Help! So close to giving up...

What made you give up on your first two websites? I see lots of people give up too soon without giving it the true effort that this business demands.

Only 2 failures?? That's a lot less than I've had! Internet marketing is definitely not for everyone.

I would recommend picking a niche you have a serious interest in and know about. Start a blog regarding that niche, and just start typing. Do something everyday, post your blog on some forums or in a signature, get some backlinks and post more content everyday.

Eventually, something will click. But as wealthyclark said above^, so many people give up too soon. Stick with something you love and enjoy the journey, don't obsess over the lack of results right away. It only get's better!

First i feel your pain and I been there in the past... Just keep in mind affiliate marketing takes time with most methods and doesnt happen quickly.

Don't over complicate your keywords, as long as you can find a few good keywords that get searches and you can rank for those you will have the traffic for people that will see your other products. Take it a few keywords at a time and focus on those dont try to jump around and rank every possible keyword.

Your on page optimization can be a one time thing, setup your products and keywords and optimize those pages.... Your homepage can be generalized for example if its Pressure washers then use a related keyword just for your homepage.... Product pages can be long tailed keywords with the make/model.... Having a targeted keyword for each product is ideal but if you cant find one write a title for that product naturally and move onto to the next.

Category pages you will ideally want to find a good keyword.

What type of promotion work have you done? are you trying to rank any of the keywords? Like I said try to focus on just a few of your biggest keywords and take it from there.

Another thing to keep in mind is each niche has a different amount of potential for making money, keep in mind the keywords and also what type of affiliate products are available and the demand for those products. There is a lot of considerations to take into effect, I can understand the headache.

BTW if you dont mind me asking what is your pressure washer site?

It sounds like you just need a good game plan before you dive into and start making a site. I always draw up a plan before I start something, find something you enjoy and see what type of opportunities are in that niche for affiliate marketing... IMO adwords is junk maybe others will disagree but right now for someone that does not have a product or service most people will make it with affiliate marketing...

If you ditched your previous site projects you could either sell them at flippa or try to revive them and do it the right way... Personally if I was you i would try to find a niche you are interested in it makes it much easier.

I also seen a WSO that was offering ready made sites for around $50 or $60 on different niches with content already there, so that is also another option for you.

P.S. I myself have sold side income projects for a few hundred bucks and reinvested that money into something else... Not telling you to throw away your sites but just another option .

Hi Harry, To have only two failures is good going I've been trying for years to make it online and like most of use have tried many different products and systems. You will sure learn a lot more from your mistakes, most of the time it's because your not sure what to do or how it all works. If I was you I would invest in a mentor find someone who has been successful in this niche and have a plan to follow, then when you come across problems you will have some to help you. I'm sure you'll get there in the end I sure wish you the best of luck will be good to see how you get on :-)

We're in a very competitive industry, it's not going to be easy and that's the point. If it was easy there wouldn't be big returns. You have to take risks to make it big, although that may not be the case all the time in this industry. There's a lot of luck involved but hard work will pay off in the end if you're doing it right.

A mentor would be good! Jay Wessman has been helping me quite a bit i don't know if you have heard of him? He has a blog called the lazy ass stoner which is packed full of useful info, either way hes got a course out called screw95 and that's where it all started for me.... Yep and your right about not really knowing what to do I've been getting stuck so much its driving me insane! Literally to the point where you just end up not getting anywhere just staying in the same spot trying to work it all out.... staring at this bloody laptop

Well it took me years to get anything and the fact I had no idea what to do or how to do it you have to get the right training and make sure you do your research for both the market and keywords and do it right check out my Blog for more help

My recommendation is to not worry about "optimizing your pages" or picking low competition keywords.

Build your niche site, research what is going on in the niche and develop content around it.

Make sure you make it easy for your visitors to "like" and "retweet" your posts.

Get an autoresponder, create some sort of niche-related giveaway and start collecting email addresses.

Then try some basic forum marketing to get your initial targeted traffic.

Sometimes we end up trying to learn too many things from too many experts. Pick 2 experts and unsubscribe from newsletters from all the rest.

Join their programs. Follow what they say and be consistent.

It's simple - not easy - simple!

1. Find a product that you know is selling well.
2. Either write your own version of it or just become an affiliate.
3. Establish how you can get in front of traffic that is interested in the product.
4. Send them to your sales page or to your product review.

Now, of course, a lot could be said about each of those steps.

How do you know if a product is selling well?

The Clickbank stats are at least a start. The advice here varies a lot, especially on the subject of gravity. However, if you find a product that has a gravity of between (say) 5 and 10 - it is selling well, I can assure you.

How can you create your own product?

Lots of ways including creating your own videos, ebooks etc. It's easy to do. You can create screen capture videos with free software like Jing for example and an ebook is simply a PDF and a graphic. How do you create a graphic? My advice is don't. Pay someone to do it for you because it is that important.

How can you get in front of targeted traffic?

Again, lots of ways including forums, posting (guest posting) on blogs in the niche. Your own blog using a bit of basic SEO. Submit videos to YouTube. You could pay for an ad in someone's newsletter etc. Really, there are loads of ways.

Now go and DO it!

Stop thinking there is a secret sauce or a magic key - there isn't! It is just time and effort.

Do what I have said and you WILL see success.

Will

If I've read this right you've only been trying for 3 months!

Many people try for 3 years or more before making their first bucks.

I would suggest ....

1. Get it into your head that this may take some time. It's just like learning a trade, and most apprenticeships are anything between 3-5 years!

2. Approach it as a learning curve and not as thought your life depended on it. This will help to reduce your frustration, and you'll be more receptive to new ideas.

3. Just keep going! If you don't give up you WILL get there, and when you do, you'll be surprised how simple this is.

Good luck to you. Just be patient, and willing to learn. Mistakes are necessary to gain experience.

Hello Crakeman,

I feel for you. Ive been racking my brains at trying to make a few $$ for a few years. I realize that I'm way to scattered. Hang in there and keep it going. don't give up, never give up!

Problem is,

You haven't failed enough.

nobody aint gona give u their sauce.

You can offer your services, besides trying to make sales. Since you can make websites, you can offer this service and make some money this way, besides trying to sell affiliate products. This way you will have two different income streams.

The advice of Maria, Will, WealthyClark and Joe are fantastic and are the ones to follow.

What I've learnt from my failures (learning experiences) and am slowly doing now (with help from mentors and a coach) is what i've written below.

Pick a niche (where there is desperate need) that you'd love to work in in the long term - 3 - 5 years at least.

Start blogging about all that you know about that niche and solutions for desperate problems in that niche.

If you have some money to spend on traffic, then create a squeeze page, get a PLR report with giveaway rights (would be about $5 - $25 in most PLR sites), modify it to suit the way you want to present the information or solution, and change the cover graphics and title (give it an alluring title like '5 Secrets you need to know to start burning fat' or something like that that suits your niche). Setup an email auto responder series for 10 or so days (keep adding more to it as time passes). In your email series, have some quality content emails, and some emails that take your prospects back your blog content. So for every 4 - 5 content emails, send out an email that promotes something. Now to make it even better, you could send them to a blog post where you have written a review of the product and how they could benefit from it. at the end of each and every blog post that you write, have some call to action (yeah I learnt this the hard way as I wasn't doing for a long time). You have got to condition the people on you list to take action, this means mostly having shorter emails with 2 or 3 links (that lead to the same place - may be a post or a sales page of a product you are promoting) that lead to your content or promotion piece.

When you have about 10 or so days' worth content and emails, start creating facebook ads, and sending targeted traffic (do enough research to know what age group your best audiences might be). Track every thing, as your ROI is the most important thing. You can use simple WP plugins, and FB's tracking, to have basic idea of your metrics to start off with and once things start picking up, you can look at using the free version of Prosper202 to track more metrics. Use your email autoresponders' inbuilt tracking to see which of your emails get opened and which ones get click-thrus to continue optimising them (and seeing what people on your list want/need). Once you have people on your list, survey them once every month or every two months, and based on these results, look at products that will solve their problems.

For organic traffic, youtube video's would be the better option. You could do a video, and have it transcribed to be your blog post, and have the video link back to the post and also embed the video into your post.

3 months is not a long time. My first site made affiliate commisions (from organic traffic) almost 7 months after it was setup and content added 2 - 3 times a week. Yes it was discouraging, but I knew IM works. I had done some work in the past when it was much easier, but my return to IM in late 2012/early 2013 was very rocky, and painful.

Keep at it, find one desperate niche and work in it for at least 6 or so months consistently and keep adding value to people on your list.

When you progress, you can always create your own product based on what's selling and then, either have the product created for you or you can write it yourself. If you're passionate about your niche, you will be learning more about it, and there by adding more and more value to your audience and will have enough information to create an information product in less than 6 months of completely immersing yourself in that niche.

All the best.

I find this inspiring when I am discouraged by failure in any area of life - " Never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.'' - Winston Churchill.

You've gained a valuable skill up to this point. Something you yourself said you "can" do.

"I cant find a niche to save my life and feel confused constantly with all this stuff.... When researching niches i can find products with low competition using long tail pro but i'm struggling to throw it all together"

I don't know what long tail pro is. Sure someone else does. They may not know how to make it work like you. From what you wrote seems like you have three months experience using it.

Consider writing or recording yourself going through the steps of using the tool to creating the website. After three months it should be old hat to you. Making a better choice in what niche site to build looks to be the brickwall. I don't have the magic formula for picking it. Just ask yourself how may people with money are randomly searching for xyz.

Stick with it and keep adjusting. Your breakthrough is coming.

Hi Harry,

Have you ever thought of finding a mentor who can help you understand things better? A coach who can listen to you and nudge you towards a better decision?

You are giving up too soon. The average self millionaire failed on average 30 times before making it. Keep at it and good luck.

The worst thing you can do is let go of something that has a potential for success. Whether you drop out of high school, quit a job, or drop a site, you're losing something important and valuable in life.

Now, that being said, there are some projects that you set out to do that turn out to be failures. Some websites were too big or ambitious in scope. Some you didn't have the resources for. Maybe they were good ideas.

If you're getting bogged down in the details, the best advice is to choose a subject you're passionate about. It doesn't matter what the niche is, as long as you're personally interested in it. Register a brand-able domain and just start writing the articles yourself. If you have 500 posts, people who like your site on social networks, and a fun design, you'll get a lot of traffic. Isn't traffic what you're after? This site will be your first success, and you can use the income from this to start your other sites.

I really feel your pain. I have been in this mess before. Actually you do not have to get your site optimized if you are going into sales something. All you need do is get targeted traffic to the product or service you are promoting and and start making money off it

You need a squeeze page for that so that you will be able to collect their details and be able to promote whatever stuffs you still need to later.

Give it a short.

Its not going to be easy man. Otherwise everyone would be very wealthy. Push through it and learn from your mistakes. Get back on your feet read through this forum to find the information that you need and try something again. But this time with a better plan, that you researched more deeply. Most people quit before they realize how close they were to success. You need to want it as bad as you want to breathe

Find a niche that you are passionate about and stick with it until you make a good income.

Make sure that you find programs that pay you recurring commissions.

Then make sure that you learn how to market online. Some marketing techniques may or may not work for you but you have to work hard to see which ones do.

Take things a day at a time and just never give up. Tell yourself that you will succeed.

You Have Not Failed, You Have Found One Way That Won’t Work!!!

Most marketers who start online, just like you, think that failing means they are not capable of having an online business and they stop their journey right there because of a few mistakes or because they didn't get it right yet.



Be a real marketer and fail your way to success. I will share a quote with you and I hope you write it on a sticky note and stick it on your mirror... ‘’ I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work’’, (Thomas Edison).

You are going to have to be uncomfortable in this journey and throw yourself out of your comfort zone to succeed and see results - failing comes with it and for this reason Online Marketing is not for the faint hearted!!!.



There will be more times when you will fail but rather than quit, look at these times as an opportunity to learn and develop by analyzing the problem to find a solution.



Most of the time people give up right before they would succeed. If you want it badly you will continue to put in the energy to succeed, so don’t let your failures get you down and always keep your ego in check. Learn to analyze why you’re failing and come up with solutions to fix the problems.


So let yourself start failing now so you can figure out what you have to do in order to succeed!
Connect with like minded people online - there are tons of groups you can join and this will help you heaps. Successful internet marketers were once in your shoes and are now earning up to a 6 figure income. If you cannot figure it out go and watch what other successful marketers are doing and reverse engineer (just to make myself clear, not copy and paste their work as you are building your own brand online)!

You have the potential - you got this far so now continue your journey ... you can only get smarter!!!

Why?

Why are you working your businesses?

If the reason is weak, you'll quit.

If it's strong - tied to some form of freedom - you'll push yourself through your low times.

We have ALL been there, so I feel your pain bro, but you need to revisit your why and make it uber strong, to drive yourself.

All the best....keep going, it's ALL worth it in the end!

My first few projects were disasters.

You learn from the mistakes you make.

My advice is to stop trying to build sites around keywords you believe are easy to rank. You don't need to focus on specific products either.

Instead focus on something you have an interest and passion for - a sport, a skill, an activity, a hobby.

Or a pain in your life that you've solved or are working towards solving - being over weight, acne, genital warts, inability to get laid etc.

Niche marketing is easier when you actually know about the niche you are involved with. It's not essential but it really helps especially when you're starting out.

Use forums, blogs and Q&A sites in the niche you pick and look for common questions being asked - these are problems many people have. Find out what the solutions are to these problems (you'll probably know already if you have experience in the niche) are create content on them and find products which solve them.

It's all about helping people and providing value - above and beyond what everyone else in the niche is doing.

It's more than just adding some thrown together content to a WP blog and adding some affiliate links to your site.

I'm with you. A lot of Great comments here. I too have learned that to fail is to succeed. You are just learning how not to do something. I've been told by my mentors not to give up. That is the easy way out and what most people will do. Stick with it. Keep learning. Knowledge is power!

I remember my first websites, I was obsessed with, design, logo, font size, countless number of plugins, seo... etc.

Now I don't even buy new domains, my all sites are blogspot blogs, with some of their default templates, and they are doing great in search engines for longtail keywords.

So how is it possible:
-After several trials I found a method that is working for me, learn how people search things on google.
-How to target people in buying stage (my conversion rate is %16-18, and it is good for amazon I think )
-I spend the time for creating usefull content(with simple sentences, my english is not good for writing great reviews), instead of finding the right color for my logo.

Of course if you have one site and you SEE (NOT think) it has a potential you can even spend hundreds of dollars just for a logo, but first let your website prove it deserves that investment.

And for some motivation please see my post for newbies.

Thanks for the helpful comments guys! You have spurred me on to continue with this and as a result i have been grinding away building backlinks to a review site of mine that i made my first sale on clickbank with last night, couldn't believe it when i checked my account this morning! $44.45 to be precise and i was expecting to see the usual 0! Extremely happy with that, i came at the right time because i was ready to throw in the towel haha. Thanks again guys

Giving up is so easy. Learn from your mistakes and keep going. Taking action is the key to success.

Trying to be successful is a lot of hard work and commitment. Find a mentor that will help you achieve your goals

Never give up man! that is the only thing that separates the winners from the losers, believe it or not

You need to reframe the idea of mistake and start calling it learning. If you wanted to be a lawyer, you'd go to 3 to 5 years of law school...after college! Why should this be any different?

3 months is a drop in the bucket when it comes to building a website to generate search traffic. Only after 1 year you start getting some results and it usually takes 2 years to start generating some decent income from the website.

The SEO game isn't a fast track to money. It's a long game and you have to have a lot of faith in what you are doing. Plus hope Google doesn't get greedy and changes the rules of the game.

Also, there aren't any untapped markets. When running an online business you aren't competing only with businessmen from your country. You play on a global level. And there are only 10 spots on the first page of Google and the number one spot usually gets over 50% of the traffic. Getting to #1 is super hard because even someone deep down in Africa can compete with you just as effectively as someone in the US.

Online marketing is cutthroat and the dream the gurus sell is just that: a dream. It takes lots of sweat, blood and tears to actually make a decent living online. If you want to go forward pick a niche you are passionate about. It will make the effort and time investment a whole lot more bearable.

Best of luck.

Have you considered finding a mentor or coach to help you create an action plan designed to produce specific results and hold you accountable?

Here's my story...

I've been fooling around with IM for 5 or 6 years, doing a little of this then a little of that and the most I've made in a month is fifty bucks. So the obvious answer to me is to find something that interests you (CPA, Amazon, whatever) and stick with it until you either see some results or you go nuts. Work at one game plan steadily for at least 6 weeks. Find a mentor if you can.

I'm currently in the 2nd week of a coaching program called the Quick Start Challenge. So far it's been fun and educational. Too soon to tell if it will produce the desired results, but time will tell.

I know exactly how you feel. Just don't give up. Just a little advise, focus, focus, focus.. If you are still jumping from program to program, do yourself a favor STOP.
Choose a system that you can identified with, research before you join, and stick to it... You will make it..
Good luck,
Gloria

I'm a pheasant plucker. I pluck mother pheasants. I'm the most pleasant mother pheasant plucker ever to pluck a mother pheasant.

:]

I had to recite that in speech class several years ago, in front of a massive audience.

The purpose of the recital was to make you nervous of slipping a slew of curse words in front of everybody else.

The majority of my peers were nervous as hell.

I wasn't nervous though.

The truth is... I've been through a lot more nervous situations than that.

So... When 99.99% of other students were scared stiff reciting these lines?

I thought it was a piece of cake. Even though I'm not good at making speeches.

And I sure as hell had no business getting a 4.0 in that speech class (but I did).

While others, with superior gifts, didn't even come close to my marks.

So, here's the point to my 1:21 in the morning rant.

Life's tough as nails.

And for some of us? It's even tougher.

Here's the secret; you're merely a human on a planet.

If you give up... You lose.

Why not fight for every ounce of scrap that this planet can provide?

What the hell else are you going to do?

There are bountiful resources. Even if you have to fight for them.

:]

Just my stoic rant.

I hope someone can gain wisdom from it.

Later

Back when life kicked me in the teeth:

http://www.barbaraling.com/insights/...nto-money/5628

(this was September of 2011)

I figured I wanted to do SOMETHING but had no clue really in what direction to go. I discovered this thing called WarriorPlus which would let people earn commissions from other people's products. That intrigued me.

So, I bought the site Daily WSOs (it's now an autoblogged site). Every day, I would post 3-4 new WSOs with a picture, description and an affiliate link.

That was all.

When October rolled around, I looked at my site and said to myself:

Jeepers self, I could use a copy/paste function and copy all the posts from each category and make a big huge PLR book about WSOs!

http://www.warriorforum.com/warrior-...ear-vet.html#1

resulted and was my very first WSO.

Nothing earth-shattering. But it got me on my way.

Don't get hung up on having to do this the way everyone else says. Try something that might work just for *you*. Recently, that's been the story of my IM career!

Best of skill. Every mistake brings one day closer to your first win!

As many of the members' posts above suggested, you need a mentor --- someone you can get along with and learn from --- and follow through on their advice. I'm not familiar with the guy you mentioned, Jay Wessman, but you seem to have faith in him. Let him show you the way, and you WILL succeed. Don't be like me and go after every Shiny Object, looking for the Secret Sauce that gives you overnight success. I worked with lots of gurus but didn't follow through until, just recently, like Foxtrot 3 above, I found the Quick Start Challenge run by Dean Holland, who, to me, is like a breath of fresh air. Dean encouraged me to step out of my Comfort Zone and I realised there and then what had been holding me back for years. Good luck in all your endeavours.
Keep smiling!

In the world of internet marketing, three months is infancy. I've read stories of people encountering years of failure. If it's something you're really passionate about, you have to keep going.

Anyone who has experienced success in this industry I would venture to say has had way more than two bumps in the road.

Who's to say your next attempt won't be the one? You need focus and a mentor. Personally, I didn't start to realize a change until I followed the teachings of someone who had already achieved success.

Find someone you trust. Too many people try to figure everything out by themselves only to end up even more confused and more frustrated.

If making money online is something you truly want to achieve, you simply can't give up, especially with so few "failures." That's how we learn and grow.

"Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm" ~ Winston Churchill.

"I've failed over and over again in my life and that's why I succeed" ~ Michael Jordan

Failure is normal in anything you want to achieve Crakeman89, Thomas Edison viewed failure as a step closer to success : "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."

So don't let it bring you down.

I suggest you get yourself a coach. Because from what you write I can read that you#re overwhelmed and miss some kinda structure. You need a business plan. It doesn't matter what you're doing, you need to lay down a plan just like when building a house.

Why are you doing affiliate marketing? what are your expectations? are a few questions you need to answer to.

Is it hard? Yes. Are you going to fail? Yes many times. Is it worth it? OH YES.

I really wish you to make it happen

Mistakes is Experience - Experience Is Success!

This is normal at the start of your journey! I would join a paid forum, (affplaybook, IMgrind, stackthatmoney are some popular ones.

Once you get some guidance and direction on your projects, it's really just a matter of time till you hit on something

Good luck

Making money online is a business and you have to approach it as such. As with all business you focus in on area/niche and work with it. Not everything is going to go smoothly all the time. Anyone who has made it in IM put in blood, sweat and tears (it's just that when they are trying to sell you their shiny object they make it sound like overnight success....that does not exist.) You have to keep at diligently. As Brian Johnson says, 'people give up before the magic happens' and it's true. Like anything worth doing and succeeding at, it going to take time and perseverance. Stop buying and start doing and you will succeed.

Hi
You need to write down your aims of what you want to achieve. Then the road map on how your going to achieve it.
Building interesting content on your site is critical, and having a target audience.

Hey bud,
This business is a process. One thing builds on another. It takes some time and hard work to begin to know what you're doing.
This is a learn as you go business. You can't learn everything all at once. Use Google and YouTube to learn what you need to know.
As far as niches go, go to google trends and it will tell you what is trending right now on the Internet.
Good luck with what you decide to do.
Geri Richmond

Focus on 1 thing at a time, take the time to learn and do. From there it is just executing, learn from your mistakes, rinse and repeat until the desired results are attained

It took me almost 10 years to start making money online. As years passed, every single one of my friends said you`re not going to make a dime online so you better stop trying. Even my wife (my ex-wife now, btw) told me I`m not going to make it, I will fail and I should get a real job and stick with it. My friends and my loved ones were against me. I was alone and no-one was supporting me. Still, when I decide to do something I will do it, even if it took million years. That`s just who I am.

I actually had quite a few "real" jobs but I spend all my spare time trying to figure out the IM puzzle. Actually I failed over and over again. No matter what I did ended more or less disastrous. I tried everything and failed. You name it and I´ve tried it and failed with it.

But you know, I didn`t have any intention to give up until I make it. It was HELL from time to time but I gathered myself and tried again. And as I see it now, I learned a LOT in the process.

And I finally made my breakthrough like I KNEW I would. 10 freaking years of failing doesn`t matter a bit because now I make my living online. My point is: Never, ever, ever, ever ever, ever give up and you will get there. Winners dont quit and quitters dont win.

I know this sounds like BS to you at the moment but if you set a goal to make your living online and keep on trying and going forward regardless of the failures, you will get there.

-Lauri-

Two failures is not bad at all as long as they were good learning experiences. I agree with everyone else who suggested that you choose a niche based on interest. Its also very important to have a plan.

When I was pregnant with my son last summer I was frustrated with lack of affordable and fashionable maternity wear. My business partner and I started a niche/ authority site focusing on helping pregnant women look stylish on a budget. It's a competitive niche but because it was something of interest to me, it took just 6 weeks to start generating income. I've had the website for less than a year. We don't make a ton on Google ad sense but we do make right under $1000 in affiliate fees each month. $1000 per month is not much but it's great considering that this is our 3rd priority after our other business ventures and actual client work. We hardly spend any time on this website and earn more and more each month. I keep thinking that if we dropped client work and made this site more of a priority, the results would generate enough income to not care about client work. Our traffic is in a place where we are being approached by maternity boutiques with giveaway product. My personal goal for this project for the month of May is to line up advertisers.

You need a solid plan but be ready to be flexible. It's really important to love your subject matter. We knew that it would take a long time to get to the 1st page of Google for our keywords so we started advertising our website on Craigslist and asking anyone and everyone in the pregnancy fashion and family frugality sectors for guest posting opportunities. After a few guest posts, we were asked to submit a monthly guest posting column on one of these sites. About 30% of our traffic comes from this column and another 30% from Pinterest.

Don't give up!!! You just have to be open to ideas, opportunities and experiment.

well since everyone is too busy posting motivational fluff to comment on your actual sites, I'll give it a shot.

For one, even though you do have a big call to action on your pages, it isn't a "buying" call to action. I would use a button that says "Buy Now! (crossed out $29.99) Now 50% off with our exclusive deal! ONLY $14.99 Click Here!"

However, your ctr is probably the least of your concerns... Im assuming the real issue is a lack of traffic, which leads me to believe that you don't have a whole lot of quality links or that you didnt do proper keyword research.

(Im basing all this on the wine glass site btw)

Basically this site is just a glorified amazon portal that probably doesnt even have a lot of searches a month anyway and the commission on your products is tiny. Again, no offense intended, but you're not providing any real value with this site. Thats fine...but you need an entire fleet of these sites to really start seeing results if this is the route you want to take.

If I were to take that site over right now, I'd make a new header image (no offense, yours looks way too plain imo) write out a ton of good content about wine topics in general, find authoritative sites that are already linking to wine articles for backlinks and promote the hell out of it on pinterest and instagram. The more your index page gets linked, the more juice will flow to your sales pages. It would be better to get links to these specific sales pages but I have no idea how you're going to convince an authority site to link to one of your sales pages.

Id also take all the junk out of the sidebar since its not making you any money anyway (for me at least, sidebar clicks account for less than 20% of all my ad clicks).

in short, you're treating this particular site like a set it and forget it site. The amount of niches you can get away with that nowadays with little effort and still make money are decreasing rapidly. You need to build value in the site, build an audience and test various monetization methods.

The possibilities for this site are kinda endless. You could even go to the extent of hiring cheap artists (or even running contests) to get proprietary images that you can use to make your own wineglasses and have them drop shipped by a manufacturer. This would be social media GOLD.

I think the problem is that you're wanting to make sites, not businesses. In order to really see success you need to either cast an extremely wide net (churning out cheap site after cheap site) or put in the time to build something that's quality. Either approach will work but in your case, you're trying to take the first approach without having the quantity of sites to make it happen.

All success requires is a transaction. You have a product for sale, and you sell it to someone. Quit thinking in terms of selling to a million people and figure out how to simply sell one product to one person online, then it will be easier to see how this works. Once you sell a product to a single person, then duplicate that effort. Once you have created a system, be sure and collect email addresses, because the long term money is in the list, or in having your own market, or customer base. Simplify it, and think in terms of making a single sale to someone. It will start to click after that. Sell one thing to one person online, then move forward. Focus on a single sale. The rest will fall into place.

You have one BIG thing in your favor. You are doing the work yourself.

I outsourced everything when I first did this in 2010. I had over a hundred sites i hired others to do the work. I had one manager and that little sweetheart used his own affiliate links and was bringing in a nice chunk of change.

I had lost total control. I had no idea what was mine, I had three different hosting companies and used most of the registrars. I had no list of what sites I owned.

I became ill and I had a friend come in to take over while I was in the hospital. Anyway my husband did not bother me with this but he just cancelled the hosting all three of them. He did not realize that I would lose all my sites and the files. So I am just starting out again.

If you want someone else to talk to I'm here and would be glad to have someone else who is just starting out. I have two sites, one to sell some handmade highend items and another to back up a brick and mortar store I opened that sells antiques. So I am just concentrating on building my list, driving traffic, and updating my content on a daily basis.

That is kind of what you need to concentrate on too. Maybe we should start a blog together for newbies, lol. Actually that could be a good idea. Alternate who is responsible for posting. And have two ad sites or four ads for different products. We could each have one or two ads and make any money that way. I'll host it for free you get the domain.

Anyway my point being, you are doing this the right way. You are doing the work yourself. You are talking to others. And you know some of what does not work. You are a very good writer. Plain speech and it conveys emotion very well. You know that is how Chris Farrell got going. He just started blogging what was working and what wasn't and now he is an empire. Hope I spelled his name right.

So just keep on truckin' there. but you do probably have another six months of slogging along till you start making any reliable money at all.

I loved all the things people wrote to you. Organic traffic is best. Just be natural. People respond to natural. And do the work yourself and build quality sites. And don't rely on adsense, lol.

Michele

You want to give up after 3 websites!!! Sorry for saying this but are you crazy ???
i have built 45 websites and they made me $0 till i made my first $5000 online from website number 46

look, if you don't fail time after time you wont get anywhere, success doesn't come without failing hundred times before.

Relax and take a break for a couple of days, don't touch your computer, then start over again, READ, get more knowledge from other successful online marketer, copy their work, see what works for them, test it and believe me you will do it.

you should see my list of tried and fails. I can say beyond a doubt that IM has been the hardest thing i have ever done as a job. The training systems out there all make it sound easy. The biggest problem when you get into IM is wearing all the hats.

The 2 biggest things that turned it around for me was #1.switching to a topic i loved #2. finding people or freelancers to do the things i hated or simply was not good at.

Hey Harry, definitely don't give up! Although it might not feel like it now, you'll definitely have learnt a lot from the sites you've created up until now. I would recommend that you either find a mentor, or if that is "out of budget" just now, follow one training course that will take you right from the beginning to success and don't be distracted from it. It's not just the technical stuff in the course that will assist you (you may well know most of that already with the sites you've created) - it's the confidence that your time is being spent on a proven process that will lead to a successful outcome.

Keep reading success stories of the successful affiliates. Then you will have a better idea.

Tell me something - did your failures teach you anything? If yes, the failure is worth it. If no, then you need to analyze what went wrong and figure out your "mistake".

@Crakeman89 - tough business - however we know some people via via who are starting up a site to take on ShopStyle directly. It may not be the right target market for you but they have a few other sectors for high volume (millions products) so could be something interesting.

I feel your pain friend we all have fallen in the same mistake as you: we feel that we cannot make this happens we are losers... STOP THINKING LIKE THAT! You cannot make money online from the first, you must fail the 1st time the second the third... and in every failure you learn something!
Just keep going on and you will 100% make money

Keep going friend DO NOT GIVE UP!
People start to make money after they fail multiple times !!

I've been in your shoes brother. I know exactly how you feel. In fact, there's a pretty decent number of internet marketers that experience these desperately hard times when trying to become successful as an internet marketer. Undertand that you are not alone. There is a tool out the called the "google keyword planner" what you are going to want to do is add a keyword and press search.

When you get to the results page with all the variations of keywords what you want to do is click the "competition" tab. And that is how you find the keywords that actually convert like crazy. To answer your question, yes. You should invest your time and money into markets that are booming. If there is a market that you feel has very little competition but a decent number of searches per month then go for it! I wish you luck!

Hey Crankman,
I would recommending getting a coach to help you, the online world has a mind of it's own.
Who cares that you failed two times I have failed like 15 times and still make mistakes.
Here is the deal, get your mindset straight, pick a niche your good at or have some kind of experience in. I think you are over thinking it way to much. Join a mastermind group of like minded people, and get a coach. One day at a time and try to have some fun with it. One thing I do when I work now is turn off all other devices, the TV, PHONE, KIDS,WIFE,E-MAIL and give myself time to think. Here is the trick only do that for a hour at a time and take 30 minutes to reflect. I hope that helps, look up Anthony Rocca on here he is a good coach and I use him. Best

I know how you feel and you and anyone else who are having those same thoughts over their head are welcome to reach out to me through this forum because this is not good position to be in. Been there done that. Why am I doing this. Emotionally this can screw people BADLY!

The difference between success and failure is your mindset of approach. Successful people have what is known as a "growth mindset".

When you approach anything, your first question would be... "If I fail, what kind of lesson can I take from it?" Any venture would have sort of a learning lesson. Your job is to take the lesson and tweak it until it works.

It IS too much to ask for. You can't ask for success from someone else. Only you can succeed. The reason is that you do not "ask" for success. You chase it down, you learn from mistakes and you get up again and again and again.

You can't find a niche because you don't have the fundamentals in marketing and you are not following the right steps. Look at my signature for a process I use.

I cannot comment because I rely on fast methods, and rarely is my focus on SEO.

If it ends that quickly, I'm going to say that entrepreneurship is not for you... (or even more harshly) Anything that you're going to try and master in life is not for you. It's the same thing for any skill, isn't it? If you're going to train how to play golf, you're going to get it wrong the first few times. You need to go through the learning process. That's why the mindset part is so important. What can you learn from it? What can you change? What are the basics?? (look at my sig again, seriously.)

I've never done keyword research in my life through all the various lucrative methods I've used. The key is really to understand how marketing works. Stop relying on what others tell you to do and start thinking for yourself. If you know the basics, you literally know how to apply it to any opportunity. That's what it takes to start.

Nobody is going to restore your faith for you. Throw your laptop in the bin if you're that willing to give up. The world does not care about people who give up.

If you're truly desperate, stop waddling in your own worries and start thinking about all the lessons you've learnt. A failure isn't a failure. It's a step towards success. Stop being reactive, start being proactive.

Lastly, stop asking for pity from people and trying to get help. If you really want to succeed, you go out there and grab it with your own hands. Nobody is going to pass the keys of El Dorado to you. You need to seek your own path through your own brains.

I apologize if this was harsh, I meant it to be constructive and not offensive. Truth shouldn't be sugar-coated and feel-good. If it hurts, you need to yelp.

Imogen

it looks like you have a wealth of info dude so just pick the ones that make sense and go with it but my opinion is there are several ways to make money with a site, get good content get traffic pay if you have to and make money as affiliate, adsense with google, invite comp to advert ise on your site due to traffic and bank on that and list goes on. however if u want to just make with a site you need to understand the trends, meaning what are ppl looking to buy rightnow so once googlr keywords shows you the trend then u build a site using the exact keywords ppl are searching, get paid traffic to site try fb ad. and bank..on the otherhand if you are interested in just bulding a site bcos u like it understand that if there isnt demand for that niche you are going to have to work extra hard to get ppl attention and hence the frustration. So my advice find something that is easy to sell by researching trends and once ur confidence is up because you are making money then take your time to build a site u absolutely love even if it takes years no problem you re making money with other sites anyway. The funny thing about internet marketing is the more you fail the better you become at knowing what works and what is pure bull and trust me there s bunch of bull out there but rise above it stay hungry and success will not escape you.

WOW. This is similar to this post here:

http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...l-my-plug.html

I am new. Not SUPER new, but new enough that i haven't done very well. BUT, i have tried my ASS off...still no results... I saw a post (and some answers) that said maybe i should try and find someone who was willing to kind of mentor me, help me out, get me started?

Every time i think i have figured something out, i find myself going even farther backwards trying to learn something else. I did this for a while and realized holy crap! i am starting 2347293847 projects, and not finishing ANY of them! Thats when i hit this hole i am in now. I feel like crying. BUT i don't want to give up! I have been trying for a little over a year now, and this seems SO MUCH up my alley....i want it so bad i can taste it...I tried to find help in a few other forums, they were NASSSSSTY!! SHEW! I can't even begin...

Anyway, im so close, but so far from my goals and dreams.... if someone could just help, i don't even know where to begin to get out of this hole.... Should i NOT be doing affiliate marketing? Seems overrated and absurdly saturated... BUT there has to be a way..and im not talking about pennys--im not talking about becoming an overnight millionaire by any means either, just want to be able to jump up and down by SEEING results and knowing i am headed in the right direction. Everything and everyone in a search result wants to sell me something else.

Well, i have spent my LAST dollar on all that crap that doesn't work...not to mention all the bank problems, and bounced fee's from gettin charged again and again....DONE!! Please, someone find it in their heart to help! I'd never be able to thank you enough for helping me and my family out!! i just dont know what to do anymore...give up?! I CANT!!

There is no get rich quick scheme involved here, my advice to you is that you understand that anything worth while it will take hard work, failures along the way as a price for learning, finding out what works and does not work.

You have 2 choices:

1) Give up and go get a JOB and live the rest of your life working for someone else or

2) Do what the successful small percentage of winners did in warrior forum, DID NOT GIVE UP and found out what works by trial and error till they find something that works and build upon that ! It would help if you have a budget for advertising and driving traffic since free traffic will be a slower path, that is up to you, not sure of what your situation is.

wow, harry ( op ) this is me also.

jumped into WSO's / spent time and energy ( luckily not too much $ ); however feel like I cannot make it with traffic, etc.

I am now trying for amazon FBA ( bought training ( inexpensive ) / did not do coaching as I have to see the light before I spend more $ ). if amazon FBA brings me any hope I will post. kind members thx for supporting each other.

I just gave up bro...
I spent all my savings and even went into debt.
Now I got to get a real job to pay the bank back all
those charges from "testing" and trial and error.

You know what, this doesn't address the specifics in your post, but the only way you can possible fail is to quite.

Plain and simple...

Never ever fully give up. If nothing else, stay engaged in the industry on some kind of level....You do not have to devote hours each day or hundreds of dollars a week/month, but you can stay engaged by continuing to subscribe to the broadcasts or podcasts you like.

I almost totally quit many times myself. Even backed off for a few months one time last year, but I never gave up completely. I stayed engaged on some sort of level.

There is absolutely nothing WORSE than giving up! Even the absolute worse marketer in the world, if he just continues to keep going no matter what, success is inevitable. You think success is hard? Try giving up on something, than you'll forever be a QUITTER. Do you want to be somebody who looks back at his life thinking " I shoulda , I coulda, but I didn't?" Do you want to be the guy that could have been something and had the opportunity to be somebody but all because it was "hard" you decided to throw in the towel? Do you want to be that one guy that keeps having to work at jobs you absolutely hate, barely scraping by ? If so than maybe business is not for you, however I'll say this If you quit now, you never know how close you actually were to achieving success!

If you take action every single day, and you learn from you mistakes and take action from what you have studied you will make progress! Why would you climb up the latter and make it this far, all to turn back and go down? If you are going to quit you should have quit when you first started! Why would you want to wait until you made it however far and than decide to change your mind? Stick with it! You know more than you think, and it will be worth it in the end! Everybody started somewhere at one point. If success was so easy everybody would be successful, you've got to believe in yourself, and forget about any past failures or any past doubts you have about yourself. Make everyday count and be consistent! That is the only way you will succeed. If you quit you will never be able to achieve the greatness you are capable of! You got to keep going no matter what! That's what champions do!

in a properly planned affiliate marketin programme theres always a sponsor who holds ur hand until u gain confidence and see some success. his job is to make u a leader and when u become a leader it means u'r already earnin and teachin th business to ur team, motivatin them, suportin and helpin them in fulfillin their dreams. I see from ur post u'r dedicated to ur success which is very good and important trait. If done properly affiliate marketin can provide Financial Freedom in 2-3years. U just need to get hold of ur sponsor in ur current programme who is himself / herself successful and is ready to guide u or u need to find a new better one. I suggest do not get dishearten and do not give up. people like u desrve to succeed. u just need proper guidance. wish u luck.

I tried to quit many times but failed miserably.

This thread is 9 months old, i think the OP has received enough "Don't Give Up" responses to last us all a bleedin lifetime...

Be patient. Since you said you're only beginning. Take these as your lessons. Maybe lower your expectation and try to get your first dollar. Then bring it up to $5, $10 and so on.

Maybe you can go invest in one good course or like others said, find a mentor (which can be expensive)

You know what, try to find some blogs of those who are posting about their own experiences on affiliate marketing. Those are the best for me to learn from with someone's who's at your level and making it through.Start by searching for blogs with 'monthly income' or something like that. then look through their journey.

I still learn something new even when i 'rinse and repeat'.

Good luck!

You only fail when you give up.

I'd suggest to not worry as much, just spend some time writing some articles for your site. I find that having some content to use gives me a clearer picture of what I want overall.. does this makes any sense? :p

Some consolation. I have just read from a newbie that make sites reviewing products without seo or long articles and still making money...Lesson is don't get too caught up with a lot of IM stuffs from those gurus. Find a long tail keyword, find a product, write a good review and keep doing it.