This post is my attempt at helping. There are quite a few people who read Lost Ball trying to get nuggets of information which will improve their success at making something of their online business. I know this business is hard. It can be massively frustrating. We all read the sales copies about this guy making 5 figures a month with Adsense or making 10K a month with affiliate marketing. Then we log in to our Adsense account and wonder why the hell we can’t seem to make over a dollar day with our 10,15,20 PLR blog/websites. What a freaking disappointment!
So how do we succeed then? We hear from our favorite guberus that say we have to build tons of sites, just fling as much junk as we can across the web and see what stuck where. Build the spammy blogs. Fill them with junk. Point them back to your money sites. Spin articles. Buy domains. Social bookmark. Trade links. Submit articles. Holy crap! I don’t know about you but I don’t have that kind of time or money. It’s too much.
I know I’ve chased all kinds of memberships, bought tons of software programs and purchased ebooks that were supposed to lead the way to riches. I can honestly say that there have been but a handful of programs and ebooks that have made any difference in me making money. Here is the list:
Wordpress
XSitePro
RSS2B3 - I’m not on board with RSS2B4 yet but it is way more powerful than ver 3.
The Master Plan
Optiniche
Datafeed Import Script
Affilorama
PLRPro
InfoGoRound - Tons of PLR content. I write one article a month, submit it and get it approved and my membership is free for the month. No brainer if there ever was one.
Pretty small group huh?
I’m not really into making this business any more difficult than it has to be. Granted I don’t make a ton of money but here is my recipe:
I most always use subdomains.
I mostly use blogs although I still use XSP for certain projects and for building quick affiliate sales pages.
Let’s say I decide to build a niche blog using PLRPro articles. They provide 11 niches a month. I do not use all of them. I pick a couple and get to work. I have 40 articles per niche to use. I re-write 2 or 3 and submit to EzineArticles and Go Articles. The rest I may pick apart and post say 200 words from one on one day and a few days later post 300 words from another article. Other days I’ll post the whole article. I may use Orwell Pro and grab an article already written and use a PLR article as an intro and ending for a borrowed article. Always keeping the blog alive and not predictable.
To get traffic I submit my blog to blog directories. I submit my feed using a crappy feed submitter I bought. I go to forums and post comments and use my blog URL in the signature. I’m not super aggressive but over time I notice it starts to build and assuming the keyword phrases are half decent (I rely on PLRPro for that) then they start making their way into the search engines. I’ve started using MySpace to promote my blogs and websites by building profiles, adding friends with SpaceStation and posting comments with my URL. Also utilizing the blog within MySpace to post a few sentences about the topic and having a link back to my blog. I haven’t really noticed much in the way of a difference using MySpace for that yet. But oddly it’s pretty damn fun.
I make sure that I choose tags/categories wisely. I think that matters a lot for Technorati. I actually get a few visitors through Technorati and Stumbleupon on most of my bogs after a couple of weeks. I have a few Squidoo lens that I link to and from. Lastly, I add my feeds to Yahoo, Google and MSN.
That’s about as far as I go. I would do well to continue to trade links and keep building the site. I get bored and sooner rather later the blog ends up going unloved after a couple months.
Additionally, I also use the Wordpress Datafeed Import Script from Teli at Optiniche to build affiliate sites populated with products. It’s such a great program. I make a sale or two each month on every blog I build those on. The commissions sometimes amount to a few dollars but it all adds up. I should really knuckle down and build the crap out of those sites.
I could be more successful, I think, if I sucked it up and created 1000s of spam blogs with questionable content and linked back to my sites. I’m sure this stuff works. I’m just not inclined.
Lately I’ve been writing more personal blogs like Lost Ball. I enjoy it more. I would love to write blogs like Daily Blog Tips, LifeHacker or ProBlogger. Awesome stuff.
So to sum up, I think the product and ebook gurus have made this stuff way more difficult than it needs to be. Tons of people are writing in confused about buying this product or that ebook. You can do fine by simply building a blog, posting good readable content and doing normal things to drive traffic to your site like swapping links and submitting articles to the directories. Boring? You bet. Will it work? Oh yea. Hope this helps.
9 responses so far ↓
TranceMaker // Mar 10, 2007 at 12:22 am
This year I have discovered a few things, too. Yes, it seems as if things do appear to be “more difficult” than they are.
At Rich Schefren’s seminar in February, I met “X” from the Adwords BlackBook DVD’s and we talked about my affiliate site that wasn’t making a penny.
He looked at the site and told me I was “very close” and he helped me tweak it a bit.
Another person, a copywriter, gave me a few pointers, too.
After getting home, I fixed the page, uploaded it and…
… in just two hours I made a few sales!
I am learning how to do this business the right way and one of the things we need is FOCUS.
By the way, Rich Schefren has a free video that’s been going around about momentum. It pitches nothing so there’s no reason not to view it.
It’s totally amazing.
I just viewed it this morning and it’s exactly what most people need to get moving. The link is here:
http://www.strategicprofits.com/momentumvideo/play/
There’s no affiliate link or squeeze page. I get nothing from this. It’s a video about what is holding you (the reader) back. I promise you, this is worth watching.
Bryan
Kevin // Mar 10, 2007 at 3:21 am
“I know this business is hard. It can be massively frustrating. We all read the sales copies about this guy making 5 figures a month with Adsense or making 10K a month with affiliate marketing. Then we log in to our Adsense account and wonder why the hell we can’t seem to make over a dollar day with our 10,15,20 PLR blog/websites. What a freaking disappointment!”
Well, the reason why is pretty simple. Here it is, in your own words:
“I don’t know about you but I don’t have that kind of time or money. It’s too much.”
Interpretation: you just aren’t interested in doing what it takes to make money. End of story. Don’t blame the “gurus”, blame yourself. Many of them give you the recipe, you just don’t like it. Instead, you want a non-existent, magical, no-work-required solution, and you blame them for not being able to give it to you.
And here’s the real kicker: you believe those who ARE making big cash online are the clueless ones about making money online, while you, who isn’t doing so well, is the one who really knows what it takes, lol.
It’s been said that doing the same thing over and over again, yet expecting different results is one sign of insanity. If you’re earning a dollar a day with 20 sites and you’re still doing the same things over and over, they might be right.
Tim // Mar 10, 2007 at 7:07 am
Hey Splork
Keep up the steady stream of commonsense! On the web, it’s a rarity. It keeps me from spending a ton of money on useless crap from the so called
gurus. If I get any more only 18 left type hurry up and send money pitches, I think I’ll throw this pc out of the **/*^ *) window.
Thanks for a modicum of sanity and the occasional cold water splash.
Tim
Splork // Mar 10, 2007 at 7:57 am
Well Kevin, I couldn’t disagree more with your comment. I’ve never said it was bad to make a ton of money and be a guru. I only said I personally find their methods distasteful.
I’ve never said my methods were something anyone needed to follow. I simply laid them out there so people can see what I’m doing. I hope they can see how someone struggles and move past what I do and make a little money.
I’ve certainly never said anybody was clueless if they were making money. Don’t know where you got that but don’t attribute crap to me that I didn’t write.
I’ve never looked for nor have I thought there was a magic button to riches in this business. I refuse to spend my money on stuff that I know I won’t get much use out of. I spend my money when I want to and not just because some guru happens to pitch the latest thing so his pockets can be lined with my green.
My success in this business is relative anyway. To some it would be pretty good. To others it would be a joke. And if you cared to review my other posts you would have seen that I already know my limitations. I have said time and again that I am a lazy bastard. My success is directly related to how many sites I put up, write articles for and promote.
Oh and BTW I have never said I knew what it takes to make money in this business. I am simply being transparent in divulging what I do online. I also enjoy commenting on the absurd marketing tactics employed by those individuals who make their living getting IMers to buy their stuff.
I don’t particularly care for any recipe other than the tried and true of creating good content and promoting. PLRPro laid out a great blueprint worth following as did Affilorama and The Master Plan. I like and follow the plans when I get around to building stuff.
As far as not being interested in doing what it takes to making money online. That is partially true. I just find it rather boring.
Anyway, thanks for reading.
Marc // Mar 11, 2007 at 7:27 am
Hey Splork,
You have the links for PLRPro merged with infogoround, little ahref problem there so its not working
Also I am very happy to see we have made your list, I know how much of a pain in the ass you are to please (jokes mate, I know you are awesome) we have been working more recently to help people really take advantage of the tools we offer etc.
So obviously its paying off.
Cheers an dkeep it up.
Regards
Marc
Splork // Mar 11, 2007 at 10:25 am
Thanks Marc. Sometimes I can be such a dumbarse.
I am a pain aren’t I?
Franck Silvestre // Mar 11, 2007 at 11:38 am
I will try infogoround. I think I saw this before, but I’ve just forget to get in.
Dorian // Mar 12, 2007 at 4:18 am
This is my first comment. I found this blog about a week ago and enjoy reading your posts.
I think I can get some honest reviews here… and that’s hard to find in the IM field.
I noticed that you are using ContentLink ads from Kontera. How are they working for you? Don’t you need over 500k visitors a month to be accepted?
Thanks and keep up the good work.
Splork // Mar 12, 2007 at 6:44 am
Hey Dorian thanks for reading. Kontera is actually doing quite well for me across a number of my blogs. I’m pleasantly surprised. I was actually accepted by Kontera maybe a year or so ago. I was able to get in by referencing another user. I didn’t use it much and had my account stopped. I tried to log in to the account a few weeks ago, couldn’t, and asked them to allow me access again which they did. Now I have it on almost all my blogs. I like it way more than Adsense. I’m surprised Google doesn’t do this type of ads. They do well and they don’t look crappy like Adsense does. I wish I had been using it all along.
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