What should I do for a quick start-up?

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bluebugs

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Jul 30, 2010
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Hi all, as you can see this is my first post. After about a week or so of mulling over the idea of affiliate marketing, I am willing to jump on board. I have already signed up for 3 affiliate networks (no confirmation so far) and considered a few niches, but I really don't know how/where to begin.

PPC seems to be the most popular choice and although blogging and other free (money-wise) programs seem to make money, it isn't a lot or consistent unless you're pretty good at it. (or so I've read)

Anyway, I've decided I need to stop reading so damn much (seriously this forum is addicting, I'm just going through reading as much as I can without doing anything). So where should I start? I understand this is a very general question. I would like to start small - I'm not expecting to pull in a shit load of money at first. But it seems a hard world to just jump into.

a few factors;

I do currently work full-time, so I can only put in maybe an hour or 2 a day at first.

I have no knowledge of web design/HTML/CCS/ect.

I want to get something set up by Monday. I really want to force myself into this soon.

I am only willing to put about $30 dollars down to start. I am very short on money, which is why I want to start this.

Thank you all for your help. I understand you answer a lot of questions like this, so I appreciate you taking the time to teach me.
 


starting with PPC + $30 = sure fail.

You'll need several hundreds to just test if what you're doing is working, and keep testing and tweaking just to maintain what you have, because everyone else is doing the same and targeting your same (or similar) niche, hence the same keywords, so tomorrow you might not have the traffic you get today.
 
Thanks Icecube. By sure fail, do you mean completely un-profitable, or just low profit?

And what would you suggest I start with, if not ppc?
 
I would suggest you start with a part time evening job for a few months whilst you learn the basics and save up $500

Seriously, you cant afford to pay people to design your landing pages, so you are going to need to learn to at least sufficiently hack up a wordpress install to handle that. (plus a domain and hosting will eat most of your budget)

With any paid traffic source, its not just a matter of scale to start with, you need data to work out whats profitable before you got anything to scale.

And the only way to get that data is to test.

For test read sink a few hundred bucks (some people on here probably spend $X,XXX testing) trying different keywords, ad-copy and landing page designs methodically until you find something that works, THEN you can scale.

Disclaimer: my PPC exp. is limited to physical product ecom. but the principle will be the same.
 
Thank you, that sounds like solid advice. Though a second offline job is not feasible right now. (plus, I work evenings) Are there no ways to start with a very small cost (doesn't have to be PPC), just to gain that couple-hundred dollars?
 
By "sure fail" he means that you will lose your $30. You probably won't even have enough time to learn much of anything either.

You need to choose an affiliate product. There are tons out there. If you want you can go to ClickBank and apply, as I'm pretty sure you get automatically accepted. They may want you to have your blog up and running first, however, but I don't remember for sure.

Throw up a WordPress site. You can figure it out; its easy as hell. You don't need much experience, if any. Make sure all of your posts on the blog relate to that affiliate product in some way. Choose keywords as well as long tail (3-4 words long) keywords that you want to rank in the SERPS and make sure they are interspersed throughout all of your posts.

Throw up an affiliate banner on your blog. Each day make a 250-500 word post. You said you have little time, but it shouldn't take longer than half an hour to type something up that long. You can put up two a day if you find the time.

It would likely make the process less painful if the affiliate product you chose is based on something you remotely enjoy. If you have trouble thinking of something to write, just type a keyword you are writing about in Google, find an article, and then change it up so it's unique (should easily get about 75-80% unique by hand).

Get Wordpress Platinum SEO Plugin. Optimize your site. Use Google Analytics or Piwik to track new visitors, ect. Get addons with firefox such as SEO rank checker and SEO workers analysis to check your progress and to analyze your site. Come back later and learn what else to do when you get that far.


That should get you started. Good luck.
 
I don't suggest people to get into affiliate marketing if they have any less than $500 to spend, just not enough to gather data. I'd suggest saving up atleast that then start on social network promotion, direct linking. No need for technical shit with that.
 
no way you can start in PPC with $30, you need more to at least collect some data. No way to profit, additionally consider that since when you earn the commission to when you get the check at least 20 days have to pass ( after the end of the month ), assuming you reach the network payout threshold.
You'll need such data to pause not converting keywords etc, but with $30 you won't be able to gather enough clicks ( not even remotely close ).
Depending on the niche you pick, clicks can be extremely expensive.

In other words, you're out of the ppc game.

With just $30 you could:
- pick a niche and find some affiliate product, something that you feel you can write something about
- get a .info domain on godaddy for €0.67 (first year )
- find a low cost linux based paid hosting service that allows monthly/quarterly payments and has an automated script installer ( not necessarily CPanel )
- install wordpress and install a random theme
- install some analytics software
- start writing
- submit articles to articles directories, build links submitting your website wherever you can etc
 
Thanks for the helpful advice. I know I don't have much to start, and I'll work on saving up more. For the time being, I just want to get my foot in the door (experience-wise) even if it is with a little blog.

@Otinsdale - Looks like it.
 
it is how all the greats got their start...I heard....

but yeah, just spend a bit of time learning some html and wordpress and copy and all that. This isn't really one of those hustles where you can bust in with 30 bucks and make a grip back overnight unless you get really lucky.

I'm still pretty new as well so I'm down to help with any questions you may have or anything of the sort. I'm not that jaded yet.
 
Yea paid traffic is not always the way to go, especially not in your case.

If you think of something unique and not done before (difficult) then you can gather good traffic without much effort.

I'll give you an example. I was working on a marijuana vaporizer affiliate program. I made a Prop 19 community facebook fan page and grew it to a few thousand people.

I kept updating statuses and kept messaging pushing the vaporizer discreetly and indirectly. Made a cool couple hundred bucks. Then reinvested that into slightly tougher niches.
 
If you have writing skills, I'd pimp yourself out for a couple weeks to other affiliates to build some capital and get in the habit of firing off articles. This will give you a feels for how long it will take you to write them and the true time commitment you will need to take.

I don't know shit about shit but, with so little capital to begin with, I'd suggest maybe trying to go organic and gain some adsense traffic. Get the moniez, then you can head the PPC route.

From what I've been learning here, PPC is like poker. You're going to get dealt bad hands, sometimes for a long stretch. If you don't have the bankroll to ride out the blinds, you'll be broke in no time. But if you can afford to survive the drought, the hands will eventually start being dealt in your favor. Then, it comes down to how you play those hands to maximize your winnings.
 
PPC on shoestring budget is always a bad idea and you are sure to lose your money.
start with some free traffic generation like article marketing. make some commissions and reinvest
 
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