I'm at a crossroads in IM; don't know where to start

I think first you cannot blame Google for tough times.
You get the same break everyone else does.

Read, learn, niche research, make a plan and be serious about it.

So start from the beginning and find your niche and then make a plan.
It really doesn't even matter what within reason. Got a passion that has a market?

What's your main interest? Creating products and selling? Creating content/design etc and selling? Affiliate sales? Advertising income opportunities?

As jazbo says, you first need to identify what you like doing.

If it's article writing then try HubPages. I've been on there 6 months now and I'm really starting to crank out some decent earnings (my WSO is on the way - get in for free while you can by checking out my .sig).

When I first started out I found that (after MUCH messing about!) focusing on the area of IM that I enjoyed most gave me the foothold that I needed to really get stuck in and make something happen.

Review your skill set and concentrate on that area.

Regards,
Caiden

I rather talk about my hobbies like gaming, wrestling, and other things I like to do. I'm not pursuing a break or anything. Put it like this, I'm not really into just writing something just to get a sale.

And no, wasn't blaming google for tough times or anything like that.

Blogging is a good way to get started (make sure you're hosting your own blog, not using a free service). Your blog is going to be a permanent resource and will be an asset to your business, providing you set it up right and put some effort into your early posts. Add some light targeted advertising to the blog and write a few articles to promote it and get backlinks.

This is unlikely to make you rich, but it does mean you're doing something productive whilst you're deciding which of the many IM opportunities suits you best.

Incidentally, from my experience the wrestling niche is very competitive. The gaming niche is more accessible, but I'd suggest focusing on one particular title, ideally which has low competition. But, even starting a personal blog will be enough to get you going.

Thom

I like what Jazbo said ...

And whatever area you go into ... just work stick at it and do the right thing as far as building something longer term (eg. list building or websites etc).

There's little worse than ploughing yourself into stuff and having nothing to show for it after say a year. At least if you started building a list you'd have something that you can leverage more and more - if you were building websites you have something you can scale or sell.

Likewise with product creation.

Make it evergreen and something that you can leverage and/or re-use over time.

Good luck.

Don't give up! You can do what you like to do. There are genuine people that will help you get started for lowcost and really teach you how to succeed. Genuine People Gaming is wide open. Visit rewardstring and you can succeed there. There is a definite process and you need to learn it and do it. (i.e. passion, niche, keywords, domain, blog/articles, videos,traffic)
Most of all, enjoy the journey and don't get stressed out.

Do something you're interested in - you'll be writing articles, making videos, PDFs, podcasts... If you have lots of friends that are interested in that - all the better - you can ask them to help you a little with bookmarks, Facebook, Twitter etc

Don't prevaricate - make a start!

Good luck!

Lack of decision making and action taking are the two worst enemies of success. So first off you need to take some action.

I would suggest that you decide on a niche that you are interested in yourself, something you are passionate about is a good start. Then, try to promote a "specific product" within that niche. Gather a good list of specific keywords for that product and start a FREE campaign - articles - blogs - web 2.0 - and do a huge link wheel, pinging, RSS feeding and bookmarking all your pages and articles - backlinking.

You can do all this in a couple of days and you should have a HUGE campaign that will simmer out there, and grow as time goes on. Once you're done go to the next.

This has done GREAT for me.

Hi Chickenman I know how you feel. With so many different business models on the net it is difficult to decide how to start. I would start with a simple wordpress blog on a subject you are interested in and start promoting some affiliate products from there. I would also start to learn about listbuilding and get this going asap as this is the biggest asset to your business. Hope this helps.

Thanks guys. Those are a lot of great tips. I'm not really looking to be rich or anything, but I want to have more control over my financial future and all. Do I have to cater to niches when doing a blog of my own interests?

I don't really have any friends to do IM(I mean do HAVE friends) just that none of them are going to really believe me lol when I tell them I am trying to make money off the internet.

but yeah, i wanted to try a real blog with my own address. I've read a lot of good reviews about Dude I hate My Job to get started on a blog and it only costs $38 which I can spare. Is that good or should I try elsewhere?

I'm wanting to take action soo badly(well I did try one thing but it didn't work out too well) so I am learning from it and moving on.

First off...it really doesn't matter what you choose because the 7 hour investment will show you a process. A process you can use over and over again. For the sake of this example, let's choose WRESTLING.

Well, there are lots of different types and you'll find people making their FORTUNES with a wrestling niche of some sort. Tony Cecchine's American Catch Wrestling comes to mind as does Matt Furey's Combat Wrestling. Both gentlemen do "pretty well" with IM.

You will start by creating a one page HOTSHEET. This HOTSHEET will answer the following four questions:

1) Why you like wrestling?
2) Who are your favorite wrestlers?
3) How do you "interact" with this topic? (Web sites, TV, magazines, etc.)
4) What products related to wrestling do you buy?

Once you have your HOTSHEET done, you will then create a FOUR page White Paper on the subject. Simply expand each of the questions above to fill out the pages. For examples, on your favorite wrestler page, you can go into their bios a little and the reason you find them so compelling.

You can expand the interaction part by listing and describing your favorite web sites.

The POINT is to get as much preliminary information down on paper as you can as fast as you can.

NEXT is to develop this White Paper into a 10 page REPORT, complete with pictures and expanded information, keeping it from a personal standpoint.

All spent, about 7 hours if you are really clueless, but the secret is to write about what you KNOW and what you DO as a matter or routine.

NOW you put your thinking cap on. Who is marketing wrestling information and products? Well, I just gave you two of the biggest and there are literally thousands of people.

HOW do you monetize your 7 hours? Well, the best thing to do is to set up a blog, and offer your 10 page report for FREE to people who visit or comment on your blog.

Then you create a LOOP of sites (all free) which may include Twitter, FaceBook, Yahoo Groups, etc. All of them should have the same THEME, which in this example is wrestling.

Using TIME as your friend, you set up a goal for one year from the time you start.

And this is the single biggest mistake I see every day. Not every other day, but 10 times a day here at the WF for noobs, newbies and frustrated wannabee IMer's.

They don't have a PLAN. 95% who come here don't know what they want, and are, for the most part DOOMED before they start.

But the guy with a plan, who is thinking of a long term strategy, will know what steps to take.

The blog can grow in popularity, especially if you sprinkle in a little controversy, as you write articles and get them into circulation, as you develop your "voice" in this arena, you will have gotten a foothold in the niche.

There are scores of ways of monetizing, including selling affiliate products, and don't forget the travel agencies, amazon, clothing companies, so there are affiliate opportunities.

You could expand your 10 page report, after getting feedback, and create a Specialty Report and use it to get names on a list or to start selling too.

This PROCESS can be used for ANY subject you choose. Gaming. Wrestling. Pig Farming. Soap Making. Whatever.

It is a tested and proven way to get FOCUS on what you are attempting to do. But, alas, most Warriors (noobs and frustrated ones) DON'T have a long term goal, they just want to "make money with IM".

By spending 7 hours going through the process, you will LEARN and discover if this niche is going to be right for you. Just by DOING it, you will come out the other side with a more realistic view of what it takes to make it in IM.

Good luck with your goal. IF you have one.

gjabiz

This isn't to discredit some of the things posted in this thread because the things being said are true. However, it's VERY important that we remember what it's like to be brand new and bombarded with 1000 different people and products telling us 1000 different ways to get started online. The fact is, telling a newcomer to take action does very little for them when you consider that there are far too many junk products and misleading people running rampant around the internet these days. It's confusing, not to mention incredibly discouraging, when you do decide to take action and it turns out, for the umteenth time, that what you're doing doesn't work or you've only been given partial information to make it work.

A newcomer most likely won't know what piece of the puzzle they're missing and will tend to give up and move onto something else very quickly. While that mindset is a problem in it of itself, it can be cured, for the most part, by proper education. It just so happens that finding proper education in a world full of junk is like finding someone that will willingly speak English to you in Paris. Many can - Most won't.

It's important that when you're starting off, you get involved in something that actually works.

Email Marketing is the lifeblood of Internet Marketing. It's how every major company on the planet markets to us and it's how most Gurus make the majority of their income. Yes, there are hundreds of other ways to make money online but few, if any are as effective in the long-term as email marketing. I mean proper email marketing, not spamming. Building a list, providing upfront, extraordinary value for that list and then nurturing them to the point of trusting you and eventually buying from you, often times more than once. It's an incredibly effective way to market. You then have a customer base to repeatedly tap into time and time again instead of making a sale here and there and having that customer leave and be gone forever.

I suggest getting involved in learning effective email marketing. You can't go wrong and you'll guarantee yourself a long-lasting income if you take the time to learn the skills. You do need to take action and implement what you learn. That is a HUGE component of success. It just helps when you have a sure-fire business model to take action with...

I think that you should focus on finding programs or a program on Clickbank that you can sell for a commission and make sure that you are only promoting products that have a recurring fee attached to it.

Because when you promote products that only pay you ONCE, you will have to reply on getting new sales each and every week, month, and all the time.

When you focus on promoting products that pay you over and over again for the person's membership each month, you will get an income coming in month after month as long as you bring in enough people and retaining them each month.

I think that the biggest mistake too many people make, and I am one of these people, is that they focus on promoting products that pay them ONCE and that's it. I have done too much of that and now I am mainly focusing on products that pay me each month recurring fees.

Clickbank has many good and solid product in many niches that can pay you monthly recurring commissions also known as RB which stands for re-bills.

Tal

Hey don't quit. That's the first thing. DO NOT QUIT!

The best direction I can give you is the link in my signature. Seriously. I know a lot of people say that but I befriended the owner of this course a while back and after talking with him I gave him the news about myself.

I was flat out homeless. Living out of my Jeep Grand Cherokee. See I'm 6'2 so even a decent size vehicle like that doesn't provide much room for me especially with a bunch of crap in the back.

Well he sympathized with me and told me he had faced a lot of the same hard times. After we chatted for a bit and exchanged life stories he told me about this course he was creating.

IT is literally an over the shoulder look at what he does to create an income of $16,000 a month.

Now I've been working online for about 2 years and most of it has been writing. So even when I was homeless I still had a little bit of money to eat and pay for my car and what not, but I was still homeless.

I've seen plenty of courses that claim this and claim that but rarely deliver.

I was pleasantly surprised with this course as for the most part I didn't need any help with it because everything was laid out right there in front of you.

Everything from finding a product to conducting keyword research. Building a site, getting traffic to that site and some extra tips to really help you out, like outsourcing your work for cheap or bonus tips on how to index your site.

It's really awesome and if you still need some extra help he is always there to help you out.

One of the main things is you cannot bounce from one thing to the next shiny thing that pops up. You have to stick with one thing all the way to the end and if it fails then fine move on but do not move on until it has succeeded or failed.

Keep your head up and keep working hard. It does take time and some hard work. I am just now getting myself off the streets and it took some work but it is well worth it.

Go from the bottom, i recommend Chris Farrell's membership site.

I'm new at this also. I've enjoyed the comments as they have helped me focus on a direction.

I started in may...focused on building my list and it is a bit frustrating however can be very rewarding don't give up