13 responses so far ↓

• Barry // May 21, 2008 at 5:03 pm

  You’ve identified five of the best people in the IM game: Grizz, Vic, Courtney, Teli and Frank. They aren’t out to sell you the latest/greatest sure thing. Remember this.

  While you’re taking your break, read Grizzley’s site from start to finish. It’ll take you a few hours. Once you’ve done that you’ll be in a lot better position to decide how to proceed.

  Then, take a refresher course in what Courtney and Frank work on and put it in context with Vic and blogging. Forget about all the programs, gurus, sure-fire things and all that other garbage. That guy who was plugging the SEO system the other day is an example of what you should avoid. SEO is dead easy and available for free, as is a lot of the guru stuff. The gurus will tie you in knots with the minutia but ignore the overview.

  You’ve got Teli’s WP material, use that to do the WP stuff.

  With these five sources you should have everything you need to make a go of it for free or darn near.

  I think Grizzley is correct when he says that Web2.0 is lovely for socializing, but death on making money. That says a lot about lenses, squidoo, Youtube, facebook, hubpages, etc.

  Barry

• John Matenkosky // May 21, 2008 at 8:00 pm

  Here’s the picture I have of you, splork…

  You have a job, but you really don’t want to work for somebody else. You have a family, but you feel you aren’t spending enough quality time there.

  Your solution to both issues is to quickly become an IM success to make the issues dissolve, leaving you time and money galore. Pretty slick, and certainly a noble ambition.

  But hark! How doth one become an IM success? Well, one findeth the right path.

  Gadzooks! Look yonder at the great multitude of paths! And the potholes! And the detours! And the boulders! Which path is the right one?

  Verily, let us proceed simultaneously in all directions…

  How am I doing so far?

  Guess what: thousands of other people are just like you. They see what you see and they feel what you feel, including occasional despair.

  Guess what again: not everybody is cut out to be a successful internet marketer.

  Among the myriad of possibilities I could offer for you is this. Quit IM for now. At work, hunker down, work seventy minutes for every hour’s pay, and improve yourself, i.e. make yourself more valuable to your boss so you can get promoted and make more money.

  Outside of work, if you really are a writer, prove it. Use your talent to produce the Great American Ebook. Then, and only then, reenter IM and set up your own affiliate program to sell that ebook. And, like they say, rinse and repeat.

  Any questions?

• Splork // May 21, 2008 at 8:06 pm

  You’re dead on Barry. I used to do what you said to do when I was building websites a couple of months back. I’d do a step or two and then go to Courtney or Griz’s site and make sure I was following the plan.

  I got off track with all these different little side projects. I don’t have time for side projects. I’ve got to get back on track and get focused again.

• Splork // May 21, 2008 at 9:16 pm

  I have no illusions of being a successful IM: if success is defined as full-time. I have zero interest in writing an ebook. I have very little to offer in that endevour.

  I take on too many projects. I just have to gain perspective and refocus my efforts.

  Despite my failures and frustrations I still make a second income each month that pays the IM bill and allows me to have play money. I won’t be quitting any time soon.

  I need to ID the successes and duplicate it without getting sidetracked by other “systems” that promise more.

  I get bored and curious and stupid. This was a cathartic post. A rebalance. I’ll get it back on track.

• Dinheiro // May 21, 2008 at 9:29 pm

  Attention, my comment will be almost a post

  Splork, you need to make a plan for every site you make. The basic it’s what you know now: research the keyword you want to target (and that’s really the most important thing), create the site, create the backlinks, update the site 4 times a month at least.

  Now, the problem it’s to have a sub-plan to every step of your basic plan, but it’s not difficult. What i discovered recently is that most of us fail because we don’t research well the keywords and competition.

  Let’s see one example, imagine that you know much about ipod 80gb leather case. It’s a long tail keyword, with a good ammount of daily searchs. and “only” 246.000 results at google, which is good. The problem when we do a research like this it’s the first 5 sites that appear in the results. Let’s face it, for a good ranking we need allways the position 1 or 2 . So with this we need to search how many backlinks have the sites that are in the first 3 positions. We need also to see each of that backlink how much it’s the PR. With this information we can now see if it’s easy to beat that competition or not. I never try to beat sites with thousands of hundreds of backlinks, specially if most of that backlinks are PR2+ .

  With this information you can choose the right website to make, and you must do it, but do a website that YOU have proud on it. Do it like a PRO, do it like if your job is making astonishing websites with superb content. Do this with 10 articles/posts. Now you have a new website/blog. It’s time for the backlinks.

  The backlinks. Web 2.0 is really powerful, we just need to discover how to use it wisely. Begin by creating a squido lens for each of your 10 posts (10 squidoo lenses). In that squidoo lenses, monetize each one (you’ll get residual income with time). You now have 10 backlinks, 1 for each post. Now put your BMD running and create backlinks for your squidoo lenses. Now go to the major web 2.0 services (and there are a lot of them, like delicious, clipmarks, favs, and many others that i don’t need to tell) and bookmark all your squidoo lenses (remember to mix with other sites). At this time you’ll have 20 to 30 backlinks for each lens, and some with good pr. Now go to digg and propeller, add the squidoo lenses to there.

  let’s resume what we did until here: 1 website with 10 pages, 10 squidoo lenses, BMD bookmarks, Major web 2.0 bookmarking sites. The linking scheme will be:
  Bookmarking sites -> squidoo -> website

  Now, go to blogs and leave some comments, put in some the link of your website and in other a random link of your groups of lenses.

  Now create 3 hubpages, then run BMD for bookmarking the hubpages and then add the hubpages to the major web 2.0 services also. Add the rss feed of each squidoo lens to the hubpages.

  You know have:
  Bookmarking sites -> squidoo -> website
  Bookmarking sites -> Hubpages -> squidoo ->website

  Your squidoo lenses are now POWERFUL backlinks and will gain rankings.

  That’s it, your job are done. Know keep adding new posts, 1 every week, and when you put a new post, repeat all this process of backlinking to that new post.

  This is for keywords that have a maximum of 5.000 searchs by month.

  For other keywords that have more than that, you need to do the same, plus this:
  - Go to directories (there are free programs for that), and add your website.
  - Create some personal blogs at blogger and wordpress. You don’t need nothing special for that blogs, just personal, with posts like “oh boy the weather today was so rainny, and i didn’t bring my umbrella to the work”. With this blogs you’ll put links to your website (monetize this blogs with ebay editor kit). Get links to this blogs with trackbacks.
  - Go to free hosting sites (like freehostia.com), and create mini-sites with you XSitePro. Pick PLR articles run a sinonymizer in them, and create the mini-site. Use this mini-sites to link to the squidoo lenses. Monetize this minisites with ebay rss feed, and with amazon widgets.
  - Go to yahoo answers and answer questions where you can leave the link to your website.

  Now the most important part, you need to do this in your head automated. Allways with a focus and withou failing a day (you can leave weekends for rest and fun). If you do this, you’ll have results, and with time your brain will be automated to this.

  This is what i do, and i’m beginning to see interesting results. Sometimes, if you want to do this in just 4 or 5 sites (i know this is too low, but you should target quality and quantity of posts, not quantity of sites) you need a partner. I’ve a partner, a good and quicker writer, and i’m the builder, the technitian and the seo guy.

  Write your daily plan, it’s very important, for example:
  Day 3
  - create post about chickens
  - create a squidoo lens about chickens post
  - create bmd links for the chickens lens
  - create bookmarks for the chickens lens

  A plan, allways a plan, and stick with it. This is the most difficult part for almost everyone, because of the lack of focus.

• zania // May 22, 2008 at 1:49 am

  Hi again Splork,
  you sound just like me. Loads of projects started and then you find something else and off you go… without finishing the others.
  Been there, doing that right now.
  And it’s exhausting!
  I actually think you could write a good ebook that people would read. But not right now.

  You need to stand back and take a rest!
  (or am I talking to myself here…?)

• Splork // May 22, 2008 at 7:45 am

  That’s good stuff Dinheiro. Thanks for writing that up. There is some very good information in there. The thing is that is what I’ve been doing, sort of. Basically. I mean I have been trying to link lens and hubpages down into my main sites. It’s just exhausting. I do like the idea of creating mini-sites with XSP at free hosting sites. I’m going to look into that.

• Frank C // May 22, 2008 at 8:07 am

  Great post, er, comment there Dinheiro. That’s very close to what I do. I haven’t done much with hubpages but I use some free blogs and static mini-sites almost the same way.

  I’ve been thinking about writing an organizer program that will help keep track of these kinds of projects. I have some spreadsheets and scripts I’ve done in Excel that I use now but I’d have to re-write it into an actual application that other people can use.

  Overall, I try to work my Internet Marketing just like I do my software projects, incrementally in cycles.

• Dinheiro // May 22, 2008 at 12:36 pm

  Thanks splork and frank. What i use for my own control of things (and we need a lot of control or we loose the track of things) it’s a very big excell file. I’ve in that file many spreadsheets, and each one it’s a category, for example: “animals & nature”, “Business”, “Shopping”, etc. etc. Then in each spreadsheet i’ve the list of money sites and everything related to each one. With this i can track everything, i know the last date i made on update, i know where my mini-sites, lens, etc. are, i know the passwords for everything. Totally full control!!

  That excell file was made in 5 days, it was a bit difficult, but something that know i say “glad i could make it”. With this file i totally control everything. I’ve the file also at my PDA, that way i can use and track everything if i go away from my computer.

• Splork // May 22, 2008 at 12:46 pm

  I’m doing the same thing with Google Docs. I’m keeping track of the keyword phrases to anchor link, to-do list, BMD accounts, lens, hubpages, etc. It’s a big help.

• Desty // May 23, 2008 at 8:36 am

  Good site here

  I’m running into similar issues. I have about 20 or so BANS / eBay affiliate sites setup. Some are making money, some aren’t. Some aren’t even indexed, even though the Google Bot comes by almost on a daily basis.

  I was working and working on the BANS when I thought about something Vic said. Diversify. I only have 2 money making Adsense sites up, and they don’t bring in much, so I created 2 more Adsense sites. My problem with Adsense is that to make that content, I have to be interested in the topic, otherwise it’s another dead blog.

  I’m also caught up in the BMD / Vista problem, so my bookmarking as gone to zero

  I’ve been focusing on getting one way links from related sites and one way links from directories. I lose alot of time on this, but hopefully will pay off in the end.

  This last week I made the mistake and found a site where I can watch all the new Doctor Who episodes, so my actual work has gone down to zero I’m guessing that I needed a break.

• Splork // May 23, 2008 at 11:44 am

  Thanks for reading Desty.
  I have the same problem with Adsense sites too but it is a problem I am trying to overcome.
  The majority of my BANS sites are still not indexed. Maybe it’s because it’s a new domain. Maybe it’s because they use .info. But I do know that my StoreStacker sites are all indexed. But they are hanging off a main domain, so I’m sure that has a lot to do with it and not just because it is not a BANS site.
  This whole BANS and .info experiment is one that I wish I had spent the $125 (BANS-25 .info domains) on 10 or 11 .com’s instead. Maybe in a few months it will start working out. I’ll will continue getting links and hope for the best.

• Michael // Jun 9, 2008 at 12:10 pm

  Same boat, here. With the addition that I do this full time, and my income from the net is only about $2000 per month from over 100 sites.

  Bored with content, and SEO, bored with article submissions, backlinks, etc.

  And really frustrated with all the launches. Love the adrenaline rush, then getted depressed when I finally decide NOT to buy the new whiz bang product…. knowing that I have to go back to my same old methods and sites.

  My plan is to try PPC for a while. If 99% of people fail at it, then maybe I will be in the 1% group?!

  Good luck in your refocusing.

Leave a Comment