where to start? blog? Affiliate marketing?

10 replies
Hi everyone, I'm new here, and trying to evaluate the "opportunity cost" and opportunity of getting involved in making money online.

My goal is to make $500-$1,000 per month working part time.

I am willing to work FULL-TIME to get to that position.

I have two questions.

1. What is the difference between Blogging, Affiliate Marketing, and building an E-commerce store? In my mind, it seems like they are all different "body parts" of the same animal, and that to be successful, I'd use all three?

2. How much time and money will I be looking to invest? from current research it looks like blogging is a major time-suck, and that I'd be better off "flipping burger patties" and even make more money flipping patties.

I don't object to hard work or investing, just trying to evaluate before I dive in.
#affiliate #blog #marketing #start
  • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
    Banned
    Originally Posted by JohnsCurry View Post

    1. What is the difference between Blogging, Affiliate Marketing, and building an E-commerce store?
    Blogging is a way of having a (typically fairly regularly updated) website. It can be used for purposes of affiliate marketing and/or for several other different business models in internet marketing.

    I think you don't want/expect a definition of "affiliate marketing" - you know what this is?

    An E-commerce store is a site selling products to customers - a vendor's site, typically.

    Originally Posted by JohnsCurry View Post

    In my mind, it seems like they are all different "body parts" of the same animal, and that to be successful, I'd use all three?
    I wouldn't think so.

    I'm a full-time affiliate marketer. I've never used, needed or wanted an E-commerce site at all.

    Originally Posted by JohnsCurry View Post

    2. How much time and money will I be looking to invest?
    I think E-commerce sites involve some investment but have no idea how much.

    All the rest of what you need, you could easily manage for between $50 and $100.

    Originally Posted by JohnsCurry View Post

    from current research it looks like blogging is a major time-suck, and that I'd be better off "flipping burger patties" and even make more money flipping patties.
    It doesn't seem that way to me, at all, but I make a full-time living from my blogs/sites, and did from about 6 months after I started (that was with some existing skills, plenty of hard work and some good luck, too).

    Just wondering: why did you think you might be wanting/needing an E-commerce store?

    PS welcome to the Warrior Forum! (Is it right to say that to someone making his first post, having been a member since last July?).
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    • Profile picture of the author JohnsCurry
      I apologize, I should have given a little more information, and been more specific with my question and given my experience. lol

      I do have minor blogging experience. I blogged for about 2 months with a program called Empower Network. After I started getting a couple sales, people got upset with the deceitfulness of the upsale, (thats an entirely different conversation).
      So I quit.
      Thats when I signed up for Warrior Forum (whend doing Empower Network) but never used it. I quit shortly after signing up.

      I know what affiliate marketing is, I just wasnt sure how it is executed.

      Would my affiliate marketing business be executed through a blog??? Since you have never had an E-commerce store and are a full time affiliate marketer

      So far, my "action" has been creating an ugly blog. (soon to be pretty) and signed up for Google Affiliate Network, and the Amazon Affiliate program.

      I'm not afraid of buying courses, but I am much more careful now. I've purchased a lot of junk before, so.. I'm trying to at least do some preliminary research prior to buying into another easy money formula.

      You can check out my website to see what I HAVE done so far. lol it's http://johnscurry.com just a basic blog, since I have not established a niche just yet. (thats why I'm posting here lol)
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      • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
        Banned
        Originally Posted by JohnsCurry View Post

        Would my affiliate marketing business be executed through a blog??? Since you have never had an E-commerce store and are a full time affiliate marketer
        That would be one way of doing it, and a commonly used way, and a good way. Maybe not quite the only way, but the answer's probably about as close to a straight "yes" as you can get.

        Be aware that different people mean slightly different things by "blog". Some people imagine it as a sort of personal site, updated quite frequently (and indeed that is one way of doing affiliate marketing). Others call any site made with "blogging software" a "blog" (also logical and reasonable!). For example, there's a WordPress theme called OptimizePress from which some marketers make only "squeeze pages" and "sales pages" which look nothing like what many people by a "blog", but they are technically "blogs" because they're made from WordPress which is a blogging software as well as a content management system. You're using OP differently, of course. This isn't a hugely important point to you: I mention it only to illustrate to you that it's normal, in the Warrior Forum, for people pretty often to be talking at cross purposes because they're using words differently.

        I would think that, one way or another, you'll be wanting some kind of "blog" to be an affiliate marketer; yes. That doesn't mean you'll need to update it daily (I wouldn't dream of it), or even that you'll need "dated posts" (I don't use them at all on any of my blogs), but it's a convenient way to have a website, anyway. And you will need a website. If nothing else, you have to have a page on which your visitors can "opt in" (you wouldn't earn much in affiliate marketing, without that! This post from last night says more).

        Originally Posted by JohnsCurry View Post

        So far, my "action" has been creating an ugly blog. (soon to be pretty) and signed up for Google Affiliate Network, and the Amazon Affiliate program.
        Ok, good. Well, I know nothing about Google Affiliate Network but am an Amazon affiliate, like a few hundred others here, (though ClickBank is my "mainstay") and you can always ask questions, of course. Look out for Gaz Cooper's posts - he knows at least as much about Amazon as anyone else here and drops a lot of very useful information into his forum posts.

        Originally Posted by JohnsCurry View Post

        You can check out my website to see what I HAVE done so far. lol it's http://johnscurry.com just a basic blog, since I have not established a niche just yet. (thats why I'm posting here lol)
        Good ... yes, you need to select a niche, some time soon.

        (And maybe take those social media buttons off your site? This is something that very understandably comes across to many visitors as being (a) designed primarily for your benefit rather than for theirs - exactly the opposite impression to the one you should be giving! ... and (b) intrusive. Yes, I know thousands of people have them on blogs. They often haven't quite thought it through and are typically losing some potential business because of it, in my opinion!).

        May I offer you two more tips?

        1. Never assume that "what you see being widely done" is being done because "it works". Remember that most people in affiliate marketing "fail", for the most part, and never earn much from it, and that people usually do "what everyone else does" in the mistaken belief that "it must be working because otherwise they wouldn't all be doing it". This is how people try, and fail, to build affiliate marketing businesses. You're perhaps even better off assuming that "what everyone does" is probably not a very good way of doing things.

        2. If you're planning to earn money through affiliate marketing, I'd suggest that you don't to put too much of your time and effort into trying to attract "organic SERP's" traffic, for two main reasons: first, it's very precarious and makes your business Google-dependent, and any business that's Google-dependent is no more than one algorithm-change away from a potential accident (or even a potential disaster), as so many Warriors have been finding out over the last year or two, some of them to their very great cost; secondly, for me, search engine traffic has been uniformly the worst-converting traffic out of everything I've ever tried in 8 entirely different niches over the whole of the last 4 years - search engine visitors to all my websites typically stay the least time, view the fewest pages, opt in the least often and actually buy anything by far the least often. I admit I do get tons of search engine traffic to all my main sites (because high rankings for multiple keywords happen to be a minor side-benefit of the main targeted traffic-generation method I use to build my business) but I'd certainly hate to have to make a living just from that traffic, and I wouldn't even be cursing too much if Google de-indexed all my sites this afternoon. Don't depend on search engines for traffic. That's what so many of the people here (and in other forums) have done, who end up wondering where they've gone so wrong. :p
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  • Profile picture of the author Emmanuel Sopitan
    PS "welcome to the Warrior Forum! (Is it right to say that to someone making his first post, having been a member since last July?). "


    I agree too... Welcome is the perfect word.

    From your question, I wont suggest you go into either blogging or into ecommerce without having a coach or mentor. You need someone who will hand you by hand if you can afford it.

    It will make sense doing some part time work and learning IM part time with your mentor.

    Buying courses and other WSO might take you long time, I said that weighing your question and the general trend. From the level which you appear to be in now , information overload might be the step step. Thats lot of knowledge with no action.
    And until something is tried out , nothing happens.
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    • Profile picture of the author ZackAllen
      If you use the right methods, I recommend affiliate marketing. This is not fast and easy money making method. Be prepared to spend much time and energy than you will in a regular job.
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      • Profile picture of the author JohnsCurry
        Originally Posted by ZackAllen View Post

        If you use the right methods, I recommend affiliate marketing. This is not fast and easy money making method. Be prepared to spend much time and energy than you will in a regular job.

        Great! since posting this, I've signed up for Google Affiliate Network. Also, I understand the time requirements for running a business. Once an online presense is established, is there a maintanence possibility? say I make it to $3,000 per month by working my butt off all day for a couple months...

        will I be able to "coast" and transition to a part-time committment due to the momentum I created by working hard in the first months??? (again I understand it's a business, what I'm asking about is the "passive" income potential..
        thank you, for the information that goes to all of you by the way.
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        • Profile picture of the author ZackAllen
          Originally Posted by JohnsCurry View Post

          Gsay I make it to $3,000 per month by working my butt off all day for a couple months..
          Yes it's possible to earn $3,000 (or more) per month. But it may be much more difficult than many regular jobs...
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  • Profile picture of the author Randall Magwood
    Blogging, Affiliate Marketing, and E-commerce are branches from the same tree: Online Business.

    If you do heavy paid advertising, you could operate for only 1 hour a day. If you dont have deep funds and want to do free advertising everyday... be prepared to invest a few hours working on your business everyday.
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  • Profile picture of the author Joan Altz
    Start with services. Learn some skills that will help you as a marketer for the future and in the mean time you can make money while learning. Doesn't take much to pick up a few good skills that other people want to outsource.
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  • Profile picture of the author m00d
    I say you should do all three in the order you listed them. Get a blog off the ground with some unique content. Next find a affiliate program to promote related to your content while you continue to blog and develop your own E-commerce store. Then promote your store as well as the affiliate program on your blog. Then you will dive into "how to get more traffic to your blog".

    Good luck and welcome to Warrior Forum!
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