Posts Tagged ‘monday-question’
Here goes:
“I’m a new affiliate and I’m wondering what’s the best website platform I should use?
I’ve heard a lot of people talk about using Microsoft Front Page to create a HTML site. While others have mentioned blogs.
What do you suggest?”
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My Answer:
There’s no right or wrong answer when it comes to choosing your marketing platform, and there’s no “best” platform.
It’s very situational in nature.
If you’re starting out, creating a HTML site might be easier.
I started out using Microsoft Front Page (which has since been replaced by Microsoft Web Expressions). It is alright for single page affiliate sites.
However, with Google’s stricter implementation of Quality Score and having to insert secondary pages like an about us, privacy policy, contact us page, sitemap, etc, using Front Page can be quite cumbersome.
I’ve been using XSitePro quite a bit recently. It’s a pretty intelligent website builder and lets you create sections and sub-sections pretty easily. Best of all, it (more…)
I got a short and sweet question today “Is blogging dead?
I was planning to start a blog, but I heard that I should create and optimize a Facebook profile instead.
What’s your advice?”
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That’s an interesting question and let me do my best to you an interesting answer.
If you read Stephanie Agresta (AKA Internet Geek Girl’s) post “Blogging is not dead (but I am really busy)“, you’d realize that like a lot of popular bloggers (eg. Sam Harrelson, Wayne Porter, Jim Kukral and Co), Steph has reduced the frequency of her “long form” (eg. WordPress blogging), in favor of micro-blogging (eg. Twitter and it’s companions).
So blogging is not “dying” nor will it “die” anytime soon.
The significant issue at hand is to get a grip on your long term business growth.
Are you being overly tactical – looking at the micro level of your business – whether you should set up a squidoo page, a hubpage, a facebook profile, throw up a social community site…
When really you need to be more strategic in nature!
If you need an analogy – strategic or being long term-focused means looking at the forest, and fashioning a master plan.
Being tactical means you’re looking at an individual tree and trying to optimize it. Taking care of the day-to-day. so to speak.
Don’t get me wrong, you NEED to be tactical in nature when you’re going into a new niche and building up your skills, but you shouldn’t be (more…)
Here’s a straightforward Monday Question:
“Now that you’re starting to do more PPC (pay per click) traffic. How has it been? Isn’t it a waste of money to pay for traffic, and it doesn’t generate much income, does it?”
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My Answer:
There’s a lot of FUD (Fear Uncertainty and Doubt) being spread, especially by marketers who aren’t using paid traffic, typically certain members of the Web 2.0 fraternity.
Yes, you can lose lots of money, and not generate a single sale, but only if you don’t have a plan in mind. I was in that category before, bidding on low competition keywords, having subscribed to the “long tail keyword” strategy.
The fact is that with quality score playing a dominant role in Google AdWords, you will need to bid reasonable prices to get the conversions.
I have a stock portfolio which generates 10-20% on an annualized basis. If you’ve refined your PPC campaigns and are able to generate at least 50% on a monthly basis, you’ve outperformed most of the mutual funds and equity funds in the market.
So let’s look at some PPC newbie pitfalls:
- Not enough keywords in your adwords campaign
If you’ve only 20-200 keyphrases in your campaign, it might only generate a handful of clickthroughs and even fewer sales per day.
Reasonably you should have at least (more…)
Today’s Monday Question comes from Ken who asks:
“I’m a new Internet Marketer and like you, I plan to focus on blogging and affiliate marketing. I make about $500 a month now.
What’s the best way of doing this? I want to be the next Darren Rowse! I’m planning to quit my job by the end of the year after getting my bonus if this gig works out for me…”
My answer:
It’s great to hear you’re taking action on your goals, Ken, especially as you’ve found that the Internet lifestyle gives you more options.
I don’t think newer Internet Marketers can successfully master two areas, unless you’re very disciplined. You probably should focus on one area.
Between blogging and affiliate marketing, although the two fields are related, I’d recommend you focus on affiliate marketing as that activity directly generates income. With blogging, income tends to be a secondary focus (unless you’re highly skilled at monetizing your blog).
I’m more concerned with the fact that you’re generating $500 from your Internet Marketing efforts now.
Have you calculated your (more…)
In this issue, we tackle the challenge of content creation for niche sites, especially if you’re new to that area.
Reader Rick is developing content for an iPod/iPhone niche site and asks for assistance in creating content for his site, specifically “Where am I going to get relevant content that is of such a nature that Ipod fans would feel it was worth reading about and that they couldn’t just go to Apple’s site themselves to read”
It will seem challenging to create content when tackling a new niche, but I see it as an opportunity to learn something new.
As information marketers, we’ll need to continually be receptive to picking up new skills and expanding our repertoire of marketing knowledge.
The surest sign that there’s a ready market for any type of product is to check out if there’s a “For Dummies” guide available.
Spend a couple of hours on a Saturday afternoon in a Borders or Barnes and Nobles and you’ll see that these Dummies guides fly off the shelves. Don’t let the name fool you either because some of the top minds write these books. Dr Ruth authored the “Sex for Dummies” book and sales guru Tom Hopkins wrote a sales-related Dummies title.
Note that although the Dummies guide started out as a help for PC computer “dummies”, it’s since expanded to include “Wine for Dummies”
If you need inspiration (or to do a little research), visit the Dummies website.
So after hitting the main page, where you see that the label has (more…)
In contrast to the numerous “I am new to the Internet, I have no money and I don’t have a computer (I’m typing this to you at work), I want to make a full time living online as a Super Affiliate. Please advise me” emails I received [Do send me the answer to that because I don’t have a ready answer…], I’ve got a more realistic question this week:
I am willing to learn, I have bought a number of ebooks, and have made a few affiliate sales (about $50-100 worth of commissions each month), but at this rate, I doubt I’ll be able to quit my day job and live on my online income anytime soon. What do you suggest I buy next and how much do I have to spend before I make a full time online income? Thanks!
Here’s a list of what I bought:
[A list of about 5 ebooks follow. I’m guess she’s spent about $300 on them]
Patty
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My Answer:
It’s encouraging to see new Internet marketers take responsibility for their actions and I think the fact that you’re generating sales from your website each month shows that you’re taking consistent effort.
To make the gap between generating “hobby money” (I define this as less than $2,000 a month in online income) and a living based on your online businesses means that you need a couple of ingredients:
Have you defined what income level you’re aiming for? ($1,000? $10,000? $100,000 per month?). More importantly, have you listed the amount of time and resources you’re willing to put into this?
Most new marketers write down a $20,000 a month goal when they start out, and they put in barely 2 hours a week into their business. There’s a serious effort-reward gap in the equation…
An online business still follows the effort -> result equation. You don’t just need to dream big, you need to put in the sweat equity at least in the early stages.
Do your research before you begin. What niche are you going to focus on? Is it a niche market? Is the demand sufficient to sustain your revenue (and profit?)?
Is it a competitive market? Can you compete effectively?
What’re your monetization strategies? A goal of 100 Adsense clicks a day might be a good start, but are they only paying $0.10 a click? Are there affiliate programs available? Would you create your own product?
Once your research has concluded and you’ve decided on your business model, you need to be focused and consistent in your efforts. There was an Internet marketer who built their blog up to about 500 visitors a day, she left for a 6 week vacation and the visitors dropped to about 5 a day when she returned. It took another couple of months to build it up to her pre-vacation traffic level.
- Go Beyond Costs, Focus On Results
Here’s one takeaway from my buddy, Amit Mehta’s post “What’s Your Investment Plan?“, you need to figure out what your expect return or result is from any investment you make…
It’s not just a cost issue, you need to take stock of (more…)
