along the way and I found this site with ton of free but super valuable, and applicable info

Affiliatebully.com

I have only several hundreds left in my bank and working full time.

But this time, I'll take more time (like several months) to study and research the market upfront, before I start draining all the money in the bank.

The more research you put in upfront, the less money you have to spend

go to Affiliatebully.com you'll learn a ton there

[WF99]

How long you invested that amount ??
It will take some time to get any result ..
And i also prefer you to not invest more money before getting 50% of your previous investments ..

[ivanadee]

$5,000 wow...just imagine when you invest it for solo ads
How many lists will you have right now? it will be amazing

[AndyBlackSEO]

You should never buy tools or software without a plan. Tools and software can help you to carry out your plan. They aren't a plan on their own and will not make you money on their "own".

Don't disregard what you have already bought. Simply put them aside for now and make a list of core changes that you can make to increase traffic, conversations and build a list and relationship with those subscribers.

Do your research and find some good products, both digital and physical products. For all your categories.

Get your site visitors interacting with each other on your site and make them feel like a "member".. In a community where your visitors are going through the same experience.

The games far from over but it depends if you're willing to give it a little longer. IM is about trial, error and monitoring subtle changes. It can often be an art form.

Good luck!

[Content Traders]

Originally Posted by NaturalHealing

I think she got ripped off by an SEO company, that is part of her cost. I was ripped off by an SEO company also. I was also ripped off by a "web designer" over two years ago.

I would go find a day job and work on your website at night. No matter how hard you work on it, you are subject to the moods of Google.

You can always do websites on the side, but you need to want it REALLY BAD.

This is a business like any other. Most business do not make money the first year and many the second year. You have to have the money to tide you over. Part of ranking websites is the aging factor. Google will not let you rank quickly.

I have to say, for everyone telling her she spent too much money and you would be rich by now, I think that is pretty mean. From what I have read, I do not see people getting rich in their first year of IM. It is a lot to learn and you have to be very determined.

I would rather build carefully than be like some other famous bloggers and lose it all overnight by making spammy made for adsense sites.

Yes , this is true. I was told my websites will be getting tons of traffic after ranking for Google but they never ranked.

[Content Traders]

Originally Posted by ivanadee

$5,000 wow...just imagine when you invest it for solo ads
How many lists will you have right now? it will be amazing

I never understand what the list building is and how we can get profits from link building.

[ZAI]

Originally Posted by Content Traders

Hello warriors,
I am hell disappointed and discouraged to enter into IM, I have spent more than $5 K so far spending on SEO and buying products, getting content written but I have earned nothing so far. I got only two clickbank sales that added only $46 to my CB account and one sale got refund
Now I am thinking to leave IM and do search a Fulltime Job. But at last wanted to share my story with you , may be you have some suggestion. I currently build a huge pregnancy website Pregnancy Guide | pregnancy week by week | step by step pregnancy guide and was thinking I will be an authority site soon but now decided to abonden everything

To be honest with you, you shouldn't be spending money on SEO... that's why so many people do it. If you spent money on link blast and things like that then your results is not surprising. You should stick to manual link building that you do M-F. Also with 5K you could have had an amazing graphic designer, coder, and shoot even promote on PPC networks.

[humboldt]

You need traffic before content, unless you're willing to wait a long long ..........long time !

[opp2012]

TENZHO , HOW OLD ARE YOU MAN , THE GUY HAS JUST TOLD US HE LOST 5k , WE NEED TO HELP & NOT TAKE THE PISS ,

[nik0]

First thing I would do is step away from Clickbank, these products just convert so badly.

Next step, do solid keyword research. Learn about it or get a tool called Longtailpro that can help you with it.

Next, write content and target each page for 1 keyphrase, pick keywords with a few hundred searches so that they are easy to rank and make sure your main keyword has at least 50K or something searches. From every post that you write link back to your homepage using the anchor txt of your main kw.

After adding enough pages and bookmarking them you should see some ranking increases, if not then help the faith a bit, build nice looking web2.0's, submit video's to sharing sites, submit articles to docsharing sites. Forget about tools like Senukex, AMR, BMD, Xrumer, they won't do any good, not even in tier2.

All this doesn't have to cost you anything yet.

Once your innerpages start to rank at page 1 and start to make some money you will see that your main keyword starts to move up as well cause of the internet linking. Once it reaches page 2 or 3 you can use that money that you made to do some hardcore stuff like a professional press release ($89 at PRweb) and perhaps rent some relevant homepage links. At the buy/sell/swap section of this forum, at the bottom of the mainpage you can find some good deals.

Good luck!

[TamilYoung]

Hey, don't loose hope. Warriors have given enough feedback about your pregnency site. Please work towards correcting those. I don't know on what your $5000 is spent. But I presume atleast some of those purchases should be valuable. Try taking ACTION based on a strategy which you feel would work. ACTION is the answer to your question. Wishing you success very soon! Hope you share your success story here again.

[Chris-]

Firstly, ClickBank is a VERY DIFFICULT way to try to earn some money, for a beginner. This should be obvious from the number of newbies who say they've made nothing from it!

Why not try something which is EASY to make money from, I recommend AdSense, which is probably the easiest long-term method.

If you need short-term cash, there are plenty of ways to make money in relevant ways while learning IM, such as outsourcing skills such as writing, on one of the outsource sites like Fiverr, oDesk, Elance etc. Some such things can later be outsourced to other workers, so you are effectively sub-contracting, or using arbritration to make a profit.

Stop spending money, stop trying to do BIG projects, start SMALL, and ONLY when you've found a successful SYSTEM of profit-making, is it worth making it bigger.

Seriously, you'd be surprised at how many new business owners have a system which loses money and then try to make the same system bigger. Think about that for a moment!!!

Once you understand that, you'll see that it makes sense to test a system that you've not PERSONALLY made a profit from (NEVER ever believe claims by others, particularly in IM), and find a way to test that system as quickly and cheaply as you can, ie. keep it as SMALL as you can, and put as little time and money into it as you can until you have found a profitable system.

Many "systems" promoted in IM are just nonsense, and will never make a penny. That's just the way it is. But, you can still learn a few things from each one.

If you want a system which is likely to work, find a system that hundreds of different people on this forum have ALL said they are making some profit from. Examples are AdSense which is probably the easiest to start (yet is still a good system which some people are using to make tens of thousands a month), or Amazon which is a great system, but takes a little bit more skill and understanding.

Once you've found a system which you have a rational reason to believe actually WORKS (ie. ignore all earnings claims, testimonials etc., just read what real people say here when they are not trying to sell anything!), think how you can test it as small, quick, and cheap as you can, then do that. It some parts of the system work but not others, ask for specific advice here on how to improve the system. If it's obviously not working at all, try something different.

My personal recommendation is try AdSense, because it's so easy. Getting a click is VASTLY easier than making a sale, so forget ClickBank or anything else where something has to sell for you to make money, and start with what's simplest.

If you are not making some income from AdSense within a few days of putting up some content with AdSense near it, you are doing something very wrong, so do it, and ask here for how to improve!
a
Chris
(PS. for a COMPLETE guide to AdSense, including content and keyword research done for you, see my Sig!).

[Beth Kins]

Before you do anything else stop and take a deep breath. Please do not spend anymore money until your sure it will give you a ten fold return because right now you're pouring money down the drain. I agree that you monetization methods for the site needs to be reworked and I also think that you could use something you may not see on other sites. Have you thought of opening up a chat like feature once a day/week/month where women/men can ask questions about pregnancy and get a real time answer? That's something that could draw a crowd! Good luck!

[Content Traders]

Originally Posted by Beth Kins

Before you do anything else stop and take a deep breath. Please do not spend anymore money until your sure it will give you a ten fold return because right now you're pouring money down the drain. I agree that you monetization methods for the site needs to be reworked and I also think that you could use something you may not see on other sites. Have you thought of opening up a chat like feature once a day/week/month where women/men can ask questions about pregnancy and get a real time answer? That's something that could draw a crowd! Good luck!

much appreciated, good idea.

[TechGeek]

Don't spend your money until you know HOW and WHERE to spend. Learn and go THROUGH the process by yourself to know how exactly it works. READ the forum. I would say this forum worth more than 5k if you're implementing the great advices by the gurus.

[backlinkchix]

You will lose that much in a day in Adwords.

Move on, that is the only thing left to do.

[gie grace]

WHoa! $5000?!!

I would never have dared spending that money if I don't have a job.

So basically, that's your savings right??

Was all that money spent on courses and building that pregnancy site up??

Originally Posted by onlyone1

People say content is the king but believe me that traffic is the king.

I have seen people making money out the worst content. You should have tried something like Pay per Install or pay per click i.e lead generating websites. Those need approvals and everyone won't get approvals on CPA networks.

If you need approvals for such networks then PM. Also if you wish to quit internet marketing then you should better sell your site on Flippa. It should sell it for atleast $5000 or more lets see.

- The site design and concept is nice (well, he paid 2K for it), but without traffic, the site won't fly on Flippa.

Originally Posted by Content Traders

Really ? Can I sell it for $5000 ? I spent only $2000 on it. (Its a custom coded unique design PHP site) so why not I start flipping websites :P LOL

Lol mate, follow ONE Proven system at a time, whatever that is.

You gotta stick to it!

(and I'm not saying not to sell your site. You can. But that doesnt mean you have to start flipping websites now - it's a whole new game)

[Christian C]

Your website looks nice but nice doesn't cut it. Many experienced IMers will tell you many of the things that are wrong with your site. No call to action, no strong keyword competition, no optin form, etc.

If you had all your ducks lined in a row that would be a descent start. Unfortunately in this business you need more than just a descent start.

Many of the successful IMers I see making money each and every single day know how to innovate, stand out from the crowd, and most importantly they know the best ways to pull in traffic and make it convert.

I've also learned my lesson the hard way when I first started that just looking "nice" doesn't cut it. You need to really put foot to gas.

All the best.

[HN]

Originally Posted by Content Traders

Really ? Can I sell it for $5000 ? I spent only $2000 on it. (Its a custom coded unique design PHP site) so why not I start flipping websites :P LOL

I hope you spent $2000 for the complete site including content. Because you could have got a unique PHP 'design only' for $50 - $250.

It seems your site gets around 1,000 visitors a day. Is that true? If so, it's a success already. You only need to monetize it better. Have you tried the simplest method, ie. Adsense? There are people out there that sell 15 page junk adsense sites for $1000 and more, so your 150 page site should be worth a lot more if properly monetized.

[HN]

I did a little research to see how competitive this niche is. I found 15,966 keywords in my database related to pregnancy.
The second most expensive keyword is 'private health insurance pregnancy cover' pays $23.65 per click, only 16 searches and just 5 competing websites (exact KW phrase in title).
Out of the total 16K keywords there are:
6,138 keywords that have more than 100 searches per month
1,412 keywords that have more than 800 searches per month
4,338 keywords that pay more than $1.00 per click
226 keywords that pay more than $5.00 per click
5,134 keywords that have less than 100 competing websites (allintitle:"")
3,286 keywords that have less than 10 competing websites (Wow pretty cool)
And I found some very weird keywords in my database (don't ask me, lol)

Every month there are 1300 people asking 'can you get pregnant from a dog'
This keyword costs 10 cents per click and has 92 competing websites
'can i get pregnant from a horse' 880 searches and 8 competing websites
'can i get pregnant from a monkey' 210 searches and 2 competing websites

[HelpingYouBeAnExpert]

My first big money was spent on a mentor. I would use money for that so someone can take a look at what you are doing and guide you and explain what is important and what not till you feel comfterable moving forward. At least this is what helped me. It was $7000 well spent and I don't regret it.

[moneymoguls]

I have been there and done that too...but not quite $5000. I quite buying stuff and listening to most Guru IM'ers. It's all BS. Trial and error is the way to learn but it takes time and is hard work but at least you will know the truth.

I spent hundreds on backlinks which now are worthless. No more backlinking for me.

If you have an informative website with a lot of content (hundreds of pages or thousands) you will get traffic and traffic is money.

Get a full time job and work part time on IM. It's the only way.

[fenixpro]

Hi Op,

Honestly I didn't read all the posts in this thread, so forgive me if I am redundant.

I looked over your site VERY quickly. Two things that popped up:

- my SEO sofware tells me you don't have any backlinks built at all. None.

- your content doesn't seem to be targeting and optimized for keywords - especially longtail keywords.

So....

Authority sites totally rock and bring in automatic traffic with little or no SEO IF you are optimizing each post/article for longtail low/no competition KW - which isn't too difficult to do. Also, your content seemed kinda thin and redundant. Personally, I build sites for people but design them for SEO, if that makes sense.

Share high quality content that is targeted to verified longtail KWs and you'll have droves of traffic. You could do this with your existing content simply by doing the research - or paying someone to - and then editing your posts based on the findings.

As for money, I spent around 8K initially on IM on site building and buying and made some of it back and then basically lost it all when my traffic dried up. A real bummer, but a great lesson and all those hours spent taught me a sh*tload.

Persistence and consistency. How much do you want it... that's what I came back to over and ever.

I am a full time IM now, but if for some reason I needed to get a 'regular' job again because I wasn't making enough $$, that would be fine AND I would still do IM on the side because there is SOOO much potential here.

Stick with it my friend ~

[jonmay]

Don't give up! Just get out of the buying cycle! Look at "why" you have purchased the products that you have and try to mimick the sales language in your own niche, whether it is pregnancy or something else.

[s4mudr4]

wow... $5000???
I think you should get a mentor and learn about IM.
find a method an follow that method until you success. with lot money, there are many to get money.

[dave07]

Never, ever, ever give up

[Paul Gram]

From the sounds of it, you don't have a business. You are trying to build some kind of website with no real strategy or business other than throwing money at it. (many people make that mistake).

Stop spending money and figure out what you can do to add value to the world and then make a business plan around that and go out and kick some *ss and make it happen.

[LukeDavenport]

Ouch! 5k..that sucks, if i had 5,000 to spend on IM, i would be on the road to riches. Have to switch it up when investing, if somethings not working, change it! Try other things until you hit the gold mine.

[BetaMaster]

$5000!! lot of money wasted for none. I will open my own business if have lot of money like that.

[RedShifted]

Originally Posted by Content Traders

Hello warriors,
I am hell disappointed and discouraged to enter into IM, I have spent more than $5 K so far spending on SEO and buying products, getting content written but I have earned nothing so far. I got only two clickbank sales that added only $46 to my CB account and one sale got refund
Now I am thinking to leave IM and do search a Fulltime Job. But at last wanted to share my story with you , may be you have some suggestion. I currently build a huge pregnancy website Pregnancy Guide | pregnancy week by week | step by step pregnancy guide and was thinking I will be an authority site soon but now decided to abonden everything

Look I know you spent 5gs and thats horrible, don't spend anymore money.

Lets be real. That website .. well, sucks. It serves absolutely no real purpose for pregnant women other than some superficial "guide" to make pregnant women more "comfortable". I'm just not sure you understand pregnant women.

You know how they actually gain comfort? They eat.
But why are you even trying to make them more comfortable?
Do the complete opposite imo.

I just don't think you researched your market at all. Or did you?
You need to test what you do, and come up with better ideas.

Maybe write a guide that talks about all the harmful products/foods/substances that can hurt a pregnant mothers baby. I wouldn't even write about smoke & alcohol, make it about things 90% of mothers don't know.

You need to REALLY put your head inside your market. Stop focusing on the website, focus on YOUR MARKET! You need to first learn what makes them tick, then adapt your website/offer to that. Don't go aimlessly creating websites without a specific mission. This website doesn't seem specific. It seems boring, casual, nonengaging, I just see so many pregnant mothers saying "I don't get it... a guide? What is a "comfort guide" gonna do for ME! I'm PREGNANT dammit! I got ESTRO$GYNES flowin through my blood !!!!!!! GIV ME FUDE NAOW!!!!"

Ok not quite. But you get the idea, you need a STRONG idea to interupt a pattern like that, fear is a great way to break patterns imo.

-Red

Good luck!

[Steve McBride]

While it's true that it takes money to make money, it's important to know HOW it takes money to make money.

My best advice at this point: Stop spending money. Focus more on learning how to make money. Once you're more confident about what to do, start trying to earn money by spending no money, or very little money. Once you've started earning money, scale it up and start spending more money to make more money.

[himanuzo]

I guess that you don't have knowledge and experience about how to make money on the internet.

You need targeted traffic to make sales on the internet. No traffic = no sales.

[eternalwarrior]

5000$? Ouch!

Moral of the story: Never rely on SEO company (not all!) whose catchy sales letter will blow your mind! It's better to hire freelancers from fiverr or Odesk.