I bought Affilorama Blueprint. Why in your God’s name did I do such a thing? Well, for one I like to support people that help me. Mark Ling has gone out of his way to give me a boost on more than one occasion. If I spent more time listening to him instead of getting sidetracked and going off on my many tangents I’d probably be in better shape. That said, my tangent of setting up datafeed blogs, Ebay/Blogger and StoreStacker sites netted me about $500 in affiliate sales over the Thanksgiving weekend so it’s not a total shitcake. I know it’s not like you guys making 5 figures a day, but it’s real and it’s mine.
As most of my 11 readers know, I am a negative bastard. I hardly have anything good to say about much in IM. I don’t even bother buying much anymore as I won’t bother to cut through the hype. Oh I hear about it alright. The product forum groupies let me know real quick how wrong I am. That’s fine. I’d probably say the same thing to you about PLRPro or Affilorama. I’ve been with those groups since 2006. Anyway, I have good things to say about AffiloBlueprint.
You can’t join AffiloBlueprint. It’s closed. That’s the reason why I’m writing about it today. I want to write about it without the spectre of people thinking I’m just posting for an affiliate commission. Yea, that’s pretty stupid. But at least you can’t say I’m full of shit and am making this stuff up to pad my Clickbank account.
AffiloBlueprint cost me $297. 297 Washingtons that I really didn’t want to part with. If I’m so bright at this game, then why did I need a course like this? Well, I’m not bright. I need a blueprint. I was intrigued by a guy who had the balls to create a site and let you follow his exact blueprint from keyword choice to newsletter creation and everything in between. I wanted to be able to follow a plan that would hand me an unambiguous method for success. He shows me to do this, then I do this. I feel like I do OK in this business. But I obviously flounder around. I feel like maybe the money I make is a fluke. I doubt I could teach any one of you how I make money. It is so damn scattered.
The course is a rehash. I guess a couple months ago Mark had customers that paid for his personal coaching. He recorded everything and is now reselling it. Your coach is Mark via video and notes. He’s not live. I don’t have a problem with that. He’s also set up a forum that, based on the first week, is fairly lively and has good communication with some of his people, if not Mark himself. So basically if you have a question, there should be no problem in getting it answered.
There are 12 weeks of video instruction. There are also quite a few bonus items like interviews and advanced methods. Mark told me in an email that he hopes to keep adding to the course with more videos and audio content. He already created a new video to cover the newest version of Traffic Travis, which by the way is a fantastic piece of software. Don’t be discouraged by the name. It really is useful.
Last weekend I started through the training. I got through the first 4 videos (Weeks 1-4) in a day. I picked my niche out, got a domain purchased and researched the keywords I was going to target (keyword research is huge part of this course, one which Mark goes over again and again). By the end of the week (this past weekend), I had my site built with 30 newly written articles, I was indexed in Google and I had promoted the site with an article through AMA. I wrote a review article today that will be added to the site. The next step for this week is to get my mini-course written. This is new territory for me as I’ve never wanted to collect emails, but dammit, I’m pushing forward like the course says to do. The only thing that I won’t do, and it is discussed in the course, is I will not be creating a newsletter. I just think the niche is too thin. I’ve got three other niches already planned that I will create newsletters for. The course explains proper times to use newsletters.
So right now I haven’t made a dime from implementing what I’ve learned from the course. I’ve had it for 10 days or so and am following along with the videos. Of course I haven’t monetized the thing either so I’ll need to go through and add my product links. I’ve got to get my mini-course up before I do any more link building though. I think it’s fine to be indexed in Google at this point but I’m a little ahead of the videos as I need to be at the point I can present the visitors with the soft-sell mini-course. In other words, I want the mini-course up before I start getting visitors to the site. The hammer is definitely in front of the nail at this point.
In one week I’m basically at Week 7 in a 12 week course for a single site. The course has given me ideas for a few other sites that I hope to get pushed out in the next couple of weeks. I’ve go a lot of work to do. I decided that once I make back my “investment” in the course that I would plow the proceeds back into my site building activities and start outsourcing article writing for these niche sites. Me writing all this shit has to go.
I like AffiloBlueprint. I like where it has directed me so far. I have to stay focused on the task at hand and prove this will work. Once I do I’ll be confident enough to keep rolling with it. And that is part of the issue with all my work. I just don’t have confidence enough in any one thing that I do. That and I tend to bore easily.
There is nothing in this course that I haven’t seen or read or been told to do. But it’s one thing to have all the pieces in a pile; quite another to create something useful out of them. It’s typically easier with directions.
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
I couldn’t agree more with your comments about AffiloBlueprint.
I love the format, I love the pacing and I love the fact that Mark’s site ended up making $1,000 per week and he actually shows the stats.
I built my first site as well, but I’m waiting on my articles (which I outsourced).
Keep us updated.
Chris
Very interesting review…
Something tells me you probably know most of the stuff inside the Affilorama Blueprint already.
I think not building a list might be a mistake. If the niche just won’t accommodate a list then you should probably dump it.
It seems like more now than ever online competition is increasingly becoming like the offline world. It’s no longer profitable to throw everything at the wall and wait to see what sticks.
It takes a solid business plan and dominating a wide niche market. This way you can splinter out related niche sites and products while growing a big list.
Definitely keep us posted on the results from your new affiliate site.
Yea, if you are going to go after Affilate programs and want uber success, and not just random purchases, then you pretty much are strapped to a list.
As long as you can create a newsletter or an email series or give something away for free, you should be able to create a decent list.
I think it’s very difficult to be successful with affiliate programs without lists. It’s doable as I sell Ebay, Amazon, Shareasale and CJ products without a list via stores, widgets and datafeeds. On the other hand I have very little success with Crapbank and IM products because I do not do pimp a list.
Of course you can do just fine with Adsense without a list, which has it’s own unique challenges.
Hi Splork,
A very refreshing and nice blog..
I am trying to get into IM and have already spent a lot on the tools and have already gotten wary of some of them even before I have gone very far..
I am not such a good writer as you are and have tough time writing /re-writing articles. Do you have any tips on unique article writing/generation for the niches? If I made money, I would outsource them but since I am starting, I would have to figure out how to get them out cheaply(money and time)..
Thanks,
Kiran
Hey Kiran. Writing sucks. But the more you do it the easier it gets.
If you are rewriting…take each sentence separately and reword it. Try not to look at the article as a whole article you have to rewrite. Look at it as 15 or 16 individual sentences that you simply have to reword.
Go through and begin by changing words.
Over time the bullshit will flow easier.
Hey Splork,
I got the AffiloBlueprint as well. Already made my first sale ($33.81) after less than 2 weeks.
I only have one site, but I like to do ONE thing at a time.
The blueprint is awesome. Mark is one of the best Internet marketer on the Internet (totally under the radar because of his numerous pen name).
Most clickbank affiliates don’t know him, but they promote his stuff.
I’m going to build many of this affiloblueprint sites.
Franck
Nice no fluff, no BS review. How are you doing 4 months later? I assume you know it’s relaunched and your site shows up on the first page of results on a Google search for AffiloBlueprint so an update would be great – and I am sure nobody would complain if you sneaked your affiliate link in there – you seem more honest than all the hype artists pushing this thing anyway!
Yea, I’ve been checking it out the last couple of days. Technically it hasn’t changed much from version 1. What has happened is that they have redone the videos and the notes. It’s in much easier bites. The “course” is spread out longer. I still like it. If you want to flog Adsense then it’s not for you. If you want to make money with (Clickbank mostly) affiliate products then there isn’t a better and more organized course to be involved with.
Frankly I get bored. This is work. Creating a Griz/Court Adsense site is much easier than this. It’s best to try to outsource as much as you can. Particularly the articles. I haven’t done that yet but intend to…sigh
I haven’t built an Affilorama site in over a month. Those that I did I mashed PLRPro articles into those sites if possible. It all depends on Affiliate programs.
I’m still not rich. A couple have completely bombed. I intend to go back through the lessons and do a better job of keyword research and write some more pages.
For those that have used Court’s Keyword report to find keywords will find keyword research the “Affilo-way” to be very different. Both work. Both take a lot of time. I’ve got to let go, stop being cheap and outsource.
Thanks, that’s very helpful.
The focus on Clickbank products was one of the aspects I didn’t like – there is so much crap on there. Highly misleading at best and some cases little more than a scam. Not just the ‘get rich quick’ and ‘internet guru’ stuff, but water for gas, build solar panels for $200, satellitetv to pc etc etc….. Plus lots of poorly written (outsourced) ebooks written by someone with no knowledge of the subject just doing some Google searches and rewording what they find.
I already have ‘Affiliate Extreme’ by Mark Ling and will probably just stick with that. Will take a look at the keyword thing you posted about (with the $1 trial then $33 monthly). You still a member there?
Otherwise will stick with the standard research keywords, create sites, keep adding content + some affiliate links and adsense in the mix. Rinse and repeat. Boring as hell, but it works most of the time.
I am still a member of The Keyword Academy. Not sure what I’m going to do as far as membership. I recommend trying it out and get a feel for it. It’s only a $1.
As far as AffiloBP using Crapbank products. I too think that most of the stuff offered there is garbage. I understand your feelings on the products and offering it up to your site visitors. However, morals aside, people buy that stuff. No matter what I personally feel about the crap there are people that buy Crapbank products and must be quite happy. I’d rather try to capture that money. It’s going to be spent anyway. I’m just offering a choice. Click or don’t.
The focus on AffiloBP is on Crapbank because it’s the easiest way to make money with this technique. There is absolutely no reason you can’t use the same principles and sell shitola from CJ, Shareasale and other affiliate programs.
so…anyone know when Ling’s going to be offering his program again…or how much it costs?
What is the relationship between the Premium Affilorama membership and the AffiloBlueprint?
Most importantly…once you spring for the blueprint, is it in there…or is it just a leader to the info I’m after…for more money?
As a side question…anyone know how his program stacks up to SiteBuildIt?
Thaksaroonie
Affilorama is free. I’d wait on the Premium. He’s still building it out. It should be useful at some point. I’m a member since I’ve been a day 1 member of Affilorama since back in the day. It has very little to do with AffiloBlueprint. Though the tools you get and some of the lessons will help you do better with AB.
You buy AB, that’s all you need/get. I haven’t noticed getting pitched for Premium. You do not get Premium for being a member of AB.
AB and Affilorama teaches you how to build an affiliate site. SBI is site a builder. There is little comparison between the two.
Hey Splork,
Now, anyone who buy affiloblueprint have a free trial subscription to premium.
As for the premium, now it’s way more than a newsletter with many tools to help newbies.
Just thought you’d like to know.
Take care,
Franck
the Body Guard marketer