A perfect study in how to be a NON-Super Affiliate

[dynamic63]

Well I can't say I wasn't warned by the lady herself!

Some months back I bought the SAH and raced through it like girl at a 60% off Italian shoe sale. That's enough info I thought - and then spent the next few weeks putting together what I thought was going to be a terrific site, whacked it up there and waited for the moula to start pouring in. During this time I started hoarding information from every internet marketer I found until my inbox was inundated on a daily basis by a mass of promotions from every man and his dog, and many of the dogs were also promoting the same things as each other so that I couldn't work out who actually owned what product. On one day I was trying to learn about SEO from one persons ecourse, the next day about blogging from another, the next about writing articles from another. 'Is that the toast burning?' Oh -no, just some smoke coming out of my ears from my poor brain madly churning all this information around!

On forums my site received many compliments; "looks great" and "great colours" etc. On one forum someone posted it was the best site they'd seen in a while. A few polite suggestions here and there about how to make it better.

It's taken me nearly 6 weeks to realise that that's exactly what it is - a pretty site with NO VALUABLE content. Just a bunch of affiliate links to products I know next to nothing about, all packaged in a pretty website. http://cleversinglemothers.com.au

I finally went back to Ros' book and saw what I was warned of from the beginning - if only I'd listened! You said "Many newbies fall into the trap of making their first site about internet marketing" or something to that effect. "Content, Content Content", "Lists, Lists, Lists" you said. I have none of those things. I have a great looking site which is of no use to anyone, and a target market that needs as much training about what I'm promoting to them as I still do.

So cutting to the chase, any newbies out there, use my site as a good case study of how 'not' to build an affiliate site. I simply don't (at this stage) have the know how or available time to make my site of any value to anyone. Unless some mad person wants to buy it I'll be taking the site down over the next week or so. The irony is, with some of my key words I come in at No. 1-5 spot!

It's not all heartache though. I've learnt a hell of a lot so I'll still call myself a clever mum. I'm reading Ros' book again (thoroughly this time), I've unsubscribed to all the other 'guru's' who have been bombarding my inbox, and another site I've built (non affiliate) is looking very promising and far more 'niche' focussed about something I'm comfortable with. Over the coming month I'll begin working on a new affiliate site with the same comfort level attached - without a whiff of internet marketing in the air!

I probably should have put this in the Newbie category, but either way was hoping I may save someone from ignoring (or failing to hear) good advice in the SAH.

Jo

[old dead wood]

Yeah, that's what bugs ME about trying to learn this stuff. I posted in the "Newbie" column requesting people to list good affiliate site examples, that AREN'T JUST MORE AFFILIATE MARKETING PRODUCT HYPES. About 70 views have taken place, but I guess not too many people here KNOW of sites that sell ACTUAL PRODUCTS. It seems like this "affiliate marketing" biz, in large part, is only people trying to get others to buy their "affiliate marketing" products. It's like feverishly selling employment training when there are no actual jobs in the marketplace. Ros DOES make CLEAR, doesn't she, with "sagehearts" and her (and others') training
materials, that selling REAL PRODUCTS is the way to go? I'm confused.
Who IS really making the money? Affiliate-marketing product sellers, or sellers of OTHER products?

[its_me_shaners]

LOL dead wood, my conundrum exactly. Its what marketing is all about isnt it, getting programmed by marketers to buy the latest widget. And theres lots of latest widgets online and every snake potion salesman flogging them.
Hahahah my girlfriend is the perefect example of someone who is "programmed" by commercials and the like ... to buy the latest shiny object. We watch TV for any length of time, and she inevitably spouts out shane we should get that!! wow look an adjustable bed or... what ever. case in point theres a commercial for dove soap using "real" people, she commented "finally theres a commercial without supermodels" know whats in our shower now, hahahah you guessed it.
Bottom line is this, and a personal story with it. Im a mechanical contractor, I exchange my product and service for money. If I dont provide high quality services and products I'll quickly run out of money. The net is the same. Build a site that exchanges high quality information and products for money. I was reading a forum i think it was allen gardynes, and some posted a comment along the lines of. These net marketers have madelot of money already why cant they just give me the stuff for free. Ok try this email bill gates for a free copy of win xp and see what response you get.
You wanna make money exchange a product or sevice for it .Mrs G spells it out in plain english, READ the book and do it. Yes she makes money and probably gads of it. Affiliate marketing her stuff makes her more cash but you make some too, while you get your stuff togethor to market your own product. Or just sell others products. Man every major company has an affiliate pgm.
Find out what people want, (do research) and give them what they want.!!

[virajw]

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think most of these guys who sell so-called fantastic traffic generating systems or tools or products are selling hope more than anything else. These are pathetic loosers who have not made a cent selling true affiliate products, but are hell bent on selling so-called wonder systems to others. If I've made a million Dollars using my secret system would I be dumb enough to tell the entire world what system I used? Surely !!!!

For instance, what prevents me from marketing my own traffic generating system (which is a sugar coated RSS/XML script) saying that Tom, Dick and Harry have made $ 1 million in 12 months?

Some of these marketers are absolutely pathetic trying to trick us (who know something about software) about what their phony systems can do. For instance, all these so-called wonder traffic generating systems are actually simple PHP scripts that run RSS. Go to any scripts web site and you can download them absolutely free.

Take some of the ClickBank scripts for instance. (This is funny BTW)..They will say "TURN YOUR WEBSITE INTO AN INSTANT CASH GENERATING SYSTEM" and show some dude with cash bulging out of his pockets ... (I can die laughing)

They will tell you that by incorporating their wonder systems you will achieve high SE rankings because the entire ClickBank database will be crawled and listed as your own website. REALLY? Ha ha. Then how come not a single such page has ever made it to the to 30 of Google? What these fools dont realise is that Google never gives a top rank to duplicate stuff. What if 1000 people used the same system linking it to the same landing page? Do you get the picture?

All what I can tell you is please don't get duped. There is no easy ride to the top of Google or Yahoo. Else, everyone will be on their top 10 listing.

I think more than 50% of the affiliate market consist of HOPE products with very few so-called millionaires.

[dynamic63]

I think I've put you all on a downer! I was in NO way indicating I had been 'had' by anyone other than myself. I was simply far too eager and chomping at the bit to do what I thought was a great idea. Let's face it, you don't attend a couple of Yoga classes, feel wonderful about its potential to get you in shape and start holding classes yourself the next week.

You get so excited the first time you discover this 'world' exists you want everyone else to find out about it too. As a single mum I thought wow! here's something that other mums can do from home so they aren't wacking their kids into afterschool care day in day out just so they can earn a pathetic $40k (of which 20% is eaten up by said child care fees) and then arrive to pick up their attention starved kids. I thought well, I don't need to understand ALL of it, I can just let people know it exists and they can go off and learn it properly themselves just like I'm doing. Clearly this is not enough, but it's taken me a while to grasp that.

I know Ros has said a couple of times that you should stick with one 'mentor' first (without insinuating that it be her) and master the learning from them first. There's simply no need to buy twenty different people's products and there's certainly no need to 'push' twenty different people's products to others.

The more important point was to pick an area of interest/expertise pertinent to yourself, not take that of your mentors' because there's very little future in that for the majority of us.

[old dead wood]

[Sundancekid]

Hey there old dead wood,

Just from reading a few of your posts, I like you already.

[Southwest]

[Sundancekid]

[Southwest]

[luckyb52]

Here's an example of what appears to be a good affiliate site (it's not mine):

http://www.educational-toy-guide.com/kidjigsawpuzzle.html

( I agree that quality aff sites are few and far between!).

Lucky Balaraman

[richerbrat]

Dynamic63 - you should not be so judgemental. My mother has done both - ran her own website whilst we were still young (before we started school) - she has also been in business for herself full time, whilst we were at school (and earns far more than 40k a year) - but yes, we have to have afterschool care.

You are deluding yourself if you think you can make money in business online and be the perfect parent, by giving your kids heaps of attention. When we were younger, she was always busy working on her website, and she had to work on it at night too - to make any money out of it.

If you want to be able to give your kids more attention, whilst at the same time making it financially worthwhile, you need to build a proper business, whether on or offline - and that means employing other people, so you don't need to carry on doing it all yourself. Otherwise, you'll just wind up exhausting yourself and have very little to show for it, and no energy to give attention to your kids.

If you don't have the courage to build a proper business yourself, please don't criticise other mothers who do.

[Rosalind Gardner]

Hey Jo,

What happened to your site? I see a big 'Under Construction' sign up there now.

Just a thought... when doing a major overhaul, leave what you've already created in place until you're ready to upload the new pages.

That way you may still make a few bucks from your old promos while building the new site.

Cheers,
Ros