Well, this month was pretty uneventful – unfortunately.  I thought I might be promoting some products in my niche outside of internet marketing but came to find out that those products had already been released a couple of years ago — before I got into the niche.  This sucks.  Not only does it mean that the launch didn’t go over well, but a lot of keywords and stuff are already taken up.

When I see products like this, I don’t even bother.  Lots of times when a launch falls flat — even if the product is good — was because the product creator didn’t know how to attract enough affiliates — especially the heavy-hitters in the niche that can draw buzz.  Overall, they just suck at online promotions.  I’ve noticed that some creators think that — just because they might be on t.v. — whatever they create is going to sell with little effort — not true.

Let’s see.  What else happened.  I forgot to cancel a domain name before it renewed — waste of money because the site wasn’t making me any money – hate when I forget to do that.  I’ve also noticed things kind of slowing down in general, so in order to be more proactive, I think I might start doing a case study for Google Sniper 3 next month and choose a niche I’m not already in.

There haven’t been any other good, blogging products to come out in long time.  Newbies seem to like case studies, and having to post my progress pushes me and holds me accountable.  In the end, I will also have a new money-making machine.  It’s a win for newbies struggling with what they should do and a chance for me to bring in more money with a new site – win-win situation.

That’s all for now.  Until next time…

Hey, guys.  I’ll start off this month’s post with some good news.  I got my first payment from my service provider job – really wondering if it’s worth it, though (being a service provider is not for slackers like me – ha).  Around the middle of the month, I learned about a new product in the dating niche that I followed to see where it leads.  Additionally, the traffic to my site shot up literally overnight.

At first I thought it was unexplainable.  Then, I realized that a product creator released a product the day before that happened to have the same name of a product I had already reviewed a long time ago (years).  As a result, I was at the top of the search engines for this one product.  I’ll have to see how long this last before I can determine if it is in fact because of the product launch or if it’s algorithm thing going on with the search engines.

Hopefully, this is an algorithm thing, where I will see the benefits long-tern, which will allow my earnings to go up.  After some more investigation, I figured out that the big jump in traffic is coming to my site from the product launch, so any increase in sales will most likely be temporary — unless the product launch really takes off.

Speaking of which, I’ve got to get on the launch that’s outside of the IM niche (the niche my other smaller sites are in).  I hope this one takes off because it’s been a while since a product has really taken off in this space.  Well, that’s all I’ve got to report.  Until next time…

Hey, guys.  I learned something interesting today.  I got an e-mail from one of my subscribers in which she told me about something that I thought was long gone – traffic exchanges — but with a twist.  When I got started online back in 2008, traffic exchanges were big.  I even tried to use them (before I knew better).

Back-in-the day, the premise of a traffic exchange was to get traffic to your offers.  More specifically, it was a means to get traffic to your sites.  You could just sign up for free, add your site to the network, and get traffic to your site (based on the number of sites you clicked on and checked out yourself).  While this seems like it would be good in theory, here’s why they stopped being used.

All of the people on traffic exchanges were basically marketers — each with the same goal: to get traffic to their sites.  People were not in “buying mode.”  This means that the traffic wasn’t targeted.  If the traffic isn’t targeted, there’s not going to be any money made.  Nowadays, the same idea of traffic exchanges still exist, but now, they actually charge money for this!

The only people making money off of a system like this are the creators, who charge people for ad space within the network and other things.  This is why learning Search Engine Optimization and how to target keywords at the end of the buying cycle — those that indicate someone has already been exposed to it multiple times — is such a big deal.

These people are more than just “tire kickers” and are actually wanting to spend money.  They just to be nudged in the right direction (typically through a review).  Instead of wasting your time with traffic exchanges, I recommend you check out a course like Google Sniper 3, where you learn how to do S.E.O. the right way and learn to generate passive income for years to come.

Until next time…

Since the new year started, I delared that I wanted to get back into Amazon (since a lot of states in the U.S. got un-banned recently).  Once I found this out, I already had an idea of a niche I wanted to go into.  However, once I did the research, I found out that the niche is not as big as I hoped, so if I get into it, it will be for the enjoyment of it — not the money.

Because of this, I’ve decided I’m going to start out by going after the money first (have a list of other things I can do research on that seem to be popular).  After I get one of those up and running, I think I will put up the site in the smaller niche that I like later.  One of the reasons I’m doing this is that, according to what I read in terms of how Amazon pays out, you’ve got to wait for like a month and a half to get paid from sales you make.

I guess this is because it’s physical product stuff, and Amazon doesn’t want to pay out until after the refund period has expired.  This means that when you’re dealing with physical products, you’ve got to have kind of got to hit the ground running because you end up getting fewer deposits (in comparison to a network like Clickbank).  Well, it didn’t happen this month.

However, I did just get the idea of purchasing a WSO from that popular internet marketing forum, from a product creator that is known to be ethical.  The thing is that she usually creates things telling you how to make money during the holidays.  If I choose a good niche, though, I figure it should work year around.  Her stuff is also reasonably-priced and targeted towards newbies.

As of this writing, I’ve decided that I’m going to start there.  Besides this, I didn’t get much done this month — other than testing an an e-mail swipe (usually write my own).  Hopefully, I will have more to report in Feb. and will be getting paid from my “mini joint venture” that I started in like November of 2015.

Until next time…

As the year comes to a close, I’ve been thinking about what I’d like to accomplish.  My overall goal, of course, is to make more money (and help out as many people as I can).  I love how the internet provides opportunities for people that just didn’t exist in years past.  Let me see.  Where to start.  Firstly, I am going to continue working on my first “mini joint venture.”  I like doing it.

Secondly, I am going to continue creating more smaller niche sites in order to promote digital products (outside of the internet marketing niche).  I’ve gotten really good at cranking those out.  For me, the hardest part is deciding what niche market to go into.  I’m just indecisive like that – ha.  I think I am going to aim for putting up at least one new site a month.  For me, the most time-consuming part is going through the products.

Lastly (for now), I am going to get back into promoting tangible products as an affiliate, specifically with Amazon.  Over the holidays, while shopping, I learned that Amazon retracted it’s ban that caused a lot of affiliates in a number of states to be dropped from the product.  I know that in NC, it’s because when have to pay taxes on the stuff we buy from their now – no big deal.  I have a number of ideas for things I want to promote.

I’ve just got to do the research and stuff to make sure they are in profitable markets.  Well, that’s all from this neck-of-the-woods.  Here’s to 2016! 🙂

It’s that time of the month, again.  I have to say that I think more interesting things happened to me this month than in months prior.  For starters, I got contacted by a guy that saw me in what’s probably the most popular internet marketing forum.  He said that he not only liked my blog but liked how I answered peoples’ questions in said forum and approached me with an opportunity.

While I’ve been approached by people before to do various things, I’ve never actually taken people up on it before.  Because of what was involved, I decided it was about time to change all of that, so this was (and is – still working on it) my first little “mini joint venture,” if you will.  I was introduced to an internet marketing forum called Webmaster Sun (free to join, I’m “Miguelito203” on there)  that seems more geared towards newbies.

As the year comes closer to an end, it’s around this time of year that I start making plans for the upcoming year.  I try to take a look ahead and see what kind of promotions people have coming up for the new year and what not.  This can be tricky because nothing is set in stone.  Some people say they are going to launch something but then put it on ice for a number of reasons.  Some things get added at the last minute — so much so that you don’t have time to plan stuff.

I don’t like surprises – LOL!  I just hope that it’s better than 2015 because there weren’t too many quality products to come out in the IM space that I wanted to promote.  2015 seemed to the year of those binary option software products — not I said the cat.  I personally want to see more quality blogging products.  The only two big, quality blogging products out right now are Google Sniper 3 by George Brown (lower cost) and Affiloblueprint 3 by Mark Ling (cost a little more).

From what I can tell so far, everything is pretty much “to be announced.”  I hope this starts to change by the middle of December.  I guess time will tell.

Until next time…

This month was a bit more active for me than the past few.  I learned about a new product that was being launched in the niche I’m in that’s outside of internet marketing.  The only reason I found out about this was because I was subscribed to someone’s list, which just goes to show you the importance of being on leaders’ list in your industry.  I decided to use the Google Sniper Method to build a site to promote it.

Unlike some times in the past, I had a really easy time getting in contact with the product creator, so that I could get access to the product – only took like a day or so.  I was able to go through the course and have something set up by the middle of the month.  As of the time of this writing, this product hasn’t taken off, yet.  That’s okay, though.  From working in this niche for a while now, I’ve come to realize it can take a month or two for products to take off.

I decided to let go of two sites (the expiration time had come up – register them for a year at a time) that weren’t doing much of anything for me.  I also found out about another product coming out, but I think it’s still in the early stages, where you have to be white listed to promote it.  I still can’t find it on Clickbank, which means the creators are probably still testing stuff out.

Something else hap9pened to me in this niche that I hadn’t experienced before…I got my first refund!  Even though I’ve been doing this for a while and know that refunds are a part of business, refunds are still like a kick to the gut — especially when you know the quality of the product is good.  Thankfully, it doesn’t hurt as much as it did in the beginning.

That’s all from this neck-of-the-woods.  Until next time…

Everyone that follows this blog in any capacity knows that I’m an enormous fan of niche blogging.  As I’ve become a better blogger, I’ve come to realize that there are times when it’s good to create a larger niche blog, and there are times when it’s good to create a smaller niche blog.  While this may seem obvious, I used to be really resistant to the idea of creating a micro-niche blog (I’m stubborn like that).

Regarding the latter, I’ve also come to realize that it’s important when to know when to let things go.  This is a hard thing for me to do because I’m one of those people that just loves to keep stuff forever.  When it comes to IM, we also know that we need content out there in order to make money.  While we also know that some sites can take off faster than others, there are times when you just need to let stuff go — even if you don’t have something to replace it at the time.

For me, I’ve come up with this policy (in my head) that says that if a site I create doesn’t make money within a year (how long I purchase my domain names for), I let the sites go — even if the sites are getting search engine traffic and clicks.  The truth is that, if you’re in a halfway-decent niche, you can find other things to promote down the line.

I’m sure some of you are thinking, “I wouldn’t do that because the site could eventually make a sale.”  This is true.  However, think about it this way.  If you purchase a domain for like $13 or $14 per year, but the site only makes one sale (average of about $30) over the course of that time frame, you’re basically just breaking even (if the person doesn’t refund).

The fastest I’ve ever made money from a micro-niche site (without a list) and from only search engine traffic is 12 days (still hoping to get this under a week).  I figure that the approach I’m taking allows me to become a more proficient marketer without causing me to waste too much money unnecessarily in the process.

Until next time..

Well, it’s that time, again — where I break down what I did for the month.  Unfortunately, I did not get much done, so there’s not much to report.  Here’s why.  I got all excited at the start of the new month because I heard about a new product that was going to be coming out in my other name niche outside of IM.  As usual, I contacted the product creator in order to get review access (a.k.a. for free).

However, after multiple attempts, I did not get as much as a response back!  Needless to say, I got really irritated.  Some of you might be thinking, “Why didn’t you just buy the product?”  Well, looking back, I should of perhaps done that.  You know what they say.  “Hindsight in 20/20.”  After this experience, though, I’m wondering if I am ever going to promote any of the creator’s products in the future.

The truth is that, while I actually like the person’s products, they don’t really convert that well for me.  I also really, really can’t stand poor customer service.  On the upside, I just learned about a new product that is going to be launching in the internet marketing niche pretty soon.  Even though I’ve been craving something new, I don’t know if I am actually going to be promoting it.

While I heard some good things about the person in the past, I haven’t actually tried any of his stuff.  It was also during a time when he had a business partner from whom he has since split.  I’m also kind of worried because, when I look at the JV page, it has all these stipulations about how you can promote it.  I hate that.  If a product is of high quality, you shouldn’t have to worry about that, IMO.

I’m sure it’s going to be one of those products, where I have to come out of my own pocket in order to review it.  A lot of heavy hitters in the IM sector don’t like giving you review access to stuff — unless they know how you are going to promote it.  The product creator also has to manually approve every affiliate, so I think I’m going to just wait to buy it when it comes out.

If the product is good, then I can ask to be an affiliate.  If it’s not, I can at least make the most of the traffic and recommend something legitimate.  We’ll just have to wait and see what happens with it.  It’s still a little while away.  Well, that’s all from this neck-of-the-woods.

Until next time…

Today, I want to address a question that I’ve been seeing pop up in internet marketing forums and my experiences with it as of late.  The question is something along the line of “Is forum marketing really worth it?”  When you’re starting out online, people will often tell you that forum marketing is a good way to get traffic to a new blog or whatever (it is), but here’s what they don’t tell you.

When your blog is new, forum marketing is a good way to get targeted traffic to it, but in order for it to be effective, you need to find the most-popular forum in your niche (can tell by the number of members) and have built up a reputation in the forum — can really pay off, will explain below.  This means interacting in the forum and answering peoples’ questions.

The only place you should put the url to your site is in the forum signature section.  You need to write short, catchy taglines that catch peoples’ attention and cause them to want to check your stuff out — without actually telling them to check your stuff out (against the rules on most forums).  In order to get your links seen as much as possible, you will need to interact quite regularly.   You also need to make sure that you are linking to a specific page on your site.

So, how can this pay off?  Well, one thing that I’ve noticed is that one forum I visit on almost a daily basis will send out a weekly (one I’m referring to goes out on Fridays, good b/c traffic tends to drop on weekend) newsletter of sorts to all of its members.  What does it contain?  It contains all of the most popular threads for the week — based on views, comments, etc.  If you are one of the first people to answer one (or multiple) question(s), you can easily get 50+ extra hits a day to your blog, which will in turn boost your sales!

So, the moral of the story is that when you’re sitting around and can’t think of anything you could be doing, do some forum marketing!  Until next time…