Hi all, I'm new here. I'm new to Internet Marketing as a whole. I've been going at it for nine months. I'm a "techie" and the whole marketing aspect is a new one to me. My background is that I've been a professional software developer for about the past 25 years. I've tried just about everything you could imagine for the past 9 months. Now I think I know where I'd like to "jump in" and do something that I'd enjoy doing, something I'd have expertise in, and hopefully something where I'd be able to help people. But I wanted to ask for some feedback first, and see what other people think. That's what this post is about. If you have an opinion, feedback, comments, suggestions, or ideas I'd love to hear about it. With that said, here goes... I have come to realize that there are about a MILLION pieces to the puzzle that need to be put in place and working in order to make a single sale online. I'm not talking about affiliate marketing, PPC, or things like that. I'm talking about creating, promoting and selling a product. I think of all the people out there who try to get into this business, and how many of them simply don't have the technical skills or expertise that I have. And seriously - I wonder how some of them pull it off! So I got to thinking, wondering, and asking myself some questions. Now I'm asking you! Is there a market for teaching people HOW to put all the pieces together? I see bits and pieces on various sites. But what I don't see is where its all brought down to the nuts and bolts of all the little bits and pieces that must be put together in order to make it work. Some things are as basic as putting to good use my experience at going through software release cycles - creating checklists and things of that nature, so that every single tidbit is accounted for - whether its a PayPal button, or a JavaScript that needs to exist, or how to build a download page to deliver the product. Here's one I bet hardly anyone thinks of - what about the page you want them to go to if their payment isn't accepted by PayPal? On top of that, there's emails to send out, and autoresponders to hook up. The list virtually goes on and on. I could put together eBooks and blueprints and processes, videos to teach about everything from how to use a browser, to setting up a directory structure on your web site that allows for expansion, to creating and updating an Adwords account. I'm just wondering - is there a need/interest for that sort of thing? Is it just me, or would other people like to have ALL the pieces laid out in front of them? What about "hard core" programming topics? Things like using HTML, XML, RSS, JavaScript, AJAX, CSS, Java, and PHP? What about "softer" topics? Things like using Windows XP or Vista, using a spreadsheet like Excel, or a database, or a word processor. In other words, basic training on how to use the features, and maybe not-so-basic training on how to set things up to automate a lot of work (like mail-merges, organizing PLR, etc.) I'm not selling or promoting anything. I'm just looking for some feedback and discussion before I go off and spend a bunch of time creating something that no one is going to be interested in. Thanks for reading, and thanks in advance for your constructive feedback.
Hi I also am new to marketing and find it a bit odd to deal with. My site http://www.ibsalternative.com was made with me taking a HTML class online for 6 weeks and a second one for XHTML/CSS. I wrote the code myself and enjoyed it thoroughly, but I do find the tech details confusing Example: I have an audio file on the site. It is compressed using MP3 technology but still, at 25MB big for download. I wish I knew how to make it so that real player would start it and then stream the restof the data in while people are listening. However a lot of stuff is easy to do like godaddy.com offers just about every simple to do thing you can imagine. A shopping cart is available that you can customize yourself for not too much effort and with little know how. My shopping cart as you see it on my site was built in a weekend and I did customize it so it would seamlessly match my stuff, and I am a nurse so not techie really. But I tell you that I would gladly go to a forum with online free answers to things like my question above, and if it had lots of ads on it I woud click them sometimes as well because I'd be on there a lot. I wonder if a person like you could make a site that would give away "free" information when the real goal was to have a content rich site that did well just with organic search and generated income by ads alone? I have been contemplating adding a lot of material to my website that sells my bricks and mortar business (nursehypnotherapist.com) so that it becomes more than just an expanded yellow page ad and I can make money on ads. I recently read an article about a senior who was a master carpenter and he offered online how to info that was so good people came back and saved it as a favorite. This resulted in good organic search page rank and thousands of hits daily...as his site grew topic by toipic he added advertising and he now enjoys several thousand a month. One site that grew this way I am also aware of is hystersisters.com an online forun for women going through hysterectomies. That site is so popular that it gets up to 10,000 hits a day now, I had been interested in placing an ad on it but at 10 CPM it would cost me 100 dollars a day to advertise there. They have 4 google ads on there all the time and they are mere little text ads on the header section of the forun. In addition to that the site offers some big corporate advertising presence that must generate several times that. I wish you luck in your new venture.
Thanks for the input. I found it interesting. See, from my viewpoint, what I'm asking and saying is that it seems like a lot of people are in your shoes. They would do more if they knew how. I will be offering both free and paid content. At least that is the plan. Brian
Hi Brian, yes I am down. I would buy premium content if it was reasonably priced and pertinent, no question.