New to internet marketing

[JimD]

Hi, My name is Jim. I am new to internet marketing. I want to learn as much as I can. I want to make this my full time profession. I have been in construction all my life and looking for a change. I have studied off and on over the past year, but not sure how to put it all together. Alot of information out there some good, some bad, as I'm sure everyone knows. I do have a few web sites, but I am not making any money with them. If anyone is intereted in giving me your opinion let me know and I will give you the web sites. How do I find out about seminars and trade shows where internet marketers get together? I am looking for something in Orlando, Tampa , or Miami. Any help is appreciated. Jim

[Phil Tanny]

Hi Jim,

Welcome to the forum. I'm in Florida too.

Sure, please post your links and we'll have a look.

For starters, I would suggest...

1) With the money you'd spend on one weekend seminar you could probably pay for a whole year's subscription to Lynn's Elite Club, which would give you year long access to an experienced, successful, friendly tutor.

2) Whether you choose Lynn or someone else, you should consider finding one teacher you like and trust, and then listen to what they say, and do it. Don't try to study with everybody on the net, and the key is not what you know, but what you do.

3) A key thing a teacher can do is help ensure you're working in a niche where you have a realistic chance of success. Some niches aren't profitable, while others niches are just too competitive for new comers. It's important to get this right before diving in to a lot of work.

4) Once you have a good niche, your #1 job is building an audience. Nothing you do is likely to work very well unless you have at least hundreds of visitors a day. Luckily, building an audience is pretty straightfoward, just follow these steps.

5. Create as much quality content as you can.

6. Get as many quality links as you can.

7. Try not to get too distracted and confused by thousands of strategies and tools, and focus like a mad man on content and links, content and links, content and links, content and link, content and links.

8. Don't worry too much about what your site looks like until you have 500 visitors a day. Then, reward yourself for excellent work, take a few days off, and enjoy being a website artist if that interests you.

9. Did I mention content and links, content and links, content and links, content and links, content and links, content and links, content and links, content and links?

10. All "how to succeed" lists like this should have ten steps, because it sounds good, and is a nice round number.

Best of luck!

Phil

[JimD]

Hi Phil, thanks for the response. One site I have up it thefxcurrencytrader.com, appreciate your thoughts. I offer a free ebook, no one has even downlaoded one... The programs i have on there are through share a sale. Have you had any experience with them or with clickbank? My other site I just started is allaboutnaplesflorida.com. I am still working on that site, any suggestions on the best way to monetize that site??

Also how do you start a niche when your not really an expert at anything? I've been in construction all my life. I like trading foreign currency, that's why I made that site. I also like to workout, but that is probably too crowed of a niche? Lynn has been in this for 14 years, I see how she makes money now, but before she knew how to do this, what was her first niche. I would like to know from her how she started. Appreciate your help Phil.

Thanks,

Jim

[tracyr]

Hey Jim

Another Florida internet marketer here from the Orlando area!

We have quite a few local conferences here I could point you but knowing what you hope to accomplish at one will be helpful in determining which ones would be best for you.

If you haven't already dig through the archives & gobble up Lynn's posts & reports. The Elite forum is a great (safe) place to learn & get good feedback.

Follow Phil's advice and find 1 or 2 people you trust to learn from and block out all the rest - too much information overload with dilute your focus.

As far as finding a niche remember that competition is GOOD.

#1 thing to remember is that you have to work but the can be very, very profitable.

[Infinity]

Hi Jim,

Welcome to the forum.

Indeed there's a lot of information out there, and it can be hard to know where to start, and there's a lot of bad info out there too.

But there are some core principles of internet marketing that will never change. Actually, internet marketing can be boiled down to a two step process:

Maybe:
01. You make products
02. You sell products

Or:
01. You promote affiliate products
02. You send traffic to those products

What's so hard about that?

You only need to know ONE method to create a product, and ONE method to sell that product. Or if you are planning on going the affiliate route, you only need to know ONE method for finding great affiliate products and ONE method for driving method traffic to those products.

If you are the type of person who doesn't like to be constrained by too little options, I would go with no more than 2 or 3 methods.

That's all it takes to make money online.

Well, there are many different business models, but I wouldn't go into that...

The more steps you have in the equation, the higher the probability of failure. Personally, I would try not to have more than 5 steps, though this is a personal preference. This is what I call The Mysterious Limiter. My business model is only a five step process. Other people may have their own ways of going about it. But internet marketing is actually a very simple process.

So, if I were starting out, I would suggest that you only need to learn one method for each step. You can learn more later when you're settled down, but for beginnings, you don't need to learn too much.

Cheers,
Allen

[JimD]

Thank you all for your responses, I am ready to learn this business. As I said earlier I have 2 sites thefxcurrencytrader.com and allaboutnaplesflorida.com. The 2nd one I am still working on. the first one I've had since Oct. 2010, really haven't done much with it. Have done a few articles. Nobody has even taken a free e-book. If anyone can give me you opinions on these sites. I would appreciate it very much. Also has anyone dealt with clickbank or share a sale? If so, may I have some feedback. I will be joining Lynn's elite membership within the next few days.

Thanks,

Jim

[Phil Tanny]

Hi again Jim,

Was glad to hear you're gonna connect with Lynn. Niche advice seems important, and she'd be a good adviser there.

I wouldn't get discouraged that no one has downloaded the ebook. According to Yahoo, you have no links, so probably no traffic either.

http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com...ore+URL&fr=sfp

Even the sales pros consider a 1 or 2% conversion rate good, that is, no matter what any of us are offering the vast majority of people are just window shopping.

You'll need lots of links for that site, but before you dive in to that, I'd talk to Lynn about niche options. Ideally, you should probably pick one site for starters, and focus on it exclusively until you get up in to the hundreds of visitors a day level. That's my thought anyway, see what Lynn says.

The Naples site has promise I think. Are you familiar with all the leading sites about Naples? Your next step could perhaps be to do that competition research. Turn that research in to content for your site, and write reviews of the other Naples sites on your site.

I'm curious if there is a well established forum community for the people of Naples. If not, maybe it could be you that provides that. You know, if I just moved to Naples and didn't know anybody, I could come to your forum and meet other locals.

If you can, look for ways you can get lots of other people typing on your site, so you don't have to do everything yourself. A forum might accomplish that.

If something like that sounds inviting, I have some other ideas along those lines we could talk about.

I don't have great ideas for monetizing truthfully, but perhaps others here will. Adsense is always a place to start. You're unlikely to get rich with it, but some income is better than none.

Hope something in there is helpful somehow.

[jgant]

Excellent advice so far. With respect to your Forex site, have you used the product you're promoting? If not, try it. You have experience with foreign currency trading so you can properly assess it. See if you get results and blog about your actual experience with the product. If the product is a dud, try another until you find one that is outstanding. Then write loads of content and a terrific review or series of reviews explaining how it worked for you.

My best money making posts are those that are in-depth articles about my experience with something. Often I write a series on the product, including tutorials and screenshots if applicable. Then promote your site and review to death building loads of links to it and other traffic generation methods such as article marketing.

With respect to the "building muscle" niche, it's an excellent niche if you go at it from a certain perspective. It could be all about supersetting or pyramid sets, or some other type of workout that you like doing. You can of course go on tangents, but the core of your site should be a sub-topic of the muscle building niche.

Check out fitnessblackbook.com for an example of an insanely successful fitness blog. The focus is on building a particular type of body. It's great and Rusty (the owner) makes a very good living from that blog. Rusty has dofollow links enabled in his comments as well so you can start building links asap to a fitness blog you start if you go in that direction.

[JimD]

Phil and jgant, thank you for your posts, I appreciate you advice. I joined the elite membership last night. I know I should concentrate on 1 site, it's hard because I'm coming up with new ideas faster than I can get any site going. I have been using this great workout plan that has done wonder for me, so I am already thinking of a fitness site and blog. But I don know I need to get the sites going that I already have. As you said Phil, promote something you've tried. Again thank you all for the advice. I'll post again soon. Jim

[Phil Tanny]

I know I should concentrate on 1 site, it's hard because I'm coming up with new ideas faster than I can get any site going.

You and me both brother!

One of my biggest challenges is my brain spits out ideas on an industrial scale, and many of them are months long projects. But, my brain isn't so hot at knowing which ideas are good, and which are crap. This combination can indeed be a recipe for confusion, distraction, lack of focus etc.

That's one of the reasons I joined this forum.

I've paid my darn money down, so I'm expecting Lynn to "man up" and tell me "that's the stupidest idea I ever heard of you silly man!" as appropriate.

I guarantee I can generate the stupid ideas. If only there was a business model for that, I'd be in good shape. Until I had the next idea....

Jim, how does leading an online exercise discussion community sound to you? Are you the kind of fellow who would have a knack for being the host of a big party?