An Affiliate Marketer from the Ground Up

Anyone that’s been around for over five years or so has probably learned there’s always someone there to take from you. Whether it’s your money, property or worse. Unfortunately, the Internet has made it much easier for the thieves to find easy targets. The obvious advice is to check into any program, course, membership site, software, anything that you intend to exchange your credit card information for.

What triggered this post idea was this – I’ve been involved with affiliate marketing for a little over a year now, and I’m now making a little money now. I’ve probably ran across more than my share of products and services that had me running in the opposite direction very quickly. I’ve paid for some items that I have been extremely impressed with. I’ve also paid for a few that were so-so. There have also been a couple that I’ve gotten my money back on (always make sure there is a money back guarantee).

Anyway, I’m a free ember at the Warrior Forum, which I highly recommend. It’s a great place full of a lot of valuable, mostly free information. They also have some paid options if you feel the need.  So, one feature of the Warrior Forum is the WSOs (Warrior Special Offers). I’m not knocking the WSOs in general, but be warned! I recently paid a guy $17 for something that I have to classify as a total ripoff. I won’t say that I didn’t get anything for my money or that the information wasn’t accurate, but for what I received, that was in the form of a ‘report’ of close to fifteen pages if I remember correctly, was trash.

What this guy was selling was something that I had heard soon after coming online in 1989, when I had first thought of putting up my own website. This guy had managed to make what was something that could (should) have been a single sentence idea that you might hear in passing somewhere, into something that he could actually charge people for – sad. It was nothing that anyone should have ever even considered taking money from someone else for. A total ripoff.

I didn’t ask for my money back though. Mainly because the guy had a lot of posts, compared to my relatively few, and quite frankly it wasn’t worth causing a bunch of friction over.

So, if you’re wanting some Work at Home Mom Ideas, by all means have a look at the Warrior Forum. There’s thousands, even thens of thousands of sites out there specifically for work at home moms (WAHMs). Just make sure you know whom you are sending your money to – and for what.

If you don’t have money to invest, look into starting out writing articles. You can either write for other people or even promote your own free sites, maybe Squidoo Lenses, that you can monetize. You can also register.99 .info (for now) domains at GoDaddy, and use the links in articles submitted to EzineArticles. You can then redirect your .info domain to an affiliate site.

If you do have money to invest, I still say SiteSell! has to be the hands-down best way to get started. That’s if you’re wanting to set up your own website. It’s easy enough for a complete beginner, but you can take it to wherever you need to. The forum is one of the best, most supportative on the Internet, and they even offer paid options for just getting help getting started, up to and including actually having someone to do your site for you!

If you have a hobby or something that you’re passionate about – there’s almost certaily a method to monetize it. When you can start start getting your site found in the search engines by people looking for just what you have, the traffic (and potential customers) will be there.

Also, the free videos at the top of this page are about SiteSell!. They’re worth viewing.

This is very similar to my previous post, but after seeing what 2 individuals have been through, I thought I’d post on it again. I hate to see people throw money away. Especially when they believe they’re going to make a lot of money from it. So, STOP, DON’T DO IT!

I just signed up at Wealthy Affiliate a few weeks ago, and it’s a very good forum. I’ve got a lot of good ideas and information there. This isn’t about WA specifically though.

It’s about buying, or actually not buying every new get-rich-quick product that is released.

There were 2 different individuals on WA in the last few days that posted about how they had made no money online. Actually one guy had made a couple thousand dollars, but he had spent over $11,000 doing it!!

The other guy had made nothing, he said.

The problem is, both had followed the same problematic method…buy every get-rich-quick product that comes out, or at least many of them.

You have to remember, IF IT SOUNDS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE, IT IS!! It’s not, it ‘probably is’…IT IS.

There’s tons of information out there to get started with. Don’t try PPC advertising right away. It takes some experience (and money) to start making money using PPC.

I recommended Pot Pie Girl’s ebook (course) here before, and although there’s not any get-rich-quick scheme included, since they don’t exist, it’s common sense information to lay the foundation to start generating some traffic and making some money.

It’s basically using article marketing to generate traffic to your money site(s). Pretty much ‘Bum Marketing.’ That term is from Travis Sago’s excellent ‘Bum Marketing Method.’ Head over to Bum Marketing Method to check it out.

Jennifer’s course does go into it more specifically, as far as the sites (Squidoo, EzineArticles, etc.) to use, and an actual step-by-step instructional process to follow day-by-day. It guides you through setting up a campaign in one week. Hence the name, One Week Marketing Plan.

So, if you’re going to spend any money, buy something that won’t promise to make you a fortune overnight. Buy something that provides good, solid, very workable, traffic, and eventually money producing information.

Stay away from anything that promises to make you a lot of money in a very short time. Those guys are just taking advantage of everyone’s fantasy of getting a lot of money quickly, and with almost no work.

Think lottery…now look at the odds.

This blog is obviously about my quest in finding the best methods of making money online, so I had to pass this along.

In a previous post I mentioned that I had just signed up with Wealthy Affiliate (which is great by the way). Well, I was skimming through the ‘recommended products’ area of the forum and ran across a thread that mentioned ‘Pot Pie Girl.’ I don’t know her personally, but I had been to her blog before and saw that she’s always got some good stuff there.

Anyway, to make a long story short, the guy that started the thread had just purchased her One Week Marketing Plan, which I didn’t even know about, and he couldn’t say enough good things about it. I had to read every post after that.

Every single post was singing the praises of her course, so I had to check it out. I ended up buying the course, and I have to say it’s most likely the best money that I’ve spent to date on anything associated with online marketing. I’ve still made more money with the phpBay Pro plugin, but to be fair, I just got the OWM Plan.

I usually never buy any of the ‘make $2,000 a day on autopilot’ type stuff. That doesn’t happen unless you’re Amazon or somebody. Well, for most people anyway.

Back to the One Week Marketing Plan. What I like about it is, it’s very easy to follow, everything in it is free, and it’s actually laid out step by step, day by day. HOWEVER, the absolute best thing about the course (I think) is that Pot Pie Girl (Jennifer Ledbetter) has published an IM chat that she had with a young guy named Nick. He had IM’d her asking for help, and she asked him to be her Guinea Pig…which he agreed to.

This is getting long so I won’t try and cover the whole thing, but in a nutshell, she tells him step by step what to do in order to get a campaign up and going using primarily Squidoo and EzineArticles. There are other sites and steps, but as I mentioned everything is free. Unless of course you register any domains, which would probably be a good idea, but at a couple of bucks for .info’s, that’s peanuts.

If you haven’t heard about the course you have to check it out. I bought it 2 days ago and pretty much have a campaign going, but I’m still waiting for some articles to be approved at EzineArticles.

I have to say there’s really nothing in the course that’s totally new to me, but I had never been able to get a good pan laid out. I’m always jumping from one thing to another. With her plan you know exactly where you are and where you need to go next. I know it will work because it’s all proven stuff. Keywords, backlinks, the stuff that generates traffic, that generates sales…in a nice easy to follow course by Jennifer…and Nick.

Oh, I almost forgot…Nick was very frustrated when he first IM’d Jennifer, he said he’d been trying to make money for, I think it was almost a year, but hadn’t made a dime. Just shortly after starting with Jennifer, he made his first sale…and his second, and then his third, all within 2 weeks!!

I know that’s not a lot of money, but if you haven’t made anything in about a year, and then you get 3 sales as soon as you start a new technique, I think that says a lot about what she’s offering. If you’re more advanced and maybe having some luck with PPC, then this course probably isn’t for you, but if you’re a beginner or even intermediate, then I HIGHLY SUGGEST it.

Anyway, I bought it…and I’m glad I did.