My Affiliate marketing Goals

[CMCarlin]

So, very similar to Kurtyordy I've decided to get into affiliate marketing. Here is where I will lay out my goals, plans and mindset.

Affiliate marketing works for me for several reasons:

• I am very analytical - I have a very analytical mind. I can see myself hovering over data like page views, click through rates, bounce rates, and totally loving it. I've always been a strategy gamer and tinkering with numbers and changing my strategy based on them sounds like fun to me!
  
• Low entry cost - Hey I have 4 mouths to feed. I can't afford to eat on ramen noodles, living out of a studio apartment for months to years on end so I can get a startup off the ground. That's my choice and I own it, so I'll have to adapt to it too.
  
• Great introduction to internet marketing - This will be a great way for me to get my feet wet and get into internet marketing which I believe is where the future of business is. The thing is, I actually have tons of ideas for internet marketing. All of which I've been storing in a spreadsheet for the last few years. Some of it requires cash. Some of it requires proprietary coding. With Affiliate Marketing, I can get into the industry and start to learn the basics with low cost. If I build enough wealth and keep re-investing the money, I can start to build upon my other goals in business.
  
• Great way to develop passive income while working full time job - I will have to keep my full time job (50 hrs per week), so that my wife can stay home and take care of our two kids, but I can work on my internet business during off hours and basically replace the time that I waste playing Wii or watching Lost. It's definitely worth it....
  
• I love selling and marketing - Wow, am I ever passionate about selling. I work in sales at a call center and that is selling in one of it's more raw forms. I love the psychology of why people buy which leads to....
  
• I Understand real value when it comes to making buying decisions - I know the definition of real value. By studying my market I can learn their problems and needs. Then if I deliver in solving those problems or fulfilling those needs then I will be truly serving my market of choice.
  
• It will be a great motivator to DO something - We all know it here: it all starts with ACTION. You can brainstorm all day long, but if you don't do something you will always stay where you are. To me, affiliate marketing is more achievable from where I stand. I know it will be hard work and profit does not come easy, but it is achievable given my resources of time and money. I know that with enough work, I can see results. If I see results then I will only feel more motivated and then after long enough, I will be so used to DOING that it will be my nature to always be a DO-er, not a thinker.

Ok, so I've outlined the reasons why I'm moving forward with my affiliate marketing plan. Because I am so analytical I plan on documenting everything that I do so that I can build processes. Maybe not the initial stuff, but more importantly, the repeatable tasks. From when you first start researching a niche of choice all the way to maintaining a PPC campaign and building your SEO. From the very beginning, I will be keeping 'fastlane' in mind. Not so much the rapid growth per se (not at first anyway), but more in the idea of making everything scalable. I do not want to limit myself and the goal here is to FREE up my time so that I can stop the J-O-B and enjoy my time BEFORE I retire.

This is definitely further down the road but my ultimate goal would be to outsource all of the repeatable processes, implement a system of checks and balances to hold the separate departments accountable and set up a reporting system so that I can check in on everything from a bird's eye view.

And this is only the beginning. If I can use affiliate marketing to replace my job, and then leverage my time, I can only increase my wealth exponentially at that point.

So What Now???

So I've picked my first niche. It is a true niche in that it is a very targeted market and it is a 'needy' niche as well. My initial urges are to go all out with multiple niches but I want to stick with one at first to get used to the process. I'm pretty sure I can make some money in it. It seems to be relatively low competition but there are already some PPC ads so that indicates that some affiliate marketers are making money. I've begun collecting forum URLs for market research. I've bought my domain name which is keyword oriented and I've begun building my keyword list.

When I start to make some more progress, I'll start a thread in the progress forums.

 

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[TaxGuy]

Congrats!

Have you done the 30 Day Challenge or read 4 Hour Workweek?

Both have great activities/lessons to keep you focused on the objectives of the biz. In addition, you might want to look into the FTC ruling that comes into effect at the end of the month that is gonna make life interesting for affiliate marketers who do "testemonial" pages.

Just like kurtyordy I believe Terence Chang is taking the same path in IM and I know jonleehacker has many good posts on the subject including his awesome presentation at last yr's B&P "How To Exit the Rat Race With Just One E-book".

Come to think of it, a subgroup here called "Rat Racers Looking to Enter the Fastlane Through Internet Marketing" would help keep us all focused and accountable

 

[CMCarlin]

I've read the 4HWW, I haven't done the 30DC but I am subscribed to it. I will be looking at that shortly. I also am following shoemoney's 12 week guide.

MY plan is to never have more the 5 items on my to do list so that I don't over whelm myself. At some point you have to stop being the architect and start being the bricklayer and GET TO WORK.

 

[TaxGuy]

Great points there!

It is good to start with a foundation and you are very right that more than 5 items on the "to do list" make much harder to get done. Case in point, it is difficult for me to go back on the basics from the 30DC with my new site while also trying to find other good niches to go into(not putting all my eggs in one basket ) and at the same time I subscribed to the 30DC+ and have tried to catch up on all the material dating back to last Dec when what I really need to do is apply what I already learned and then add to it.

To top it off, a lot of personal/financial obstacles have got in the way- namely maintaining our home while trying to figure out what to do with it(short sale, rent out, REO, etc), getting my car back up and running and just dealing with day to day issues including the 10hrs/day devoted to the J-O-B :nonod:

All in all, they're just excuses and it is what separates the fastlaners from the slowlaners- those who make excuses and those who make things happen

 

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[CMCarlin]

Agreed! I'm currently having trouble staying distraction free with my two kids running around me all of the time. A work in progress, if you will. I love my kids very much and I can't say no to my 2 year old girl that wants my attention. I'm looking to create a space in the bedroom for the days that I need to focus.

About 30DC. I'm getting through a few of the first set of videos. At start, some pretty basic stuff. Not bad. Found a nice niche researching mind map. Very nice. Now, From Day 3 I see I am being pushed to try a paid for product. Ok, move past that. On to wordpress direct. Another paid product.

I see that these are valuable products and are probably worth the money. I just detest going through 'free lessons' that are really mediums for being selling products that relate to it.

Shoemoney does some of the same, with his shoemoney tools (which also look like a geat value, once things are started), but not nearly as direct.

Essentially, all the videos I am viewing are geared 100% to the paid product.

Anyway, no complaining here, there is definitely value to be taken from these videos.

Moving on now!

 

[CMCarlin]

So I've been pretty active lately and 'buzzing' from my action plans. I've begun to really flesh out my keyword research strategy and I have a decent start to backlinking strategies and onpage/offpage SEO. I fleshed out the structure of one niche site, getting it indexed and will be putting on some final touches tonight. On top of that I have other niche markets lined up to do some more investigative research (with the domain names already picked out.). I will maybe get up to 3 - 5 separate sites and focus on getting those to rank.

I tend to get pretty un-motivated when I start thinking of article writing as my primary method of link building. It's just not what I want to do. However, there are many methods of building links and once some revenue starts to come in I will look to outsourcing the articles (as well as any other repeated daily/weekly process).

I've pin pointed on an excellent guide (a WSO I picked up from the warrior forum), which I am loosely basing my strategies on. This guide has zero fluff compared to others and is really an action plan with case studies. This method also does not rely heavily off from article writing, which is good.

The name of the game right now is to progress these 3 - 5 niche sites and work on getting them ranked for their specific keywords.

Test. Analyze the results. Test again.

 

[CMCarlin]

Work is flowing. I've begun article marketing and it's going a lot easier than I thought. Now I just need to speed it up.

Building backlinks, article marketing, submitting to RSS feeds. Keyword research. I'm in heaven. Ok, an exaggeration, but this is the year that action takes place and money will be made online.

One thing that I need to be sure of is not getting so stuck on one site. I can tend to be a perfectionist and the wordpress theme I'm using now gives a TON of flexibility, so I can spend hours just tweaking my site, which isn't driving traffic or building content. There is a plus because in the end my site will look more professional and I really am thinking long-term here as well (not some quick 'set it and forget it')

 

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[Bond]

Care to share that wordpress theme?...

 

[x9vjzs098u123rnl]

I think it's great that you're able to take so much action. Sometimes I find affiliate marketing tasks mundane and get really discouraged- but hey- you seem to be on a great track! Keep it up and I'm sure you'll reap what you sow

 

[CMCarlin]

Care to share that wordpress theme?...

Oh yea! Sure! I had actually meant to provide a link in my last post.

Flexibility Theme for WordPress

This is the free version. The developer also has a paid version called FlexSqueeze which allows you to turn any page/post into a squeeze page (basically eliminating any 'leaks' or links so that the CTA is the only focus).

 

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[kurtyordy]

Work is flowing. I've begun article marketing and it's going a lot easier than I thought. Now I just need to speed it up.

have you started automating your article marketing?

 

[CMCarlin]

No I have not, because I am not making any money yet (and my workload isn't THAT extensive). I fully plan to outsource everything but right now I plan to get myself very familiar with the entire process and basically get to the point to where I -can't- do it all myself or I start making money, whichever comes first. Then I will look to outsourcing many of the tasks. As far as article submitting, social bookmarking and RSS submitting, I am using some software from Incansoft (articlebot, socialbot and RSSbot). Very nice programs and only about 25 bucks a pop each. I should note that articlebot isn't the content generation tool of the same name, but an automatic article submitter (something like 120+ directories). Created by 'Big Mike' on the warrior forums.

Highly recommended.

So for now I am just truckin' along and doing the work for myself. But I have every intention of automating the process so that I free my time up.

But when I do get to the point of automating article writing, what recommendations do you have?

 

[kurtyordy]

get this just for the videos attached

Article Marketing Secrets ~ Automatic Article Marketing Tricks ~ 99.9% of Article Marketers Fail-Why

all about automating your article submissions. takes awhile to build, especially for those of us who have limited programming knowledge. But the results are worth it.

some of the article directories he lists are now dead or paid sites, but the video training is great.

 

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[CMCarlin]

thanks for the recommendation. As for automating the article submission, how is it different than using a program like articlebot?

 

[kurtyordy]

not sure. the articlebot I am seeing costs about $50/month. imacros is free. Other than, I would ask jonlee, mtnman, or lighthouse about this. They would be able to answer better. Maybe articlebot is superior, I cannot say.

 

[delerben]

Best of luck to you and I am sure you will do well. I have been doing IM for years. I have found the most important element to ranking in the SERPS is good keyword research. Initially, I would look to rank for long tail keywords and then go from there.

 

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[CMCarlin]

not sure. the articlebot I am seeing costs about $50/month. imacros is free. Other than, I would ask jonlee, mtnman, or lighthouse about this. They would be able to answer better. Maybe articlebot is superior, I cannot say.

I think you may be viewing the content generating software of the same name (but different company). Here is a link

ArticleBot V2.0 | Submit Your Articles to More Than 450 Article Directories Completely On Autopilot For Massive Backlinks | Article Submitter

$25, but I think you can do a google search for a discount and get it for around 7 or 8 bucks. I've only been using it for a little while and I have to get it to submit to ezine correctly still, but I like it.

social bot is approaching version 5 and is the most developed of the incansoft bot programs. That will be my next purchase as onlywire is giving me problems processing items in queue.

 

[CMCarlin]

Best of luck to you and I am sure you will do well. I have been doing IM for years. I have found the most important element to ranking in the SERPS is good keyword research. Initially, I would look to rank for long tail keywords and then go from there.

Hi. What's the minimum number of searches that you go for (phrase or exact search) in the google keyword tool (or other keyword tool that you might use). I've heard a variety of minimums from everyone, the lowest being 30 searches a day. Right now, I'm targeting some keywords that I think are buying keywords that have around 2k (or more) [EXACT] searches a month and are 3 to 4 words long.

 

[kurtyordy]

I think you may be viewing the content generating software of the same name (but different company). Here is a link

ArticleBot V2.0 | Submit Your Articles to More Than 450 Article Directories Completely On Autopilot For Massive Backlinks | Article Submitter

$25, but I think you can do a google search for a discount and get it for around 7 or 8 bucks. I've only been using it for a little while and I have to get it to submit to ezine correctly still, but I like it.

social bot is approaching version 5 and is the most developed of the incansoft bot programs. That will be my next purchase as onlywire is giving me problems processing items in queue.

is it submitting the same article, or does it spin unique content from your article?

 

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[CMCarlin]

It does submit the same article and it doesn't spin, but if you spun articles you can use this to submit them.

The duplicate content thing is an ongoing debate and I'm not sure where I stand. Some people have said that it doesn't affect them and others say that it does. What I think matters is having original content on your site, but as far as article marketing goes, yes it's nice to get click throughs from the article directory, but I see it as a way of building backlinks. In any case I will be doing my own testing to see what works and what doesn't as time goes on.

edit: to clarify, I know that if someone searches for an exact phrase for a sentence from an article google will eliminate all the other extra searches.

To anyone reading this and familiar with this subject, what do you know about duplicate content either from here say or your own testing (because really, it's all about testing and finding your OWN conclusions.)

 

[Bond]

Oh yea! Sure! I had actually meant to provide a link in my last post.

Flexibility Theme for WordPress

This is the free version. The developer also has a paid version called FlexSqueeze which allows you to turn any page/post into a squeeze page (basically eliminating any 'leaks' or links so that the CTA is the only focus).

Thanks.

 

[CMCarlin]

So today I made my first sale from Amazon. I've been using some great techniques taught by a guy named Brian Johnson. Excellent stuff and very SEO oriented. I am also using flexsqueeze and the reviewazon plugin I mentioned in another thread.

I'm pretty stoked as I've been using these methods for only a week and a half and am already seeing some results, with not much backlinking or article writing.

Now I just need to replicate it.

 

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[Strategy]

nice ^ do you have aim? i'd like to talk to you about some things since i do the same

 

[LightHouse]

also check out these two other amazon frame works. AOM the first one, does everything automatically and indexes well. the other is cheap and looks fairly good. Either way adding your own content is what is going to help and provide value.

Associate-O-Matic | Build a custom Amazon Associate Store with 1000's of items in minutes
fastAmazon - PHP Scripts - CodeCanyon

 

[Bond]

Basically this is like BANS - Build a Niche Store...

 

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[CMCarlin]

Strategy,

I do not use AIM, but I am more likely to be reached at google talk since I keep my gmail open all the time. I am CMCarlin (at) gmail dot com

I can also use skype if needed, but I'll only log in if needed.


Another update: I've been making more sales and ranking on the 1st page of yahoo for my main keywords, but not google yet, although I am ranking in google for various alternative keywords and getting search traffic.

In the last week though my traffic has dropped off completely. I chalk it up to being part of the typical google dance and I am not really worried about it. I am moving forward and building my other sites, although lately the content building has slowed to a crawl because I started a new shift at my Jay Oh Bee. 3am in the morning takes a little getting used to, but the plus is I get the whole day to spend with my family, now I have to find the optimum time to squeeze in business time.

 

[CMCarlin]

Alrighty then.

I figured I would update this. I also wanted to find that 2010 resolutions thread that a bunch of us participated in last year but I'll get to that later I guess.

I've learned a LOT in the last year. I have a definite strategy in place, though the tools and details have changed since posting this - the fundamentals have remained the same.

I now have experience to back up a lot of what I learned. I can see some stuff working and others not.

Am I near my financial goals? Nope, not by a long shot.

I've went through inconsistent variations of productivity in the last year and there are 2 frames of mind at war with each other - a) the thinker and creator that comes up with the new ideas b) the worker and employee that has to get the job done

Managing my time can be a struggle, but I have a learned a lot about what I need to do to keep myself focused and it has been getting easier for me.

In part, when tasks simply need to get done I cannot let myself get caught up in the small details, which is way too easy for me to do.

When planning the weeks activities I have to force myself to take a step back and take a big picture approach or else I'll let myself get bogged down in the details.

And then when going to complete some of the tasks, I CANNOT be thinking of anything else or I will bounce around a lot. So now when an idea/new task pops up in my head, I immediately log it into evernote so I can get it out of my head and continue working on the task at hand.

When work has to be done, I basically have to think and act like an employee to get a lot of my tasks out of the way and simply stop thinking about planning and creativity.

I've found ways to completely automate a few steps in the process and just hired a VA to complete some other stuff for me (through oDesk). This would be my 3rd or 4th VA.

By delegating a lot of the mundane tasks it will allow me to separate the 2 mentalities. I'd much rather be thinking big picture rather than getting myself caught up in the small stuff. I find that I cannot switch gears very easily between the 2 frame of minds.

I have a clear roadmap in front me with a 5 year plan laid out. Now its about managing my resources (TIME being the biggest one). I know exactly how many sites to build. What kind of model the sites will be built on and around. What kind of commission I am targeting with specific traffic goals and what kind of conversions I will need to hit to reach my financial goals by the end of the year.

Laying all of this stuff out has really helped me out. I know a few here can relate to making a solid plan and then acting on it.

So in short, this year hasn't just been about learning the ropes of the business and SEO. It's also been about learning about myself and what makes me move forward the fastest and what holds me back. How I am able to stick to a routine and what throws me off the routine and then adapting to it. A lot of this game is having the right mentality... and of course, as always, TAKING ACTION!

Good luck to all in 2011...

 

[FDJustin]

There's nothing I don't like about this thread. It starts off with a realistic assessment of your desires and builds a plan around them, taking into account your biggest strengths...

And winds up showing more than just action. There's plenty of growth, examples of how you overcame weaknesses and learned from what causes problem, and what expediates results.

Affiliate marketing is not something I'd normally call inspirational. But like yet another book where the princess is saved from a castle; it's what happens along the way that garners respect.

Good job, keep it up.

 

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[Jozi]

Im sure you will reach your goals, mainly because you have persistence! I am also starting my own affiliate marketing business this year, and will be following your progress. Good luck to you!

 

[CMCarlin]

Thank you for the kind comments. As part of my 5 year plan, affiliate marketing is simply a stepping stone and a means to an end. I plan on utilizing it to free me from my job, which consumes a lot of my time and then building on top of it in the coming years. My ultimate goals consist of being a product producer, establishing brand identity and becoming an authority in the markets of my choosing.