Affiliate Marketing – The SMART Way

105 responses so far ↓

• 1 Trevor Sadowski // Feb 11, 2008 at 7:01 am

  Hi Chris

  Really good nuts and bolts read the Lazy Affiliate, highly recommended.

  Up til now I was just building content sites with what you might call ‘general’ keywords, bit of Adsense, bit of affiliate promos, Commission Junction stuff mainly.

  Your report really opened my eyes to the fact that I was not targeting ‘hungry buyers’.

  What it drove home to me was that I was targeting people looking for information only, and free info at that, not people sitting there with a credit card in their hand! Tyre kickers.

  Sure I am earning a regular $100 a month from Adsense but who cares! Hardly pays the bills and it is too much work for too little reward.

  So, I built a new site about 4 weeks ago in the womens health sector using your principles of long tail targeted keywords and already I have sold 7 affiliate products without even trying. The site is 20 pages in size, uses PLR content and promotes just the one product – a Clickbank high gravity product. No adsense in sight! All as per your instructions.

  The site is only been getting 8 to 12 visitors a day so far, and that is almost entirely from MSN and initial articles. I’m waiting for the big G to start ranking it, then the excitement really gets going!

  Can’t say I’m off to a $50 a day start but I think I’m well on the way, especially when the follow up articles and links start kicking in. I used your recommendations for directory submissions and inbound linking, free to me as they are both paid from my profits so far!

  I’d be interested to hear where that lady gets her inital traffic from – idea for a special report – quick instant, targeted traffic eh Chris?

  Trevor Sadowski
  Chelmsford, UK

• 2 Edu // Feb 11, 2008 at 7:38 am

  So far I red your book and I launched my first minisite two weeks ago (You can see it clicking on my name). I haven’t made any sales yet, altohugh I have got so far 104 unique visitors in these two weeks.

  I have not used yet the software submision tool for viral. This site is in 3waylinks and also I’ve used a video on YouTube to try to draw more traffic. My issue is that I have no idea about how to publicite that video in youtube. It has been there for 2 days and only has had 102 visits (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYUgE70muNA yeah I know I’m crappy with videos!).

  I’ve done a squidoo page and some article submisions in Ezine.

  Also I used the WSOffer for 400 directories submissions you mention in your book.

  I don’t have much more budget to promote this site…

  I think I’m missing something. The keyword research I did was exaustive but it may be the niche I’m in. I think it is too competitive.

  Or maybe just 2 weeks isn’t enough time to jusdge? I’m a little bit lost with this.

• 3 Edu // Feb 11, 2008 at 7:40 am

  sorry about my grammar mate, I’m in a hurry and english is not my mother language!

• 4 Hayley // Feb 11, 2008 at 9:19 am

  Yes people, follow the system and it INDEED works.

• 5 Hayley // Feb 11, 2008 at 9:28 am

  Ah, ok I can see Chris wants more in depth…

  Well that’s my quote up there from an email I just sent Chris. Usually I don’t like to talk about this stuff, but I guess I should give back a little

  I dont want to reveal my niche, but lets just say I had a $1700 day from one of the viral software submissions. I can’t quite repeat that huge influx because like Chris’ example in the book, I don’t know how it happened. It’s surprisingly hard to figure out. But, suffice it to say the proggie still pulls in sales, although at a much more modest rate. I also “became my own competitor” and submitted a program that was a little different in design but promoted the same thing.

  Then I just made a mini site based around the product that was doing so well. SEO was a snap. Seriously, it’s all about the backlinks. Chris is right when he says it’s not rocket science.

  One thing I would recommend NOT doing (sorry Chris) is submitting to the directories en mass. I did this for my VERY first site and wasn’t too thrilled with the outcome.

  I use LinkVana religiously and I attribute a lot of success from that.

  Just follow Chris’ recipe, seriously.

  To design websites I use CSS templates from places like OSWD.ORG and then modify them by hand in HTML-Kit, a free HTML editor. (It’s not a WYSIWYG editor, but if you invest some time learning some HTML and CSS, it’s worth it. I learned only the very basics of CSS from scratch as I was doing a different project about a year ago, and it’s not that bad at all.)

  OK that’s enough for now. I’d like to hear some more stories!

• 6 Dexx // Feb 11, 2008 at 11:42 am

  Hey Hayley,

  Thanks for the great post!

  Couple quick Q’s for ya:

  1) How many sites are generating that daily income? Is it from one site, or multiple mini-sites creating a combined income?

  2) I use Linkvana as well after reading Chris’ review on it, just curious how many links you currently aim to generate for the site (or sites) and how has that affected your place in search engine ranking?

  3) Are you promoting a digital product (ClickBank/PayDotComm style) like Chris’ book, or are you going with other stuff such as Commission Junction etc.

  I too tried the directory submitter on two sites and don’t really think I like the results, I even kept track of the submission confirmation emails and only received about 226 back or so, so dunno about even the full 400! I’ll know in a couple months perhaps how many links actually show in the directories, but for now I’ll stick with 3WayLinks and LinkVana.

  Cheers!

• 7 Chris M // Feb 11, 2008 at 11:42 am

  Agree with Hayley. Mass directory submission didn’t do anything, however, a curious thing did happen. Though the home page is PR1, one of my other pages is PR2 and ranking quite well for a highly converting “long tail” search term, even though that page has no backlinks. I’m getting 4 visitors a day and from that search and about 2 sales a week. So, 2 sales on 28 visitors. How’s that for conversion?

  I’m also trying “Bum Marketing”, and that’s starting to bring in some good traffic, too.

  Still have to try viral software, but right now I’m focusing on his off-page SEO recipe.

  Oh, Chris, can you write a post on your one-way links? I outsourced it, and chose an Indian company, who submitted them to other Indian sites. I’m not complaining, it’s what they said, and PR is good on them, but is there a better method?

• 8 admin // Feb 11, 2008 at 12:31 pm

  Hey everyone,

  Thanks very much for the submissions – we’re off to a good start

  Okay, to answer a few questions raised…

  Edu – 2 weeks isn’t enough time to gage anything for SEO traffic. You need to work on building links to your site, and then monitor your rankings. All traffic is NOT born equal.

  Google/MSN/Yahoo traffic will beat the crap out of YouTube traffic any day, so you can’t judge conversions yet until it’s coming from search.

  If you’re targeting desperate, specific and “product” keywords like how I describe in Part 1, then it won’t matter how competitive the niche is. You’ll get ranked fairly easily with enough backlinks. Especially if you’re using 3WL, LinkVana, etc.

  Chris M – Directory submissions will have no impact on your Google rankings. They WILL, however, eventually effect your MSN listings, and possibly Yahoo.

  MSN is like the retarded brother of G & Y, and it pretty much responds to just about any kind of linking (sadly).

  But don’t do it if it’s not worth your time. MSN will only send you a tenth of the traffic that Google can, so – it’s optional; up to you.

  I’ve written more in-depth about linking strategies at the following URLs:

  http://www.thelazymarketer.com/flash/seo.html

  http://www.thelazymarketer.com/blog/2008/01/28/3waylinks-vs-linkvana-which-is-best-for-building-easy-backlinks/

  and,

  http://www.thelazymarketer.com/blog/2007/12/21/linkvana-the-holy-grail-for-unlimited-one-way-links/

  ————————————————-

  Alright folks, let’s get some more real-life stories coming in.

  And thanks to everyone who’s already took a minute to share their story.

  There are thousands of people who will be inspired by this to take ACTION and change their life, based on what YOU share today.

  I look forward to hearing from you!

  Thanks,

  -Chris

• 9 Rip // Feb 11, 2008 at 1:59 pm

  I built two mini-sites when I first read “Confessions.” One of them converts, the other doesn’t (or hasn’t made a single sale yet), and neither receives much traffic at all.

  This is starting to make me suspect that software submissions are a huge factor in Chris’ and Hayley’s success (I could be wrong).

  One of my mini-sites has 500 backlinks, and the other has 1100 links (3WL, Linkvana, directory submissions, articles, Squidoo, etc.). Traffic is negligible, and yes I am targeting what I thought were long-tail, moderate-to-low competitive keywords.

  After I saw one of my mini-sites actually converting, I threw up 3 more duplicates to try and capitalize on whatever income I was making. Now, those 3 brand new sites are receiving MORE traffic than my original one with 500+ links — and I have barely done anything at all for them promotion-wise. They have less than 50 links each… but regardless, the traffic is still not enough (and is going down).

  I don’t know why my original 2 mini-sites are still on page 30-50 of their respective Google search results. In fact, they used to be higher, but 3-4 weeks ago they just fell back or disappeared altogether. Yes, they are still indexed.

  Since beginning this at the end of November, I’ve made about $250 with 5 mini-sites.

  The only ingredient that I haven’t added is the software submissions, and that must be the most important thing. SEO either takes too long to see results early or I’m doing it completely wrong (which I doubt).

• 10 Ron // Feb 11, 2008 at 2:00 pm

  Hi Chris,
  I used you system to build a mini site of about 20 pages in a “relationship-related” niche. Mind you, this niche is a small niche, not the big, heavily trafficed niches you work with. I was already in that niche with quite a few squidoo lenses and other web2.0 properties, so I thought why not build a mini site as well and see how it goes.
  The site was launched on December 28, and sicne then it had the following results:

  3,444 unique visitors
  6,196 page views
  43 sales = $720

  Sales are from selling a clickbank ebook.
  Now I know this is a small niche and there is less traffic , but there is an upside – I don’t have much competition. With more promotion I will be able to get more traffic and increase sales.

  As for what I did to promote the site:

  1. I did some scocial bookmarking to start the indexing process.
  2. I did the 400 directories submission you suggest.
  3. I linkd to the site from my web 2.0 pages. Some of them are established and I’m guessing this helped my rankings very much.
  4. I did article submissions.

  I havn’t joined 3waylinks yet.

  That’s it for now.

  Ron

• 11 Edu // Feb 11, 2008 at 2:45 pm

  are you using the right anchor texts and stuff? One tool I use to see if there is real search volume traffic, appart from the adwords tool is google trends. It gives you some insight on search volume for the keywords. I’m not an expert, just started in IM and have not done any affiliate sale yet, but I think the real trick is in the keywords.

  Jonathan gives you in 3waylinks a pretty cool pdf too to find out about the back links you need to rank good in search engines.

  Not sure mate, but I think the trick is in the keywords you target and how you target them in the anchor text of the back links.

  Still, I’m a noob here, so don’t take me too seriously…

• 12 admin // Feb 11, 2008 at 2:46 pm

  Rip,

  You need to test other offers and niches.

  Visitor-value is paramount, not how much traffic you get or don’t get (at first).

  Remember that these are “kindling” sites – when you have a success, you then need to scale things up as in Part 4 and 5 of the ebook to build on momentum and establish leverage.

  I also have sites that suck for conversion, but hey, it only took a few days of my time to make that discovery.

  I also have sites that make a full-time income on their own right. And I’m scaling up my presence in those niches as we speak.

  That’s how it works.

  Thanks for sharing your honest results – I appreciate it.

  Take care,

  -Chris

• 13 Rip // Feb 11, 2008 at 3:17 pm

  Edu – Yes I’m using anchor text. I have a subscription to Wordtracker and am targeting high search volume/low competition keywords and using them as anchor text.

  Chris – Thanks for the response. The thing is though that my site DOES convert… probably over a 2% conversion rate! All I need is more targeted traffic.

  I just checked my original mini-site that is converting and it has over 600 incoming links and PR 3. It doesn’t get ANY Google traffic, and just a few visitors from MSN and Yahoo.

  I know this niche is profitable, I have 4 sites that are targeting it and they all convert like crazy.

  Maybe it’s just extremely competitive and takes 6 months or more to get decent search engine rankings… or maybe I’m just dumb, which is highly likely!

• 14 Edu // Feb 11, 2008 at 4:20 pm

  hey Rip, is wordtracker really worth it for the cost? I’m a bit tight on budget and trying to make the most of keywords I’m targeting. Is there a cheap alternative?

• 15 admin // Feb 11, 2008 at 5:01 pm

  Rip,

  Google takes time.

  Keep going, and add links steadily. It WILL eventually tick. Domain age and authority have a big effect on G’s rankings.

  -Chris

• 16 Rip // Feb 11, 2008 at 5:24 pm

  Edu – It’s definitely useful, but unless you have money growing on trees (I don’t either) I wouldn’t really recommend it.

• 17 Daba // Feb 11, 2008 at 5:56 pm

  Hey Edu,

  With your blog, how did you create the ‘top fold’ displaying the affiliate product ? Is it in the header.php ? Or?

• 18 Stock Market Systems // Feb 12, 2008 at 2:35 am

  Hello Chris,

  Took me a while to learn the ins and outs of website building (I’m still not all that proficient), but I was able to get my first review site up toward the end of January. Have made three sales from it thus far (not great, but I was initially pleased that it drew anything at all), averaging about $6.28 per day for the 21 days its been live.

  I’ve done the directory listing as per Chris’ suggestion, mostly because it is affordable right now. A one time shot and you take as many backlinks as list the site. For those who may not have been aware, David (from articleaware, the directory links guy) says that many of the directories don’t necessary send confirmations. So you can’t go by the number of confirmations you get returned.

  I’ve come across some information that purports to tell a secret about getting backlinks that count heavily in the SERPs, and will be attempting to learn how well that works. I’ll report back here once I’m able to accomplish it to see if it has any kind of significant effect.

  So far, a lack of targeted traffic, and not enough time to go after backlinks just yet (just finished a second site which I hope to get up in the next day or so), is what is keeping this site from producing more conversions. I don’t yet have the financial statistics to invest in “buying ” backlinks just yet, so am having to find ways to do it by hand.

  Came across some good ideas from Jon Leger (Fast Blog Finder) and CommentKahuna and will give these a try once I have more time to devote to it. Right now, pursuing backlinks is just haphazard, whenever I have an odd moment (like this) to stop working on doing research or whatever else needs to be done to construct a site.

  Constructing a site is really taking most of my time right now. But my thinking is to get them up first and then to pursue traffic driving techniques once I have three or four up. It’s taking an average of about three to four weeks apiece to get the sites built. But this second site I’ve just finished was definitely quicker than the first.

  Have noticed that Chris has his registry site up to the first page in Goog on certain keywords. That’s pretty quick, considering it got going in late November. I look at that and sigh, “Aah, if only…”

  Anyway, I’m determined to make this work. I’ll keep at it. I’m finding that I’m getting the most traffic from article marketing thus far, so will need to gear up my article production for the short term.

  Happy hunting all,

  Thom

• 19 admin // Feb 12, 2008 at 2:59 am

  Hi Thom,

  Great to hear about your progress!

  The first few sites can be tough – especially on a slim budget.

  I recommend that you stick to Article Marketing, Social Bookmarking, Free Press Releases, targeted blog commenting & forum posting, Squidoo, Zimbio, Hubpages, etc. as ways to drive traffic and build links effectively for free.

  It takes elbow grease, but by taking consistent action, you’ll see results soon enough.

  You’re already seeing that article marketing is, in this case, more effective for quick traffic – and you’re scaling it up.

  You’ll find that this process is all about little “discoveries” like that – and they COMPOUND over time, so that each new project you roll out is going to see results faster & faster…

  Keep going.

  If you’re tracking your results and responding to them, then EVERYTHING you do is a “win”.

  Every month, your results will simply increase if you’re exerting profitable actions that your tracking has proven to WORK.

  Then, you can re-invest to speed up the process.

  Outsource to MULTIPLY your own efforts.

  And then scale things up, once you’re in your “sweet spot” niche that you want to establish a real presence within. (See parts 4 & 5 for ideas on that).

  Take care!

  -Chris

• 20 Dexx // Feb 12, 2008 at 6:46 am

  Hey Chris maybe you can add some input to this:

  I was reading some forums lately and heard of people buying domains from domain auction sites so that they get better SERP rankings (older domains are considered authority vs new domains ya?)

  So people buy keyword rich domains related to their niche for $100+ and start building from there, and this also supposedly helps beat the Google Sandbox affect since Google won’t flag this brand new site for tons of links so quickly.

  Whats your thoughts on this? Have you/Do you do domain buying to boost SERP rankings faster?

  Thanks!

• 21 Edu // Feb 12, 2008 at 7:11 am

  Hi Daba, it is not a blog, although it may look like. It is a plain xhtml page, and the header with the affiliate product is just html content on a DIV layer.

  Didn’t use php at all in the site except for the 3waylinks page.

• 22 admin // Feb 12, 2008 at 1:18 pm

  Hey Dexx,

  I actually don’t do that (domain buying). It would likely help alot.

  Thing is, I focus more on domain relevance. I now try and simply focus on getting domains that are memorable and make sense.

  To avoid the Google sandbox at first, take it easy on the “mass submissions”. Directory subs won’t matter that much, for some reason, but if you submit too many articles too fast, software, blog announcements, etc., then that can sometimes sandbox your domain (if it’s new).

  Space things out at first – but be *consistent*. Lots of links isn’t a bad thing.

  Don’t let the “sandbox” hold you back.

  At the same time, understand that quality link-building efforts are worth 10x more than automatic links from mass submission.

  Thanks,

  -Chris

• 23 auctarb // Feb 12, 2008 at 4:56 pm

  Hey RIP:
  I got Wordtracker last Oct. and it’s been relegated to my basement drive. At first I used to make single page sites based on the long tail high volume low competition keywords it would spew out & analyze. My pages would hit page one very easily. However, no traffic! I started running google exact match ads on those keywords and same thing – no traffic. I’ve tried to make use of wordtracker data every way I can and it’s bogus. I can only find it useful for keyword suggestions which you can get free elsewhere.

• 24 Slade // Feb 12, 2008 at 5:47 pm

  Chris,

  I currently have one minisite that is live. It is definitely in a desperate market but the clickbank products it’s promoting are ebooks that most likely don’t get searched by name.

  Am I screwing myself? Do you only build sites around products that actually get targeted specific searches?
  Most of the products I see on clickbank don’t seem to be ones that get searched for specifically. Your thoughts would be appreciated.

  Thanks

• 25 admin // Feb 13, 2008 at 12:56 am

  Hey Slade,

  The products you’re promoting with the “review” approach should definitely have some measurable level of demand. Otherwise, what’s the point?

  If you’re in a market where the demand is more heavily geared towards desperate searches, rather than products, then get in front of wherever the desperate visitors are gonna be…

  Product keywords are usually a safe bet, unless they’re relatively unknown. Again, consult Part 1 in confessions.

  Cheers,

  -Chris

• 26 Chris M // Feb 13, 2008 at 10:28 am

  Hey Dexx,

  I bought a few sites – actually, thanks to Blogging to the Bank, I discovered it, though that ebook says to build blogs and sell them – I went the other way around!

  Anyway, I found a powerful, 1999-established PR4 site for sale in a related niche I was targeting, so I quickly snapped it up (cost thousands of dollars, but I’ve recouped about half the cost in sales after only four months.) Anyway, I set it up at a new hosting company (so, a different class-c server), and placed links on it to the site I was promoting.

  BANG, in a week and a half I was #1 for six keywords I was targeting with my original site, and traffic went up ten-fold. So yes, if you have the cash, buying sites is definitely a fast-track way to go.

  However, study the buy/sell forums for about a month before thinking of buying. There’s a lot of scams and crap out there, and Google PR can be faked. I always check Yahoo link: to see their quality backlinks, and email the actual website to make sure it isn’t a scammer.

  Anyway, sorry Chris, off topic, but this is my little “cheat” technique to get business going. An extreme case of buying quality backlinks for sure!

  - Chris

• 27 Hayley // Feb 13, 2008 at 5:54 pm

  Hey Guys!

  Chris M ~ Where did you get your domain from? Which forums do you recommend for this kind of thing?

  Dexx ~

  1) How many sites are generating that daily income? Is it from one site, or multiple mini-sites creating a combined income?

  I currently have 2 sites in my main niche, both rank well although one gets 170-200 visitors a day and one only gets 50 so far. I have a couple other mini sites that aren’t doing so hot, but again I didn’t spend too much time on them yet.

  2) I use Linkvana as well after reading Chris’ review on it, just curious how many links you currently aim to generate for the site (or sites) and how has that affected your place in search engine ranking?

  A:) My linkvana thing got “stuck” for my main project. It has about 77 backlinks from LinkVana, and Dave Kelly said they are being “slowed down.” I haven’t had a link in 2 weeks though so I’m currently a little puzzled even though I keep asking him what’s going on.

  I’m aiming to manually add 3-4 links per day by blog commenting on dofollow blogs as well as article submissions until I can figure out what’s up with that linkvana project.

  3) Are you promoting a digital product (ClickBank/PayDotComm style) like Chris’ book, or are you going with other stuff such as Commission Junction etc.

  A:) This is a ClickBank/PayDotComm digital project. I have made sales with CJ before (check out my surfing site) but I kind of stick with the digital products because the payout is so much more for most products, and they sell well.

  Just wanna say that the most surprising thing to me about IM with this method (I guess this happens with any method) is the weird way you’ll get sales. One day you won’t get any sales, and then all of a sudden you’ll have two sales within seconds of each other…then none for the rest of the day.

  I find it to be incredibly stressful right now, actually, haha. Primarily because I am doing this as a full time job (I’m living at home right now between undergrad and grad school) and I kinda *need* the sales. Therefore I’ll be super stressed out all day if I don’t see a sale until late at night. Hopefully adding more mini sites in more niches and duplicating the process will help spread things out, increase the income, and help me not be so worried all the time lol.

• 28 James // Feb 13, 2008 at 6:29 pm

  Hayley – LV stops posting @ 77 posts because Dave can only afford 77 C-Class IP’s… his system ain’t too scalable it seems. (maybe he should try http://www.seohosting.com)

  I just created a new project and it’s working well. Who cares if I’m getting multiple links from the same sites – I want to get my money’s worth!!

  I also know the stress factor you talk about – it’s pretty depressing isn’t it.

• 29 admin // Feb 14, 2008 at 1:45 am

  Chris M – that’s a method that I didn’t really cover too much in my ebook, simply due to space constraints (I also didn’t want to allude too far off the path of “build site, promote, profit”).

  But it’s very powerful. VRE buying, flipping & selling can be very lucrative once you’re experienced and know what to look for.

  I’ll be blogging about that this month, if all goes as planned.

  Hayley – stop stressing over the “sporadicness” of your results

  Listen, until you reach a certain level of traffic, it’s not your daily volume that will be “consistent” – it’s the WEEKLY volume that matters. Base your results on a weekly basis when you’re starting out.

  Also, though I recommend a continued mini-site effort to test different markets and profit from easy product-keyword traffic, the way to TRULY build up a base of consistent, reliable revenues is to scale up your presence into your “winning” niche with a full-on assault of traffic.

  Create your own “spider web” of traffic within your best niche, building leverage with list-building and creating traffic diversity with authority content, products (& affiliates), videos (youtube), press, quality articles, and otherwise valuable assets that all cross-promote eachother.

  Profit on the front-end, AND the back-end.

  I know this is Business 101, but it’s essential to truly succeed over the long-term.

  Personally, my strategy currently is to launch one new mini-site each month in the background while I work on my two main niches. One of them is the “IM” niche, due to the unexpected success of TheLazyMarketer.com, and because I’m very passionate about it.

  The other niche is my little secret

  So I’m doing both.

  Since I have people & systems in place to take care of the mini-sites effectively, it leaves me with more time to focus on the long-term properties.

  James – Interesting comment on LV. From what I understand, though, it’s a technical issue regarding footprinting (or the avoidance thereof).

  77 C-Class IP’s is plenty enough to start the link propagation process for each domain. LV apparently delays the links “sporadically”, so that it’s not an obvious, regimented pattern.

  In regards to the ‘stress factor’ – that’s hardly depressing…

  It’s full out AWESOME. It means that whatever you’ve just done to get those results, you can duplicate and then MULTIPLY.

  If you built just 30 sites where the daily average was just a measly $10/day with “lazy affiliate” strategies (keep in mind that when you hit a winning niche, the numbers will DWARF that), that’s already $10,000/mth.

  Yes, it takes work. And focus.

  But think about how incredible that is, in light of how hard it is to make $120,000/yr in the “real” world.

  It’s mind-blowing.

  Not depressing.

  -Chris

• 30 Hayley // Feb 14, 2008 at 11:07 am

  Haha, yeah I wouldn’t say the stress factor is depressing.

  I should be jumping for joy right now, but I’m not—-yet.

  I haven’t reached my goal. I’m not sure what my goal really is exactly. I should actually sit down and think about that so I can give myself a little more of a concrete plan. I sometimes tend to get a little all over the place and end up spreading myself too thin.

  I think my overall goal right now would be to have 10 sites that *average* 50 dollars a day. I should really just focus on one a month like you are doing Chris. It’s hard to get 3 sites profitable when you’re doing them all at the same time.

• 31 Rip // Feb 14, 2008 at 1:42 pm

  Hayley –

  Would you say most or all of your traffic comes from software submissions? If you say search engines play a big part, I’m going to cry…

• 32 Hayley // Feb 14, 2008 at 3:08 pm

  Hi Rip

  I guess about 1/4 of my overall traffic comes from software stuff.

• 33 Rich Peck // Feb 15, 2008 at 9:59 am

  Well done Haley – a $1,700 day ain’t too bad.

  Did you just do a browser that links straight through to the sales page??

  I’ve had no luck with software subs and am in the process of creating a new site now. I am a member of LV and of 3WL.

  For anyone who wants a .edu link, check out: http://linuxdev1.tlt.psu.edu/pligg/

  

• 34 Maverick80 // Feb 15, 2008 at 2:37 pm

  Hayley,

  Being that you seem to be the one who has voiced the most success after reading Chris’ ebook, how close are you to your goal? I’ve just finished the book, and will be putting the lessons to the test, starting next week.

  I’m interested in building relationships with other up and coming marketers like yourself. Possibly for future JV down the line etc…

  My nick on warriorforum.com is maverick80 as well. This is a great topic on the blog, and hope to see more people reporting success. I’ll be sure to post back my progress in the next week.

• 35 admin // Feb 15, 2008 at 3:07 pm

  Maverick,

  Hayley is a spectacular example of what happens when action is applied to knowledge.

  However, there are numerous others, who I’ll be contacting directly shortly (based on previous emails, PM’s, etc.), that have reported similar successes based on the METHODS used in “Confessions”.

  I wouldn’t have put this post up if I didn’t have a personal knowledge of at least 5 similar stories like Hayley’s.

  Now I just need these guys to post

  Keep in mind that many of the big-earners in this industry are too busy to care about getting involved in stuff like this.

  I know when I first discovered the effectiveness of these methods (which I covered in Confessions), I didn’t look at a newsletter, a forum or a business blog for MONTHS.

  Didn’t have the time.

  Too busy actually creating results.

  Now I’ve realized that I enjoy the IM market because it’s a great “aside” from my main business activities.

  As much as I might care about people’s desperate problems in a niche market (and I do), I find it much more fulfilling to do stuff with TheLazyMarketer.com and so on because the subject matter is (obviously) of great actual interest for me.

  Anyway…

  Rest assured, there’s others who’ve had success.

  Many might actually be a little hesitant to share what they’ve done, so as to protect their own twist on things, or their niche, or something else.

  It was actually a major decision to release Confessions, because of how effective my targeting approach is, as well as the software traffic strategy.

  And believe it or not – I actually have suffered in some small ways as a result of others accidentally stumbling on niches that I’ve been in already, as a result of reading my book.

  But I knew that I’d be creating the occasional competitor.

  I guess that’s why this is really a labor of love first, business project second.

  I’ll keep you posted on what happens with that report (the one I mentioned in this post).

  Cheers,

  -Chris

• 36 Slade // Feb 15, 2008 at 7:08 pm

  Chris,

  I appreciate you taking the time to answer our questions. I have two more for ya.

  1. You emphasize selling what lots of people buy. My question to you is, what do you consider a lot? I use the Wordtracker tool, 50 searches a day? 100? I realize the more the merrier but whats a good starting point?

  2. Can I be putting my affiliate link directly on my social bookmarking sites like myspace and squidoo, or do I have to direct them back to my website first?

• 37 admin // Feb 17, 2008 at 2:03 pm

  Hi Slade,

  1. A better gage of how much “demand” exists for a certain product is to, as much as you can, look at how much it’s selling.

  If there’s products listed on Ebay, take a look at how many sales are closing out on a daily basis using their advanced search (auctions that are already over and sold).

  Or, my preference, look at ClickBank’s marketplace to see which kinds of products are popular and selling consistently.

  THEN, head over to the keyword research tools to find out how to capture some of that proven market.

  As for minimum searches, there’s no real standard. I try to find niches where the MAIN terms are at least 30,000 (1,000 searches daily) according to KeyWordDiscovery.com/search.htm

  The long-tail terms that you’ll be targeting with your “desperate” and “product” articles/reviews are going to have very low traffic counts, in general.

  For mini-sites, have your home page and a few articles target mid-tail phrases.

  For authority sites – go straight for the gold.

  2. Both.

  However, there’s no real benefit for you if you’re just linking straight to the vendor. Instead, link to your own domain to help boost YOUR rankings and YOUR traffic.

  Because eventually, if it’s a niche you want a real piece of once it’s proven itself, then you’ll be using all of your traffic assets to tie into your own network of products, newsletters, authority content, etc.

  Cheers,

  -Chris

• 38 Maverick80 // Feb 17, 2008 at 2:20 pm

  Chris,

  I have a similar question as slade. The niche I am researching has LOTS of demand, and LOTS of competition. I’m having problems finding keywords that don’t have 10′s of thousands of competing keywords. I’m using the paid wordtracket service… I’m wondering what an optimal KEI number is to look for as well.

  Any ideas from anyone? Thanks!

• 39 Hayley // Feb 17, 2008 at 4:22 pm

  Maverick~

  Don’t worry about the tens of thousands. If you use LinkVana and 3WayLinks you won’t have a problem.

  SEO isn’t that hard. If your keywords have three words in them you’ll find it easy to rise to the top because most of those people that you’re competing with have no idea what they’re doing.

  If you’re new I suggest checking out SEO Fast Start (www.seofaststart.com) and read that so you can get a sense of how to do some SEO.

  Then, start aiming LinkVana and social bookmarking link juice at your deep pages (i.e. ~ not your home page)

  Make sure your pages are using the keyword in the address (aka http://www.sitename.com/your-keyword-here.html) that way if you can only link by putting in your address it will already have the keyword in it.

  Seriously, don’t run from thousands of competing terms. If you aim for the three word phrases that have 50-100 visitors (maybe a little less) you’ll begin to rise to the top for those. In a month or two Google will love you and you’ll get traffic for TONS of phrases you haven’t even thought of, plus the tougher to score two word and one word phrases.

• 40 Maverick80 // Feb 17, 2008 at 5:56 pm

  Hayley thanks for the tips. Do you use wordtracker? I suppose I’m just looking at the KEI, and many of the 3 word key words just seem ultra competitive. I may use 3waylinks at first. I’ll purchase LV once the site starts to pull in some $ (hopefully).

• 41 Hayley // Feb 17, 2008 at 9:44 pm

  Yeah Linkvana is tough because it’s stinkin expensive. However, IF you can afford it, I really suggest it as soon as you can. I was really hesitant too, but now I can pay for each month in a day. So…the ROI of LinkVana is enormous for me.

  I actually just started back up with 3WL again with a few of my baby mini sites. I’m not using it on my main money-maker because I’m so nervous about that one losing position. I only used 3WL for a couple of weeks before PayPal cut out on me and I lost my 3WL subscription (and all the links). So…3wl still has to prove itself to me. I’m giving it another chance though so I can use LinkVana solely for my deep linking which is where it shines.

  I use the free version of wordtracker for 90% of my keyword research because seeing the daily search amount makes much more sense to me. The other 10% I will use Google’s tool just like Chris R. wrote in the book.

  ~~

  Now…I have a question for Chris

  The biggest problem for me is what me and my friends call the “Lazy Factor.” Today was one of those days where I just could not focus.

  How do you keep yourself on task? What’s the best way to get yourself to focus on one thing?

  I know I sometimes try to make a list at night of things I want to accomplish the following day, and sometimes that works great. Other times I have the list in front of me and I completely ignore it ;P

  I’m having enormous success and I want to repeat the process, but sometimes it’s hard to get GOING. Stupid, right? lol.

  I think a huge thing with IM is sticking with something long enough to see it become profitable. Sometimes it’s profitable right away and you get lucky, other times you have to keep plugging away till it starts to get rolling.

• 42 Hayley // Feb 17, 2008 at 10:17 pm

  Just a little add on to my previous posts…

  I was just thinking…as much as I think LinkVana is great and I’m singing its praises and all that…LV isn’t failsafe. Google might find the blogs and cancel link credit, or the guy who runs it might say screw it, I’m going to China to become a missionary.

  I’m mentioning this as much to myself as anyone reading this, and I know Chris R. has said this: your site can’t be reliant on any one method of ranking in the engines. Otherwise you’re hanging by a thread.

  So, I think my next goal is to branch out into other methods and techniques to build natural links from a variety of places. Because as my site stands right now, if LV goes down I will lose quite a bit of traffic.

  Perhaps that is why I’m subliminally stressed out…I know it’s not as stable as I would like it to be. I can tell that it’s precarious right now, and needs to be “shored up.”

  And this is where Chris R’s authority sites come into play. I’m not at that point quite yet, but I really want to start planning for that step because there is no way I can pack up and move to the Bahamas right now My business needs much more stable footing.

  Don’t build your house on the sand, as they say. And Google is potentially the most shifty sand you’ll ever see…

• 43 Dexx // Feb 18, 2008 at 1:35 am

  Hey, I’m back with a couple things:

  1) Regarding LinkVana, it’s weird that you guys are mentioning the pause at 77 posts. I just started with LinkVana after Chris’ blog reviewing it (maybe 2 weeks now?) and I have 127 posts Live in one project with 2 more posts still waiting to go up. (basically maxed it out at 6 posts a day etc.)

  2) Hayley I know how you feel about being worried about Google finding out about the blogs, I thought about it myself, but then I realized this. All LV does is post a legit original piece of content on a legit aged blog. So what’s to say every blog that its posted on is “paid for.” For Google to go and punish any blog that received posts wouldn’t make sense for them either, since it’s original content they’d be fighting against. Perhaps Chris can weigh in on this, but I’m not too worried in this regard.

  3) Throwing this out to Chris, Hayley, anyone with a pulse…what are your thoughts on WordTracker vs Keyword Discovery vs NicheBot? I know Chris mentioned using Keyword Discovery, I looked at it, but it’s hella expensive for what it does (I think?) currently I use Keyword Elite which now has a built in partnership with Word Tracker, and I can’t complain on the results.

  4) As Hayley mentioned, don’t worry too much about the “thousands” of competitors for a product/niche. Just means money is there to be made! To truly evaluate the competition check the backlink anchor tags of the sites on the 1st page of Google for the keywords. For the most part you’ll probably see that most the links to the site aren’t that targeted for the keyword. That’s where LV/3WL etc. come in. I use SEO Elite to evaluate competitive niches myself.

  Well that’s all for now, I look forward to everyone’s thoughts!

  -Dexx

• 44 admin // Feb 18, 2008 at 2:42 am

  Hi Hayley,

  Ahh yes… the dreaded “lazy factor”.

  Hey, it happens…

  If you’re making some decent coin with mini-sites, viral traffic, or other organic “lazy” strategies, then regardless of how much money you’re making – you need to treat it like borrowed cash (and time).

  Act as if it could just end tomorrow. You’ve seen first hand how a few of my sites literally just tanked because I was neglecting the biz while travelling (and I didn’t have time to feed them into anything “real”).

  Don’t just let it ride and see how well it does – checking your stats is not a business-building activity…

  Instead, use the momentum as a BASE for building an actual business that’s solid. Invest in product development, authority content creation, build lists, nurture and build an actual client-base, etc.

  The beauty of all this is that it’s relatively easy to see results using the approach to site creation (mini-site market tests) as laid out in Parts 1 and 2 of Confessions.

  Then, once the niche has “proven itself” – work your ass off to make sure that you’ve got something REAL to stand on.

  I remember watching some of the preview videos on John Reese’s “Traffic Secrets” page, and one of the re-occurring themes was to build businesses, not just money-makers.

  The mini-site strategy is definitely a “money-maker” approach – UNLESS you use them as a traffic funnel to feed into your actual business as soon as possible.

  But, like in my previous posts, the mini-site strategy is also easy and fast, and it’s a good way to gage multiple projects simultaneously, seeing which one to pursue seriously. That’s the real purpose.

  So – that’s one reason why not to be lazy. You can’t afford to be if you’re in this full-time.

  ——————————————————–

  Now, some other “tricks” for getting things done are as follows:

  1) Make a daily to-do list, and then evaluate each task by importance. Do the most important thing that day, no matter what, and then work your way down as you have time.

  Don’t just load yourself up in the name of productivity – it doesn’t accomplish anything, except a feeling of being overwhelmed.

  One bite at a time.

  And start with the bites that remove the biggest chunk.

  2) Set goals based on something other than revenue. When I first started out, I used to have a monthly income target. Many of us did.

  I still do – but it’s not exactly what I pursue, to be honest.

  Instead, my wife and I take a look at things we want to do, have, accomplish and so on – and then we do whatever it takes to see that happen.

  For example, ever since I was a kid I’ve wanted a Lamborghini Diablo. It’s my favorite car, and always has been.

  I don’t care much for the newer models, but I love the early nineties models. They rock. And I really want to buy one straight out – no lease, no financing bullcrap, etc.

  But I have an agreement with my wife that I have to donate an equal amount that I spend on the car to a charity. And on top of that, I also have to account for the tax on that money (for the car), which adds probably another 30% to the price, being as it’s a far cry from a business expense.

  So… that’s a lot of extra cash to come up with.

  But it’s a tangible goal, not just a “$x,xxx per day” type of target.

  It certaintly keeps me going. That’s one goal of many, and it’s definitely the most frivelous and selfish one, too

  3) Outsource and commit to your freelancers.

  What that means is that if you’ve got people waiting on YOU to get things done, such as sending over article topics, marketing tasks, and so on – there’s a social element to all of this.

  Not just a “self-motivational” one.

  You’ve spent money to hire someone, and you want your money’s worth.

  It’ll keep you busy based on that fact alone, and it will obviously speed up the process as well, to say the least.

  This has worked wonders for me, and I’m ready to start scaling things up again now that my travels are paused for several months.

  Cheers!

  -Chris

• 45 Alex Miller // Feb 18, 2008 at 7:23 am

  Hi guys,

  I’ve read all of these comments and now realise it’s time to post on this thread (I’ve posted a bit of Chris’s other blog topics).

  I really enjoy reading about ACTUAL people’s successes because that’s what gets me excited when things aren’t going so well for my business building – it’s a confidence booster to yourself that money can be made.

  I graduated from uni this year, i’m 23, and I always wanted to go fulltime with IM.

  So I did.

  I’ve been researching and testing so many areas it’s ridiculous……made some money here and there but never stuck with anything really….if i’m honest.

  Then i bought confessions in early december and it basically changed everything for me.

  The book and its contents completely supported a whole range of ideas that I had, and that’s what got me so excited.

  I went ahead and got my first proper site built up (just click on my link if you want to see it ).

  I thought a lot about the design, content etc and I’m pretty happy with it.

  Link & Traffic Building:

  - I signed up to 3WL in december…I like the service but i’ve found many of the links simply don’t get indexed…you have to get round this…

  - I outsourced some people to build one way links for me from decent sites, not related because it doesn’t matter in the slightest.

  -I’ve written and distributed many articles via articlemarketer (I outsourced most of those too)

  - Forum posting, directory submission etc – basically what Chris advised us to do in ‘confessions’.

  Results:

  Well, to be honest – it’s taken quite a while for things to start picking up.

  I work really hard on my business 3-4 times a week – because on the other days I’m working part-time to get some extra money in, and I also do SEO work for cleints.

  This has been very successful and it’s a real confidence booster when they see great results and more sales because of your work.

  TIP here: this feedback from those cleints helps keep my confidence up as well, because by getting their sites ranked for v low competitive keywords, and by setting up their adwords accounts in a professional way (ie not bundling all their keywords in one adgroup which some idiot did for one of my cleints previously!) – I’m realising that I can produce results.

  Anyways…

  I’m now starting to see some results.

  It took quite a while to make some sales, but i’ve made 4 sales in the last week – ($100 basically), and my aim to get $100/day – per site – more or less.

  The links that have been built for me, and those that are being built will take a while to register, get indexed etc – and so I’m excited to see those results come in.

  I hope to be making $80-$100/day with this site by March, and by then my next mini site will be released.

  I think i’m going to scale up each site to become….not an authority site, but a level imbetween mini & authority…just so they hold up better in the search engines.

  Once the 3rd site is completed for this niche, I will then hopefully have 3 fairly large sites (100-150 pages) and I will look to make an authority site.

  Basically, I’m following Chris’s advice but I’m making each mini site bigger than the standard 20-30 pages.

  I will of post my results again in 2-3 weeks and hopefully they will be improved!

  Thanks a lot guys for all your posts, hopefully more people will open out because I don’t personally think by posting your plans/results/some urls that you are going to completely expose your niche and ruin your chances.

  Chris – your advice has been unbelievable and it is SO refreshing to get real comments and feedback etc from a true IM.

  I am only subscribed to your list and Jon Legers now (his blog is simply awesome, I love his case studies – they also make you realise that you can make money online full time), because all of the others are just selling selling selling to you constantly and it drives me insane! I think i unsubscribed from about 10 others!

  Anwyays, I hope this post didn’t send you to sleep!
  Cheers guys,
  Alex

  PS – I plan to use LinkVana once my income picks up, and I think it will be a very valuable service – especially to get my inner pages ranked.

• 46 Maverick80 // Feb 18, 2008 at 7:57 am

  Alex,

  “- I outsourced some people to build one way links for me from decent sites, not related because it doesn’t matter in the slightest.”

  According to the guy at seofaststart.com it does matter. Great free e-book there. Although it sounds like your off to a great start, and nice site, thanks for sharing.

  Hayley,

  Thanks for recommending seofaststart. It’s a great read and will help me structure my pages well. It’s interesting though, he basically recommends against using ‘grey hat’ techniques, such as LinkVana. Good short term, but you are possibly building yourself a house of cards in the long run. A change in the Google algo, and you could kiss those back links good bye.

  I’m just about done the seo fast start book. Once I finish, it’s off to start doing some building

  It would be nice to see some more success stories people out there!

• 47 Alex Miller // Feb 18, 2008 at 10:28 am

  Hey Maverick,

  Thanks for your comment but i’ve done an enormous amount of research and testing with links, and I can tell you that links from off-topic sites are still very valuable…i’m not saying they are more valuable than on-topic links, but they still are.

  Check out this site which Jon Leger (the man for SEO) built – he has done more case studies and testings than most….

  http://www.searchenginemythsexposed.com/

  Enjoy,
  Alex

• 48 Alex Miller // Feb 18, 2008 at 10:30 am

  Just checked out the site: http://www.searchenginemythsexposed.com/ and he has closed it now.

  Have a look at his blog if you like: http://www.jonathanleger.com

  Genuinely great stuff.

  Alex

  ps – come on guys, more stories!!! even if, like me, you’ve made very few sales so far – let’s here it:)

• 49 Alex Miller // Feb 18, 2008 at 10:32 am

  Chris…

  What about your current story so far lol…

  No seriously, how are your mini sites doing after you said they dropped from $800/day to $290/day? Is that from the account you have a printscreen of on your lazyaffiliate salespage?

  Alex

• 50 Maverick80 // Feb 18, 2008 at 12:14 pm

  Hayley & For anyone who uses wordtracker…

  searches predict competition KEI
  787 1,249 3,300,000 0.19

  This is for a popular 3 letter search term, in the niche I’m targeting. I know you say that as long as I use 3 word terms, I should be ok, but by the looks of this term, it wouldn’t appear to make sense to compete with 3.3 million other pages. Am I still off base here?

  I’ll continue to read seo fast track as well….

  Thanks!

• 51 Maverick80 // Feb 18, 2008 at 12:15 pm

  “This is for a popular 3 letter search term”

  Sorry I meant 3 word search term.

• 52 Maverick80 // Feb 18, 2008 at 5:11 pm

  Chris,

  Can you please clear this up for me. Should I be going after low competitve key words, or 3 word key terms with lots of traffic?

  Getting conflicting information.

  Thanks!

• 53 Trevor // Feb 18, 2008 at 6:34 pm

  Hayley,

  I have a few questions for you regarding the viral software submission technique outlined in Chris’s book.

  I am just starting out and am needing to raise some seed money for linking services using this method.

  1) Did you build the application just as Chris instructed in confessions or did you go about the outline in a slightly different way?

  2) When you submitted the PAD file to directories did you use any of the software Chris recommends such as Promo Soft?

  3) When your software finished questioning the user did you then have it lead them to your own web site with an affiliate offer displayed or go straight to the merchants site through your affiliate link?

  4) Where did you learn to install the scripts necessary to make the program function as Chris describes. Any good resources you could recommend?
  Sorry, I am brand new to this…

  Any suggestions you can give me will be greatly appreciated, I am really wanting to make this work but am feeling intimidated by the scripting aspect of it.

  Thank you

• 54 Trevor // Feb 18, 2008 at 6:43 pm

  Chris,

  I purchased the video set “3 step one way linking strategy” through your site last night and gave it a peek.

  Do you think that buying a program such as “Multimedia Builder” down the road for software marketing is beneficial, or should I just stick to using an HTML editor like you suggest for starting out in your ebook by using web form boxes?

  Thank You

  This is Exciting

• 55 Dexx // Feb 20, 2008 at 1:26 am

  Hey Maverick80,

  In regards to your question on the 3 word term and the multi-million competitors.

  Make sure you check that you are searching for competitors based off their title tags, now just words on their pages.

  (example Google Search)
  allintitle:Testing Keywords Out

  Gives you the “true” competition.

• 56 Maverick // Feb 20, 2008 at 7:43 am

  “Make sure you check that you are searching for competitors based off their title tags, now just words on their pages.”

  I’m not looking at words on their pages. Wordtracker is returning the number of competing pages for the 3 word search terms…..

• 57 AuctArb // Feb 21, 2008 at 1:13 pm

  Hey Chris,

  Do you do PPC on your mini-sites right after release to get exposure during link build-up and to gauge conversion? I’m so addicted to PPC it just seems to go hand-in-hand, but then there’s the conflict of PPC administrative time robbing from site building and I’ve yet to find a traffic analyzer (even google analytics) that can distinguish between PPC and natural traffic origins. This kind of defeats the purpose of the whole Lazy Affiliate philosophy but it’s hard to turn away profitable traffic! I just finished my first 17 page minisite (completely from scratch using Frontpage) – WaHoo! – Maybe I’ll figure out the answer to this on my own but it’s hard to imagine going off PPC cold turkey altogether.

• 58 admin // Feb 21, 2008 at 10:58 pm

  Hi Alex,

  “Chris…

  What about your current story so far lol…

  No seriously, how are your mini sites doing after you said they dropped from $800/day to $290/day? Is that from the account you have a printscreen of on your lazyaffiliate salespage?”

  Yep, that was the account.

  Good thing it’s one of a few.

  It’s been up and down. That was the low point, it’s better now.

  Anyway, I’m almost done the authority site for the niche, so I don’t really bother myself about “the drop” too much at all.

  Besides, I’ve got other stuff that’s picking up in a big way now, even just as mini-sites.

  Right now I’m on a week-long snowboard trip in interior BC (Canada), so I still haven’t really settled in yet.

  Got a condo, an office and a bunch of new furniture (and a new desk!) in Victoria after we got back, so when we head home in a few days, THEN I’ll finally be able to get back in the swing of things…

  Cheers!

  -Chris

• 59 admin // Feb 21, 2008 at 11:01 pm

  Hey Maverick:

  “Chris,

  Can you please clear this up for me. Should I be going after low competitve key words, or 3 word key terms with lots of traffic?

  Getting conflicting information.

  Thanks!”

  Both.

  Aim your mini-sites to go after a number of “mid-competiton” and low-comp keywords.

  For your authority sites, go straight for the gold.

  -Chris

• 60 admin // Feb 21, 2008 at 11:02 pm

  Hi Trevor,

  If you want to use Media-Builder for a range of viral marketing activities, then it’s worth.

  If you’re just testing it out, then for the meantime, either create toolbars or basic HTML to EXE applications that perform a basic function with direct upsells.

  Cheers,

  -Chris

• 61 admin // Feb 21, 2008 at 11:08 pm

  Auctarb – PPC rocks if you’re experienced with it and you have a handle on visitor value.

  The only reason I don’t touch on it in Confessions is because it’s a whole “ebook” in itself in terms of strategy and deployment.

  I highly recommend Perry Marshall’s Adwords course – even the free email mini-course is golden information.

  PPC is an excellent testing strategy.

  And it’s fast.

  But you need some cash to begin with, because if you’re new to the game (not you, but others reading this), you’ll make a few mistakes at first.

  There’s a learning curve, but if you stick through it and understand your way around quality scoring, testing and maximizing visitor-value, there’s really no ceiling.

  Writing smaller checks to cash bigger ones.

  As for myself?

  Let’s just say that PPC is a big item on the menu for me for 2008.

  Free traffic still works, but once you know your visitor value & money-keywords, it really depends on how much money you have to spend.

  Cheers,

  -Chris

• 62 Maverick80 // Feb 22, 2008 at 9:58 am

  Thanks for the answers Chris, have fun on your snowboard trip. I have another question. Have you made most of your $ through just affiliate marketing, and was it just with ClickBank? The people on the warrior forums have lots of opinions on the best avenues of IM. Some say email lists, creating your own products, affiliate marketing etc…

  I know eventually you can leverage all of these types of strategies, but has affiliate marketing with ClickBank (putting aside your own product) been your proverbially gravy train?

  I ask because I’m starting out in only affiliate marketing selling few ClickBank products, and was wondering if thats how you started as well. I’ve read Confessions (awesome by the way), and am working on getting up my first mini. I’ve actually already outsourced a lot of the content for it

  Thanks again, and watch out for the trees on the slopes!

• 63 admin // Feb 22, 2008 at 1:02 pm

  Hey Maverick,

  ClickBank affiliate sales have been a major part of my recent success, but more than anything, it was simply the realization that I needed to sell stuff that LOTS of people were already buying.

  Before that, I was going after “untapped” niches, which is about as reliable and consistent as playing slots.

  ClickBank is now just one of my sources of income.

  Product development and list-building, etc. is the smarter way to go, but only if you already have a handle on your niche, and what makes them tick.

  That’s why starting with affiliate marketing is, in my opinion, the least-risky way to start.

  And I like ClickBank specifically because it tells me what’s selling.

  Cheers,

  -Chris

• 64 Dexx // Feb 24, 2008 at 3:41 am

  Hey Chris,

  Do you ever use Press Releases to market sites? If so, any pointers?

• 65 Tom // Feb 25, 2008 at 12:04 pm

  I’m curious, of those of you who are actually using Promosoft to submit their freeware to software sites, what success ratios are you getting? I get lots of errors when submitting, most of them unspecific. All in all only about 50-60% of the submissions go through.

  What have your experiences been? I’d especially be interested to hear your (Chris’) numbers, as you’ve probably used Promosoft most often.

  Tom

• 66 Slade // Feb 26, 2008 at 12:29 am

  Tom,

  Funny you posted this, I am getting the exact same problems. All sorts of errors. Im not even getting 50% to go thru!
  If anyone knows the answer, or if you figure it out Tom, id love to know.

• 67 Gagan // Feb 27, 2008 at 9:40 am

  I must tell you, Chris system basically filled the GAP for me. I was using PPC with direct linking for one of clickbank’s highly competitive products. After a month of PPC with direct linking, i broke even (if you can break even, that means the product has potential). That’s when i read Chris eBook and that changed things.

  I hired someone to write up 5 articles, did the site design and put my 7 page mini site. Since then I did 15 sales brining in almost $200 in little over a month. I’m getting 5 to 10 visitors a day.

  The only linking I have done so far is Warrior 400 directory submission and one article submission to Ezine a week ago.

  Like someone pointed out directory submission may be bad because I know for SURE that with ezine article submission you should see an increase in your traffic but i saw none. In fact my traffic is going DOWN. So, I’m wondering, if you Google just doesn’t like my site since it says 100s of directory links all of sudden? I’m freaking out. Chris any input?

• 68 Ken // Feb 27, 2008 at 12:37 pm

  Chris, please update your site http://chrisrempel.com/ whenever you have a chance. Your stuff is really interesting.

• 69 admin // Feb 27, 2008 at 3:46 pm

  Alright, it’s been awhile since I’ve posted (or replied to comments).

  This is mostly due to the fact that I recently discovered something amazing – laptops don’t like wine nearly as much as I do…

  I literally had no computers for almost 3 days. It sucked. One wouldn’t even start (the wine-drinker), one had a fried hard drive (it didn’t enjoy Thailand that much), and one was still in transit (just ordered).

  Anyway, now I’ve got my new desktop, and I’ve replaced the hard drive in my good laptop. The backup lappy, though, is resting in peace. In pieces, actually.

  ANYWAY

  Here’s some answers to the latest questions on this amazingly long string of comments:
  ———————————————————–

  Dexx – I use press releases for “real” sites. Not mini-sites. PR’s can be incredible or a waste of time. It’s hit and miss, but the ones that work are the ones that get picked up by journalists looking for a GREAT story.

  One of my social networks a while ago absolutely exploded due to just two free press releases. The media went nuts. The site was growing very quickly and getting a lot of exposure – thousands of members in no time.

  Problem was, this was before the days when I was “product-focused”. I couldn’t figure out how to effectively monetize the damn thing.

  The site eventually got hacked, and it was a downhill slide from there. It’s since been canned altogether.

  However – had I actually had a clue about CONVERSION and visitor targeting back then, that free exposure would’ve provided six figures worth of traffic, easily.

  So it’s definitely worth it if you’re doing something that’s truly newsworthy, controversial, ridiculous or even stupid.

  But journalists couldn’t give a flying “screw” about an affiliate site.

  —————————————————-

  Tom,

  PromoSoft has always been around a 50% to 60% success rate for me as well.

  Oh well. Still saves me from manually submitting to 380 sites or so. I’m still a happy camper.

  Keep in mind that the major sites will give you 80% of your traffic anyway, and account for maybe 30 of those sites submitted to.

  ——————————————————–

  Gagan,

  You can’t base your traffic stats as being related to such small amounts of SEO legwork. 5 articles and the directory subs is simply the beginning of a linking FOUNDATION, upon which you build up from there with one-way links via

  - More articles

  - Programs like 3WL and LinkVana (optional)

  - Press Releases (if relevant)

  - Paid Links (see my “paid link” guide at http://www.thelazymarketer.com/flash/seo.html )

  - Outsourcing recip, 3-way or one-way links

  - Generating “buzz”

  - Being an active blogger and commentor in your niche (and using trackbacks appropriately)

  - And so on. Part 4 of my ebook goes through the basics of this. For MUCH more detail on link-building, check out SEOFastStart.com and download Dan’s free ebook.

  You’ve just scratched the surface my friend. Just imagine your results once you actually get some solid rankings

  ———————————————————

  Ken,

  Thanks so much for your comments.

  That’s a project that I am very passionate about, and I plan on giving it a great start this year, as I won’t be globe-hopping again for at least a year.

  ———————————————————-

  Thanks guys!

  I’ll try to make another blog post either tonight or tomorrow.

  Also, just FYI, I’m going to be making TheLazyMarketer.com into an actual portal, a “mini authority site”, in a sense. Stay tuned for that…

  -Chris

• 70 Jeremy Hier // Feb 27, 2008 at 10:13 pm

  Hi Chris,

  Read your book. I’ve been in the wrong markets,
  and not choosing best selling products.

  Since we are testing mini-sites at first is it a good idea to get one hosting account and then use add-on domains until we find the mini-site that works best.

  In other words do you recommend a strategy for testing multiple mini-sites instead of waiting a few months to see if your one mini-site is a winner.

  Thanks,

  Jeremy

• 71 admin // Feb 29, 2008 at 12:40 am

  Hi Jeremy,

  Yes, focus on multiple promotions (at first) until there’s one or two that really stand out in terms of profit and “ease of traffic”.

  Then go and conquer that niche with more content, list-building, feeder-products and the rest of it.

  Cheers!

  -Chris

• 72 mick // Feb 29, 2008 at 2:50 am

  Hello Chris and everyone,
  Hey great e-book! I really enjoyed it.
  Read it slowly and carefully over the course of a day a few weeks ago. Couldn’t get up to do anything else until I was finished the first read through! I never buy self help e-books but this one really hit the spot for me. The reason being that I am very eager to move my work life from the ‘real world’ onto the net. How about that; the desperate buyer is me! I am now building my first site, keeping the book open for reference as I go.

  My story is this:
  I am living and working in Bangkok Thailand, teaching various things at a University (for an embarrassingly low salary by American standards. That’s what I get for outsourcing myself!). I once made close to six figures a year in New York City as a photo-retoucher but I just got bored with it a few years ago, bought a one-way ticket to Thailand and here I am. Now I have my Xpat life in a far away land, just would be allot better if I could get my first world level of income back. The good news for me is that life is still allot cheaper here than in the USA so I won’t need to make a fortune to be able to give up the day job. In fact, the goal is 2500 US $ per month for me and my fiancée to live very well here. I think of that number as a kind of escape velocity for me.

  I now know all about Thailand and Xpat living ( I can speak Thai now) So down the road I should probably write some e-books of my own, but first I am going to stick to your blue print, build some mini sites and learn as much as I can.

  I’ll keep you posted on my progress.

  Cheers,

  Mick

• 73 Jeremy Hier // Feb 29, 2008 at 3:18 pm

  Hey Mick,

  That’s great. I taught English in China for 4 years,
  now I’m back in NY substitute teaching, if this internet thing doesn’t pick up soon, I may go back,
  and continue trying from China.

  Jeremy

• 74 mick // Feb 29, 2008 at 11:20 pm

  Jeremy,
  Substitute teaching in New York ?! Noooooo! I would guess that you were much better off teaching in China. I am sure you were treated with allot more respect there than in the NYC school system. (I moved here from NYC) But really a web based income would be perfect for the Xpat lifestyle. I want it really badly! Living here in Thailand can buy you time which I guess is what we will all need if we are to persist launching a web biz. Also politics are always unstable here, you never know if you’re going to have to jump ship. You know, as I write this I am thinking, I have allot to say on this subject. Allot of insider Knowledge. I really could write some e-books on Xpat subjects; Asia in general, Thailand specifically etc.
  Lots ‘o’ luck 2 u Jeremy!

  -mick

• 75 mick // Mar 1, 2008 at 10:53 pm

  Here is a resource for webmasters a freind sent me. Looks real interesting. I am still learning the basics but I can see that down the road this might come in handy: http://plone.org/

  -m

• 76 Tom // Mar 3, 2008 at 2:03 pm

  Just in case anyone using Promosoft is interested, this is the response I got From John South, Promosoft support re the rather low success rate when submitting to download sites:

  1. Please open your product and visit the “Sites” tab. Then please
  make sure if the individual site category has been chosen for each
  site. We’ve implemented the Fast Category feature that make category
  selection easier, but sometimes it does not cover all the new sites,
  as they were added recently.
  2. Please make sure that the HTML code suggested by PromoSoft has been
  placed on your links page before submission. You can access it by
  opening your product and visiting the “Back Link” tab.
  3. Download archives are changing very rapidly and some database
  templates may go outdated for a while. We are doing our best to update
  the site database as often as possible basing on error reports. Please
  do not forget to send an error report from the forth step of
  submission problem to help us keeping the database updated.

• 77 mick // Mar 7, 2008 at 5:04 am

  A newbie question perhaps but here it is anyway:
  I am writing my own articles for my site but i could take the shortcut of plugging in the pre-written articles supplied by my e-book publisher. I think I read somewhere that Google will make a note of duplicate content across many sites and discount the page rank because of that. Can anyone advise me on that?
  thnx,
  -Mick

• 78 mick // Mar 9, 2008 at 11:13 pm

  Ok,
  well maybe the answer is obvious, I suppose you all would not be recruiting freelancers to right original articles if there weren’t a good reason for it. Also it seems some publishers are offering up pseudo original articles. It’s one article that is randomized , rearranged via software to spit out a unique one each time. This is all new to me, I’m very green at this. Never heard of SEO till a few weeks ago. So here is my refined question: Any opinion about randomized pseudo copy in regards to SEO?
  thanks,
  cheers,
  -mick

• 79 mick // Mar 9, 2008 at 11:15 pm

  oops looks like my spelling got a little randomized as well!

• 80 Jim // Mar 10, 2008 at 12:12 am

  Several people have asked about competing with thousands or millions of pages in Google’s SERPs.

  I do not think that the number of total pages is relevant, it is only the first 10 or 20 pages that you care about.

  Visit them, check their pagerank and check their backlinks in Yahoo to see how easy or hard it would be to beat them.

  That is all that matters.

• 81 admin // Mar 10, 2008 at 12:56 am

  Hi Mick,

  My opinion on ‘randomized pseudo-copified spinnalized’ content is that it’s a waste of time.

  Just keep it simple.

  Buy domain. Build site. Add articles that you or someone else writes. Get links. Get traffic. Monetize. Repeat.

  Screw all the rest of it until you’re making great money with proven, logical business tactics.

  You’ve experienced what’s called information overload.

  It’s time to “unload”

  Take care,

  -Chris

• 82 admin // Mar 10, 2008 at 12:59 am

  Jim,

  You nailed it. That’s all there is to it.

  The hardest thing about learning SEO is being able to somehow see through all the “expert advice” out there to finally see the real truth:

  IT’S SO FRIGGIN’ SIMPLE.

  Targeted Content + Links = Targeted Traffic

  That’s it.

  Now you all owe me $97 for that insider, never-before-revealed secret.

  -Chris

• 83 Jeff // Mar 10, 2008 at 11:44 pm

  Hey, is there a site that gives detailed info on PAD creation? It’s just not adding up for me

• 84 admin // Mar 11, 2008 at 1:10 am

  Jeff, programs like PromoSoft (Develab.net) create a PAD file for you automatically.

  If not, there’s a free one called “PadGen” I believe.

  A PAD is simply an XML template protocol file that’s a standardized info-docket for describing a software product, used by almost every software/shareware directory.

  It includes a description of the app, the download URL’s, any applicable screenshot image URL’s, the publisher’s site URL and the ordering URL if it’s a shareware product (and not free).

  Cheers,

  -Chris

• 85 SpudDS // Mar 13, 2008 at 6:24 am

  I have just read your book.
  I have found a deperate audience, found approx 7 decent products on clickbank and done all my keyword research.
  Now you say you dont like blogs but do you think it makes a difference if i use a blog or html site?
  Also does it make any difference how many pages you have on your site ie is 30 better than 20?
  Also you said in book chose 20 desperate keywords and write 13 articles does that mean we use more than one keyword in some articles?
  I dont have a lot of money to spend on promotion, i might be able to afford the articles submissions and at a push 3waylinks.com but definately cant afford the other one yet what is you advice for people starting out without much money?
  How many words should the articles be?
  With all the great posts on here about this have you thought of starting a forum where everyone can discuss their succeses, failures ideas etc?

• 86 admin // Mar 13, 2008 at 3:34 pm

  Hi SpudDS,

  Wow, that’s a lot of questions in one comment…

  I’ll try to cover them with a few blanket answers:

  In regards to building a website, blog vs. static only really matters in terms of CONVERSION. If you’re a whiz at editing CSS templates and so on to modify a blog template to your liking, then blogs are the way to go as PART of your site structure.

  However, I find static sites to be better for conversions, simply because there’s less “clutter” (or options) for the visitor once they land on the page. You control how little, or how much, they see.

  So what’s better? I personally prefer static, but they’re both great. Do what works best for you.

  Alright, as for how many pages are required…

  In general, the more pages your site has, the more keywords you can target for organic traffic. Then again, each article actually needs to be useful to the visitor, meaning that you can’t just fill up a site with crap and expect to make sales.

  The most valuable types of content to a visitor are product reviews and tutorials, so have a good mix of those and you’ll be fine. The example in confessions is a site where 13 pages are tutorials, 7 pages are a product review, and the home page is an overview of the problem and the options for the visitor to fix the problem.

  Make sure your primary offer is staged “front and center” at your site, above the fold, so that it’s visible without the visitor having to scroll down. Do this on every page, and optionally on the product review pages.

  Each article or review should be at least 500 words or more.

  For promotional “musts”, article submission, social network linking (squidoo, zimbio, propeller, digg, etc.), directory submissions and targeted link-exchanges are necessary if you’re planning on spending $0.00 on link-building.

  If you’ve got some capital to work with, then outsource both reciprocal and 3-way link building, outsource the directory submission process, mass-submit articles through a service like ArticleMarketer, and invest in Jon Leger’s 3WayLinks.

  LinkVana is for the serious link-builders with the budget and business-scale to support the membership cost. And it works incredibly well, with zero risk or vulnerability due to outlinking.

  For a more detailed “link strategy guide”, see http://www.thelazymarketer.com/flash/seo.html

  A forum might be on the way in a few months. Especially with the amount of comments some of these threads get

  -Chris

• 87 Gil // Mar 21, 2008 at 1:57 am

  Hi Chris,

  Just a quick question.

  I’ve been doing my best following COALSA and I am wondering for the sites you’ve described what is the ideal bounce rate? You described that the main focus is get the traffic to the sales page so a high bounce rate percentage is not a bad thing, right?

  Tanks in advance.

  -Gil

  P.S. If you like heavy waves, on your next trip try out Pohnpei which is where a lot of pros used to go as an off-island(Hawaii) trip to get away from the crowds.

• 88 admin // Mar 21, 2008 at 2:04 am

  Hi Gil,

  If the bounce-rate is defined as a “back button” rate, then the lower the better.

  Salesletters get really high bounce rates, content/review sites get relatively lower bounce rates, and “function” sites get the lowest bounce-rates becaue the visitor is going there to use it in some way.

  The lower the b/r the better, but there’s no set percentage.

  Cheers,

  -Chris

  P.S. I’m a medium to small-medium wave guy. My favorite wave type is about a 3 to 4 foot wave (from the back) that has a little bit of barrel action – but not one that’s too “sucky”, if you know what I mean.

  I ride short longboards (7 to 8 feet) and I enjoy just crusing down the line without having to calculate every movement in order to avoid being pulverized by a 7+ foot wall of fury.

  I’ve had a few BIG wave rides (usually rogue sets), and they’re fun, but they also scare the crap out of me.

  (Not literally – yet…)

• 89 Gil // Mar 21, 2008 at 2:28 am

  I had a quiver when I lived in Big Isand a couple of years ago but sold all of them when moving back to Guam.

  My favorite board was a 9’0 and I’m more of just a middle aged (34) fart catching this long waves. My fave spot was on Kona side called “lymans”. I think you’d like lymans too. It gets big but you can galavant.

  If you ever go to Maui check out the northshore and drive through a pineapple field. I’m sure you’ve heard of “Jaws”. ..liquid thunder.

  Anyway thanks for the IM and for the COASLA which has been my main strategy since January.

  -Gil

  I’m Canadian too..:)

• 90 Gil // Mar 21, 2008 at 3:32 am

  Hi Chris,

  BTW My reality check is I’ve made sales however my expenses are still higher so I’m still not out of the red yet.

  I launched my website in the beginning of February. I’m now averaging over 40 visitors/day and rising. I’ve already passed the same amount of traffic I had in February a couple of days ago and if my current conversion rate sticks it looks like I’ll break even this month (accounting expenses).

  Last month I was convinced by you and Hayley that Linkvana is a great service so I signed up but I am having some difficulty filling up the Linkvana post deposit. I know it’s wasting money but I’m also running a small company at work and at home my 2 boys constantly want to play with me. So I bought another WSO to help me speed up on my writing until I can start using the profits (not just revenue) to outsource.

  I plan on starting a new set from another high demand niche in April.

  That’s how it’s going right now.

  Here’s a question I have:

  I’m using Webalizer for stats as well as google analytics and statcounter (I’m doing my best avoiding analysis paralysis.) and I’m gaging Webalizer’s “total unique sites” as the number of visitors as the “total unique visitors” seems to be inflated compared to google analytics which is always around 30% lower than webalizer. Is that a good judgement? (Anyway I’d rather get a more conservative traffic count as it makes my conversion rate look better:))

  Thanks again.

  -Gil

• 91 admin // Mar 22, 2008 at 3:04 am

  Hi Gil,

  I wouldn’t go too crazy on the stats programs until you’re driving serious traffic to landing pages that you want to refine to maximize visitor value for things like PPC, etc.

  Other than that, I’ve found Google Analytics combined with the applicable affiliate network’s built-in CTR reports more than sufficient for tracking performance.

  Remember that getting search engine traffic organically (the “real” way) equates to years of free traffic, and results.

  It’s hard to measure the long-term ROI of business activities in that sense if you’ve got web properties that produce sales consistently.

  I’ve spent a few thousand dollars in some cases marketing sites that don’t perform nearly as well as others that were “marketed” with some simple article submissions, directory submissions and free “buzz”…

  But even in the worst case scenarios so far, the “dud” sites still trend at earning back more than their startup costs in less than 12 months of profits generated.

  From a business standpoint, making back all your startup costs in a year is still a great investment.

  And remember – any sites that at least get SOME consistent revenue and traffic can be sold for a great profit, which may be smarter from a cash-raising standpoint than simply letting it ride…

  All the best,

  -Chris

• 92 ian // Mar 24, 2008 at 5:23 pm

  Chris,

  First off thanks for COALSA…great book I’ve been working it for about 3 months now. I’ve seen some good successes I’m at about $750 revenue a month from the (3) sites I’ve launched (one which just got launched last week so no real traffic yet).

  I had a couple of questions… I’m experiencing some big ups and downs with traffic on my initial site I launched. It’ll get to 250 visits a day then fall back to 100 or so then up a bit. It’s been live for a bout 2 mth now how long in your experience is it taking Big G to settle into a stable traffic pattern?

  Also I’m seeing similar results with revenue… I’ll have a couple of $80-$100 days on Clickbank then go 4 days with nudda.

  I think I’m just looking for some confirmation that all is good and just keep my head down and do what I’m doing…but I don’t want to soak time into something that might not be worth it either.

  How long for a niche site to settle into a pattern in your experience? And do you continue to promote and add new content to mini sites even after the first 5-7 week blitz of promo with articles, link vana posts, social marketing etc.

  Cheers,

  Ian (from the other coast of Canada)

• 93 Alex Miller // Mar 27, 2008 at 4:47 am

  Hi Chris,

  Just a little off topic question but a very important one I feel…

  Is it OK in the eyes of Big G to distribute articles from your own site via articlemarketer? Or would that come up as duplicate content etc?

  Also, I think my site is sandboxed because of adding links too fast….as many of my keywords have significantly dropped or are completely out of the equation…what can i do to help get out of it quicker?

  Many thanks,
  Alex

• 94 Sean // Apr 4, 2008 at 4:15 pm

  Hi Chris
  A bit new to this praising thing, but got to say, fantastic book. have now read it three times, and lots of light-bulb moments. I am an experienced SEO type, as well as quite a bit of affiliate stuff, but just never had the funds to really go for the PPC, or the sense to combine affiliate stuff and SEO, durh!

  Anyway, thought I’d start a project (april 2nd), and am also keeping a little diary going too – maybe you could use it perhaps.

  Lovin it muchly seriously.

  Sean

  Put the price up today!

• 95 Sean // Apr 4, 2008 at 4:17 pm

  One point – how do I go for brand name keywords if their isn’t a specific product, more a collection of how to’s? Its not the IM field and their are no big “known” names in this niche.
  Grabbed plenty of emotional buying keywords, just wanted to add some others. Any thoughts?

  Sean again

• 96 admin // Apr 4, 2008 at 5:10 pm

  Hi Sean,

  Are their products inthe niche?

  Plug product-review or product-description pages into your site(s) as well. This will capture very serious visitors.

  Thanks man

  -Chris

• 97 Sean // Apr 5, 2008 at 1:55 am

  There are plenty of problem solving products, and a defo hungry pain relieving crowd in a huge market. There’s just no standard er names or brands, its all ebooks or offline stuff.

  have written to a big author of one book and asked for a copy and will do a few comparison pages.

  Sean

• 98 Gil // Apr 5, 2008 at 8:29 am

  Hi Chris,

  How’s the Rockies? Man I miss it….

  Anyway I really feel the need to kick things up another notch and would like to attain the 4 figure mark by the end of this month however I’m not sure which way I should direct my focus.

  1. I haven’t fully marketed my site with the Viral marketing as you’ve strongly encouraged… (BTW how do you think Robosoft compares with Promosoft?) And do the backlinks created from the submitted software affect (increase) the rankings of a site?

  2. Should I create some new mini-sites in the same niche? I’m beginning to see to make some real money in the affiliates “department” I’ll need to create multiple sites whether in the same niche or in different ones.

  3. When will the “more” thorough review of the Store Stacker come up? That looks real interesting too.

  4. I’m REALLY eyeing your limited offer for the insomnia product on WF and adding in the Desperate Buyers (to help guide & tweak) offer from the other thread on this blog…. (I’m itching to get a product) Wordtracker claims a few thousand searches a day for the main keywords and looks like a good “desperate buyer” product that’s ready to go…

  I’ve begun to appreciate your point of view (and WF) especially since it’s beginning to put money in my pocket. So what do you think will help propel me up to the next level of 4 figures?

  Thanks for your time and this blog!

  Gil

• 99 admin // Apr 5, 2008 at 12:56 pm

  Hi Gil,

  Here’s some answers:

  1. The software method is more for traffic than it is for links. At least – that’s what I’ve found to be the case. If it suits your niche, then software submissions are a good way to get additional traffic, opt-ins, and conversion data.

  2. Yes, that’s one strategy – but only if the niche is already profitable for you. Build a few mini-sites, each one taking a different “angle” so as to further penetrate the search engines.

  Once you’ve got a good network going, then IMMEDIATELY go to work on building an authority site of true value (something your visitors would appreciate enough to the point where they’d voluntarily bookmark it).

  You can’t count on Google to keep your mini-sites ranked well consistently, especially in competitive niches. That’s why they need to be a segway into an actual resource. They act as kindling for a larger fire.

  3. Possibly today, I’m still playing around with it

  4. Insomnia is a great market for selling info-products because of the desperation factor, and a lot of people DON’T want to become dependant on drugs.

  5. As for your last question, (what will help propel you to the next level), without a doubt:

  More traffic

  The most reliable way to get that is to create valuable authority content AND diversify your traffic by creating products that other affiliates can promote.

  Use this traffic to build mailing lists as well – that way you’re building a true business asset. Keep your tone “real” and don’t be hypey when you interact with your list. Build trust, and you’ll be amazed at how valuable even a SMALL list can become.

  If you’re selling feeder products (*highly* recommended), then you’ll ideally have three lists: prospects, customers, & affiliates.

  If it fits your niche, the software strategy is great for kicking things off, too.

  You don’t have to chew this stuff all at the same time.

  Just roll out a few more mini-sites with unique content, promote, let Google do it’s thing, and then as soon as they’re on their way, it’s time to start working on your authority site.

  After that’s complete, then you can start planning your first feeder product. Remember that it can be as short as 10 pages, as long as it DELIVERS. Or use Camtasia to make a video.

  (You can create your product before your authority site, too, whatever fits your preference).

  At that point, it’s all about optimization and automation. Load up all of your autoresponders with pointed, interesting content and embed them with your best offer(s).

  Then tweak your affiliate ads, opt-in offers and sales pages for maximum conversion.

  Be active about recruiting affiliates for your feeders, and price the product for VOLUME sales. Easy sales.

  The sales channel is more important than how much money you make on the front-end.

  From there, it’s just a matter of “adding”. Adding content, adding new products, and adding autoresponder messages (and occasional broadcasts).

  Remember that you can actively involve your list in your marketing process. Create incentives for them to link to your site, use a “widget” or install a facebook app, etc.

  Your list is an asset in more ways than one…

  Do this in a profitable niche, and you’ll be amazed at the results.

  -Chris

• 100 Sean // Apr 13, 2008 at 12:01 pm

  Hi Chris

  thought I’d check in with an update – my site has been up now for four days, although its not indexed as yet. I am getting about 20-30 visitors per day already from the articles I have placed on various sites, plus some social bookmarking. Was just wondering do your sites get you a sale per day each or are we talking lots of sales for each site.

  I want (am going to reach!!!) $60-$100 per day as I can live comfortably on that (very cheap island I live on). And am sure I can get to that, plus I am willing to stick it for many months, and continue to build one site per month.

  Ho many sites do you own, and are you still building monthly?

  Sean

• 101 admin // Apr 13, 2008 at 3:54 pm

  Hi Sean,

  Social bookmarking traffic is pretty well worthless. So don’t include that in your conversion data. Well, that’s just my opinion, but in general that’s what you’ll find.

  Traffic from article bylines is usually high-quality, but again, it depends on the search profile that got them to your article, and then on to your site.

  The only kind of traffic you can “actually” quantify is PPC and organic search results. It’s the most consistent type of traffic, though it’s one of many traffic sources that are valuable.

  (If you’re selling your own product, you’ll find that affiliates and JV partners who can construct authoritative reviews will produce very high conversions, much more so than pretty much any other strategy, short of your own list perhaps.)

  So you can’t draw any conclusions until you KNOW your traffic, and why/how they’re finding your site (what they’re looking for when they arrive).

  To answer your two questions:

  Some of my sites generate numerous sales daily, while others are much more sporadic. The WORST performing site built to my “lazy affiliate” specifications usually makes about $300 to $400-ish a month in commissions, and makes a few sales a week.

  But keep in mind that I take SEO pretty seriously, and I spend money quite liberally on building incoming links.

  Your sites won’t get organic SE traffic unless you build a solid foundation of backlinks, plain and simple.

  And to go even further, your sites won’t CONVERT too well unless you’re targeting buyers and buyer-profile visitors. You do this by focusing your sites around specific keywords as per Part 1 of Confessions.

  How many sites do I have?

  Well, I’m currently building at least 1 mini-site per month (sometimes more) and working on authority sites and products simultaneously.

  In total, I currently operate “more than 50 but less than 100″ different domains.

  Not all of them are “lazy affiliate” style sites.

  Some of my best performing sites match or exceed your target, and do so with a surprisingly small amount of traffic comparitively.

  Your pre-selling, content quality and keyword targeting are the key factors to making sales as an affiliate.

  And that’s of course assuming that you’re marketing products with great conversion rates in markets where the buyers are motivated – not just “interested”.

  -Chris

• 102 Sean // Apr 14, 2008 at 4:21 am

  thanks for the answers. Will get back to work, and have some good data for you soon.

  Appreciate you taking the time to answer in such detail.

  Sean

• 103 Mirko // May 8, 2008 at 9:17 am

  Hi,

  maybe a stupid question but I started my website 3 weeks ago and just made some article submissions to ezinearticles (14) and Goarticles (6).Now I am starting with linkvana. My question is: Is articlemarketer.com worth the money? I heard different things about it. Is ezinearticles and Goarticles enough?
  So and now to my website experience, 160 hops 1 sale, not much but I try to improve the site at the moment and then start the next.

  Thanks
  Mirko

• 104 admin // May 8, 2008 at 11:37 am

  Mirko,

  I use ArticleMarketer because it automates my submissions – makes it easier.

  Since Google will really only “count” links from the top sites anyway, you need to look at AM as being a time-saving service.

  I love the ability to schedule article releases with a web-based platform.

  That’s it’s strength.

  -Chris

• 105 Mirko // May 14, 2008 at 9:44 am

  Thanks for the quick answer, I will give it a try. otherwise it took a lot of time to submit them manual.

  I am using Linkvana and there are 13 post online. What is your experience, link just to 1 or 2 review sites (product A 50 Links/Product B 50 links) or just 1 product or linking to some more sites of the project.
  Thanks
  Mirko

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