Ready take my first step in IM - where to begin?

omh....

You can make money with either models but if you want to start building upon smaller successes a lot sooner, then focus on mini-niche sites.

Pick something and run with it.

I am also just starting off but I am thinking of doing affiliate marketing and I will get traffic through offline marketing.

I would say, go for niche site!

Either model will work, but don't expect overnight success and you'll be fine. Internet marketing has been seen as a magic button to unimaginable riches. So most people who start out think all they need is to put up one site and watch the cash pile up. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

If you begin with mini-sites, you can monetize with Adsense or CPAs and if you take action with your traffic strategy, you could see clicks within a couple of weeks. Clicks mean money, but nothing to write home about. Continue building mini-site after mini-site and eventually, you will begin to possibly see $1 per day per site. Keep going and stay with it and you could see some nice passive income.

Just remember that 'passive' is a word that is overused in my opinion. I've got quite a number of these 'passive' mini-sites and I still have to coddle and pamper those sites from time to time. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but if I leave a site alone for too long, the traffic seems to dry up and I have to stoke the fires again by doing more SEO. It works, but it's more like.... mostly 'passive' income.

I'd be interested to know if others share this same experience with the mini-site model.

Just make sure that you don't expect to bank $10,000 in your first month by simply putting up a site and you'll be fine. If you do, awesome. But if not, don't get discouraged and don't give up.

Good luck.

My advice to anyone starting out is always first pick a business model. Pick something that you want to promote be it an affiliate product, CPA offer, or your own product, and then decide how do you want to drive traffic to that offer. Are you going to use SEO (my normal choice), PPC, article marketing, email marketing etc.

Find a business model you are interested in and then learn everything you can about it. That's my advice.
All the best

Pick one thing you're most passionate about and stick with it. Don't pick your options by the amount of $ they "can" bring you.

Whatever you do stick to it , make a plan and work it out all the way,adjust where needed!
That is why you should start with mini niche site , learn the skills there before starting a authority site.
Making mistakes is part of your succes, as long as you learn from your mistakes.

What ever you choose to do, don`t start with PPC, if you are not 100% sure what to do.

I'm Also gonna start Mini-siting soon. It gives a beginner "some" time to adjust into the new biz.
BTW, My Mobile Phone unlocking website just did its 2nd "Blind" sale, feels sweeter than those sales I made online within my country. I noticed it took some time for "searchers" to start landing, but its now they started arriving.

hello

I would recommend starting with list building .
create your squeeze page , subscribe with Aweber , so you can send emails to your list .
Drive traffic to your squeeze page , through emails you offer value , and you can send them about your products or affiliate links , and there you can make commsion

I am in the same position as omh, but I think I know that I want to sell an ebook about investing in the stock market me and my friend are going to write. So, now it comes down to whether I should build:

A.) A very small site with my homepage being the sales page pre-selling the ebook (like instantsalesletter.com from Yanik Silver - first example I thought of after reading his book).

B.) A very small site with the homepage being a squeeze page offering a free chapter from my ebook to build my email list, then focusing on email marketing to drive traffic to the sales page for the ebook (which will also be on my site, but won't be the homepage - will be buried in a subfolder on my site, and will probably be linked to from the homepage/squeeze page).

C.) An authority-like blog site promoting links to both the squeeze page to collect emails in exchange for a free chapter and the sales page selling the ebook.

D.) A hybrid of A and B? I just do not know what that hybrid would be and/or how to implement it.

I do not know if I have to time to make constant, meaningful blog posts, so option C will probably not be feasible for me, especially because I am a beginner. So, what does everyone think is the best option for me? Thanks!

If it were we I would go with something small and choose the least competitive niche to start with. Of course it will yeald you the least profit but once you have done it and built some confidence then you can start to decide whether you want to recreate smaller niche sites or start on bigger authority type sites.

I'm in the middle of a few projects.

1. I started a niche site. I think this is a good way for me to start learning IM from an SEO and SEM standpoint. I've always wanted to experiment with a niche site so finally doing it has been exciting. I'm not ranking yet but I've learned by making a few mistakes early on...I hope to hit the first page of Google within the next couple months.

2. I'm using Fiverr for IM-related Gigs. I've recently started using Fiverr a lot more...the reason is, I see potential in building a community around a few tasks I'm capable of doing but others aren't. It works out well and if I can rack up 4 or 5 of those to do a day, that's some nice extra income for less than an hour of work. You really can't beat it! (Offer is in my signature *wink*)

3. I'm getting involved with other companies in the field. Because I have a wide range of skills in the Internet field, I find it important to find a steady income...I'm 23 and graduated school in August. I need something stable to pay the bills and save up for an IM operation. I hope within the next year I can really go at this hard. Until then, I'm having a great time involving myself in the local agency side of things.

I hope my ideas help you! There are plenty of things to get involved with. I guess you can start off by investing or not investing. I would recommend putting some money up front. It makes the process easier.

Kyle

the fact is almost any word press blog related options share 85 % in common and only the way things are sold / marketed varies...so pick one and give it a shot for atleats 2 months .... and then fine tune and add more ...

Having tried many other things, building a list is what worked for me.

To me the real key is picking a market to sell what people are already buying BUT doesn't have too much competition.

Once you have that, regardless of where you start, build a list.

Things change often in IM so you need to own your own list that you built and it isn't very difficult.

Personally, I spend much more time now finding profitable for me niches than I do with putting up squeeze pages and blogs because I've figured out a system that worked for me.

People make money in many types of ways online. You have to find what works for you and then I'd say stick with it and focus on just that until you are making some real money.

Always aim to build a bigger list. It's so important.

It's easy to get distracted by 'shiny objects' but your list will be the easiest way to have a passive income every single month!

Hi When I started out a went with micro niches sites but with a PLR (private label rights) copy. PLR is a cheap way to buy info products related to your niche and then rebrand as your own. Those that are successful with it change the product to make it more unique. Most of the work is done for you, all you need to do is change the graphics on the sales page, squeeze pages, one time offer page and your actual pdf, ebook or what ever it is your selling. Graphics can be done very cheaply on fiverr.com
Then all your focus should be is driving traffic to your niche site and building a list off from that. This is just a general over view but hopefully you get the idea.

Hope this helps,
Hamed

Build it up at first.

Maybe make a site, pick a niche and monetize it with AdSense. Then do some SEO to get traffic.

Then maybe move onto CPA, affiliates etc...

Good luck!

Start with the mini-niche first. Because it's niche, there are fewer things for you to concetrate, and I believe it's easier to get all the necessary research completed. Set it up, and see how it goes, track the results, and make some money to motivate yourself. To become an authority site, you need a lot of work and time. PLUS....you can make a mini-niche an authority site too if you understand what I mean

I'd suggest you start with a niche site for a start. It's easier to get ranked & will motivate you further once you see the little successes. Then go for an authority site after that.

I don't suggest you go into a niche site straight away.
Try offering a service to acquire some seed money, then create a WSO or product.
Remember, you don't need to know everything about the topic to create a product. All you need to do is outsource it to a reliable contractor.

I think you need to create your 1st product (maybe a report to give away)base on what you know in your chosen niche :-)

In my opinion I think you should test what is better for you. Once you know that you can focus on the best strategy that works for you.

pick a niche
put a good content on it at a blog or website
buy domain name and hosting
buy traffic

There has been already mentioned a lot of good points. I would add one more thing. If you have no idea where to begin, it doesn't matter what we tell you. I remember my first website. I knew, I had to do something, even though it was really really bad. My first website was just a try and I learned a lot from it.

Then I had a clearer goal in mind.

My point. If you have some background in IM and you know what all the methods are, pick one you like the most and decide what you want to achieve with it. After the plan, everything is easier. However, if you have no idea about IM, it doesn't matter what you do. Just pick one method from the listed above and begin. In a couple of weeks you will have a clearer understanding of what you want to do. Moreover, you would learn things you could use in the future.

Begin with free marketing. Don't get wrapped up in pay per click marketing - it's addictive. Focus on ways to get more clicks to your site for free, so that you can earn 100% profits from your efforts. There are a ton of free marketing strategies out there that you can use... including forum marketing.

Find a hot niche, find or create a product for it, capture ALOT of leads (from scratch - no cheating with safelists), market to them every 3 days, then start making money.

Pick something that you are interested in that also has a viable market, and stick only focusing on that until it is making you money.

Too many people try to do 8 things at once, and end up failing at all of them. Find out what feels right and laser focus on that.

Thanks for anwers, but I'm still wondering these


Quote:
Originally Posted by omh
What if I build a mini-niche site and I promote one or two products in it, write an e-book about the niche and offer a free sample of it in the mini-niche site to get people on my list? Does that make sense? Would people buy the products I am promoting when I'm giving them something for free, or should I just create two different sites?

Quote:
Originally Posted by omh
I was thinking by the way that how does that e-mail marketing work (in a nutshell)? For example when people on my list have downloaded the free sample of my e-book, how do I promote the full e-book? By sending them offers of it a couple of times a week with autoresponder or just use autoresponder to send them an offer once, right after they have downloaded the sample?


yes, you could start with a mini site and what you have posted will work, in theory, if you have a good niche, if you get targeted traffic, if, if, if, if....

In reading post, after post, after post on here of people who have worked really hard and not made any money, I would suggest you start with some really good market and niche research AND build a list so that you can capture the traffic.

To me, (and there are those who disagree) I would use a squeeze page to build a list because there is nothing else for them to do but sign up for the list. You still offer then a free report or something of value and then once they are on your list, send them to your niche site automatically.

This is not really that difficult. If I can do it as a total newbie, non techy, anyone can.

As for how the autoresponder works, you pretty much have the overall idea.

However, depending on the niche, to keep people on the list you will have to give them a lot more value and not just promote to them.

Again, this is why picking a niche is so important.

Go with an AUTHORITY SITE - much better long term option.

Hi omh,

There are many business models that you can use when you first started IM. Pick the one that you are interested in or your passion before you plunge into that chosen business model.

This is what I found that was successful for me when I just started IM which is list building. YOu may not want to follow my footsteps but this really works for me.

What I would suggest is to have a squeeze page setup, with a free offer to be given to the person who has optin. Get an autoresponder account such as aweber, getresponse, etc. There are many autoresponder providers around in the market but I suggest to have a paid one since you are building a long term online business. Traffic to the site will be the next factor to consider as you will need to drive traffic so as to get leads and then build relationship with the list you have built.

Try to do your research and find the niche that are in demand and then build the steps that are listed above.

Grab a pen, paper and write down the tasks that you are going to do daily. It is like a checklist and all I can say that it works wonders for me. Try not to rush when you first started and you will learn along the way. It took me a while before I really get the hand of it.

Hope it helps...

Raymond