Goal - $2,000 a month by July 2013

Its pretty hard to rank squidoo pages and keep em ranked. IMO its not a good long term strategy. Google is making it harder and harder to rank squidoo lenses just like it did for HubPages some years back. Also, now google offers product ads on the top of the search so it is really hard to get people to buy from you when google offers it to them first. Just my 2 centos.

I agree - would focus on a niche (could be one of the Amazon niches you have found are converting from your Squidoo experience) and build a landing page/site that you control - then drive traffic via various techniques (Squidoo, blog, SEO, videos, etc...)

This way you have more control over your "money" site and can leverage the various techniques and networks to get traffic to grow your profits over time

Jeff

If you have a decent budget to start playing with then it's possible , otherwise you will hardly reach 2k/m, not impossible but hard. Search , read, study and work hard. Try to learn at least 2-3 different methods and work on them at the same time, this way if something goes wrong you will always have a plan B. Good luck

Hi Cliff,

it's good to have goals and plans..I totally encourage you there..
But the time frame you have set up for your self is more then enough to achieve much more then $2k monthly..If you dedicate your self enough and be consistent every day, I think you can achieve much more..
You just have to have a right system to follow that is proven to be profitable..

One advice: promote only products with recurring affiliate commissions..don't waste time on non recurring and low commissions products..

Best of luck

Leverage platforms that have mass traffic and searches (Forget Google and SEO, there is plenty of other places) for the products you are trying to sell, create content that attracts these buyers and then show them what you have to sell.

Put a decent strategy in place to capture leads and add viral traffic naturally to really maximise the rate of success.

Why not pick a bigger goal? Why not shoot for the moon?

The number seems too low and the time frame too long. Challenge yourself. How about $5,000/month by March?

Short term squidoo is nice. But I'd plan on doing something that's alot more soild that doesn't mainly involve google. One day squidoo could be not ranking and then what.

Thanks for the input gang! Squidoo is definitely not my long term plan, more of somewhere to go to get things going and test out what I can sell consistently.

As for cash, I am not completely bootstrapping it.

I say spend time getting educated on IM in general and read as much as possible, one of my first mistakes when first getting into IM is diving in head first without any knowledge, big mistake that could of been easily avoided.

I think you should get your own website and sell your own info products on there. You'll get nice profits, and you'll own the landscape. I wouldn't rely on Squidoo for main source of income.

PerformanceMan,

What method/direction would you suggest to get to 5k a month by March?

Adrian

So after much debating it looks like the plan currently is to keep with Squidoo through Christmas. Expecting of course for it to nose dive after that.

In the mean time, I'm looking to build one decent authority site where I can promote products with recurring income. Love the stacks of recurring sales.

Already have hosting so going to run it off WP. Thinking of trying to really stay focused and get it up to 20-30 articles with fairly long tails then doing some linking and promotion.

Thoughts?

realistic goal, but it seems like you are doing a here today gone tomorrow kind of tactic. Especially the way google is working now a days they're starting to hate the squidoo lenses.

Try and get hosting and a domain? better authority in the long run. Also try different tactics to help you reach your goal, but still keep with your main business tactic instead of jumping to different kinds of tactics. you never know maybe CPA or Media Buys may be your thing... you may never know until you try.

I'd always opt for my own domain and hosting over anything thats hosted on blogspot/hubpages etc. More professional, but the key is that you have the option of selling it down the road and get a nice payday.

Personally, realistically - despite some of the bravado - going from $0 to £2,000 while possible isn't easy at all without a proven blueprint. I'd urge you to try and figure out a model and then work at it. Some techniques that have made money for me:

* Create sites in good niches and then use Flippa to sell them once established.
* Create a membership based site
* Sell your services, people and businesses always need SEO/content/sites etc

In time, you'll find your unique niche - good luck.

I like the fact that you set a goal at all (many miss out on this very important step). Pick your marketing strategies, your way to get reach your goals, and stay focus.

I would recommend staying with recurring sales. You only have to sell it once while your income is increasing

Product creation is on my list and a couple things are in the works. My one soft spot is promoting personal ads. I have had buyers stick for 3+ years before. Hard part is finding sites to promote that don't suck.

Educate yourself in IM then find a good system to promote affiliate product,create you own website and start blogging you be surprised how fast you will rich your goals

Find 5 or 6 platforms that have traffic and leverage them creating individual content for each one.

You will need to create a system that can let you do this quickly to get best results, even outsourcing time consuming and repetitive procedures for pennies can allow you to get so much more worthwhile things done than getting bogged down under it all.

$2000 per month equates to $67 a day. If you take a look at Direct Marketing, online, (not MLM) you will see plenty of low cost programs that can generate $67 a day, paid directly to you. Free Classifed advertising would bring the prospects. Feel free to contact me for info.

I agree - would focus on a niche (could be one of the Amazon niches you have found are converting from your Squidoo experience) and build a landing page/site that you control - then drive traffic via various techniques (Squidoo, blog, SEO, videos, etc...)
OK

Best of luck. I personally would aim for something more stable. Start a blog, build a list, adsense. etc.

I tried Squidoo a long time ago and let's say I am earning a whopping $10 a month still from it LOL. I became bored with it quickly too.

I would say aim for a niche that you are familiar with, study your audience, build a website/blog, sell services, use Google Adsense, utilize all social media platforms and become known, gain traffic to your site/service/blog, and make money that way.

i am starting. how do you earn the first dollar

$2k by July?

Work hard enough and you'll easily reach that by Spring.

Good luck!

Invest that $50 into your own domain and hosting.....it's cheap. Choose a method, many free WSOs and other free guides offer good choices and use the method (free guide) to put together a plan. KEEP IT SIMPLE and work your plan everyday with your own website/blog. You can still use the squidoo lenses, but instead of trying to get them to rank, use them to link to your blog/website.

Also, as soon as you can I would sign up with either Aweber or GetResponse and start building a list. This will make it much easier to maintain the income level you are after.

Your goal really isn't lofty, but expect to put in some long hours to get there. You can do it and you've given yourself a reasonable amount of time to get there.

Good Luck!

Benjamin Ehinger

This is what I would do.

1. Register my own website domain name.

2. Create or let someone create an opt in squeeze page where you will ONLY collect the name and email of each prospect.

3. Then start following up with each person.

4. Make sure to give your subscribers great content. Always grow your list size and don't stop.

5. Only work with programs that will pay you high commissions. I would not waste my time with programs that pay you little commissions. $100-$300 per sale is very good and there are plenty of products on the market.

first I would be building a list.

Try and help your list, and make some money, then reinvest your money into building a bigger list and make more money, and then rinse and repeat.

Sounds alot easier than I say it is, but if you work hard doing this, you could be making 10k per month easily.

Honestly a long term solution is definitely what you want to be focusing your time and energy on, my personal opinion is that squidoo will drain too much time and energy for not enough return.

I believe that 2k a month by July is aiming a little low, with the right planning and methods you could surpass that amount easily, I would personally find a niche that resonates with you on a personal level, either something you have a fair knowledge on or something you would like to become knowledgable on.

Next build a squeeze page and entice prospects by offering a free product related to your niche, if you don't know how to do this there are plenty of guides on building squeeze pages out there, if you feel that this is something that is not up your ally then you can always pay someone to build one for you although I think to have complete control and understanding over your business that learning how to create squeeze pages, insert opt in forms etc is important.

Begin building a list, promote your squeeze page on forums, get involved, find out what people are wanting speak with the people that may ultimately become your subscribers, buy your products (whether it be products you have written or somebody else's product that you choose to market) and in the end pay you the dividends that you are looking to achieve.

Also use article marketing, newsletters and social marketing to build recognition of your name and website.

There are plenty of different ways to attract traffic and build your list, once built take care of it, love your list by getting personal with the people of your list, relate to them and what they themselves are trying to achieve, do this and they will repay you in folds, before you know it you will achieve your goal if not surpass it.

Once you have a reasonable sized list begin marketing related products to your list, through emails, special promotions or launches.

Hope this helps

Chris

Squidoo is good for testing out niche markets and stuff, but you really need to have your own blog, so that you can control your content and so start building a list.

Joey

I'd suggest you should start building your list. Get some PLR, promote your squeeze page, and promote affilaite programs than rely on amazon. At least you own the list.

Google loves authority sites these days, making it harder for smaller sites to rank. Best bet would be to focus on authority sites and that would take some time.

You've done well to acknowledge your goals. Always keep an open mind and I personally would start off by offering a service to local businesses. Focusing and taking action will get you there. I know so many warrior friends doing well by offering services that businesses need.

I would start investing elsewhere. Buy your own domain name and create a wordpress blog for amazon products and then get it ranked in google with a few SEO services. You can even drive PPC traffic to your website which should speed up the process.