Makeitrein

Since the other journals in the forum turned out to be extremely helpful -- thought I'd make one for me.

Who I am - A guy who is a little bit fed up with people telling me what I
can and can't do.

Budget - Bootstrapping this project with minimal funds.

Products - HostGator Hosting (Aff link)
- Wordpress Themes (Aff link)

How - Youtube "How to" guides, light SEO, a lot of Yahoo Answer spam, and some (possible) PPC.

Please share your ideas and thoughts.

The plan for tomorrow -
1) Drop unsuccessful old blog.
2) Register domain for new blog (SiteG.org).
3) Chill out while domain propogates
4) Start/possibly finish youtube vid

Wish me luck!

Makeitrein

Day 1

Bought the domain makedasite.com and hosting for one year at HostGator for $83.

Sold old domains/cancled old HostGator plans.

Got halfway through youtube vid. Decided to call it a night early.

Total is -$83

hannahmcintyre

Sorry to be blunt, but if you're already doing this on day 1 you will never have any success in affiliate marketing or your own business anywhere.

DTAlexONE

What is your site about again?

__________________
"I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul."

Scheme

I think he is selling wordpress themes, and a host gator ref feral link? Not sure...this journal is confusing as shit.

__________________

Makeitrein

Well, I took the night off early cause...it was Christmas.

Lol -- website will be an introductory guide to making a website.
Hostgator hosting and premium wp themes will be promoted throughout the site.

Also - a question to y'all - Is it worth my money to buy youtube traffic?

kaisdavis

Test the traffic to see how it converts for your offers.

Makeitrein

Day 2
Youtube =

Dead, deceased, kicked the bucket, and took the bullet.

I tried to make a simple screencast of making a website.

10 tries and 5 technical failures later - I gave up.

For tonight and tomorrow - my goal is to make a good looking website. I'll post it up when its done.

Oh, @kaisdavis -- Agreed - there is no "right" answer.

Total is -$83

Jondoe0069

CamStudio - Free Screen Recording Software

__________________
(#)(#)

Makeitrein

Looks good. Thanks for the link. I'll see if I have some time this week to play around with it.

DTAlexONE

Are you targeting everyone making a website or only those within the affiliate marketing niche?

__________________
"I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul."

Makeitrein

Everyone and anyone!

DTAlexONE

IMO, that wouldn't be wise. Do you have any idea how many sites are out there that are dedicated to making websites? No offense, but you'll have trouble making money when there is so much competition. It would be better if you targeted the affiliate marketing niche. Not that making websites for affiliate marketing is too different but there are variations, such as implementing tracking (you can make tutorials for all the different tracking software there is), newsletters, etc. You would have to be very selective. But again, this is only my opinion.

__________________
"I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul."

Makeitrein

All true - except I know a good amount about building websites and relatively little about affiliate marketing.

Does this change your answer?

DTAlexONE

No it doesn't. Maybe you don't know much about affiliate marketing yet but maybe you can learn more about the building a website aspect of affiliate marketing. Do you get what I mean?

__________________
"I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul."

AffAholic

Makeitrein,
I dont want to discourage you from making a website about something you love but I do worry that you're missing a lot of what is out there and more easily profitable via aff marketing.

you're launching a site into a relatively small market and in my opinion it's just not a profitable way to be spending your time.

Find an affiliate network like Ads4Dough, Convert2Media, EWA, etc that has affiliate managers that are also affiliates and can help you decide what to promote.

Sign up on their website and be ready to answer a quick phone call to make sure you're not a fraud. Tell them you are new and are good with websites and need advice on what to promote.

If you get denied for being inexperienced, move to the next network and try again. You'll get approved somewhere.

You'll get an affiliate manager who will (hopefully) tell you something that is selling and selling well and answer your questions related to making a campaign. Your affiliate manager will be on AIM 9-5 and EWA sends out guides weekly that would probably help you.

Google or yahoo search the offers they recommend and you'll see the landing pages of guys making money currently with them. Make your own version, get some traffic and you're almost sure to start making some sales, it's your job at that point to get it profitable and scale it.

I dont know how youre driving traffic but at any rate I think you'll find that by sending your visitors to a proven product / service that makes sales consistently youll make more money without as much guess work.

luck,
AA

__________________
Lidango Network Representative:
You're right about one thing... you'll make no friends here. "Ops"

Makeitrein

DTAlexOne - I think... I get what you are saying. In my own words - I should start making websites for affiliate marketing to learn about the process. Start with something I know and build from there, no?

AffAholic - That was a golden post. Well-written, direct, and great information. Thank you for writing that. You're right - I do love building websites. And I will continue to work on launching my website blog.

However, I will also start applying to some affiliate networks and check out the landing pages of successful campaigns like you suggested. I gotta come out of my comfort zone sometime.

If you have an affiliate network AffAholic (or DTAlexOne) that you would like to recommend to me, I will be happy to sign up under you guys with an affiliate link. (Your posts have been very helpful to me)

DTAlexONE

Exactly. What gives newbies a lot of trouble in this industry is the technical aspect of building a website and everything that it entails. Such as setting up tracking and even things like finding the right host and creating databases and whatnot. I think you can fill that small niche. From there, you can promote themes, web hosts, and products that would help the average newbie set up a website.

I think you'll do fine if it's your passion.

__________________
"I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul."

AffAholic

All good Makeitrein,
the advice will be there for ya when/if you need it in the future. and remember, you would still be making websites to promote the aff products which is what you love, and the income potential is far greater running these popular offers.

food for thought, good luck.
AA

__________________
Lidango Network Representative:
You're right about one thing... you'll make no friends here. "Ops"

Makeitrein

Things are going slow here...

I have waited 36 hours for my DNS to propagate - nuthins happening.

I'm contacting Hostgator in the morning if I still have a dead website.

Total is -$83

Makeitrein

Makedasite.com is live!

Tomorrow - I start link building and playing around with my $50 AdWords credit.

Cheers!

xentech

Do what you will but I think if you continue with this and put a lot of work in, after 6 months you'll maybe have a few hundred $ to show for it. However, IMO if you take AffAholic's advice it is quite possible you will have made many thousands.

Basically what I'm saying is that every hour spent working on a big niche like teeth whitening, weight loss, gambling, payday loans etc is worth a multitude more than an hour spent working on your current project.

Good luck either way though.

Makeitrein

Thanks xentech.

This project is my launch pad to the bigger and more lucrative affiliate programs. Start with what I know and breach out from there, eh?

And I do think I can earn a pretty penny from this - Hostgator pays up to $125 per new client I send in.

Either way - thanks for the advice.

jryan21

If you're providing technical information, especially in this area, you will need to dedicate a small amount of time every day or so to making sure your information is up to date- this is where I see a lot of these types of sites fail.

You could keep the old pages up since they'll probably be indexed and bringing people in, just have a way to provide a clear notice that the information is for previous versions and link to the newer info.

Makeitrein

Sounds good. Do you have any experience in the "How-to" tech websites?

keepitreal88

I feel like this is a hard niche to make money in because the people that will be reading your site will be well informed of AM techniques and will be able to find and tweak free themes just as easily.

What other ways are you planning on monetizing?

PS: First Post! I tried to read a good bit before posting as to avoid asking the typical "what is AM?" and "How much money can I make?" questions.

Makeitrein

SEO is damn easy - but it takes a fooking lifetime to get links.

I decided it was time to use AffAholic's advice - start hooking up with affiliate networks and learning about real affiliate marketing.

Problem is - because I am still a minor - I wasn't accepted by any network.

Son. Of. A. Bitch.

If anyone began affiliate marketing as a teen - please post some advice!

Or better yet - does anyone know of a network that takes teens?

Ima keep looking for teh golden affiliate network that will take me in the meantime.

xentech

I don't understand why the network would ever find out how old you are? Has your voice not broken yet or something?