start-up advice

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chin musik

New member
Apr 16, 2011
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i'll skip the long introduction and personal story. i know you guys don't care anyways.

I play college baseball and I used to play poker online until the government shut it down last week. playing pro sports is my first priority, but I have 5+ hours a day of free time and I am here for one reason: get paid.

in the words of lil wayne get money or get nothing lol

i have 0 experience with online marketing, but I know a thing or two psychology and logic from playing poker. I'm certainly not clueless, and I'm a quick learner. I'm not your typical idiot trying to make millions online.

i tried to do all of my research and familiarize myself with the terms of internet marketing, but I realize there is a lot to learn and I'm going to learn a lot faster by asking questions and getting my hands dirty than standing and watching from the sidelines.



Since I'm fairly familiar with the e-gambling industry and professional sports industries, i figured i'd start out purchasing 5-6 poker, sportsbook, and casino affiliate sites, and start a few athletic training and nutrition sites and produce some content. I have about 1-3k to work with (lost 5 figs investing, staking, and then have assets frozen on poker sites) and I really don't know where to start. i might be able to put some more money into it eventually, just really don't want to blow a lot of money doing dumb shit.

I have no programming knowledge, and I've never started a website, so should I just use a program like wordpress to design my sites?

should I start with 1 site and expand from there or start a bunch of sites at once?

after I set up the hosting, site, and put some content up, i should work on SEO and getting impressions, right (?), and then set up the advertising and affiliates after I have a decent stream of traffic and I have a presence in the industry. is this correct thinking?

one other thing I haven't seen answered...am I going to make more money selling advertising on my site or by collecting affiliate bonuses? i know this is a vague question, and it depends, but what is the general consensus?

My goal is to make roughly 100k (or more) by the end of the year, so I can live on my own, travel, party, and not worry about money and being broke. is this realistic?

so how much can I expect to make it I spend 3-5 hrs a day working hard, learning fast, and staying a step ahead of the game? i'm willing to be patient and i'm not expecting anything to be easy.



-chin musik

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golferchick.jpg
 


chin musik said:
i have 0 experience with online marketing, but I know a thing or two psychology and logic from playing poker. I'm certainly not clueless, and I'm a quick learner. I'm not your typical idiot trying to make millions online.

My goal is to make roughly 100k (or more) by the end of the year, so I can live on my own, travel, party, and not worry about money and being broke. is this realistic?

so how much can I expect to make it I spend 3-5 hrs a day working hard, learning fast, and staying a step ahead of the game? i'm willing to be patient and i'm not expecting anything to be easy.
Click to expand...

hmm.. 0 experience with online marketing, willing to work 3-5 hours a day working hard and asking if making 100k by the end of the year is realistic. Realistic? No. Possible? Sure.

There are people who have been doing this for years and have more experience then you will learn in a year spending 3-5 hours a day at it that don't even make half that in a year. I would say less then 1% of online marketers that have the amount of experience it will take you an entire year to learn make 100k a year.

Not to discourage you or anything but it's going to take a lot of money and time to get to 100k a year and this year is already 1/3rd over. Your first goal is to make any profit what so ever and then build from that. Nobody is going to tell you exactly what to do because nobody wants more competition but everyone started somewhere and there are plenty of people starting now that will be successful and making well above 100k a year online marketing so just keep at it but know that it requires a lot of work and determination and is in no way a free ride. It is a lot harder now then it was even a few years ago and it seems to be getting exponentially harder as more people get in and learn to do it so if you want to start then you might as well start learning now. This forum is a great place to start though and you are already above most people for even knowing about this place so that's a plus.

Also you mentioned wanting to have a for profit website or blog in your other post. You are not going to have a blog that makes anywhere close to 100k a year. I don't know of any blog on the internet that makes 100k profit a year in just ads. I don't think such a blog exists.
 
Choose one vertical.

Do you like nutrition? Do that.

Go hard with that one vertical. Become an expert. Don't try to do too many different verticals in the beginning. You will chase your tail and get nowhere.

Video is king. Take advantage of it.

Niche out your chosen vertical. Track everything.

Social media is a godsend. Master it.

And, whatever you do, make sure you setup in a way that gives you repeat visitors and an email list. Focus less on promoting a product and focus more on building your brand. It will pay off forever.
 
MrBradshaw said:
And, whatever you do, make sure you setup in a way that gives you repeat visitors and an email list. Focus less on promoting a product and focus more on building your brand. It will pay off forever.
Click to expand...

^This

I cant stress this enough. What's the point in focusing on unique visitors? When your tried and tested traffic will be making you money over and over again.
 
If you want a chance at a building a high dollar blog go read viperchill.com and follow it like it's your bible on the subject then don't expect to make any money anytime soon and eventually you may do it.
 
Do not think in terms of a dollar figure you would like to make, also you're going to have to spend more then 3-5hours a day if you would like to make around that by years end. A lot of people think that internet marketing is fast easy money, however most people I know work way harder then anyone with a 9-5. Focus on your health niche which you like, i would stay away from gambling because that industry is in shambles. MrBradShaw could not have put it better, build a network of websites and generate repeat users. Social media will be your best friend.
 
The money is in the list - my mentor has a list of 2008 members by last count (yesterday) and manages to pull in $40k in orders per month, consistently. Granted he has to pay commissions out of that but if he only gets to keep 1/4 of that, he is really busting it out.
That being said, he has been building the list since 2005.
 
one thing I recommended is to start building websites, download Dreamweaver, get familiar with html, xhtml, css, basic php and fireworks or photoshop. Learn to use templates etc, if you dont know the basics of the internet the marketing is not going to help because you will get frustrated and quit.

and forget 4-5 hours a day, spend 10-12 hours or 18 hours on weekends when you have off. and Dont think about the money, think about the work - my quote lol If you spend your day dreaming about the 100k and not about learning how to track and build campaigns it just wont work.

Energy and Persistence conquer all things. - Benjamin Franklin
 
awesome...thanks for all the advice guys. i'm thinking either doing fitness/nutrition or online dating. i know a lot about both, and both seem pretty saturated. which will be more profitable?

so right now i'm thinking of a good website name. After I purchase a few domains, i have to find hosting, design my site, set up all my plugins, sign up with the affiliates, produce content...and then go out and market my site, right? there aren't any crazy steps I need to take in between, are there?

and I only have a few hours a day to work, I'm a full time student-athlete. and i don't quite understand the whole member/email list concept. i know those people are more likely to revisit your site, but why are they so valuable unless i'm selling a product, which i would like to do eventually but I wan't to start kinda slow and just sell affiliates and adverts.
 
chin musik said:
awesome...thanks for all the advice guys. i'm thinking either doing fitness/nutrition or online dating. i know a lot about both, and both seem pretty saturated. which will be more profitable?

so right now i'm thinking of a good website name. After I purchase a few domains, i have to find hosting, design my site, set up all my plugins, sign up with the affiliates, produce content...and then go out and market my site, right? there aren't any crazy steps I need to take in between, are there?

and I only have a few hours a day to work, I'm a full time student-athlete. and i don't quite understand the whole member/email list concept. i know those people are more likely to revisit your site, but why are they so valuable unless i'm selling a product, which i would like to do eventually but I wan't to start kinda slow and just sell affiliates and adverts.
Click to expand...

Stop focusing solely on money. You said it yourself. You have no experience and you know little to nothing about internet marketing. Use this first project as a learning experience and stop thinking so much about how much money you can make. Sure your main goal is to make money but you need to learn to walk before you can run. Second start learning the lingo of this industry, you aren't selling affiliates, unless you are in some sort of black market trading of worthless warriorforum members. Email lists generate return visitors = return potential customers = more money.

As for the crazy steps:
Learning SEO
- Creating Backlinks
- On-page SEO
- Writing valuable content
- + So much more

Learning Paid Traffic Sources
- PPC
- Social

Building a Brand
- Emailing
- Creating a memberbase/community

Finding products
- Amazon?
- Clickbank?
- Adsense?
- CPA programs?


It's not as easy as you think, huh?
 
Shit I am impressed. I thought you would get ripped apart on here or at least digital tea bagged. But to give you some motivational influence, I started about 3 years ago and am STILL broke as fuck lol.

My first site was a poker site I dropped a little over $30k into. It is still up. You say you played poker? I started my first idea because a lot of my friends and people I know are pros. One of my good friends won the Sunday Million and made 6 figures in a few hours.

tsifknits - cam barry - Poker Player

These are my wins :)

POKER_BETTER - urlwwwpokerbettercomurl - Poker Player

Yeah I lost money, but I have a lot of connections now and met a lot of cool people in the process. I wanted to be in the industry and started devoting my time towards building up my experience.

If I had one piece of advice I would say read, read, read. The majority of your questions you can find in 2 seconds with a Google search. Don't think everyone here knows what they are talking about. Take everything with a pinch of salt. Those that brag about their money tell them to show you their W2.

You are going to pay money to learn either on your own or through college.

Pick one thing you want to master and stick with it. There is so much shit to learn with IM. SEO, SEM, Social, Mobile, PPC, CPV, GPT sites, email marketing, display, CoReg, Incent, Contextual, Media Buying, Linkouts, PPCall, Host and Post, Lead Gen and so much other shit. Pick one you think you would like to do full time and read up on it until you mastered it.

Jack of all trades is a master at none. But you should know what all the other "media types" (Those are what I listed).

Anyways man....welcome to the wild wild west.

Oh I almost forgot...here is your complimentary WF welcome link. No charge:

Make Money Online
 
hah clicked the link like a sucker. guess i do have a LOT to learn. i am definitely going to stay humble. I know how hard it is, I lost a lot of money playing poker before i became a winning player and i dealt with a lot of adversity. i know how hard i need to work. i'm just hoping i can get some kind of footing in the market and at least understand the basic concepts of putting together a profitable website. i don't expect any of you guys to hold my hand, and i am willing to get beaten down a few times, coming back stronger each time. i don't really have any desire to go back to college where they teach you how to be an employee so i'm in this business for the long haul.

i appreciate the responses and advice. i know how to use google, but the forum provides a lot of insight. i'll try to stop asking dumb questions as quickly as possible.
 
The poker shut down really did fuck over quite an amount of people huh?

Realistically, you're not gonna make 100k by the end of this year unless you are very smart/creative/lucky.

Assuming you're good at poker, why not make a little extra startup cash by hitting up some casinos? There are way more fish in actual casinos than online poker sites.
 
are yous trollin?

Oh I heard you only gotta play 3 hours a day of poker to get comped a room at the palms or sands or something in Laughlin, NV so hit that up and reduce your expenses!

Otherwise just sell some more affiliates n shit
 
Find a demand. Preferably something in the B2B market. Create a solution. Sell it. The bigger the problem, the more sales you can make. The greater the gravity of the problem, the more you can charge for your solution.

Keep an eye out for potential markets with no competitors.

Expect to invest months, and months, in the off chance that it pays off.

Alternatively? Do this while doing freelance work on the side. You need a source of revenue, so start smaller while you use what you earn to keep your over-arching design afloat.

Likewise, as others have noted, if your good at poker then go play in person. No need to reinvent the wheel. Get a lease and move to Nevada.
 
Thinking you're gonna pick up all things web + affiliate marketing + seo and make $100k in your first year is hilarious. Try year 3 or 4, if that.
 
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