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Making First Sale Online

by deltyf
17 replies
Hello warriors,

I have been attempting to make money online through affiliate marketing for about four years now with not even 1 single sale. I have come accross warrior forum via google search for tips and decided to just sign up and finally ask the pros for some advice.

I have an Internet marketing blog and a ecommerce amazon affiliate website. I just set up an account with bing ads, created a campaign with exact targeted keywords for both websites. Deposited $75 to test it out. I received about 600 visits to my e commerce website and about 300 to my blog. No conversions, no sales not even a comment.

I've tried article submission, classified ads, and guest posts and nothing. With multiple websites and blogs later and no luck with anything I think affiliate marketing might not be for me. Or I'm just missing something.

Is there some affiliate website free or something purchased ready made.something to where I just have to manage?

Any tips?
Thank you
#making #online #sale
  • Profile picture of the author Marketing Fool
    Hi, 4 years of time without a single penny earned...yeah, you're doing something seriously...and I mean SERIOUSLY wrong. It's hard to say what exactly that is tho without seeing your stuff.. If I had to guess, I'd guess that your websites are terrible, or massively unprofessional looking or something.

    There's not, as you ask, some ready made thing that's just going to magically make you money though...sorry to say.
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  • Profile picture of the author Alex Blades
    I went 4 years without making any real money myself, maybe you are targeting the wrong niche? I have a niche you can target, and I'm pretty sure it wont take you four years to make your first commission. I'll send it to you, so you can try it out
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    " I knew that if I failed, I wouldn't regret that.
    But I knew the one thing I might regret is not ever having tried. "

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  • Profile picture of the author Sushiman1111
    What's the URL of your website?
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    If you've made your first dollar online and want to take things to the next level - ie, $1000/month - sign up here to get on the WSO prelaunch list.

    Got a health/fitness niche list? Become an affiliate for something new and different here.
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    • Profile picture of the author NatesMarketing
      Four years for a full time income would be one thing. That would actually be pretty good in my opinion. Most people don't make it to full time...ever.

      Four years for a single sale tho? Something must be wrong. Or you're spending 1 hour a week.

      What methods have you tried? I know you've blogged and had an "Amazon site" (dunno what you mean by this...an aStore?) - but you need to sell.

      Set up a sales page. Set up a squeeze page. Set up calls to action. Build lists. Get on social networks. Get people do perform actions.

      Simply having a little blog will not pay. It's the nice, entertaining blogs that generate revenue.
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  • Profile picture of the author stevoarnold
    You'll have a tough time trying to profit from amazon affiliate offers if your primary traffic source is paid.

    What have you done in terms of SEO?

    Is your site actually 4 years old, or is this a new site after 4 years of trying and failing with other sites?
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  • Profile picture of the author stevoarnold
    With the first one, it looks pretty enough, but first impressions are "what is it?"

    Each page is essentially an ad, there's no helpful content that I can make out.

    Would you buy a magazine that only had ads in it?

    Make it a useful resource for people with your own content and then subtly recommend these products. That's my advice. Don't make the ads the only thing on the site

    Without wanting to sound mean, I'm overcome with a very strong sense of irony of a site with the phrase "online wealth" in the name, which hasnt earned a penny in 4 years

    Edit: Oh yeah, the amazon one, you'll do much better providing reviews of amazon products than just duplicating amazon. It goes back to giving people a reason to visit your site. Help them decide what products they need to buy by giving pros and cons etc.
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  • Profile picture of the author Randall Magwood
    I dont think you ever mentioned that you created a squeeze page. If you have never tried that, you should do so, and start promoting your offers via opt-in email marketing.
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    • Profile picture of the author LaniXO
      Your first site, your IM site, is basically full of ads with a little bit of a presell blurb. I don't really see any content that helps people or gives them a reason to stick around your site. The layout isn't very user friendly although it looks clean.

      Since you said you've been doing affiliate marketing for 4 yrs now, why not share what you have learnt during that time on your site?

      Honestly though, if it was me I'd go into a niche I am passionate about and have some experience to draw from. I'm a bit weary about people setting up 'make money online' sites when they've never made $1 online. Plus it's a hugely saturated market so unless you really know what you're talking about and have proof to show people you're the real deal and/or you have something of value to offer in terms of content or personality that stands out from the crowd and is unique, you may be wasting your time.

      Like someone said earlier, your Amazon affiliate site doesn't contain any reviews or content, just products listed for sale which isn't very appealing...plus Amazon doesn't pay very high affiliate commissions anyway...

      Overall, I'd suggest thinking about what you're good at, what you've got to offer the world, and build an authority site in a niche you're passionate about. You don't have to be an expert, just build a site/blog, optimize it for the search engines, monetize it, and fill it with truly unique, valuable content that really helps people. Build a list by offering your readers something in return for opting in and then create a follow up email series providing them with content and as well as promos. Build an audience through social media etc.
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  • Profile picture of the author eClicker
    If you want to make money get a squeeze page from the forum that has an oto and a thank you. Throw a solo ad at it you will make at lease one sale.
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  • Profile picture of the author Marc Rodill
    How much traffic were you getting before you ran those ads?

    By the way, I'm pretty certain you could have made one sale if you just narrowed your focus. There's way too much going on on those pages.

    The other thing is they don't look very professional. And that's not hard to do. Just go into cPanel and use fantastico to install Wordpress and pick a theme.

    Literally you could probably throw up a Wordpress site, no side bar or anything just a single page, delete everything, and just have one page that "pre-sells" a product.

    One single product. Buy the product. Go through it. Then ask yourself, "What is this product all about?" and "What will it do for someone?"

    Great now you got your pre-sell copy. They land on your page and you say, How would you like to solve x problem in y period of time?

    Here's what I got: Then you tell them what the product is and why you think it would solve that problem and why you believe it's a good solution.

    Then you tell them exactly what result it will bring into their life, what's the outcome, what will they be able to see as a result of using it?

    Then you tell them to click a link to go buy it, and send them to a long form sales page that does the rest of the selling for you. But you need to promote a sales page - or write one.

    Promoting one that's already written is faster.

    Marlon Sanders talks about this in some of his products and his speeches. In his early days, when there was way less competition, he wasn't making any money either.

    He was sending people to catalog type sites where they could click around and look at a whole bunch of different things and basically just "browse".

    Well he started making money when he narrowed his focus and just focused on selling one product at at time. That's what his buddy told him to do. That's what you have to do. Sell one at a time.

    You're not Amazon you don't have ten million zillion people landing on your site everyday specfically to buy a product. So don't try to be a catalog.

    To get the most bang for your buck, hunker down and ask yourself what type of product you really want to sell? Then go look for signs that people are buying it.

    Then focus all your time and attention on selling that and nothing else. You will make your first sale in no time. Trust me.

    I'm not as super successful as I'd like to be yet, but I made my first sale in 2 weeks 5 years ago doing what I just told you to do. I made a site focused entirely on one product.

    That's what you should do too.

    Thanks
    Marc Rodill

    PS. Here's a good post by writeaway that gives you an easy sales formula. This is pretty much pure gold condensed into one single, simple paragraph:

    http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ml#post8236489
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  • Profile picture of the author Danny del la luz
    deltyf, have a look at the response by Marc Rodill.

    He's pretty much given you a nice straightforward blueprint of what to do, and what to avoid doing(time and effort wasting)....

    The point Marc brings up about narrowing down "Narrowing your focus" on a single product(or possibly a few at best) is incredible advice!

    I feel this is one of the main errors many people make(including myself) in that they can "spread themselves too thin" and so lose their focus....
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  • Profile picture of the author deltyf
    Wow. Thanks everybody for thr replies and the helpful information. Marc you pretty much nailed it on your post. That completely makes sense. I guess sometimes you can trick yourself into believing that your focusing on the right thing. I should have signed up to this forum years ago. Thanks all for all the helpful information. And yes both sites posted before are new due to the fact that I still have not been satisfied with recent sites. The IM site was something I wanted try for awhile just to see how it goes.
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  • Profile picture of the author Ximer
    I'd agree with Marc, he did pretty much make a blueprint for you.
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  • Profile picture of the author HumbleGuy
    @Marc - Hatts off mate, you nailed it. I believe it sounds easy to write down helpful posts when you know the basics and complex marketing stuff too. But it's even more harder, because when you know the basics, it's insanely boring or not compelling to write those basics again and again, specially in such a "blue print" form. So good job friend!
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  • Profile picture of the author acesites
    If it's not working, try something new. Have you thought about buying domain names, building them, maybe getting some traffic and revenue and then selling them?

    With affiliate sales, you have to find a way to get traffic from a super relevant source. I am not good at affiliate marketing.. or I least I assume not, as I've never tried it. Maybe it's not for you. There are many ways to make money online. Good luck
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    • Profile picture of the author janicej
      Banned
      Have you tried doing some keyword research and creating or buying some quality content for your site?

      Useful and informational web content together with the proper keywords in your anchor texts (that will reflect your niche and interests) could help you attract a lot of people who might actually be interested in clicking on those affiliate links.
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