total newbie here, $160 budget...what to buy?

Completely agree. Pick something you feel passionate about or else it will be really hard to have the drive to learn everything you need to know. Also you may want to start just by cruising these public threads.

I agree! My sister's been on here for less than a year and is so excited about the people and info on this site, that I decided to join as well. It's easy to get overwhelmed because every thread is so interesting and full of data (which more often than not, leads you to ask yourself questions, which leads to more online research because you may not know exactly what they are talking about ) So, stay focused. Pick a couple of areas to focus on. Read. Learn. Develop. But pick something you LOVE! The rest (and $$$$$) will follow!

Thanks for recommending The War Room. I need to sign up soon myself.

I agree with you about the information - there's tons of it. So, to keep from getting overwhelmed I just do my best to learn a little each day. When you learn something that's interesting to you, keep learning more about that thing until you can potentially create income out of it. From my experience and reading about successful entrepreneurs and internet success stories you can strike it rich of really anything. The key ingredient I think that separates those that make it from those that don't is consistency. Do a little every day and don't give up and success will find you. Money will follow.

Sometimes that's easier said than done, but it's true.

I am sure all of us have once or twice fallen for some product and hype that we didn't really need.

This is part of the game, but...

Just keep that in mind and try to pinch yourself before you spend some money and ask yourself if it really brings you forward with your chosen strategy.

Essentially making money online boils down to two things:

1. Making a great offer to a starving crowd (buyers)
2. Drive traffic to that offer

Point one could be many things.
- Affiliate offers
- AdSense site
- Your own product
- eBay store site etc.

And then of course traffic, which could be from:
- Article Marketing
- SEO
- PPC etc.

So, pick ONE strategy from each point above and get going.

Perhaps for newbies I would recommend to go for the AdSense model (Xfactor's course mentioned here might be a good fit) or... Affiliate review sites (Longer learning curve. Need to learn how to pick high converting offers and pre-sell them)

For traffic, perhaps he easiest low-risk strategy is Article Marketing to begin with on EzineArticles.com.

Well you don't have to spend a lot. I started out without money.

All you need is hosting/domainname... I recommend Hostgator
There are a bunch of sites where you can get free templates for your website, so you don't need to spend money on a layout

A layout shouldn't be anything fancy...a simple squeezepage will do.

Anyway I built my website myself. It's not that hard. I see you have technical skills so that should be piece of cake for you.

Also this is VERY IMPORTANT... You need a great autoresponder....definitely go for Aweber!

If you don't know anything about marketing then sign up for free newsletters from gurus such as Eben Pagan, Frank Kern, Mike Filsaime, John Reese, Ewen Chia. I barely scratched the surface. These guys send very useful information and for you left to do is....soak it up. Soak all information up that they give! You don't need to buy fancy products if you don't have money. =P

Or go to www.thirtydaychallenge.com and learn the basics of marketing for FREE.

Also, save a little money for PPC .... but I would save this for last and first try to generate FREE traffic.

Really you don't need a lot of money to get started.

Go for cpa offers instead of promoting Clickbank products.

Don't buy anything until you've clarified this:

Carefully consider/choose your business model.

Clarity is a huge part of IM success.

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.

I see someone has already recommended affiliate marketing. 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!

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

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're 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.

Hope this helps!

Michelle

I forgot to give some advice

The best thing you can do when you're just starting out is find something that already works for someone else, and than just duplicate it. Creativity and innovation have great appeal, but they're quite lethal when you're a beginner.

Now, here's what you can do for $160 bucks...

1. Buy a hosting (but wait until you've prepared everything else). If I were you I would go for cheapest reliable hosting. You can find on on Namecheap.com ($39.95/year, and you can even pay it monthly). It's only one domain hosting, but you should focus on making one site work. If you want to make more than one site go for Bluehost.com. But than again they are about $85/year and that's more than 50% of your capital.

2. Get a domain. It's less than $10. I personally use Namecheap, but any reliable registrar will do. (Also wait until you've prepared everything else)

3. Now, IT'S DUPLICATING TIME! Find some good ebook, in good market, that sells good, as far as you can tell. Get some facts, don't base this decision on feelings. Buy it, borrow it, steal it, whatever. You'll rewrite this book in your own words (It will take you less than 7 days. I was ignorant enough to spend 4 months writing my own book, and ended up with mediocre results. You can have GREAT results in 7 days.)

4. Make 1-Page sales letter for your book. You can do 2-step model if you like. It's a very good strategy, but it will require some more work, and some money for autoresponder (GetResponse, aweber, etc).

5. Shell out $50 to join ClickBank, as a merchant, of course. Now you can sell your book. CB has some 100,000 affiliates or so, and you have a good chance of getting some affiliates there.

6. Announce your affiliate program where you can for free. You'll find some affiliate forums and directories. Join IM forums like this one, learn about free IM techniques (since you don't have money yet), and promote your affiliate program at the same time. There are many affiliates here, and some will be interested. You can also make some joint ventures.

7. Once you make some sales, do some paid marketing. PPC, paying to promote your aff program to aff communities, ads on relevant sites, etc.

There you have it. For $160 and 30 days of focused work, you will have your own online business. From that point on, every effort you make will add to your business, unlike when you're working for someone else.

Just remember, your key to success here is SIMPLICITY. Keep it simple. (Ebook, 1-page sales letter is a good option). You don't need to find out everything there is about IM to start. In fact, I strongly advise against it because you'll end up overwhelmed with too many information, too many options. Just focus on 1 thing that will do the trick, and start working on it NOW.

Sorry if "duplicating" part insults somebody. But that's reality.

LOL I noticed the same thing. Kind of hard to judge the War Room when you're not a War Room Member, eh?

Hi Troy!
As I said, It will be good if he start with his own domain name... and also it will be good to have a good autoreponse service.
Wp is easy to set up and there is a lot of support for it, because there are a lot of developers...

I don't know yola, I can't say anything about their services

But, you give him good advice! the best to start without spending alot!