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Question for IM Veterans

by Piggydog
14 replies
Happy Humpday Y'all,

This question is for the IM'ers who have been around for a while. For those of you who have run the gamut of the different IM models, and who've had failure and success through trial and error, what advice can you give to a newbie (if you are willing) on where to focus in IM? The desired end-state of said newbie is building a "real" IM business that has passive income (at least somewhat) that will gain value and equity over the long run...much like a brick and mortar business or real estate does.


Thanks!
Mike in Texas
#question #veterans
  • Profile picture of the author DPM70
    ...much like a brick and mortar business or real estate does.

    There's your answer.

    Good luck.
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    I don't build in order to have clients. I have clients in order to build. - Ayn Rand
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  • Profile picture of the author TBInternetMarketing
    Originally Posted by Piggydog View Post

    what advice can you give to a newbie (if you are willing) on where to focus in IM?
    What I always tell people starting out is to focus on 2 things.

    1) What model do you want to use? Do you want to sell Amazon products, Clickbank products, your own product, CPA offers etc.

    2) How are you going to drive traffic to that offer? SEO(my choice), Article writing, PPC etc.

    Once you have worked that out, just focus on that and you will be well on your way.
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  • Profile picture of the author David Keith
    Your first move is to get the internet marketer mentality out of your head. That thinking makes people look to short term profits and all sorts of gimmicks to trick search engines or "game" systems. Thats not an easy game to win at.

    You want to build a business that offer value to people for the long run. For most people, that usually means building an authority site around some niche.
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    • Profile picture of the author Piggydog
      Originally Posted by David Keith View Post

      Your first move is to get the internet marketer mentality out of your head. That thinking makes people look to short term profits and all sorts of gimmicks to trick search engines or "game" systems. Thats not an easy game to win at.

      You want to build a business that offer value to people for the long run. For most people, that usually means building an authority site around some niche.
      So to begin building an authority site, is that essentially starting a blog and adding content to it and building traffic?
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      • Profile picture of the author David Keith
        Originally Posted by Piggydog View Post

        So to begin building an authority site, is that essentially starting a blog and adding content to it and building traffic?
        Yea, basically. It just means your goal is not to worry about instant traffic from 50 articles that were designed for the search engines and stuff like that.

        You are building a site that is designed for people to actually want to come to. Not a site that is built to be ranked well by machines.

        Authority sites take more work and take longer to gain traction, but once they do, it is a much more stable business to be in.
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        • Profile picture of the author Piggydog
          Originally Posted by David Keith View Post

          Yea, basically. It just means your goal is not to worry about instant traffic from 50 articles that were designed for the search engines and stuff like that.

          You are building a site that is designed for people to actually want to come to. Not a site that is built to be ranked well by machines.

          Authority sites take more work and take longer to gain traction, but once they do, it is a much more stable business to be in.
          So I guess the "offer value and the money willl follow" applies here. Is starting an amazon review type affiliate site with the intent of developing it into an authority site a viable strategy, or waste of time?
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          • Profile picture of the author David Keith
            Originally Posted by Piggydog View Post

            So I guess the "offer value and the money willl follow" applies here. Is starting an amazon review type affiliate site with the intent of developing it into an authority site a viable strategy, or waste of time?
            I have never built a site/business from just an affiliate site. Although some people do make good money doing that.

            But my reason is simple. When you have a product of some sort, even a free giveaway product, it gives you many more marketing options.

            I mean, if you have an amazon review site, why would my "cross" niche site link to you. Why wouldn't i just take the amazon affiliate money myself. The folks who build those sites are betting they can be a better marketer than other thousands of other people.

            When your an amazon affiliate, its harder to have a USP (unique selling point) that separates you from the others xxxxxx of amazon affiliates.

            With a true authority site, you almost always have some truly unique content that makes your site "special"
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        • Profile picture of the author TylerRWS
          Different strokes for different folks.

          When I was first starting (6 years ago now) I bounced around from product to product...looking for that magic bullet.

          It doesn't exist.

          I found out quick that marketing takes work. Overnight success is a mythical beast. More irritating than trying to catch the leprechaun at the end of the rainbow.

          Know that it's not going to happen overnight - your first step towards success.

          Then decide what you want to do. Don't listen to your head - listen to your heart.

          For me - it's writing reviews. Physical and digital product reviews. I love it. I'm good at it. Perfect fit.

          Wish you all the best!
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        • Profile picture of the author TopBackBuilder
          Originally Posted by David Keith View Post

          Yea, basically. It just means your goal is not to worry about instant traffic from 50 articles that were designed for the search engines and stuff like that.

          You are building a site that is designed for people to actually want to come to. Not a site that is built to be ranked well by machines.

          Authority sites take more work and take longer to gain traction, but once they do, it is a much more stable business to be in.
          You are clearly experienced in what you do, however I cannot wrap my head around how he's supposed to get traffic from a high quality niche site if he isn't getting ranked by the search engines.

          If a tree falls in a forest and.... yadayada we've all heard the expression.
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          • Profile picture of the author David Keith
            Originally Posted by TopBackBuilder View Post

            You are clearly experienced in what you do, however I cannot wrap my head around how he's supposed to get traffic from a high quality niche site if he isn't getting ranked by the search engines.

            If a tree falls in a forest and.... yadayada we've all heard the expression.
            First, Thanks for the compliment. Truthfully, there are thousands of ebooks written on the subject of getting traffic, but let me take a stab at explaining it in 300 words or less...lol

            1. The majority of "buyer centered" traffic moves around the internet from site to site using either (a) strategic partnerships / compensation driven traffic (affiliate programs) or (b) paid ads.

            Businesses like hostgator, amazon, every clickbank product, the wso products... all get a majority of their traffic from one of the 2 above sources... not Google/seo

            2. Google/seo is not the primary source of traffic for the majority of profitable businesses on the web. it's important to note I said profitable businesses, because Google is the primary traffic source for many un-profitable businesses. In fact, they may be the only source of traffic for many of those businesses.

            Real businesses have something of value to offer their clients/customers. When a business has something valuable to offer, there is a real potential to use method (a) to get traffic.

            They also have clearly defined who there customer is and where they hang out online. This makes using option (b) attractive.

            3. Even seo guys (sellers of seo services) get the vast majority of their traffic from either (a) or (b). They don't get their traffic buy practicing what they preach. Look at what people do guys, not just what they tell you do (if you pay them)

            To be clear, there are some SEO guys making great money getting traffic from just seo. But those are not at all the norm. If it was that easy, why would amazon not just hire a couple 50k a year people to drive traffic to all those ebooks via easy seo traffic.

            I know I have made some generalizations in this post. But I was asked "how to get traffic without seo" that would require many pages, so I simplified things a bit.

            I was close (321 words)... now 328
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  • Profile picture of the author Troy_Phillips
    I started making great strides when I finally realized I am not an internet marketer .. I am a marketer who uses the internet as one tool to get my message out.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mike Hill
    Okay, at the end of the day you need 3 things...

    1) Prospects (leads)
    You need a landing page, (a.k.a. leads page, flycatcher page, squeeze page) to build a list of interested prospects in the market you decide to venture into. Give them a good free offer. Spend time doing a lot of detailed research and look at other free offers in your market. You just have to be a little bit better than them. Get this part right and you'll have much better success.

    2) Product to sell
    Nothing wrong with promoting affiliate products to your list until you decide you want 100% of the profits from your list and start creating your own products.

    3) Conversion
    Separate the buyers from the prospects on your list. Your goal is to constantly turn more prospects into buyers. Market to them in a genuine and honest way and help them achieve whatever they are wanting within the scope of your niche.

    Conversions also constitutes tracking your landing page results. Make subtle changes to try and improve your optin conversion.

    That in a nut shell is it...

    Everything else like blogging, article writing, reviews, SEO are all just ways people get traffic.

    PS. To get quality traffic you need to be investing a small amount of money and start testing out solo advertising, banner advertising, ad swaps, etc...

    Don't waste your time trying to learn SEO or building a bazillion websites that make $0.0001.
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  • Profile picture of the author Piggydog
    Originally Posted by Ken_Caudill View Post

    Why do you think you see those ads on Google search, Yahoo, Bing and all the big traffic blogs?

    It's because they work.

    Buy ads.
    I realize traffic is the lifeblood of an online business, but most of what I've read to this point essentially says, learn SEO because you will just lose your ass with buying traffic (ads, banners, ppc, CPA, social media, etc).

    But it seams to me that paid traffic is the path of least rresistance. Is there a course that brings this all together? Like how to create content, buy traffic, and make money? Or a mentor or coach that can shorten the learning curve?

    Mike
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