Those who are succeeding, your 2c worth please!

[Marc Jager]

Hi Warriors!

I'm a total noob, introduced myself in the 'The Off Topic Forum' ("I'm new, Hello everyone!")
/off-topic-forum/86976-im-new-hello-everyone.html

I have a plan and would appreciate some advice/help & feedback, especially with some questions I have about things I don't understand.

Following is my plan of attack with questions after each section of said plan:
(1) Build 5 niche websites (actually I have 1 started already, so I'll be creating 4 new ones)
Ideas:
* Diet/weight-loss
* Innovation/Invention (I have already written a short e-book entitled 'The Secret to Innovation')
* General Health and Lifestyle
* The site I already have (superchlorophyll.com - recently expired so i just have to re-upload it)
-On each site I intend to provide free information and sell clickbank affiliate products related to the site.
- Each site will help drive traffic to the others and to my blog.
- Some, if not all will sell my own eBook or info-video.
(Q) What else can I do to monotise(?) them?
(Q) What kind of website would you recommend RATHER than the five I listed? (except the chlorophyl one, as that's already done).
For example, 'Marc, I think a site catering to a specific health issue, would be better than a 'General H & L website'.

(2) Start a health and lifestyle blog with my own unique twist.
- I understand this would be used to build an e-mail list.
- I also plan to link my 5 websites to this blog.
- I also plan to sell affilate products on this blog.
Q. How do you aquire this list - when people comment on the blog they have to submit their e-mail first? Kinda like in this forum?
Q. I don't understand how e-mail gathering is done (back-end), nor what/how auto-responders etc work.
Q. Once I have a bunch of e-mails - what do I do with them??

(3) Package/prepare my eBook for sale
(I have an eBook/essay type thing entitled 'The Secret to Innovation')
- I could give this away for free for e-mail gathering
- I could sell it...
- It would link to my websites and blogg.
Q. How do you sell an e-Book? I make it into a .pdf, then what? I don't have a merchant facility to take credit card number, do i sell it via PayPal?
Q. I've heard of a system where you buy KEYS that activate a pdf, so people would download the eBook and then purchase KEY, which i could e-mail them... Does this sound like a good idea?

(4) Create several 'how to' videos - E.g. How to Innovate video (from my eBook), or 'How to Play a Ranger in Age of Conan'.
- Each video points people back to websites or blogg.

Q. What else would you recommend i do with videos?

(5) Learn/experiment with Adsense.

--------------------------------------------------------------

About Warrior Forum:
Q. I can't find a link to view my own posts... Am I blind or is there now way to do this other than using Search and Find posts by user?

Q. Is there a post that translates all the IM jargon? - I've searched and can't find one.
I'd love to be able to go to one place and find out what all those acronyms you guys use mean!

--------------------------------------------------------------

Thank you in advance!

[Ewan Cormack]

I don't build niche websites, so you'll have to find someone else to help you with that.

Regarding your questions about the warrior forum:

1. Click on your username (near the top right of the screen) and go to the statistics tab.

2. The forum translates a lot of the acronyms for you. Anytime you see something with dotted lines underneath it, hover your mouse over it to find out what it means. For example WSO

[LB]

The biggest mistake I see people make is to scatter their energy over too many projects and sites and then nothing gets done. There is certainly value in multiple assets but until you have one working smoothly it makes more sense to stick to just that one.

If you can't make one site profitable, why start 5 unprofitable sites in unrelated niches?

Forget Adsense. Focus on creating your own products and building a list...those are real assets. Learn the basics of writing a sales letter and using PPC.

There is no faster money than loading up a PPC campaign that directs people to your own site where you sell a product or build a list. It can literally be done in one day if you are good at the process.

[Adrian Cooper]

Originally Posted by LB

The biggest mistake I see people make is to scatter their energy over too many projects and sites and then nothing gets done. There is certainly value in multiple assets but until you have one working smoothly it makes more sense to stick to just that one.

If you can't make one site profitable, why start 5 unprofitable sites in unrelated niches?

Forget Adsense. Focus on creating your own products and building a list...those are real assets. Learn the basics of writing a sales letter and using PPC.

There is no faster money than loading up a PPC campaign that directs people to your own site where you sell a product or build a list. It can literally be done in one day if you are good at the process.

LB: Great advice. I hope people are listening

[TheCren]

There are wayyyy too many questions to be answered in a single post. I'll go for the autoresponder and merchant account questions. Check out AWeber.com and GetResponse.com for your auto responder. They each have plenty of tutorials to help you get started. Also, you might want to consider getting a membership at ListBuildingClub.com or MyFirstList.com (both are run by Tellman Knudson - genius email marketer).

For your merchant account, you can use PayPal. 1ShoppingCart.com offers more comprehensive tools that aren't difficult to learn and you can still accept PayPal, credit cards, and e-checks.

[Richard Tunnah]

Originally Posted by LB

The biggest mistake I see people make is to scatter their energy over too many projects and sites and then nothing gets done. There is certainly value in multiple assets but until you have one working smoothly it makes more sense to stick to just that one.

If you can't make one site profitable, why start 5 unprofitable sites in unrelated niches?

Forget Adsense. Focus on creating your own products and building a list...those are real assets. Learn the basics of writing a sales letter and using PPC.

There is no faster money than loading up a PPC campaign that directs people to your own site where you sell a product or build a list. It can literally be done in one day if you are good at the process.

LB you'ved nailed it! Great post.

Rich

[Marc Jager]

Originally Posted by LB

There is no faster money than loading up a PPC campaign that directs people to your own site where you sell a product or build a list. It can literally be done in one day if you are good at the process.

Thanks LB, I have to do it this way or I'll get bored (sticking with just one thing) however I will do one at a time (E.g. build one site at a time and won't move on to the next one until the previous one is able to stand on it's own 2 feet.

I don't understand what you mean by 'loading up a PPC campaign that directs people to your own site...'
How do you start a PPC campaign? (Yes, I'm that much of a noob)
Isn't Adsense a PPC campaign concept?

[Don Schenk]

Hey Marc,

Welcome to the WF.

Having multiple niches is a good idea if you take them one at a time... otherwise you will need to clone yourself 5 times and let each clone work on the sites while you oversee the operation. :-)

Let me go off on a quick tangent for a second. There is an old adage about "When you advertise to everybody, you reach nobody."

A friend of mine who operates a nice photograph business out of her home printed thousands of copies of a postcard to mail. The card had a photo of a bride because she photographs weddings, a dog because she photographs pets, a human baby because she does baby photography, and a high school senior boy because she photographs high school seniors. (This is real popular here in the US.)

She mailed the cards. Nobody responded. Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

What happend? Brides seeing the card didn't relate to senior boys or to dogs, new moms didn't relate to dog photos, brides or senior boys. The high school seniors who received her mailing didn't relate to anything because they were receiving postcards from other photographers who knew to only mail photos of high school seniors to high school seniors.

Your idea to have these 5 different niches be linked to from your blog is similar to the postcard trying to reach multiple markets. People interested in health won't be interest in inventions.

Make sense?

:-Don

[Marc Jager]

By the way - While I'm at work I'm using an old version of IE, the underlining you mention for some of the acronyms doesn't happen for me. It did help though, since the title text pops up anyway.
One acronym that doesn't is 'JV'... What is 'JV'?

[LB]

Originally Posted by Marc Jager

Thanks LB, I have to do it this way or I'll get bored (sticking with just one thing) however I will do one at a time (E.g. build one site at a time and won't move on to the next one until the previous one is able to stand on it's own 2 feet.

I don't understand what you mean by 'loading up a PPC campaign that directs people to your own site...'
How do you start a PPC campaign? (Yes, I'm that much of a noob)
Isn't Adsense a PPC campaign concept?

Google Adwords allows you to place bids so that your ads appear when people search for a certain phrase on Google.

For example, someone searches "lose weight" and on the side of Google your ad will appear. Adwords also allows you to place your ads on related websites as well...this is where Adsense comes in. Adsense allows webmasters to make money from ads they allow on their site from Adwords.

To simplify it...you pay Adwords to list your ads, Adsense pays you when you allow their ads on your site.

PPC, especially Adwords, has a decent learning curve and it can get expensive quickly...but if you are good at it you'll find it's the most reliable traffic you can find.

You might also consider selling your product through Clickbank and offering a high affiliate commission...this is another way you can "pay" for sales of your product.

Keep asking questions...learn from others and you'll succeed soon enough.

[Marc Jager]

Originally Posted by Don Schenk

"When you advertise to everybody, you reach nobody."

Thank you very much Don.

I agree 100% - I won't do that on the blogg!

[Ewan Cormack]

Originally Posted by Marc Jager

By the way - While I'm at work I'm using an old version of IE, the underlining you mention for some of the acronyms doesn't happen for me. It did help though, since the title text pops up anyway.
One acronym that doesn't is 'JV'... What is 'JV'?

JV = joint venture - a venture between two or more warriors.

Warrior Joint Ventures

HTH

[cjjohn]

Excellent answers here. I would add just one other thing: Backlinking.

There's a warrior right here in the forums offering a special monthly subscription where she sends you about 30 high PR sites addresses where you can go and create accounts and get valuable backlinks.

Do a search for Angela's Backlinks.

[Marc Jager]

Thanks again LB.
To re-cap and make sure I understand;

Originally Posted by LB

Google Adwords allows you to place bids so that your ads appear when people search for a certain phrase on Google.
For example, someone searches "lose weight" and on the side of Google your ad will appear. Adwords also allows you to place your ads on related websites as well...this is where Adsense comes in. Adsense allows webmasters to make money from ads they allow on their site from Adwords.

So you're suggesting I allow these on my website(s) as an extra form of monotising(?) the site(s)?

Originally Posted by LB

To simplify it...you pay Adwords to list your ads, Adsense pays you when you allow their ads on your site.

Got it

Originally Posted by LB

PPC, especially Adwords, has a decent learning curve and it can get expensive quickly...but if you are good at it you'll find it's the most reliable traffic you can find.

Understood. I think i played around with it a few years ago... I think i set some kind of limit so that I wouldn't wake up one day with a nasty surprise on my CC.

Originally Posted by LB

You might also consider selling your product through Clickbank and offering a high affiliate commission...this is another way you can "pay" for sales of your product.

Good idea (selling through Clickbank - Can you believe this didn't occur to me!) but i don't understand what you mean by this being another way to 'pay'for sales... unless you simply mean by the high affiliate commission I'd be offering.

Originally Posted by LB

Keep asking questions...learn from others and you'll succeed soon enough.

I appreciate this - Thank you.

[bgmacaw]

Originally Posted by LB

There is no faster money than loading up a PPC campaign that directs people to your own site where you sell a product or build a list. It can literally be done in one day if you are good at the process.

The problem is most people suck at this process, especially at first, and flush away a lot of money learning the ropes. If one has money to burn, sure, go for it like you would day trading or playing the keno wheel in Vegas. If they don't, then a different approach would be better for them.

But, I do hope people follow your advice since it will reduce my competition in the niche site SEO arena and perhaps even help my Adsense earnings as they screw up and overbid in the content network.

[Marc Jager]

Howdy Kitfanc
Can you please explain 'back-linking' and the benefits?
Is this simply having links on your site and having other sites link to yours?
Good for SEO, I assume....

Oh, and Hi scattermouse and thanks for the acronym translation! ;P

[Ewan Cormack]

Originally Posted by Marc Jager

Howdy Kitfanc
Can you please explain 'back-linking' and the benefits?
Is this simply having links on your site and having other sites link to yours?
Good for SEO, I assume....

Oh, and Hi scattermouse and thanks for the acronym translation! ;P

No problem! Always glad to help out a fellow warrior.

I think what you're describing above is a link exchange, which is pretty useful in itself.

Backlinking is getting links to your website, often from high PR websites, without having to link to them yourself. It is for SEO, and Angela's backlink packages basically give you lots of places where you can get a free link to your site from another site that google considers to have a high authority.

I don't use them myself - I don't really "do" the niche website thing, but lots of people here on the warrior forum swear by them, although obviously they don't make much difference if you're planning on getting your traffic from PPC.

[The Copy Nazi]

"How do you start a PPC campaign?"..."What's a JV?"...mate I'm still chuckling. You're where I was a few years back. I followed a frog sheila here to Gay Paree from Brissie about 8 years back and didn't have a clue how I was going to earn a living - considering I only knew a few words of French.

Where to start eh? That's the question. And I have some very good ideas for you. I'll PM you. Can't have all these Seppos sharing the knowledge .

Meanwhile click on my blog YourInternets.com in my signature - that should keep you amused for a day or so. Written in Orstrayan too.

Welcome aboard. Hang on tight.

[LB]

So you're suggesting I allow these on my website(s) as an extra form of monotising(?) the site(s)?

Nope, that's Adsense. I recommend against going this route. Adsense pays very little and will just drive visitors away from your site. It is ideal for some niches but it will end up as competition for your main purpose (selling your product).

The problem is most people suck at this process, especially at first, and flush away a lot of money learning the ropes. If one has money to burn, sure, go for it like you would day trading or playing the keno wheel in Vegas. If they don't, then a different approach would be better for them.

There is a learning curve to everything, those who overcome it are those who succeed.

If you educate yourself before starting there is very little chance of overbidding if you watch your spend.

I could care less about SEO...it's not my thing. (not to diminish its value) Some people are good at it and I respect that. I focus on building lists and selling products...JVs, affiliates and PPC are some of the best ways I do that.

PPC forces you to get good fast or quit because it costs money. SEO is one of those intangible things that people can piss away years learning and never have anything to show for it...there's always a new technique to chase. But if you're going to do SEO then make sure and build a list from the traffic you're getting because it could disappear any day.

But the point of my post is to build assets...not chase clicks. How you choose to do that is up to you.

[Marc Jager]

Originally Posted by Metronicity

"How do you start a PPC campaign?"..."What's a JV?"...mate I'm still chuckling. You're where I was a few years back. I followed a frog sheila here to Gay Paree from Brissie about 8 years back and didn't have a clue how I was going to earn a living - considering I only knew a few words of French.
Where to start eh? That's the question. And I have some very good ideas for you. I'll PM you. Can't have all these Seppos sharing the knowledge .
Meanwhile click on my blog YourInternets.com in my signature - that should keep you amused for a day or so. Written in Orstrayan too.
Welcome aboard. Hang on tight.

Thanks mate, appreciate it - If you send me your ideas on where/how I should start I'll be more than happy to turn over all of my ideas offline aswell as online - (I have tonnes of very innovative ideas). You're welcome to them as there's no way i can pursue them all. The only reason I'm not a multi-millionaire is that I am extremely lazy and have NO perserverence (can I even spell it???)... I'm also very UN-focused. Just as one venture is about to take off, I get bored and move onto another one, but I dare say I have so many ideas there's several in this brain that could make someone with proper focus, very wealthy

[Marc Jager]

I have a new question - It's about 'articles'.
There is a whole lot of talk on here, about articles, article submissions, articles used on blogs and EZ? or some such.... People selling articles.
I understand the value of articles to give value to your blog or website but WHERE are these websites that buy articles?
Which ones are Warriors recommending?

[Marc Jager]

Hey Warriors,

Still waiting on proper answers ; )

No one has yet fully answered all my questions.

Summary:
RE: my wbesites:
(Q) What else can I do to monotise(?) them?
(Q) What kind of website would you recommend RATHER than the five I listed?
RE; my blog:
Q. How do you aquire this list - when people comment on the blog they have to submit their e-mail first? Kinda like in this forum?
Q. I don't understand how e-mail gathering is done (back-end), nor what/how auto-responders etc work.
Q. Once I have a bunch of e-mails - what do I do with them??
RE: Selling an eBook:
Q. How do you sell an e-Book? I make it into a .pdf, then what? I don't have a merchant facility to take credit card number, do i sell it via PayPal?
Q. I've heard of a system where you buy KEYS that activate a pdf, so people would download the eBook and then purchase KEY, which i could e-mail them... Does this sound like a good idea?
RE: Videos:
Q. What else would you recommend i do with videos?

[Beetrue]

I'm wondering doesn't pay per click (ppc) end up costing a lot of money. I also hope to find more information about building a list. As for the beginning of the thread I'd say to use squidoo and hub pages.

[Beetrue]

I know JV means Joint Venture

A joint venture is a strategic alliance where two or more parties, usually businesses, form a partnership to share markets, intellectual property, assets, knowledge, and, of course, profits. A joint venture differs from a merger in the sense that there is no transfer of ownership in the deal.
This partnership can happen between goliaths in an industry. Cingular, for instance, is a strategic alliance between SBS and Bellsouth. It can also occur between two small businesses that believe partnering will help them successfully fight their bigger competitors.


Companies with identical products and services can also join forces to penetrate markets they wouldn't or couldn't consider without investing tremendous resources. Furthermore, due to local regulations, some markets can only be penetrated via joint venturing with a local business.
In some cases, a large company can decide to form a joint venture with a smaller business in order to quickly acquire critical intellectual property, technology, or resources otherwise hard to obtain, even with plenty of cash at their disposal.

[Beetrue]

you can submit your articles at ezinearticles.com & if others use your articles on their blog, website ect. they have to leave your tag line which in turn gets your site found.

[Marc Jager]

Thanks Beetrue,

Still waiting for answers to these:
Summary:
RE: my wbesites:
(Q) What else can I do to monotise(?) them?
(Q) What kind of website would you recommend RATHER than the five I listed?
RE; my blog:
Q. How do you aquire this list - when people comment on the blog they have to submit their e-mail first? Kinda like in this forum?
Q. I don't understand how e-mail gathering is done (back-end), nor what/how auto-responders etc work.
Q. Once I have a bunch of e-mails - what do I do with them??
RE: Selling an eBook:
Q. How do you sell an e-Book? I make it into a .pdf, then what? I don't have a merchant facility to take credit card number, do i sell it via PayPal?
Q. I've heard of a system where you buy KEYS that activate a pdf, so people would download the eBook and then purchase KEY, which i could e-mail them... Does this sound like a good idea?
RE: Videos:
Q. What else would you recommend i do with videos?

[alexei_aus]

good post Marc. I am also from Brisbane

some of the niches you listed are quite competitive (weightloss). I would recommend to start promoting products from clickbank and paydotcom as well as maybe sell advertising space, however a combination might be a little hard as ads can distract people quite a lot

[alexei_aus]

as for email gathering, you can use a tool called aweber, it works via optin form.
so aweber generates a name/email capture form, you put it on your page and give away a report or a newsletter of some kind in exchange for person's details. The details get stored in aweber and you can email the entire list of people or reach them individually.

There is a whole system on getting through to people tho opted in. You need to establish trust with them first and then you can start selling.

We use aweber for a series of their automated emails which we prewrite.

I hope this makes sense

[Mike Hersh]

(Q) What else can I do to monotise(?) them?

(A) You should start from Adsense ads, Clickbank banner ads, Clickbank products inside your posts, Yahoo publisher network, Bidvertiser, and I could list a lot more but I believe to you are running to fast for monitizing before you even build the site and get traffic.

(Q) What kind of website would you recommend RATHER than the five I listed?

(A) The websites you consider are pretty OK for building a network. This is of course if I understand what you really intent to do.

Q. How do you aquire this list - when people comment on the blog they have to submit their e-mail first? Kinda like in this forum?

(A) You can build a list by using feeds subscriptions in your blogs or websites. Or you can buy an autoresponder account at Aweber dot com, create an opt-in form and use a pop-up at your blogs.

Q. I don't understand how e-mail gathering is done (back-end), nor what/how auto-responders etc work.

(A) For this one simply visit Aweber dot com and watch the videos, it's too long to explain in this post. The video on their site will explain you exactly what you need to know about autoresponders and email promotions.

Q. Once I have a bunch of e-mails - what do I do with them??

(A) In short, you simply provide them with good free/paid resources who can help them to get more familiar with what they want to learn. With the free one's you build trust and relationship, with the paid one's you make money.
Q. How do you sell an e-Book? I make it into a .pdf, then what? I don't have a merchant facility to take credit card number, do i sell it via PayPal?

The first thing to do is to create your ebook. You can write it in Microsoft Word and them convert it into a pdf format. When you have your ebook done, you'll need to build a ministe for your ebook, or find a simple sales page template for free if you are not on a budget. When you have a ready sales page you simply register with paypal and create a button to insert into your sales page. WHen people click on that payment button they will be redirected to paypal to make the payment that you decided to charge when you created your button on paypal.

Q. I've heard of a system where you buy KEYS that activate a pdf, so people would download the eBook and then purchase KEY, which i could e-mail them... Does this sound like a good idea?

You are going to far before you even start do do the essential moves. Try to focus on one thing and when you'll get to the bridge I believe you'll not have any troubles. Firstly create your ebook, be ready to sell it, and then find answers to that question.

Q. What else would you recommend i do with videos?

Create your how to in a format that will invite the watcher to visit your website. When you start the video you should say where the source of the video is. The same at the end of the video, you should invite people to watch even better videos on your website.

Upload all the videos to video sites like youtube, 5min, and so on. Also put them on your website so that if people preffer to come to you to watch they can do it anytime.

Hope this helps you,

Mike G

P.S
If you're such a newbie, subscribe to my blog feed by clicking on my signature link. You will get tons of professional tips to get you started faster.

[discrat]

Originally Posted by LB

Nope, that's Adsense. I recommend against going this route. Adsense pays very little and will just drive visitors away from your site. It is ideal for some niches but it will end up as competition for your main purpose (selling your product).



There is a learning curve to everything, those who overcome it are those who succeed.

If you educate yourself before starting there is very little chance of overbidding if you watch your spend.

I could care less about SEO...it's not my thing. (not to diminish its value) Some people are good at it and I respect that. I focus on building lists and selling products...JVs, affiliates and PPC are some of the best ways I do that.

PPC forces you to get good fast or quit because it costs money. SEO is one of those intangible things that people can piss away years learning and never have anything to show for it...there's always a new technique to chase. But if you're going to do SEO then make sure and build a list from the traffic you're getting because it could disappear any day.

But the point of my post is to build assets...not chase clicks. How you choose to do that is up to you.

Trust me, learning SEO and building upon it can be an unbelievably huge Asset. It sounds like you have a sour taste in your mouth. With SEO and building Websites and Blogs you can put yourself in a postion of creating valuable virtual 'real estate' over time. SEO is straight forward and if you stick with it you will find reward. There is no new technique to chase. Build solid original, content at your Site each and every week with straegically used keywords. And then build backlinks to those Sites thru Article Marketing, Blog Commenting, Social Bookmarking, Forum Posting, etc..etc..
Come on its not brain surgery by any means.

Anyone who wants to put in a little time and work can really build a true model of business with SEO. Much more so than PPC!! IMHO
With SEO and Website/Blog building you are killing two birds with one stone . You are building a list and building up Organic Traffic over time. Which can amount to passive income that lasts for a Lifetime. With PPC, you are just building a List. And you have to keep building it with PPC Campaign after PPC Campaign after PPC Campaign. Thanks but NO thanks !! In my views that is NOT a Stellar Long Term Business Model. With SEO and Organic Traffic you don't have to do this. Once you build up to a certain level of Organic Traffic your Lists will exponentially grow to huge proportions while operating on auto pilot.
So that is a huge fundamental difference between these two business models ,and is the reason why I ALWAYS advice newbies to definitely go for SEO and building something of value for the long term.

[Marc Jager]

Thanks guys - I'm still learning lots and decided to narrow down what I'm doing so I can focus more on 1 or 2 sites, instead of 5 and also promot a fellow warrior's subscription site.
My main problem at the moment is figuring out how to get stupid Adobe Acrobat * Professional to apply security settings (no printing, no editing, no copying) but still allow the file to be opened. Each time I do (and leave 'Access' open) it won't let the file be opened. Always asks for a password even though I specifically didn;t choose password as a security option.