Where to begin with Internet marketing

by jvm127

Posted: 15 years ago 22 replies

INTERNET MARKETING

Hello Everyone,

I have been selling products online for several years now and doing very well. I basically have a website that I promote through Google Ads. I do none of my own website desgin. I outsource all of it. With that said, I no longer wish to continue selling goods I must produce or buy then resell. I have wondered what it would take to set up sites that draw money other ways (adsense, etc..) and have read many of the threads on this board. I was hoping some of you veterans could help me get started in the right direction with an answer to some of my questions or provide some additional advice. Thank you in advance for your time.

1. Is there a link somewhere on these forums for the VERY new guys to this like myself? I'm talking the very basics - kind of who, what, when, where, why that everyone who is successful started with. I did read the "newby" page but it lists a lot of "opportunites" to get started with. I think those will be of great use once I get the basicas of what it means to even take advantage of those opportunities.

2. I assume adsense is the biggest name for referal income generation. Are there any others out there that you use in addition to adsense (I have read that you can sell clickbank products in a similar way).

3. Some of the sites that sell products such as e-books and other "systems" are truly amazing. It looks like it would take a professional website design company considerable time to make those sites. I want to do this right and realize I do not have the ability to make sites like those. Is there a place I can go to hire people that will make me amazing landing pages/sites like that for a good price without them stealing my idea?

4. I have read on the forum that most people use blogs to generate some of their income. Are these basically an information site with adsense littered throughout the blog?

5. I found a site that called Instant Adsense Empire. They claim to provide you with 322 adsense-ready sites. Would something like that be a good starting point to help me learn the basics?

In general, I get the "big picture" idea of what to do. I really just need a place to get started on the very basics so I can get a fundamental understanding of how this works. I'm a very bright guy so once I get that I'm sure I can get running and ask questions that stump me along the way.

Again, thank you very much in advance for your advice and replies.

Russ Ward

#begin #internet #marketing

dvduval 15 years ago

I've been doing adsense for several years now, and I'll tell you that you really need an active site make a lot of money. To make $100/month won't be too difficult, but to make $1000/month will take more time than you might realize.
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dvduval 15 years ago

What would be some examples of these "programs"?
(remember he is a newbie)
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CurtisN 15 years ago

No offense to those who are making good money with Adsense, but Adsense is a terrible way to learn the basics and get started online (imo). You need to learn the true basics of Internet marketing: list building, traffic generation, market research, etc.

There's no way getting hundreds of ready-made Adsense sites will teach you anything for many reasons. First of all, many many other people will be getting the same sites as you, so you'd have to customize the sites to make them look different and that's not something a newbie should have to do. Secondly, how do you think you're going to make money with it? To make money with Adsense, you need a large network of sites with a lot of traffic going to each of them.

Well...enough negativity from me...lol. Here's a great starting point for all newbies:

http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...-new-read.html

Too many newbies come onto the IM scene, proceed to waste their money on a product or three and then get even more confused. I think the correct way to learn this business is to come to this forum first and ask questions The buying of stuff should come when you know exactly what you're buying.
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- tzooming 15 years ago
  
  Again, I am not here to comment on how different people make money but from my 5 years experience in IM, I have heard of people making good money on adsense but you would need serious traffic here and you may take like a year before you get anything north of 5 million impressions a month.
  
  For starters, i would suggest you learn the basics through affiliate marketing and tactics to drive traffic from PPC and SEO, without the latter two basics, it's going to be tough to build any lists.
  
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jvm127 15 years ago

I'm good at making Google Ads that get me a pretty high CTR. I've got the bases covered when it comes to Advertise----->Sales. But the only thing I really know how to sell right now is something I can create (which takes time) or something I can physically buy and resell. I guess what I'm reading in some of your posts is that I should keep doing what I know but maybe direct my ads to affiliate sites - maybe hundreds of them? - and reap the rewards when people buy through my advertising efforts?

The only thing I know of to start doing this is selling clickbank products and I'm not really clear on how that works yet. Do you promote a clickbank product with some kind of special "buy" link that kicks me back the commission whenever a sale is made through my site?

In the process I guess I should be learning how to get free traffic through SEO, right? I bought an e-book yesterday that talks about how to get almost any site on the Google first page and it looks pretty straight forward and simple. The thing I do not understand is how to implement the key words into the site. Do you dump them all into the html/php code somewhere/somehow or do you gear the content of your site toward whatever the keyword you want to be found by in the search engine?

Thanks again for the replies. I do realize everyone's time is money.
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- jvm127 15 years ago
  
  I got started with my first affiliate program today - no sales but it's a start!
  
  Thanks
  
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GeorgR.

15 years ago

it takes a LOT do make some serious money w/ adsense, foremost LOADS of traffic and a good site which gets (and keeps) such traffic. Being IM for some years now, adsense for me is only good for change.

I think the most straight forward way to make money is get into some affiliate program like Clickbank and chose any of the MANY niche products there.

Then you make a blog/site with a very good design and review the products and refer people to the clickbank site via your affiliate links (preferrably cloaked).

You also submit articles with keywords and subject related, linking back to your review blog.

This way i already reached #1 google rank for some clickbank products/niches and i get constantly sales.

A typical example of a review site for a product would be

The Best Treatment for Angular Cheilitis | Natural Remedies and Cures

Its a simple wordpress site (which has other benefits)....and it can ALSO used as lander for PPC.

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jvm127

15 years ago

Originally Posted by GeorgR.

it takes a LOT do make some serious money w/ adsense, foremost LOADS of traffic and a good site which gets (and keeps) such traffic. Being IM for some years now, adsense for me is only good for change.

I think the most straight forward way to make money is get into some affiliate program like Clickbank and chose any of the MANY niche products there.

Then you make a blog/site with a very good design and review the products and refer people to the clickbank site via your affiliate links (preferrably cloaked).

You also submit articles with keywords and subject related, linking back to your review blog.

This way i already reached #1 google rank for some clickbank products/niches and i get constantly sales.

A typical example of a review site for a product would be

Its a simple wordpress site (which has other benefits)....and it can ALSO used as lander for PPC.

Really good stuff. Thanks a lot! I'm actually promoting a clickbank product right now. It is the product in my sig line. You said a "cloaked" link is best. I would assume my link is not cloaked since when you click the link it goes to the product site and shows my clickbank ID at the end. I would assume there is a way around this. Could you recommend one?

As a clickbank marketer, do you review literally hundreds of products and advertise all of them or do you stick to a few niche that you know well? I was thinking hard about quality vs. quantity and I'm not sure which way to go yet.

I also wondered if it would be a good idea to start a review site where you promote yourself as someone who reviews products and gives feedback - of course you would not be objective and I would guess you would need to let the buyer know that in some way but I thought it might be a good idea to have one general site and review multiple products you promote from that site - any thoughts?

Thanks again to everyone for all the great replies!

Thanks
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GeorgR.

15 years ago

Originally Posted by jvm127

As a clickbank marketer, do you review literally hundreds of products and advertise all of them or do you stick to a few niche that you know well? I was thinking hard about quality vs. quantity and I'm not sure which way to go yet.

this is very often a gamble. I first get a rough idea about a niche eg. from forums or other people telling me about well going products.

I also go on clickbank marketplace and cbengine.com and look at stats of products and then i do some basic keyword research on google adwords about estimated keyword costs.

Some keywords/niches you can exclude right away, eg. for a remedy product on clickbank where you'd pay $0.80+ per click on adwords and you would only get $25/sale....it just won't work for PPC.

There were plenty of products where i thought they're killer, but which at the end didnt convert well...usually then i switch to another product.

Its different if you manage to reach a good google position with some site/keyword..since then you can skip PPC...but this is NOT always easy.

Eg. i am still trying to reach #1 for "bacterial vaginosis"...but its hard.

I then let someone write unique articles, and part of them i submit to ezine and another part i use as content for my blogs. Sometimes i also write articles myself and try to update the blogs every few days with new content.

I also have squidoo-lenses which link back to those review sites, things like that. But there is never a guarantee that a product works, its a trial and error thing. The good thing is that clickbank has LOTS of products to chose...and the "review style" blog site works basically for a whole lot of products with only minimal changes.

As a general rule (for me)...i stay away from big main-stream products like "fat loss" and "make money" and go more for smaller niches where the market is not very saturated.

G.

Thanks

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InternetMarketingCenter 15 years ago

AdSense takes traffic. Traffic takes SEO or PPC. SEO or PPC takes keywords. Keywords take niche research. Niche research takes thinking through what you are capable of tackling, and then narrowing down into markets to see if there is something left to tackle there.

Don't mistake a strategy for a business plan.
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napoleonfirst 15 years ago

You can buy a WSO of Jeremy Kelsall.
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My Money-Making Secrets Will Blow Your Mind
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yaji 15 years ago

Well said, start with something you are very interested in, then go to another niche to build more sites.
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Thanks, Yaji

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mscopeland

15 years ago

These types of questions are the exact reason why Internet Marketer Magazine has been created. There's a lot of people that have many great ideas and so much information that they don't know what to do or where to go. Well the first issue is "Back to Basics" and features a great article from Matt Bacak talking about the same thing.

The magazine is meaty, and not all theory.

It seems like you're on the right track, although after you read the first issue of IMM, you may have more focus and direction on where to go next. First issue will be released in a few weeks!

Thanks
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jvm127

15 years ago

Originally Posted by mscopeland

Do you have a place where I could sign up on a mailing list so I make sure I get the first issue? I found the link to enter your twitter username/password but I'm not comfortable doing that. Is there a direct link to sign up? Also, I don't really think many other people would be comfortable giving out their login information. I realize it says it's not stored but I don't know many people who just trust a random Internet person.

Thanks,

Russ

Thanks

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JoshuaElliot

Banned 15 years ago

[DELETED]

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jvm127

15 years ago

Originally Posted by JoshuaElliot

Its good that you start with affiliate marketing, it is the best for newbies.

I would suggest that you lead capture your visitors at the same time, so you can upsell them other affiliate products related to your niche.

This is one of the main reasons why most Internet Marketers succeed, is to lead capture.

Would that be something like having them sign up for a newsletter before I send them to a link to buy my product? Or am I on the wrong track with lead capture? Also, when you upsell a whole list of captured leads, do you just send out a mass spam email to all of them or do it in a somewhat more subtle way?

Thanks

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Moneybuster 15 years ago

Iv'e recently just started Selling affliliate products and I would say although I haven't made much money yet (That takes time), It is probably one of the easiest methods to start making money on the internet today. I have bought all the e-books, membership sites and products you could probably think of, a lot of these have been scams others have been good info but cost too much or were too confusing to start on my own. But affiliate marketing is a lot easier to understand than any of them. I've heard once you get your marketing right you can expect a 5 sum income every month which I believe to be true. But like every business this takes time and effort and does not happen over night or I would be a rich man already.
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jvm127 15 years ago

**UPDATE**

Made my very first affiliate sale just a minute ago - SUPER PUMPED!
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- mike116 15 years ago
  
  What are you using to generate traffic? You mentioned you got a sale but was unclear as to whether you were using a blog or if you got a website up and running that is reffering folks to your affiliate link. I'm a newbie also and you're one sale ahead of me, that's why I ask.
  
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jvm127 15 years ago

I have had over 1,000 clicks (by directing targeted traffic to the clickbank product I picked) on my affiliate link and only 3 sales. Is there anything I might be missing? I know there's nothing I can do about the landing page since I don't control the site or the product. I'm linking directly to the product. I guess I should maybe start a "daily tip" or "review" blog to qualify the traffic even more possibly? Any advice would help.

Thanks
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AlbertF 15 years ago

Adsense in most cases isn't the top money earner because unfortunately web sites don't last over 3 years. Adsense is only good with top traffic sites, that is why most webmasters go in for affiliate networks instead in the beginning. I strongly suggest going for both ends of the deal. If you have questions, you can simply give me a PM or read articles from our blog.
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Alminc 15 years ago

Affiliate -----------> Reseller -------------->Product Creator

As an affiliate you learn how to drive traffic, how to write compelling web content, how to protect your links and how to build a list.

Then as a reseller you master all the technical staff you need to know when you
sell your products ( secure delivery, payment processing, OTOs, support...etc.)

Then you create your own product, or pay someone to do it for you, and you learn
to manage your own affiliates and make JV.

Adsense...what's that ?
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No links :)
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