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New2U
Guest
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Posted: Wed Nov 26, 2003 5:13 am
Post subject: Getting Started With Nothing
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Dear Forum,
I've been researching affiliate programs for a few weeks now, trying to find a way to supplement my family's income. From what I have gathered, in order to be successful you must first have a website that generates a lot of traffic.
During my research, I read many testimonials about people standing in welfare lines, on the brink of bankruptcy, who plugged someone's magical formula into the internet and changed their lives forever. Yet, when I buy the materials that promise to help me start generating immediate income, I get phone calls from an interviewer who says I need to apply financial leverage (usually several thousand dollars from credit sources) to get started. I can't do that.
I created a website, but the cost of generating traffic appears to be out of my means for awhile yet. Can anyone offer me advice on generating some traffic from nothing?
Help!
Sincerely,
New2U |
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Guest
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Posted: Wed Nov 26, 2003 7:01 am
Post subject:
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| Just for future reference for you and others: THERE IS NO MAGIC FORMULA THAT GUARANTEES SUCCESS!!!!! |
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LizB
Joined:
08 Aug 2003
Posts:
148
Location:
New Zealand
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Posted: Wed Nov 26, 2003 7:21 am
Post subject:
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You do not have to spend money advertising. You do need to optimise your pages/site so that they come up in the first few pages in search engines, principally in Google. There are other things you can do too but you have to spend some time learning how.
Here is some free info you can download which will help you to get on top of the process. http://www.nutshellpress.com/guideSS.htm
_________________
How to sleep well every night |
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DatabaseDesigner
Joined:
17 Nov 2003
Posts:
665
Location:
Norway
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Posted: Wed Nov 26, 2003 9:32 am
Post subject:
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| Make yourself known in discussion forums related to your subject, and reveal your site name and email adr. |
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Larry Chamberlain
Joined:
01 Aug 2003
Posts:
1184
Location:
London, England
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Posted: Wed Nov 26, 2003 9:34 am
Post subject:
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From Guest..
| Quote: | | Just for future reference for you and others: THERE IS NO MAGIC FORMULA THAT GUARANTEES SUCCESS!!!!! |
Damn right.
From New2U...
| Quote: | | Yet, when I buy the materials that promise to help me start generating immediate income, I get phone calls from an interviewer who says I need to apply financial leverage (usually several thousand dollars from credit sources) to get started. I can't do that. |
I would say be glad that you can't do that! Run like crazy from anything that requires " several thousand dollars" Starting a business on the 'net can be done for far less cost than offline ( some say that it cost you less to go broke on the 'net  ).Maybe at some point you have to spend out to go forward but " several thousand dollars" - Shesh!
Stick around here.
All the best,
Larry Chamberlain.
_________________
Why Do Most Affiliates Make Less Than $500 Per Month?
Is SBI! eLearning Right For You? |
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New2U
Guest
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Posted: Wed Nov 26, 2003 11:10 pm
Post subject: Thanks!
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Thanks for all the great advice!!! I didn't expect to get that kind of response!!!
Liz, I followed the link you gave me. I downloaded The Affiliate Masters Course -- FREE! -- and started reading it immediately. For the first time, I finally feel like I'm accomplishing something. I've spent hours researching my master keywords list and browsing websites that offer something similar to mine. It feels GOOD to know that I'm doing something that isn't going to run me into more dead ends.
Also, great advice about running away from people who say I need thousands of dollars to get started! There's hope after all. (And my wife is very relieved...)
Thanks to all! I'll definitely stick around this forum. You're all very helpful.
Sincerely,
David Olson |
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DatabaseDesigner
Joined:
17 Nov 2003
Posts:
665
Location:
Norway
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Posted: Wed Nov 26, 2003 11:29 pm
Post subject:
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Total costs for me so far:
SBI! : 299$ (Too cheap....)
Ebook compiler: 29.95 (Good bargaing
Free PDF Generator (cheap  )
eBook Cover software 59.95$ (not cheap, but it does the job quite nicely)
Total spending: < 390$, and I'm now up and running with a World Wide Web site, I can produce my eBooks in 2 different formats, I can make nice eBook covers (check my site), and after one week I have had ca. 150 unique visitor from 29 countries, 6 respondants to my newsletter, and 8 subscribers. I am not listed with the search engines.
Actually, I did this mainly as a result of a bet with my daughter. It looks like she's gonna lose....... |
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Debs
Joined:
16 Aug 2003
Posts:
4296
Location:
NY
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Posted: Wed Nov 26, 2003 11:41 pm
Post subject:
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Woohoo WTG Db Love to hear results it helps all of us keep motivated.
My site, also SBI, $299 a year. Invested in a few ebooks for proper learning  roughly $100-$150 year ... mostly to keep up to date on things. A dozen or so newsletters, including Allan's, all free. And frequent 3 forums, this one, WebmasterWorld and SitePointForums.
That's basically my expense to run one site which is averaging just under $1,000 month net. I have 4 more sites in planning now which I hope to have all online within 2 months or so.
I also get newsletters, several Yahoo Group updates and mailing lists, and have purchased software, books, etc. on my site topic to keep updated as well. This expense has been less than $200 total, and I expect it to be less than $100 annually. I use the public library whenever possible to read topical books, magazines, etc.
Debs
_________________
Learn how to turn keyphrases into quality, well-targeted articles your visitors and SE's will love with Gary Antosh's new ebook "Web Content Made Easy!" |
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DatabaseDesigner
Joined:
17 Nov 2003
Posts:
665
Location:
Norway
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Posted: Thu Nov 27, 2003 12:01 am
Post subject:
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Ah, Debs, sorry;
I made a mistake in my last post: I said I had 6 responders to my newsletter; I meant my survey, based on Form Build IT!. (Just try it, it is easy and effecitve) The thing that really inspired me about those responders, was that they all clicked out ALL the themes I asked them if they were interested in ! It looks like I have a hell of a lot of writing to do in the next months.... Glad it soon is Christmas Holiday... |
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LizB
Joined:
08 Aug 2003
Posts:
148
Location:
New Zealand
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Posted: Thu Nov 27, 2003 12:45 am
Post subject:
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Db that is very impressive-well done. How do you think that people found your site if you aren't listed yet?
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How to sleep well every night |
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DatabaseDesigner
Joined:
17 Nov 2003
Posts:
665
Location:
Norway
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Posted: Thu Nov 27, 2003 1:07 am
Post subject:
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I think you guys call it word-of-mouth- I posted a comment on a discussion forum which linked directly to my snail-mail books page, which also contain a link to a free discussing/advice forum. That way I was considered delivering real, valuable information, so they let me through with my link....... Nice results !
I have now told my daughter (who also is a partner in this project) to innocently do intensive posts at bulletin board, newsgroups, and whatever. Then I will trust in word of mouth from there. Now here's the master plan: We have plenty of time; until we're discovered by the SE's I will write contentAND ebooks in arallell with posting, one by one, messages in different forums. One customer at the time. When the SE hits us, we will instantly go for the PPC at som very interesting keywords.
Now, remember one thing: me and my daughter's site is not about affiliate marketing; branding another's product; being a dealer in any sense; We're writing content, and my eBooks are trying to go behind the academics, and explain my hard-teached techniques in an understandable way. We're trying to help a lot of computer professionals, speaking plain English ((If I'm able to, being a Norwegian ) |
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DatabaseDesigner
Joined:
17 Nov 2003
Posts:
665
Location:
Norway
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Posted: Thu Nov 27, 2003 1:23 am
Post subject:
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Ah, i forgot one thing:
In these early stages, I go personal, very personal: I write a personal email to each and every subscriber and to every respondant to my survey, giving them a feeling of being noted by THE SITE, I also let early visitors in on my writing, Actually, I plan to let the first 100 (or 1000 if it becomes a success)subscribers to my newsletter get (at least the first book for free, just to hav e been with me...) All that sort of ideas; building confidence, conectitivy, let them do the word-of-mounth, etg. |
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kidino
Joined:
05 Jul 2003
Posts:
218
Location:
Malaysia
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Posted: Fri Nov 28, 2003 4:16 am
Post subject:
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How to get started ...
Hi New2U ... and the rest of the gang,
I assume that New2U is very new ... I think by reading the Affiliate Masters, you are on your way. Let me just help you a little bit on generating income from the Internet (in a way which you don't have to sell).
Generally, I would say there is two ways of generating income where you don't have to have a product and don't have to sell.
1 - Affiliate Programs
2 - Advertising (like Google Adsense, Search Feed, etc ... )
So ... how can you make money from these? I would say either way, you would need a website. Then you would need to generate traffic. Unless you are considering pay-per-click advertising. I don't recommend pay-per-click if you are just getting started and further more if don't have much to spend on.
So ... there's the thing about needing a website. That would involves
- the site creation
- hosting
- domain
I guess in this forum, there are many Site Build It enthusiasts. They used it and had great success with it. Site Build It covers all three above in one package plus with other tools as well which is very good for a quick start for beginners.
But if you were to do it one by one yourself, you would need to know how to build your website with either HTML or a web page editor. Let me just list out free web page editors that you can use.
- WebPage - http://www.trellian.com/webpage/
- Web Matrix - http://www.asp.net/webmatrix/
- 1st Page 2000 - http://www.evrsoft.com/1stpage2.shtml
For domain and hosting ... any web hosting company can handle that. Then, it's about generating the traffic. Let's put advertising out of the way assuming that have limited budget ... hey, I always am ... In cases like this, there are two very affective methods to generate traffic.
1 - Search engine optimization
2 - Write and submit articles
In search engine optimization, what you are trying to accomplish is to get good ranking in search engine results. When you do, your website ranks well for very popular keywords, you are guaranteed a huge targetted traffic.
Search engine optimization would require you to understand how to really build a website. This is because you would need to tweak into your code and change a few things to make it search engine-friendly. Then there is also about choosing the right keyword to focus on ... about the demand and supply. The only thing about this is that it takes time for your website to get listed, sometimes 2 months or more. The best way (that I found) to get listed in the search engines, is not to submit to the search engine, but to get links from websites that are already listed in the search engines. This way you can also increase link popularity.
Writing and submitting articles ... I think this would be Debs specialty. She manages to boost her Alexa ranking from infinity to <80,000 in a year with this. When you write articles, normally there would be a credit about the author and that is where you link back to your site. Your articles can be published in newsletter or websites and of course, you would need to submit to the webmaster your article and request that he/she publish it.
So ... New2U ... I hope these helps. Tell us about it when you make your first commission. I am sure that you will. It's always great to hear stories about how people got started. And it shows that we really helped somebody ... wish you good luck.
_________________
Iszuddin Ismail aka Kidino
Simple IPN: Free Paypal IPN PHP Script for Digital Download Products |
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john2698
Joined:
08 Nov 2003
Posts:
709
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Posted: Fri Nov 28, 2003 7:21 am
Post subject:
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New2U,
I understand by reading your first post that you want some suggestions on getting traffic to your site.
Here's two FREE ways for getting traiffic!
You could exchange links with other sites! By doing this you will increase your link popularity and it will most probably increase the chances of your link getting found and crawled by the major search engines earlier.
You could add your site to PPC Search Engines! Alot of them you have to pay for, but some of them allow you to open an account with them and they will give you $5, $10, $25, $50, or more in free bidding cash just to get you started.
Using ppc search engines was definitly the way that I started out with my advertising as I found that they give me highly targeted visitors and are very cost effective. You can choose how much you want to pay per visitor that comes to your site, with bids starting from as low as $0.01 in most of the ppc search engines, I've even seen one ppc search engine with their bids starting at $0.0001 per bidded clickthru.
These's PPC Search Engines are worth a try as you have nothing to loose and everything to gain by having free advertising money!
Please see my sig for a url that lists over 150 search engines, which can help to get you started in finding ppc search engines that give you free bidding cash just for signing up to them.
PS. Can someone delete the message above this one as apparently I weren't logged in.
Thanks!
_________________
Affiliate Programs Directory - Over 2,000 Programs
140+ Affiliate Networks - Lists some of the best networks online |
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stone
Joined:
16 Dec 2003
Posts:
37
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Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2003 6:20 am
Post subject: plan for success
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Read through this plan: http://www.pluginprofitsite.com/30daystosuccess
I've found that the best advertising is free. Things like (writing articles, reciprocal linking, posting in forums, etc...) and you'll get some get tips in the book above to get you started...
Stone Evans
_________________
Plug-In Profit Site: Free Website Builder
How to Get Paid $10,000+/Month from Host4Profit...
http://www.pluginprofitsite.com/affiliates/
"This is a super quick way to get some checks coming in now."
-- Allen Says |
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