Information overload, starting to have doubts

This stuff shouldn't be grouped under "methods" and told to pick one. I see marketing methods, core businesses and a sales platform.

If for instance he chooses product creation, where is that traffic going to come from? Perhaps FB plays a role..... but not if he "must choose one."

OP should consider both the core business and necessary marketing methods and weigh the cost of entry into each ($ and/or time).

This advice nailed it. Try and not dabble into multiple methods at the same time, especially if you are new to IM. You won't find overnight success and most of your success will come from your own personal trial & error. Find a method that suits your budget and find a method that will suit your availability for tweaking and testing campaign strategies. You really do not need a WSO to instruct you and you surely do not need to stick to hubpages or sales pages when it comes to IM.

Is there a Holy Grail WSO for beginners? I'm afraid to put out money and that's another reason why I have refrained from actually taking action.

I love this it is good to solve ONE PROBLEM. That's what you should be focused on.

The goal of affiliate marketing is to help someone solve their problem... that is it. (and earn money but that comes later). You want to help people and stand out so that when they need to solve any of their problems, they come to you, their most trusted advisor.

Once you do this, the money will just come.

So, to change things up what I would do is instead of going to clickbank and promoting the top selling product, first find your audience. Once you have found your audience and their problem then search for a product that solves this one specific problem. (research the product, buy it, implement it, just make sure it works before you recommend it!!)

Now what you are doing is giving people true value. This will help you stand out.

Hope this helps I know I kind of jumped around a bit.

David

I understand where you're coming from and I think I understand the problem. You've been reading and studying, which is good, but you're trying to absorb the big picture all at once. As with many things in life such as learning a language, learning to drive, learning to cook, you need to start small so you can understand the basics.

Stop thinking about this as "IM" and start thinking about it as starting a business, because that's what you're doing. Every business starts small. No matter what a business does, it starts with those first few orders, clients, or gigs.

The only thing you really need to focus on is offering some sort of value. The reason you feel so many affiliate products are "just a ploy to get money" is because you don't actually believe in them. I'll be the first to admit that there is a a lot of crap out there and most of it isn't worth your time.

What you need to do is look at yourself and your abilities, determine how you can offer enough value to someone that they will give you money, then perfect that by increasing the value you offer.

It's really that simple. Whether you do that with products, affiliate marketing, or offering a service to other businesses, the value you add to someone (which is, essentially, your ability to help them make money) is what your business will be.

Once you've figured it out, then you can start looking for books, guides, courses, videos, and every other type of learning resource related to your objective. Right now you're essentially reading about other people's careers without any idea of what you, personally, would like to do.

My advice would be to stop reading about IM and do some brainstorming. Make a list of things you can do for other people, things which will make them money. Look at that list and cross out any ideas you don't feel like doing. Narrow it down to one idea which both sounds like fun and seems profitable. After you've done that, you can go back and find a book or course which will help you implement it.

Look, you can't really get better advice that what has already been given in this thread. No method works itself. Decide which of the methods spoken about in the posts above interests you most, research the crap out of it (EzineArticles, Amazon, For Dummies.com),and dive into it. Look you can take 10-15 Ezine Articles, paste them together (leaving the resource box intact, and there's your free report to give away and start a list.

Wow! I cannot believe how many people have replied to this thread! First of, I just want to thank all of you for all your input.


After reading this, I decided to take a good long look at the course and I've come to yet another problem. Wordpress is ever growing as well as the different themes that are available. This course goes through the very basics of web development, from the HTML coding, all the way to the design. Which honestly, seems obsolete. Now a days, people can just go on Wordpress and select a theme and they have a functioning site. Or perhaps I'm overestimating the general public... :p However, bottom line is, is there still even a market for web developers that do everything from scratch?

Moreover, I don't want to get involved in the "make money online" niche anyway. I think I was just hung up on the idea that it's where I need to look around to start. I do have a couple ideas of niches, they're my own personal hobbies, badminton and playing guitar/piano. Mind you, I'm no expert in both so I don't see how I can create valuable offers, other than pushing readers to purchase a "Learn to play piano" ebook. Unless that IS in fact the right path to IM and I have just failed to acknowledge it.

I guess another question I have is, when you're promoting a product, do you take the time to actually put it to use? Or do you just find reviews on it, then rewrite the reviews, publish on your site, drive traffic and profit? To me, that's what EVERY affiliate marketer looks like, not to offend any of the legitimate marketers here, but I'm just being honest.

With that mindset, would you guys say that IM is not for me and perhaps I should just perfect my tangible skills and offer them up as a services, ie. creating websites, writing articles?