So I’ve spent the last two months on a secret project. I decided to try my hand at Affiliate Marketing, and I here’s my report.
First, I must say that I have played around with Google Adwords quite a bit in the past, never turning a profit. I have tried creating a few sites that I quickly lost steam on.
On my 30th birthday (early mid-life crisis?) decided to try out Build A Niche Store, a very efficient web application framework for creating eBay affiliate stores. I managed to get 11 sites up, and thanks to the help of the great people on the BANS forum, I managed to actually turn a profit within a few weeks. After getting some sites up and getting my feet wet in affiliate marketing, I realized how little about internet marketing I really know. I felt the need to ramp it up…
I decided to try PPC-Coach. I must say, Coach runs an amazing service, but even more amazing than the service is the community he has built up. The members really fill in the gaps and make for a completely mind-blowing amount of learning potential. I am amazed by the willingness to share ideas that would normally be kept close to one’s belt. I started with Coach’s month one challenge: create polls. I managed to make a healthy profit off just creating polls! More about that in a future post. After really getting the PPC thing down, I realized that while PPC is great, I should also round out my learning by understanding SEO as well.
So I joined Wealthy Affiliate. All I can say is WOW. This is another similar program, but focused more evenly across PPC and SEO. The members there really know their stuff and are incredibly willing to share their knowledge like the PPC-Coach members. I have not made any money from the techniques they point out yet, as I am still learning the ropes. I am finding that I am learning a lot more principles, and am able to create far more effective landing pages. My favorite feature of Wealthy Affiliate is their 8 week plan. That coupled with their extensive library of tutorials has really helped me to “get it.”
I am focusing on Wealthy Affiliate now, and intend to concentrate on mastering the art of creating high converting landing pages.
I’ll post more later about my affiliate marketing adventures, including my August numbers. Stay tuned.
