I recently saw this question on an internet marketing forum. The writer was specifically looking for responses from ‘successful internet marketers and veterans’ to see what they would do if they had to start out from scratch again. I thought it was a really good question for a newbie to ask.
Most people spend years becoming truly successful online and most will have made every mistake known to man to get there so asking them what they would do if they had to start again from scratch is an ideal question.
Interestingly enough, all of the responses were different. So what does that say?…well, to me it simply says that there are plenty of ways to make money online. How wonderful is that?! You don’t need to worry if it will work or not because once you find a system or method that suits you; it WILL work if you keep at it. Persistence is the key with this business but most people don’t have it in them to keep at it until they do eventually succeed. And they keep buying the next “big thing’ hoping it will help them make money overnight, and of course that doesn’t work for them either because they don’t put the time in.
So let’s look at some of the responses to that post to see what some of the ‘successful’ internet marketers would do:
1. ‘Create your own product’– in other words, write your own ebook, create a membership site, create and sell your own WordPress theme, build a plugin etc. Now prior to us releasing our ebook we wouldn’t have put much stock into this one but I can say with hand on heart that this is one that I would recommend, to someone with experience on the web. However, for someone new to it all, it’s not an easy one to start with and personally I wouldn’t suggest it to someone brand new on the internet. Others may disagree on that one but I really think you need to know the basics on how to build a website and how to market a product on the internet before you get into something like this.
2. ‘Give value in everything you do’ – now I love that response because that has become our philosophy. If I were starting again I would make certain that I have that line floating around in my head instead of ‘How can I make money online’.
3. ‘Approach article marketing differently’ – basically this poster said that he wouldn’t have wasted his time posting to Ezine etc and instead would have created a relationship with a couple of authority sites and submitted his articles to them exclusively. Personally I wouldn’t just stick to one or two but the basic idea is there. If you can get your articles on authority sites or blogs that relate to your niche then you will be streets ahead of the rest of those who simply submit to article directories.
4. ‘Create an email list’ – this one was a common response. This is the one thing we have been a bit slow to take on although that is changing now. If you have a nice list of people who follow the same things you follow then you can promote products to the list and make money that way. One of the main advantages of a list is if your websites suddenly disappeared overnight then you will still have a following of people and it won’t take long to get back up and running.
5. ‘Create a plan’ – as the poster said, most newbies don’t have a plan or a set of goals – all they think about is the money. Setting goals is extremely important. We have a roll of butchers’ paper that we roll out and write our plans, ideas, and goals. And we do this at the very least once a week. Its not set in concrete, we can make adjustments to suit what is happening but by doing this we always know exactly what we need to do in the coming days, weeks and months.
6. And finally my response to the question was that if I were starting out again I would create only one website instead of many and would create 5 really good product reviews for that site using Amazon products. I would then spend 80% working on getting traffic and backlinks to those 5 pages and the other 20% of my time writing informational type articles to add to the site. That’s all I would do. Nice and simple and this is the one method that I know absolutely works.
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Most interesting to read tips from people who have “walked the road ahead” ahead.
Personally, I’ve found it difficult to find places to give articles to but have recently changed the way I search for these blogs/sites and suddenly I discover there are a few out there who meet the criteria of popularity and viewers etc. I kept arriving at what were simply article sites that had a category for gardening instead of “real” garden sites and blogs. Keep your search simple is my motto. I was adding way too much such as -“comments closed” -“you
must be logged in” and site:.com inurl:blog and was getting nothing but crummy article sites.
You want a garden blog then search for garden blog.
Gardening? Well yes, my first real review done “Wanda and Paula” style is on a garden product. Nothing at all to do with my usual subjects. :)
I love what you just said then Dawn about keeping it simple. This struck me as it is what most people don’t do. They make everything on the internet complicated. Making money online is pretty simple really – create a page of really good content that promotes a product and get targeted traffic to that page. It can’t get any simpler than that really.
Great post – and a good reminder that there is always more than one way to skin a cat / accomplish a goal, especially out in the World Wide Web!
Definitely Michelle – there are so many ways to make money online and this illustrates that.
I can think of two things off the top of my head that I would do differently.
1. I would not spend as much time scouring over the blogs of bigger bloggers. I spent so much time doing this that my blog started to suffer because of it.
2. I would learn how to set up and run a mailing list straight away. To this day I just can’t seem to get one going, I lose interest with it after a couple of weeks.
LOL – I am with you on the second one. It’s difficult to maintain momentum with an email list but we are getting the hang of it now.
And I also agree 100% about the first one. I no longer read any blogs on a regular basis and I don’t subscribe to any RSS feeds and I have pretty much unsubscribed to most email lists I was on. These things can help but they can also be a huge time waster.
I can see where you wouldn’t really need to read many others, you’re somewhat unique. As far as I can tell, you only really do ONE thing.
Actually we still do way too much – Amazon isn’t our only thing. We try to diversify but because we are trying new things it takes up a lot of our time. But at least we are focusing on our own stuff rather than other peoples.
I had my answer just reading the title. And it doesn’t match any previous answer in the post.
1. Wouldn’t question everything my first mentor said, thinking I could take her advice and then create something different.
2. Wouldn’t waste a few years being cheap; not investing back into my business, i.e outsourcing/buying useful products.
3. The flip-side, better research before buying useless products. lol
I’m sure there’s more…
I love the first one Dennis. We went through this as well in our first couple of years online.
Yep, I’m sure many have, they just don’t wanna admit it. ;)
Great information there! I would add one more thing. Dont buy every info product you can find on making money. Find reviews on info products and choose one. Give it a good few months where you focus on only that money making idea. I got stuck trying out different things and not seeing results. I have now started focusing on amazon products and am starting to see the money coming in. Your excellent ebook helped me too!
Excellent advice Myles. Too many people move from one ebook to the next without giving any of them a chance of working.
I still buy too many info products but I am getting a lot better and only buy something if I know we will have the time to implement it.
Your answer spark my interest. So that would be product reviews in one niche?
“6. And finally my response to the question was that if I were starting out again I would create only one website instead of many and would create 5 really good product reviews for that site using Amazon products. I would then spend 80% working on getting traffic and backlinks to those 5 pages and the other 20% of my time writing informational type articles to add to the site. That’s all I would do. Nice and simple and this is the one method that I know absolutely works.”
Not necessarily products in the one niche. They could be a variety of different products. We have niche websites and also one generic website that covers a whole range of products.
For instance one on all birthday gifts and smaller niche sites for dads, moms, brothers, sisters…etc. What that be what you’re suggesting?
Either will work Joseph. The thing is not to worry too much about the site structure but to get something started and get those product review pages up and working for you.
Our websites are completely on diverse subjects that don’t relate in any way to each other.
Hi Paula,
We are in the very same situation here. Every time I looked back at the path I have taken, I always wish I could start again so I could apply my knowledge right now right from the beginning. But, life still moves on, I can’t regret for something that already happened.
Nice post btw :) I think it’s really helpful for new bloggers.
Exactly right Mike. There are so many things that we would change with hindsight. The one thing I love about this business is that everything we do is a learning experience and none of it is wasted.
Paula,
Great post. You and I are on the same page as it relates to your response. Although I am using the Amazonian Profit Plan, I am going in another direction. I’ve been spinning my wheels and I am frankly tired. I’ve laying out the process to do exactly what you stated in your response. But I an using Xsitepro.
I’ve come to realize, you can be very profitable with one site and one site only. My plan is to write great, keyword optimized content related to the products and focus on getting HIGH QUALITY backlinks to those articles on the site. That, to me is much more productive than doing forum/blog commenting, submitting articles to directories,etc…..
After your website articles get ranking and become seasoned, they’ll start to pull in traffic from keywords that you did not even target.
Exactly Ron. On some of our stronger sites we rank for keywords that we didn’t even actively try to backlink for. The stronger your site becomes, the easier it is to rank for keywords.
I love #6 on your list.
In a previous life, I was a practicing mechanical engineer. As such, I had the typical engineer’s love/hate relationship with simplicity.
As an ideal, we worshiped simplicity and elegance of design. In practice, we loved to keep adding features and making things more complex because we could.
I can certainly appreciate your comment. I am a dyed in the wool tinkerer so I really have to apply a great deal of discipline to staying on track and keeping things simple.
I think this is a great list– in fact I am e-mailing it to myself now! I especially agree with the importance of a plan. It is so easy to lose focus or fall behind with affiliate sites. Even something as simple as a checklist is helpful for staying on track.
A plan is vital. We plan quite a lot…actually maybe too much sometimes but it just helps keep us focused.
I this post is so timely, just yesterday I was asking myself the same question (part of my quest to continue optimizing my productivity), anyway I’d probably only add one thing to you list:
Map out a content strategy…I’d suggest finding about 100-120 topically relevant keywordsamd basically create headlines out of them and turn them into tutorials and top lists that way you’ll always have something to write about, something to link to and something to establish credibility which help you pull off everything else on the list a little easier.
Just my 2 cents.
That’s a good one TJ. I think a lot of people have a haphazard approach to generating content so setting a goal in this respect is definitely worthwhile.
I read through many posts in this blog, and the quality and level of information is wonderful. I have much (theoretical-but never took the first step) experience in autoblogging. I am into php and html and get hung up on too many technical details to get into marketing. I know how to do niche marketing research, but I’m still skeptical.
From what I understand now is that even with the best efforts these techniques don’t work anymore. Google is ignoring non authority sites and pushing them further down in the ranking. This is keeping me from pursuing anything further with product review blogging. Is this true?
Thanks
We have authority sites that rank on the first page of Google for various keywords so we haven’t experienced this.
Google wants to see good quality content and a lot of blogs are full of automated poor quality content. This just doesn’t work. Provide value and you will rank well in Google.
Paula,
Thanks for your reply. So in other words content is always king, no matter how old or young the site is. This seems like a sustainable niche. I’m subscribing to your email list!
The only thing that truly stops you is if you don’t do it. I make a small full time living from one site. That site does not rank for it’s main keyword because I am up against the big medical and government sites. But I have lots of pages and get found for thousands of other keywords.
You sound as if you have the knowledge to do this. So do it! You might just surprise yourself.
Thanks for the encouragement. I think it is just a matter of taking a serious first step. I have a few hundred pages of notes in front of me from various forums and resources. I also love technology and products, I can see myself writing these reviews. I believe I have what it takes to proceed.
Honestly, a few years ago I created a blogger blog with about 5 products. They were original reviews about products from a hardware store (not an affiliate- think screwdrivers and wrenches), put adsense with statcounter and I only got a handful of hits(even to this day). I never made a penny. Maybe that experience gave me a bad taste, even though I know I did no planning or any type of SEO.
That may be my problem in life, fear of failure – so I never take any real risks(like actually buying the domain)! Maybe its time to turn over a new leaf.
Also, would you consider throwing a few CPA affiliate offers on your blogs? Or that would distract people from the Amazon target. I’m thinking if they change their mind about the product you are giving them another avenue.
We don’t like to provide too many distractions on our Amazon review pages so we will only provide links through to Amazon only.
Hmmm, law of attraction in action here, I think. I was just thinking about all this last night and actually jotted a few notes about it. And, I’m not even sure how I ended up here — following threads from one thing to another, I’m sure. :-)
Thanks for the great info! I am subscribing to your newsletter.
Great post! I did want to add one more thing to your list, though. If I had it to do over again the one thing that I would do is TAKE ACTION SOONER!
Like lots of people, I spent an inordinate amount of time studying how other people made money, but not near enough time taking the action necessary to make my own business work. While I won’t say that it was wasted time, because I learned a lot, I will say that I should have spent more time doing and less time learning how to do. The only way to actually succeed in this business is to get your feet wet and just do something! Even the failures put you one step closer to finding what works for you.
Keep up the good work, Ladies. I only subscribe to two blogs, and yours is definitely at the top of my list.
Never a truer word spoken Tammie. I think we all suffer a bit from the fear of failure factor, so we read and re-read how others are doing it to make sure we are going to do it right. You are so right, in the end the results only come once you take action.
Devils advocate has to ask, doing what you do…a handful or less of sites, and using Amazon almost exclusively, aren’t you essentially putting, at the very least, a very big chunk of your eggs in one basket?
Yes, that is why we don’t only focus on Amazon. We have other methods also making us money now.
I just realized, this is a reprint. Did you send it through the feed again on purpose?
I noticed new comments on this post and wondered why so I guess that is the reason. Not sure why it went through the feed again.
Hi Paula and Wanda
It’s taken me a long time to get to a place where I am now clear on what to focus on and have actually put all other ideas aside (at least for the time being). I want to see results from what I am doing now before even thinking of moving on to something else.
Often as real internet newbies you don’t even know what types of opportunities are out there and then there are so many you get overwhelmed.
I think it takes time to figure out what goes with what and then find an area that you want to focus on.
I didn’t have a clue about any of it when I first started. To make matters worse I dove right into the deep end by having my first experience of internet marketing attending Ken McCarthy’s ‘System Seminar’ in Chicago. I think Ken is one of the best but talk about overwhelm. The experience was great but most of it went right over my head and I thought you had to do all of it not pick one area.
I would say starting out,keep things simple and take it one step at a time. Also be careful what you invest in so much of it your don’t need or you forget you even got it by the time you do need it. I signed up for Aweber way too soon and have ended paying way more out than I needed to. It’s only now that it is going to be of use to me.
Thanks again for the post.
It’s so hard for someone starting out to keep things simple but that is the best advice anyone could have. I think we all go through the process of buying one thing after another in the hope that the next thing will work. We tend to look for the easy way out but it just doesn’t happen with internet marketing. That’s why so many people get disillusioned with it all and eventually give up.
I came from a real estate investing background and like IM, we would suffer from information overload if we followed every guru. When I turned to IM (darn slow real estate industry!!!), I didn’t realize it would be the same thing. Everyone selling information products. So, I got one ebook after another followed by one course after another. Got to the point where I was frozen in my tracks because I didn’t know whether to concentrate on Adsense, CPA, Clickbank, Commission Junction, Amazon, email lists, html, WordPress, SBI, YouTube, cell phones, blackhat, greyhat, whitehat, etc… I was so confused.
So I unsubscribed from just about every last guru and followed one system. His course received good reviews so I decided to go with him. Wouldn’t you know it that every day, if not twice a day I get emails from him promoting someone else’s ebook, course, system, because it is a “secret”, “underground”, “soon to expire”, “the best ever”, “fully automated”, “traffic sucking system”, “shhh don’t tell anyone”, “available only to my best subscribers”.
Funny thing is that along the way I learned that you could go to a JV site and figure out exactly what he was going to promote next. Yet, when I email him about his product I never get an answer because he hides behind some autoresponder. So, moral of the story is that I wish there were some site out there that would truthfully give reviews on products and the writers of those products. Because I’ve gone through more than a few that have sucked eggs, yet every guru promotes it along with their bonuses because they can make an affiliate commission.
Ok…. off my soapbox.
Paul’s latest blog.. Get In Shape With An Indoor Bicycle Trainer.
You are going to get that with any email list you sign up to Paul. That is ultimately the whole point of having a list.
Our philosophy with our email list is that we don’t promote often and when we do, it is only for products we actually use ourselves. Plus we not only have had to use it but also recommend it. We don’t want to recommend products just because we are going to get a commission from it – we just don’t want to go in that direction because it just doesn’t feel right for us to do that.
Great find. That question really got me thinking. I might do a few things differently but I’m satisfied with how I’ve done things when I started. It pretty much worked out well for me.
I can just imagine how many people don’t have an email list to lean on to, it’s really an important thing to have and we have to build it as we go on.
It’s true. Some people just jump into things without even second guessing it, and just going with their instincts which can be admirable at times but most of the time it won’t end well for them.