I'm so confused...

Alright I'll get the ball rolling...

What do you like to do? Could you write about it?

You don't have to do anything tricky or sneaky. Just provide information for people and maybe make it entertaining to read to. Monetizing a site is easy - it's practically the only part anyone concentrates on. If you have a blog that you update frequently with quality content, people will want to come back, they'll promote your site for you, they'll buy the products you recommend. I say build a real business online, build something you love, and build something you can be proud of.

Get a domain and hosting and I will install a wordpress site with all the fixings to get you started. I know how you feel

Yeah, first thing to do is get a domain that fits the niche of the products you want to push.

You sound like you need to start at the very beginning. Try "The Challenge" at challenge.co which is free and will step you through the basics of market research, setting up a site, getting traffic to it and monetizing it.

Danielle,

Domains are the foundation to building a business brand name. For a quick review, watch my YouTube video You, Inc. Once you have your domain chosen, market your business using a blog, wordpress or articles. Blogger dot com is a free website you can use to blog about anything. EzineArticles is the best website to post articles but be wary because they have strict rules on what you can and can't post. If you are confident and enunciate well, you can post videos on YouTube.
Your best bet for free marketing is social media: Twitter, Facebook, Myspace and Digg. Create a fanpage for yourself, your business or your product on Facebook and link it to your business landing page and blog.
You can do PPC advertising but it's ill advised unless you know how to copywrite PPC ads. Also, you will get slapped by Google, Yahoo and Bing if you use a generic landing page to market your business.
These are just a few of the many ways to market yourself and your business. If you want to know more you can visit my website or write me personally. I hope this has been helpful for you.

Look... don't go buying up a bunch of products... Find something good, that seems like you can manage it, and STICK with it till you are making money.

It sounds like the program you bought may be too advanced for you. Never believe the hype that says "a complete newbie can do this", "anyone can do this" ... stuff like that a good majority of the time is not true.

Most things out there, assume you have at least some knowledge of Internet Marketing.

If I were in your shoes and didn't know where to start, I would go to squidoo.com and create an account, make a few lenses. (You can learn how at their site, or search the forums here) You can use your affiliate links on Squidoo.

Go to Blogger.com create a blog(s) ... you can use your affiliate links there, as well as a limited amount on Hubpages.com (read rules for posting at these sites).

After you got that set up... you can go to article sites and post articles, with a link to your Squidoo Lens, Blog, or whatever in your bio box. (You can't use your affiliate links, so you will have to direct people to your other spots to try to sell them.

Read the rules of all sites carefully. Always submit quality content...not just promotion...give the readers something of value, without giving everything away.

If you do this and keep doing this...you should start seeing sales...all without putting out any more money or having your own website.

You can do those advanced things later as you learn.

P.S... if that product you bought has a refund policy, like most do... go and get your refund... it doesn't seem like the product will help you since you are a true beginner and it seems complicated for you.

Hi Danielle...

1. Market research. Go to prominent media sources of economic news,
business trade news and consumer market trend news. Analyze the data
they provide along with their own analytical commentaries...

2. Identify the most profitable industries this year and beyond...

3. Identify immediate needs and urgent problems of consumer markets
relevant to those profitable industries...

4. Determine which specific sets of consumer markets prefer to search and
look for information on the Internet to satisfy their needs and solve their
problems...

5. Pinpoint the specific subset groups of people who prefer to purchase
solutions to their needs and problems on the Internet...

6. Determine the online places where those people are expected to go
to view relevant content and share their experience and ideas with others
interested in things useful for satisfying those needs and solving those problems. These can be Web forums, top ranking websites for relevant
keywords, blog networks, social networks, ebook repositories, document-sharing sites,
video directories, press release and RSs directories among other online communities...

7. Take note of article titles and tags, forum thread titles and tags, blog
post titles and tags, video titles and tags, titles and tags of shared
documents and ebooks and so on...

8. Take note of points urgently discussed by those people in
those online places...

9. Use the relevant keywords you took note of from number 1 to number 8
above in the Google Adwords Keyword Tool. Get exact searches. Use
heavily searched keywords in Google without quotes. Take note of top 10
or 20 ranking pages for each keyword. Look at the page and homepage
Google PageRank, number of backlinks and the Google PageRank of each
top ranking page result. Take note of the domain age of the websites
where those top ranking pages are found along with the domain age of the
websites where backlinks pointing to those top ranking pages and its
homepages. Take note of the online places the websites go to promote
their content, products and services...

10. Strike a balance between keyword search volume and competitor strength...

11. Strike a balance between keyword search volume, competitor strength
and keyword profitability. Keyword profitability can be determined by the
set of actions expected to be taken by a person included in your target
audience after finding relevant content on the Internet and viewing the
content. Will the person click an ad, buy a product/service, signup to a mailing list, share the content with friends and family, fill out an offer,
download software trial versions, signup for a membership subscription and
so on...

12. Develop products/services/content which can satisfy related needs
and solve the relevant problems of your target audience with the unique
benefits offered by such products/services/content. Otherwise: Search for
affiliate products/services beneficial to your target audience from credible
companies. Signup as their affiliate...

13. Go to a credible hosting service provider like Hostgator. Register a
domain and a hosting plan with them...

14. Hire a Wordpress Web developer with graphics design, visual
communications and onsite SEO expertise. Ask the person to customize a Wordpress template for you, complete with a mailing list signup box and
management panel, video panel with admin panel integration, features for
viewers to easily share your content on social bookmarking sites and so
on...

Also ask the person to do viewer responsiveness optimization for the
layout of your website and onsite search engine optimization for your page meta info, server settings, sitemap.xml and robots.txt. Also ask the person
to ensure that your website is W3C and Web Accessibility Standards
compliant. Lastly: Ask the person to develop necessary graphics for your
site, such as a logo, headers and other relevant images...

15. Go where your target audience hangs out. Contribute useful and
beneficial content relevant to their related needs, problems and your
onsite content, products/services. This is your chance to establish
yourself as a friendly expert source of beneficial content, info, advice,
products and services relevant to their needs and problems, then build
mutually beneficial relationships between your business and your target
audience...

16. Go to top ranking heavily trafficked pages for your keywords that do
not accept content contributions from viewers. Think of ways you can
negotiate deals with the webmasters of those websites. You can
exchange fresh content for your business information and backlinks on
their pages with your contributed content. You can ask them for ad
placement on their pages or on their mailing list newsletters and updates...

17. Some of the heavily trafficked, contextually relevant websites and
pages in numbers 15 and 16 would be dofollow, high Google PageRank,
well-aged domain websites. Having your backlinks on those homepages
and internal pages could improve the Google PageRank of your pages,
which may or may not improve the Google SE rankings of your pages for
your target keywords. If it doesn't: You got yourself covered since your
aim is to generate traffic for your pages to generate sales with your
content marketing campaigns mentioned in numbers 15 and 16 above...

In my opinion: I wouldn't solely base the foundations of my livelihood on a
secret algorithm closely guarded, constantly changed and continuously
improved by a billion dollar company...

My objective is to get more sales, and a prerequisite of more sales = More
targeted traffic. Yes, high Google SE rankings would mean more traffic,
though I'm already generating good traffic volume by implementing
numbers 15 and 16 above, anyway...

you guys rock, thank you all so so much. I will take on board everything you suggest and start with the easiest. What's the deal with the google sniper thing? Is that for someone a tad more advanced than me in light of my first post? Are there those lovely upsells straight away as you get in there as well?
Again Thank you all.
Kind regards
Danielle

Hi Danielle,

Here's my two cents:

1. Get a refund for both of the products you bought, if you haven't already.
Jump through these hoops to do it:
Go to https://www.clickbank.com/orderDetail.htm?clear=true
Enter your ClickBank Order # (in the email they sent when you purchased) and your email address and click Submit.
Then click "Click here to get support." at the left and in the "Select a reason" drop-down select "More options..."
Tick "Refund Request", select a reason and click Send.

2. Like Sunnybeach7 said:
My recommendation is Chris Rempel's Conduit Method. It's an old method that still works great and you don't really sell products you just provide the information that buyers are looking for. Don't buy it though.
Go to this Google search and the pdf is right there at about third position:
conduit method - Google Search

Use Hubpages.com, Squidoo.com or Blogger.com to build "Conduit Pages" for free. Then when you have some that are working go ahead and look into buying a domain and setting up a WordPress Conduit site.
You can do this for ClickBank products or Amazon products(signing up for Amazon's Affiliate program is really easy) or any product for that matter.

Here's one I built recently: Traffic Dashboard by Kim Roach - Product Report & User Reviews
If you use Hubpages just don't put more than one or two affiliate links.

My site IMReports.org is also set up using the Conduit Method.

Follow Chris' methods for getting your site to rank in the search engines and try some other traffic strategies and you should do OK.

3. Whether you take my recommended method or anyone else's here, just pick one and focus all your efforts on it. Ignore all the new shiny products that claim you can do this overnight and make a killing with three clicks of a mouse. This will take time, but it is worth the effort.

Best of Luck,

Shane

Hello Danielle, IM is a a bit of a nightmare when you start, so much disjointed information, different ideas and business models and so many products and it's so easy to get lost and confused. Here are a few free sources I found to be useful for a complete biginner: Ed Dale's challenge.co (as recommedned by Kevin above), Bum Marketing Method by Travis Sago and Jennifer Ledbetter's PotpieGirl.com. These will give you some good basics without the need to buy courses for now.

First thing I'll suggest is to STOP buying every "instant" this and "autopilot" that program .. There's NO such animal as "instant and / or automatic" out here ..There are "tools" to make things easier but it all boils down to putting in the time / work ..

I'd also suggest steering away from PPC until you've got a solid grip on how it works / how to work it ..You can go BROKE FAST if you don't - I think Google Adwords LOVES newbies LOL

Figure out what you like, what you want to promote, and what your strong / weak skills are ..Map them out on paper if you need to just for visual reference..IM is like any other business - You need a "plan" and a "map" .. This is a journey, not a destination

I'm still a relative "newbie" too but, I've learned, and continue learning ALOT & I think one of the most valuable skills I've acquired is how to sift through the BS / seperate fact from fiction!

Stay on the forum!! There are alot of GREAT people here with a tremndous amount of experience / knowledge ..You will learn much here

Stick to your guns - Stay positive - Stay focused - work hard and most of all, have some fun! If you're not having fun with IM, then it's just another (just over broke) "J.O.B"
Don't give up before the magic happens!

Rev

Go daddy has a promo going ... Use "President" and you can get the site for one year for $1. Don't use website tonight.

DaniL,

Commission Crusher has a good tool, but definitely not for newbies. The course has good information but missing one element to make it complete to make you money, just like the many courses out there.

Take all the advice from everyone that has mentioned on here. Don't follow the Commission Crusher program unless you really know what you're doing or you can lose your shirt. I actually started out with Ed Dale's very first Thirty Day Challenge and now I do SEO consulting for businesses. I recommend you do the same thing and check our Ed Dale's challenge.

One tool I highly recommend you to get is Market Samurai. Go to their site and read up all you can of what it can do. You'll learn a lot there.

When you get to the stage where you want backlinks to your website for SEO, you can contact me as I have a special package out soon, to offer Warrior Members only, where I can build 7000 forum profile backlinks for 3 keywords of your choice for cheap at around $45 or so... maybe $39.

Good luck!

Danielle,

Speaking from firsthand experience, the frustration you are experiencing, well, it's gonna get worse.

1. Keep reading this forum.

2. get an idea in your head of what you are trying to accomplish.

3. keep it very, very simple for a while

4. don't skip from one idea on this forum to another. That's hard to do because there are SO MANY fantastic ideas and strategies for internet marketing. Anyone under a year is a beginner and should stay focused on the basics

5. and about WordPress...assuming you end up using it because most do, you need to know that the themes (the way the site looks) can create many headaches or cause none at all. Some of those stinkin themes are designed just to cause frustrations. You'l learn about that as you try to add an advertisement or something super simple.

Also, hopefully you market a keyword that has low competition.

WOW
I'm impressed for you for the amount of info you have got.
An amazing forum we are part of here!

I can only to make sure you stay focussed on exactly what you want to achieve...and KEEP GOING....because the momnet you stop you will lose momentum and it'll be like starting all over again!

Keep going and you never know where you might end up....Ducatti perhaps for hubby afterall!

Tonio

Hi,
How does Commission Crusher compare to Profit Storm ? Has anyone brought both? I have read the forum about Profit Storm,it sound ok for newbie who has bought it. I am a newbie, considering to buy it.

You can use blogger blog and aweber. Spend 2-3 months and you will have atleast 200-300 email list.Then, promote your affiliate links to them.
Best of Luck

" I want to do Aff marketing so i sell other people's products." - I think to make IM work you need to do it the other way, that is, find out what problems people are having and RECOMMEND the product you're promoting as a solution to that particular problem.

Please don't do hard sell, it doesn't work.