I'm desperate. Literally desperate. And if this is in the wrong section or not allowed, I genuinely apologize, but I am posting this out of desperation and appreciate any understanding. Three years ago, I started a relationship with a lady who I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with. Over the course of the relationship, every source of credit I had available literally went up in smoke. My two main credit cards at the time? Maxed out. My line of credit? Maxed out. A credit card that I needed to reactivate? Credit line eventually increased. Maxed out. New credit card I was offered two years ago? You guessed it - literally took one month, and all I bought was a laptop. She did the rest or asked me to do the rest. My bank account? Overdrawn (permitted credit on it) to the maximum quite often. The relationship? Well...where's the toilet? I'm now desperate to get out from her roof but can't even afford to pay a monthly rent, let alone my own groceries. I've wasted three years of my life and my credit is shot to somewhere in the red. I need to get out of this situation FAST because no one is hiring me for work (even a bloody INTERVIEW) and this online thing HAS to work for me. I used to have money; now I'm a credit risk. Is someone willing to personally help me get things working? I will gladly pay you for your help from whatever I make to help me get things going (willing to negotiate); I just have to get them going. I already have started writing articles, in fact (I'll show you the article I've already published) and I know the trick of assigning keywords, but so far the article's only had two views (both my own) and I have nothing showing for my efforts. In other words...I need to start selling. I'm reevaluating my keywords today, but while doing that I'm pleaing for help. I don't know if it's even in the forum rules, and I'll be happy to do the same for someone else once I know what I'm doing, but right now this could literally be my life at stake here. If my EI runs out in July and I'm jobless, I have nothing and could be on the street (or living in my car). I need to make this work. Thanks to whoever is willing to help me get things going, and I look forward to working with whoever that is. Again mods., I apologize if this is not considered good posting, but I appreciate your understanding in letting this one slide. I definitely would appreciate it. Cyclone
Well I am not sure that I am the best person to help but I sympathise with your desperation -I too really need to make this work. I'll just give one small bit of advice from what I know. Firstly where did you post your article to? i have found that I have got better hits on ezine than a couple of others that I have used but then it takes a while for them to get Ok's and you can't have affiliate links. Make sure you give some good info in your article and leave them also wanting more. Write a good summary or else people are not going to read it in the first place. Maybe write an article where you don't focus so much on the keywords (and I can see I might be shot down in flames here!) - but I have written a few articles that have been just from the gut and they have had good views. You will need to keep writing a lot of articles and it will take time to figure out what works. Upload a photo to your profile (my CTR rate went up once I had a photo on - not sure why) Do you have an area of expertise that you can draw on? Can you focus just on that to start with? If so , have you started a blog about it? Start a free blog and post every couple of days - sometimes stuff just about the subject with no ulterior motive and then intersperse with some recommendations for products. Anyway, I'm not professing to know much or all but thought I would try and help out.
I've posted the first one on Squidoo as recommended by someone whose program I'm following. I've used his techniques to look up keywords (keeping in mind this worked for him already). I just haven't drawn traffic yet; it should be coming up in specific Google searches, but isn't yet. I tried that. I wrote an article on Poker. Apparently they forbid discussion of that subject; just the word "Poker" draws illegality. I wonder how an article got posted about "Poker Face" thus... I guess what I really want is help promoting what I'm trying to sell. I'll even generate new affiliate links so I can keep track and make sure whoever helps me gets a cut. After I get going, I'll have more time and a clearer head to put more stuff together myself. Cyclone
Yeah, squidoo, I have no idea how people make that work! I created 4 pages and I've had 1 hit in total so until I figure out the key to that I'm giving it a miss and focusing on article directories. I think what you are really asking for is someone to do the work for you and take a cut or else just tell you exactly how to make money...hmmm...good luck in that one...
You are selling one product? I would suggest looking for several products or niches and going from there. IM is not easy and I doubt if you are going to get anyone to take a cut. You may get some mentoring. It can take several weeks or months to start bringing in anything! You may be better off selling on eBay and working part time while you are learning to do this. Squidoo does not like certain subjects they claim to attract spammers so you have to be careful what you choose as a niche. Good luck
I expected that reply from someone. *LOL* And truthfully, no. I'm doing my own work; I just need help promoting it. Where I'm offering people a cut is if someone helps advertise it on their own pages somewhere in addition to my own efforts, but I'm doing my own work in regards to setting up my own articles and such. However, I do need help with my own promoting too; I know it doesn't happen overnight, but I want to get myself on the right track. I'm here practically all the time ATM, so I would like some coaching if anyone has time to help me; I have Windows Live and Gmail, so I'm open to chatting there too. I'll check out Ezines as recommended in an earlier post, I'm trying to find the best places to advertise things. I'm debating Google Adwords too as a promotional tool; what do you guys think about that service? I know it's not free, but a 1:8 conversion means for 8 cents I can make a lot more. Just that damn activation fee... Cyclone
I can help you out with some techniques. PM me for free coaching and basic training to make a quick buck.
If you are totally new to this and havent made ANY money / sales yet then I wouldnt recommend google PPC, or any PPC - just stick to bum marketing, article marketing and free methods until you at least have an understanding of how things work. A decent free course is: http://www.bummarketingmethod.com - there are adverts / recommendations but just ignore them and follow the course and you will gain a lot of experience. If you jump into ppc at this stage then I think you are likely to lose money rather than make it - most do, even experienced PPC marketers may expect to lose a little before they find what works when entering a new niche..
I'd second that you should take a look at the bum marketing link. You should be able to pull in a couple hundred a week at least using that method, and it has little to no upfront costs. It's not a long term strategy, IMO, but should work for the short term while you build up your own websites.
I was somewhat joking on that. And it's $10 where I live, NEway. Hence the comment. submp3s, comment. I've already looked around and set up a few mock campaigns (i.e. haven't published anything yet, I like that you get to play with it before doing anything live). I've already set up PPC for certain terms and found that while search traffic would be minimal (and thus costs down below even my budget in some cases), I'd be targeting the niche directly when those search terms come up. One set actually said something about 9-12 clicks per day, which is fine because per the strategy I have been following, it's good to have a lower volume (and thus fewer visits) because the other clickers won't be as likely to buy the product. Thus, by targeting the way I have, I think I can pull this off. I really need to make something work quickly, so I might have to take the risk here and add to it as time goes on with other methods that are free. (Once the free ones work? Forget adwords except in the best cases.) I learn quickly; I've lived online since maybe 1999 and considered Adwords a few times before. If you have any tips for it, though, before I start putting it live, I'm all ears. (Also, I am checking into the Bum Marketing before going live just in case it might work out better.) webtester01, I'll be in touch. Cyclone
I would still say proceed with caution. I would NEVER advise someone who hasnt got any experience of online marketing to jump into PPC before article marketing. Although article marketing may be a little slower doing it will really give you an education. I consider myself quite experienced but I don't jump into PPC unless I know certain keywords convert, or I know certain products of my own are really hot sellers, even then I start small and expand outwards. Also what google estimates you will receive and what actually happens can vary massively in my experience - most of the time I get much less than the estimates, but sometimes massively more...
I'm following the same keyword-selecting guide whether it's PPC or article marketing, and whether they convert or not is not a guarantee regardless of the method. Even so, there is still no guarantee that any specific keyword will convert; it's a guessing game and you go with what works at the time, and if at some point it doesn't work - get rid of it. I should also add that some of my affiliates have a good keywords listing; my first ad created uses some of those keywords - one wanting $1.25 per click, ouch, might abandon that one if a few clicks on it fail - and I've added more from Google as well. I'm not launching until I'm confident that the setup will work, and if it doesn't, I'll pause it after a couple of days and tweak it. Two days = $30-40, a small investment to find out it's not working even if one sale occurs (and that keyword isn't going anywhere once it does!). Also, when I do go live, I'm going to limit my budget to $20 per day (possibly less). If I don't use it all, great! At least I'll know that some people are seeing it, and if enough of them are seeing it and clicking it in one day, then I should get at least one sale...and that one sale could net me $30 NEway, and I already profit. Am I perhaps being naive here? So if anyone has more tips regarding Adwords, I'm all ears. It seems easier than the article marketing, though I plan to do some of that once I have an income. Wrote a Poker products article I can't use ATM, unfortunately, and have another one published, but have to find something else I can write about among all the cleaning I am presently doing (we have bugs in the apartment...). Cyclone
Yes, but with article marketing if it doesn't convert you don't lose any actual money (only time), and I would say generally when you are starting out things just don't convert... it takes most people quite a while to learn the ropes and start bringing a bit of success. Id say it probably took me about 3 months of working 20 hour weeks before I really made any money, then another 6 months before I was making even close to my day job. Also the advantage of starting with articles is you can test different keywords and when you have enough knowledge and experience that a keyword does convert consistently then you can target that with PPC and be in a much better starting position This is decent logic, and I think it is the right approach... but again, perhaps for someone with more experience.... PPC is it's own learning curve too, and campaigns which I setup when I first started totally bombed, it took me months to really learn it, and those campaigns which failed I finally made profitable. You are right though that once you do find keywords that convert that mostly they will stay there for you and convert consistently forevermore.. or at least for quite a long time after (especially as you make further tweaks and perfect your ads etc) I think perhaps a little, and I don't mean to cause offence by saying that as I actually think in the exact same way, and can really relate to your mindset and wishes - I am the same, and I was the same when I started out. However it is easy to think of the positives and how much money you could make, but it rarely starts out like this. I don't mean to put you off but you mention you are in a bad situation and really need this to work, and I think you expectations are a little wrong to be honest - seems you are wanting to do PPC to get some quick results and money in the bank straight away.... I just fear you will be dissapointed, lose a little money, and be in an even worse situation, with even less money... If you take the mindset that you probably won't earn much to start with and are just going to do it for the sake of learning PPC and making money in the months to come then this is probably more realistic... I usually try and inspire people and try and think on the positive, and I hope this doesn't put you off altogether, and if you are anything like me you might even ignore the warnings and jump in anyway My advice just spurring you on even more , but this is advice coming from someone who has been in your shoes, and learnt the ropes over the last 2-3 years, and finally at present date spends several thousand $ per month (not massive compared to some, yet enough experience to comment I hope) on PPC... Good luck, be careful, lower your expectations and just keep consistently working towards your goal despite any setbacks and you will be successful in the long term no matter which path you go down. Dan
No worries, my expectations are low NEway to start and I won't raise them until something works. In the meantime, I'll PM with a further question. Cyclone
You can do well but don't look for super quick results. Give yourself a couple of months at least. Even though it takes time to figure out things yourself, you end up doing better if you learn things yourself than copying other gameplans. But still a mentor can be quite useful as there are things you can't easily figure out sometimes even if they are dead simple! Take my example. There are some things that I take months to figure out and when I do, I am surprised to see how easy it was! So definitely a mentor helps a lot but you don't have to pay money for that. Money motivated mentors won't help a lot. They will never give away real advice and they'll be too focused about reports and unnecessary stuff. The best bet is to ask questions in the forums or even seek help from your friends who are into IM. If you want, you can ask for my gtalk. I'm online for more than 15 hours on many days and won't mind answering a few quick chats or emails. Good luck!