A n00b's first steps into Internet Marketing - WickedFire - Affiliate Marketing Forum

amateursurgeon · 04-18-2008, 02:50 PM

As promised on my earlier thread, I'm going to offer a full disclosure journal of my first steps into making money online.

I know these threads have a habit of dying, so I'll commit to updating this at least once a week for 3 months, and see how we're doing then.

Apart from a decent understanding of php/web dev, and quite a bit of time spent reading wickedfire, I have absolutely no freakin' idea what I'm doing, so I'm sure I'll do lots of daft things that you (and I) can learn from.

My first site is a niche Wordpress blog. I bought 2k words of content from kingofsp (great service, btw) to get me started, and am putting a couple of articles up.

I intend to get traffic through SEO, and I'll play about with PPC as well to see what sort of results I get.

Monetisation will all be done through affiliate links.

My chosen niche is sleeping bags for toddlers and babies. Why? I think baby stuff is probably recession-proof (I have a friend who buys organic baby food for her kid and then eats shitty "value" food herself - go figure), and there is no end of stuff that people will buy for their kids.

I'll publish the URL in due course (next week or week after)

Done so far:
Registered domain
Got wordpress set up
Loaded a couple of articles
Put one affiliate offer on

To Do Next:
Set up traffic counters
Put affiliate "product" offers down the side (I'm waiting for approval on some of them)
Install more plugins
Get some SEO links going

Income so far:
$0

amateursurgeon · 04-18-2008, 03:18 PM

Done - have set up traffic counter using StatCounter Free invisible Web tracker, Hit counter and Web stats

Armakuni · 04-18-2008, 04:02 PM

Good start, AS, hope you'll keep the project alive for the promised time.

zensiq · 04-19-2008, 12:42 PM

sounds good, keep us updated

turbolapp · 04-19-2008, 01:12 PM

Good luck!

amateursurgeon · 04-19-2008, 01:52 PM

Thanks for the encouragement.

So far I'm finding playing about with different strategies & tools dangerously addictive

BTW - Turbolapp, your post in another thread about tripling your previous job income since last year really gave me a kick up the arse to get on with it - thanks!

Demon · 04-19-2008, 02:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by amateursurgeon

To Do Next:
Set up traffic counters
Put affiliate "product" offers down the side (I'm waiting for approval on some of them)
Install more plugins
Get some SEO links going

Instead of using counters, set up analytics tracking instead.

Good luck on the site!

amateursurgeon · 04-19-2008, 04:31 PM

I'm using statcounter. GA looks really good, but I'm really not convinced about giving all my traffic data to google.

Although I suppose that's probably only something I should worry about if I'm doing a lot of PPC.

HarveyJ · 04-19-2008, 09:53 PM

There are other services that are basically the same as Googles... Google just has the added benefit of being able to export all the data into other forms you can use, like tracking down to regional areas where you traffic is coming from, and even outputting a report into GoogleDocs
...
You're paying for that convenience by giving them your info, so its up to you to decide on the trade off.

elime · 04-19-2008, 10:39 PM

HarveyJ is exactly right. Google Analytics is actually quite a good tracking tool, but you'll just be feeding the G monster. The more I learn about them, the more often I wear my tinfoil hat.

turbolapp · 04-19-2008, 11:30 PM

I'm in the market for a new tinfoil hat, mine is worn to the core.

amateursurgeon · 04-20-2008, 04:23 PM

Just got OpenX up and running for ads in my blog - I'm wanting to list ads down one side for products and got sick of fiddling with the ad networks rotator scripts.

Glad I did now - I reckon this software's got potential.

emp · 04-21-2008, 02:02 AM

OK... I promised to match each serious post by amateursurgeon by one of mine, so here I go:

Internet Marketing - a Noob Overview

This board and I get many questions along the lines of "how do I make money on the internet?"

Well, apart from not asking someone who has no clue, here is an overview of costs and revenue for starters. Look at these lists and you will be able to see why this is an attractive field.

Costs
We will concentrate on the bare essentials here. With these in place, you can tap all revenue streams.

Domain
Hosting
Content

Revenue
This is a list of possible revenue streams, you can come up with more.

Sell domain names
Sell developed sites
Sell content
- articles
- templates
- Logos
- Scripts
PPC programs
- Adsense
- ..
Affiliate Marketing - Pay per Lead
Selling items
- ebay
- dropshipping
- your own store & inventory
Sell digital products
- databases
- ebooks (urghs)
Subscription based site
SEO Services
..
..

As I said, it is easy to see that the revenue side of things in Internet Marketing reaches far and wide.

Of course, you can easily spend a lot of money on sites. Content is a broad area and you might well and will invest in scripts, designs, etc.. if you can't do it yourself. The point here is: You don't have to. Every penny you save on the costs side is pure profit. So grab some coupons, get a hosting account and a domain name, slap wordpress on there and start writing.

If you are still unsure on how this will make you money: See my domain selling report over at domainingtips.com

I am no stranger to SEO, but what I did there can be done by ANY NOOB.

::emp::

amateursurgeon · 04-24-2008, 06:05 PM

Ok, site's up... realised I was spending too much time worrying about getting a clever ad script going so that I could push different baby offers.

Everything is taking me ages to do at the moment because my skills are so rusty, but I'm sure I'll get up to speed soon.

The url is....

Toddler Sleeping Bags (and babies too)

I've bought a few more domains in the niche that I'll probably throw sites up for using related content

In ref to emp's post my monetisation strategy is going to be affiliate and ppc ads. Although I'm still trying to find a decent vendor of sleeping bags with an affiliate programme.

I agree about keeping costs down, but you also need to be conscious of how much time you spend on different areas - particularly in my case as I could be doing none-MMO things that make money in the short term. That said, I expect to have to invest a lot of time up front whilst I'm getting going.

Done since last update:

Got the site up and running
Got crawled by google
Registered some more domains in the niche

To Do Next:

Lots of work on SEO
Tidy up the presentation a little
Add privacy policy etc (as required by adsense)
Add some more content

Lessons:

Putting an Adsense block on your page is a great way to get listed in Google very quickly - I got crawled within minutes! (although no rank yet)
Be careful about getting too dragged into using clever technology (openx in my case). You can end up wasting time on something which doesn't add that much value. It will be useful, but not now. Focus on what will move you closer to revenue faster.

amateursurgeon · 04-24-2008, 06:16 PM

Doh - was wondering why I wasn't getting any visits.

It helps if you have the right project code on your page for statcounter.

amateursurgeon · 04-27-2008, 07:26 PM

I've now created a keyword list of about 200 keywords in my niche, with search volumes (not sure of accuracy), and the number of exact matches for each one. I'm going to use this to help with my SEO efforts, feed into to PPC if I decide to go that route, and give me more ideas to expand my efforts within the niche.

SeoReborn · 04-28-2008, 05:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by amateursurgeon

Just got OpenX up and running for ads in my blog - I'm wanting to list ads down one side for products and got sick of fiddling with the ad networks rotator scripts.

Glad I did now - I reckon this software's got potential.

I use OpenAds. I think they must have changed the name to OpenX. Anyway, i use it to rotate adds for different places on my site, to different ips, different priority etc. I have to say, its a really good software.

In addition, have you thought of selling ebay baby sleeping bags? Maybe another avenue for revenue

SeoReborn · 04-28-2008, 06:17 AM

amateursurgeon, looking at your site, I believe you should see a better CTR if you move your 2 square/rectangular affiliate banners from the right hand panel to just below your site name "Toddlers Sleeping Bags (And Babies Too)". As you find and get onto new affiliate programs, add to this so the banners become like a horizontal navigation of affilate links under your main title.

amateursurgeon · 04-28-2008, 07:05 AM

Thank for the suggestions re better layout for CTR - I'll give that a try. I need to get some traffic there in the first place at the moment though.

I hadn't thought of Ebay - would that be through auctionads, or their affiliate programme?

Re: OpenX - agreed, it looks great. I've stopped using it for now as I was spending too much time fiddling with it to get it working. I'm planning on getting a VPS account set up shortly so I can start playing about with some of the SEO empire techniques from Eli's blog. When I do that I'll probably set OpenX up in its own ad domain so I can use to to distribute ads across my sites.

SeoReborn · 04-29-2008, 07:07 AM

Quote:

Originall

04-18-2008, 02:50 PM	#1 (permalink)
amateursurgeon frumious bandersnatch Join Date: Apr 2007 Posts: 185 iTrader: (1)	A n00b's first steps into Internet Marketing As promised on my earlier thread, I'm going to offer a full disclosure journal of my first steps into making money online. I know these threads have a habit of dying, so I'll commit to updating this at least once a week for 3 months, and see how we're doing then. Apart from a decent understanding of php/web dev, and quite a bit of time spent reading wickedfire, I have absolutely no freakin' idea what I'm doing, so I'm sure I'll do lots of daft things that you (and I) can learn from. My first site is a niche Wordpress blog. I bought 2k words of content from kingofsp (great service, btw) to get me started, and am putting a couple of articles up. I intend to get traffic through SEO, and I'll play about with PPC as well to see what sort of results I get. Monetisation will all be done through affiliate links. My chosen niche is sleeping bags for toddlers and babies. Why? I think baby stuff is probably recession-proof (I have a friend who buys organic baby food for her kid and then eats shitty "value" food herself - go figure), and there is no end of stuff that people will buy for their kids. I'll publish the URL in due course (next week or week after) Done so far: Registered domain Got wordpress set up Loaded a couple of articles Put one affiliate offer on To Do Next: Set up traffic counters Put affiliate "product" offers down the side (I'm waiting for approval on some of them) Install more plugins Get some SEO links going Income so far: $0

04-19-2008, 01:12 PM	#5 (permalink)
turbolapp n00by snacks. yum. Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Houston, TexASS Posts: 2,544 iTrader: (1)	Good luck! __________________ So your earnings are slighty shady. Stop worrying about being dropped from your network and go with a network that's actually owned by a black hat. Makes sense, doesn't it?

04-19-2008, 09:53 PM	#9 (permalink)
HarveyJ He is - THE CACTUS! Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Sid Eh Knee Posts: 1,367 iTrader: (0)	There are other services that are basically the same as Googles... Google just has the added benefit of being able to export all the data into other forms you can use, like tracking down to regional areas where you traffic is coming from, and even outputting a report into GoogleDocs ... You're paying for that convenience by giving them your info, so its up to you to decide on the trade off. __________________ One must march as if they believe they are covered in tuba... The best way to monetize your parked domains The second best system to monetize your website with is here...

04-19-2008, 10:39 PM	#10 (permalink)
elime Senior Member Join Date: Oct 2007 Posts: 688 iTrader: (5)	HarveyJ is exactly right. Google Analytics is actually quite a good tracking tool, but you'll just be feeding the G monster. The more I learn about them, the more often I wear my tinfoil hat. __________________ Hosting: Hostgator ¤ Domains: Namecheap \| Moniker

04-19-2008, 11:30 PM	#11 (permalink)
turbolapp n00by snacks. yum. Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Houston, TexASS Posts: 2,544 iTrader: (1)	I'm in the market for a new tinfoil hat, mine is worn to the core. __________________ So your earnings are slighty shady. Stop worrying about being dropped from your network and go with a network that's actually owned by a black hat. Makes sense, doesn't it?

04-18-2008, 03:18 PM	#2 (permalink)
amateursurgeon frumious bandersnatch Join Date: Apr 2007 Posts: 185 iTrader: (1)	Done - have set up traffic counter using StatCounter Free invisible Web tracker, Hit counter and Web stats

04-18-2008, 04:02 PM	#3 (permalink)
Armakuni Member Join Date: Sep 2007 Posts: 40 iTrader: (0)	Good start, AS, hope you'll keep the project alive for the promised time.

04-19-2008, 12:42 PM	#4 (permalink)
zensiq Junior Member Join Date: Mar 2008 Posts: 4 iTrader: (0)	sounds good, keep us updated

04-19-2008, 01:52 PM	#6 (permalink)
amateursurgeon frumious bandersnatch Join Date: Apr 2007 Posts: 185 iTrader: (1)	Thanks for the encouragement. So far I'm finding playing about with different strategies & tools dangerously addictive BTW - Turbolapp, your post in another thread about tripling your previous job income since last year really gave me a kick up the arse to get on with it - thanks!

04-19-2008, 04:31 PM	#8 (permalink)
amateursurgeon frumious bandersnatch Join Date: Apr 2007 Posts: 185 iTrader: (1)	I'm using statcounter. GA looks really good, but I'm really not convinced about giving all my traffic data to google. Although I suppose that's probably only something I should worry about if I'm doing a lot of PPC.

04-20-2008, 04:23 PM	#12 (permalink)
amateursurgeon frumious bandersnatch Join Date: Apr 2007 Posts: 185 iTrader: (1)	Just got OpenX up and running for ads in my blog - I'm wanting to list ads down one side for products and got sick of fiddling with the ad networks rotator scripts. Glad I did now - I reckon this software's got potential.

04-21-2008, 02:02 AM	#13 (permalink)
emp Join Date: Jun 2006 Posts: 3,410 iTrader: (5)	My turn. OK... I promised to match each serious post by amateursurgeon by one of mine, so here I go: Internet Marketing - a Noob Overview This board and I get many questions along the lines of "how do I make money on the internet?" Well, apart from not asking someone who has no clue, here is an overview of costs and revenue for starters. Look at these lists and you will be able to see why this is an attractive field. Costs We will concentrate on the bare essentials here. With these in place, you can tap all revenue streams. Domain Hosting Content Revenue This is a list of possible revenue streams, you can come up with more. Sell domain names Sell developed sites Sell content - articles - templates - Logos - Scripts PPC programs - Adsense - .. Affiliate Marketing - Pay per Lead Selling items - ebay - dropshipping - your own store & inventory Sell digital products - databases - ebooks (urghs) Subscription based site SEO Services .. .. As I said, it is easy to see that the revenue side of things in Internet Marketing reaches far and wide. Of course, you can easily spend a lot of money on sites. Content is a broad area and you might well and will invest in scripts, designs, etc.. if you can't do it yourself. The point here is: You don't have to. Every penny you save on the costs side is pure profit. So grab some coupons, get a hosting account and a domain name, slap wordpress on there and start writing. If you are still unsure on how this will make you money: See my domain selling report over at domainingtips.com I am no stranger to SEO, but what I did there can be done by ANY NOOB. ::emp:: __________________ My blog -Blind Ape Seo ¦ My WickedFire articles TopContentData.com Get Free and Premium Content Databases for your Empire!

04-24-2008, 06:05 PM	#14 (permalink)
amateursurgeon frumious bandersnatch Join Date: Apr 2007 Posts: 185 iTrader: (1)	Ok, site's up... realised I was spending too much time worrying about getting a clever ad script going so that I could push different baby offers. Everything is taking me ages to do at the moment because my skills are so rusty, but I'm sure I'll get up to speed soon. The url is.... Toddler Sleeping Bags (and babies too) I've bought a few more domains in the niche that I'll probably throw sites up for using related content In ref to emp's post my monetisation strategy is going to be affiliate and ppc ads. Although I'm still trying to find a decent vendor of sleeping bags with an affiliate programme. I agree about keeping costs down, but you also need to be conscious of how much time you spend on different areas - particularly in my case as I could be doing none-MMO things that make money in the short term. That said, I expect to have to invest a lot of time up front whilst I'm getting going. Done since last update: Got the site up and running Got crawled by google Registered some more domains in the niche To Do Next: Lots of work on SEO Tidy up the presentation a little Add privacy policy etc (as required by adsense) Add some more content Lessons: Putting an Adsense block on your page is a great way to get listed in Google very quickly - I got crawled within minutes! (although no rank yet) Be careful about getting too dragged into using clever technology (openx in my case). You can end up wasting time on something which doesn't add that much value. It will be useful, but not now. Focus on what will move you closer to revenue faster.

04-24-2008, 06:16 PM	#15 (permalink)
amateursurgeon frumious bandersnatch Join Date: Apr 2007 Posts: 185 iTrader: (1)	Doh - was wondering why I wasn't getting any visits. It helps if you have the right project code on your page for statcounter.

04-27-2008, 07:26 PM	#16 (permalink)
amateursurgeon frumious bandersnatch Join Date: Apr 2007 Posts: 185 iTrader: (1)	I've now created a keyword list of about 200 keywords in my niche, with search volumes (not sure of accuracy), and the number of exact matches for each one. I'm going to use this to help with my SEO efforts, feed into to PPC if I decide to go that route, and give me more ideas to expand my efforts within the niche.

04-28-2008, 06:17 AM	#18 (permalink)
SeoReborn Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: London UK Posts: 368 iTrader: (2)	amateursurgeon, looking at your site, I believe you should see a better CTR if you move your 2 square/rectangular affiliate banners from the right hand panel to just below your site name "Toddlers Sleeping Bags (And Babies Too)". As you find and get onto new affiliate programs, add to this so the banners become like a horizontal navigation of affilate links under your main title.

04-28-2008, 07:05 AM	#19 (permalink)
amateursurgeon frumious bandersnatch Join Date: Apr 2007 Posts: 185 iTrader: (1)	Thank for the suggestions re better layout for CTR - I'll give that a try. I need to get some traffic there in the first place at the moment though. I hadn't thought of Ebay - would that be through auctionads, or their affiliate programme? Re: OpenX - agreed, it looks great. I've stopped using it for now as I was spending too much time fiddling with it to get it working. I'm planning on getting a VPS account set up shortly so I can start playing about with some of the SEO empire techniques from Eli's blog. When I do that I'll probably set OpenX up in its own ad domain so I can use to to distribute ads across my sites.