Been at it for almost a year and made nothing, Any Advice?

[LordFrz]

Hello, I am new to internet marketing and was wondering if anyone had any tips for me.
I have been trying my hand at internet marketing for almost a year now. However I have yet to
earn more than $100 total. Now I am new so I expected a learning curve, but for the good chunk
of money I have spent learning the ropes; I expected to earn a bit more in that time period.

I have tried several different ways of going about it, from PPC,PPV, to articles and pitch pages.
Now I do not expect to make a lot to start off, in fact my goal is to make at least $100/month-$200/month
in witch I could use to continue to learn how things are done.

Now I am not willing to spend any more on ebooks and "Loop Holes" as I have already spent way too
much as it is. Now if I were to be bringing even a small amount back in, then I may be inclined to invest more.
But as it stands, I am not willing to waste any more of my hard earned money, on no working methods.

I do however have a good little bit to work with, for the time being. I have several websites, including
ClickBank review sites, a couple Blogs, and some sites made to sell ebooks, and earn adsense revenue.
Now I will not post their links as I do not want to seem like I am advertising; What I want is good sound
advise on what I should do.

I would greatly appreciate any advice, as It seems there are many here who have been successful, and
know what they are doing. I do not want to become rich, but It would be nice to make a few extra dollars a
month for various things.

Thanks for reading, and sorry if It was a bit long; or a bit much for a first post. Have a nice day everyone.

[Nick Sharp]

Hi Frank,

1) First, focus on one thing until you create profit. You can create significant profit with one thing.

2) Invest some of those profits to expand your empire.

3) Focus on markets with desperate buyers and test you conversion funnel.

None of those three things are rocket science, but most of us have not really followed the KISS principle (keep it simple stupid) like that at one time or another.

[LordFrz]

I appreciate the tip, thanks.

[Nick Sharp]

BTW as soon as you have that profit, start outsourcing. But, make sure to interview thoroughly - you can waste a lot of time with people who may not be able to get the job done. This way, you get more done, but you still have the initial profits coming in. So you can expand more efficiently.

[Garland Coulson]

Hi Frank,

I think the problem is that you haven't taken care of the basics. Instead you just jumped right into article, pitch pages, PPC, etc.

So what are the basics?

1. Identify the target audience you want to work with.
2. Identify serious problems they have that they are hungry for solutions for.
3. Build a list of people in this target audience by offering a useful, free download that helps them with one/some of their problems.
4. Find/Develop other products to introduce to your list.

You also need to be unique in your field with branding that people will notice.

[LordFrz]

Alright, thanks for the advice, I did research a good bit before trying PPV/PPC to no success. However I will keep you steps in mind one further attempt.

[Dean Slayton]

My recommendation would be to find some random "practice" niche.

Create a blog and do seo on long tail keywords.

Create a very cheap e-guide on a topic important to people in that niche.

Design the blog to sell your cheap product.

Connect the blog to an aweber (or any) auto responder.

Design the auto responder to sell your cheap product


Ofcourse at first you won't do that great, but you'll get two things which are INVALUABLE.... experience & momentum.

It doesn't matter if your first product sucks, because you're doing it in a niche you DONT want to go into for real. You might make some money, but you're going into things with the mindset of failing.

Anyway, after doing this. Improve on what you're doing (in your practice niche).... until you feel you're good enough to go into a bigger/better niche.

Some areas to improve:
Copywriting
SEO
Other traffic (ppc, etc)
Outsourcing (articles for blog especially)
Tracking & testing

Anyway, thats my two cents.
Hope it helps.

[LordFrz]

I appreciate the advice, I just started on a blog; so I may do just that. Thank a bunch for the tips.

[giorgio79]

If I were you I would take a step back and study the best out there. What they do, how they do it. etc.

Who are the best?

If it comes to traffic
Study Alexa Top 50 sites. What do they do that got them there? Hard to believe but most of them were started by 1 or 2 people, like Google or Facebook.

If it comes to cash
Study bestsellers on Amazon, CB or elsewhere

After this, try to combine the ideas, see where you could add value. Or perhaps try to build the same best seller but for half price. No ideas? It may be time to do some studying, like getting acquainted with some upcoming internet technologies like HTML5, semantic web. etc. so you can be there when the tide starts.

Little time consuming, but if you think about it, by investing 1 year of your life, you gain a lifetime of freedom...Well. It is definitely worthed.

[candres79]

I agree with the above statement that you should really study other people and sites that are already successful in your niche. If you find a site that is...making money, well put together, and offers a good product or service you should even consider buying from them. That way you will get to see how they structure thier product and how they market to thier list and customers.

No matter which way you look at it internet marketing is really about building your list, wheather you are experienced or not.

I suggest that you put together a simple free report, set up a blog, and use an autoresponder to start building your list!

even if you are only adding a few people a day to it, it will start to add up over time.

I hope this helps get you pointed in the right direction!