Wanting to start IM but too much information! Just need a starting point...

You'll want to pick a niche that is a good combination of having the ability to monetize it as well as the niche be somewhat interesting to you.

Nothing sucks more than thinking you'll make money in a niche only to find out there is no money being spent in that niche. The only other thing that comes close to sucking more is to find limited success in a niche you can't stand. But at least then you can outsource most of the drudgery and become a manager.

Remember this...if you stick with it you wil grow, and growth means being able to do things you never would imagine you could have accomplished.

~Bill

For your first venture, it is a GREAT idea to go for something you are interested and passionate about.

You used the acne blog as an example... there are people VERY passionate about that niche! They may not be passionate about acne itself, but maybe they had really bad acne and want to help people overcome it. That is something to be passionate about!

Think hard about what you are interested and how you want to HELP people. Remember, the key to making money is to offer something that people need or want and providing value. You want to help your customers.

Thanks guys.

So does this niche have to be something that solves a problem? Or, for example, could a review site/blog be used to monetize?

Certainly a review blog works as long as you're a solid writer. Write the reviews, build links to it manually, start making money right away. It's a good plan!

Beginner,

It CAN be very confusing and overwhelming. Believe me, I know! Been there, done that. And you're very smart to be asking questions like this.

Clarity is a HUGE part of IM success. I hope this post brings some clarity. It's so simple when you know it -- and darn difficult when you don't! I owe my mentors a world of thanks for bringing this clarity.

IM is actually pretty simple: you can sell only one of two things:

1. Products
2. Services

That's it!

And selling products or services online happens in the same basic way for everyone, no matter what they're selling:

Traffic > Opt-in page > Autoresponder series (or e-zine) > Sales page

That's it! It's just that simple. (We IMers tend to overcomplicate things.)

But no matter what your niche is, or whether you're selling a product or a service, do you know what your business model is?

A business model is the framework or skeleton of your business. Essentially there are three types of online business models:

1. Membership-based model

A membership-based business model allows you to build a community of people (your members) who are as passionate about your subject as you are. Your membership fees can be monthly or annual, but either way, you're building recurring, passive income.

There are a lot of resources and information out there to help you build a membership-based business if you're interested in doing this.

2. Product-based model

Selling products allows you to maximize your time and effort by selling items over and over again. This can be hard goods or it can be information products. Information marketing is it's own business model under the product-based model. Information marketing allows you to take your brain to the bank by creating a product ONCE based on what you know and selling it over and over again.

Affiliate marketing falls under both models. You can choose to market either products or services as an affiliate.

3. Service-based model

Selling services can be great for 1) generating quick cash (as in the case of article writing or video producing) and 2) establishing your expertise and getting testimonials.

However, in the long run, your goal should be to offer services at a PREMIUM. The biggest advantage of IM is LEVERAGE. You're able to leverage your time, money and expertise exponentially online. We all have just 24 hours each day. Time to get ruthless about what you expect for those hours you spend in IM each day. Expect more of yourself and more from your business friends, clients, partners, etc.

What results are you getting for those hours you spend online each day? Ultimately, your services should be at the bottom of your funnel and cost the most since they involve your time and personal attention. (We all have a limited amount of time each day.)

The fun (and confusion) comes in with all of the endless mix-and-match possibilities of the above models. If you're just starting or still struggling to make money, keep it simple:

Pick just ONE!

1. Pick ONE niche. (Something you're interested in and know something about.)

2. Pick ONE target market for your product or service. (Who will buy what you're offering? The more specific you are, the more you narrow it down, the more successful you'll be.)

3. Pick ONE business model.

Now that you're clear about what business you're in, FOCUS! (And stop buying any info not related to your niche and target market, period!)

F -- Follow
O -- One
C -- Course
U -- Until
S -- Successful

And remember: build a list, Build a List, BUILD A LIST!

In IM, it's easy to put the cart before the horse. Take a deep breath, step back and consider what type of business you're REALLY want. Don't worry about getting traffic or buying that expensive traffic product until you know 1) what your business model is, 2) what niche you're in and 3) WHO your target market is!

Successful business people will tell you that MARKETING is more than half the effort that's needed for success anyway. So pick a niche, target market and business model. Then spend most of your time and effort marketing it.

If you DON'T have a solid plan or system, THAT'S when it's hard. A good system will shave YEARS (and save you big $$$) off of your learning curve

That's why I recommend investing in at least one good, comprehensive IM course (or mentor who will give you such a system) instead of jumping from one $37 e-book to the next. A lot of people here complain about not being able to make any money. But neither are they willing to invest in their business. (Buying a random bunch of $37 e-books doesn't count.)

The best thing I ever did was invest in a comprehensive IM course aimed at REAL business owners, not just other IM wannabes. Yes it was $1500. (It's no longer available.) But it was truly some of the best A-Z IM info I ever bought. Everything else I've learned (from the $37 e-books) since has simply been plugged into this system.

Get a solid plan or system and then work the plan!

Hope this helps!

Michelle

You're on the right track. Find a profitable, low competition niche, and then enter and cause havoc. Using Blogger, Google Adsense, and affiliate programs are a great way to start your internet business without spending any money at all. You can use free marketing to get you a ton of traffic to your blog.

I think that you should stick with it and learn the ropes about marketing online, and check to see if you're getting more and more website traffic everyday. Also, be sure to download and install something called Alexa. It'll let you know where your website stands in terms of getting website traffic.

You make it sound so easy . But really she is right. I am new to the whole thing to but it was only when I came here that i found the most important thing (You might be confused by a lot of information but when 90 percent of everyone seems to say the same thing its probably good to look into) that important thing was to have a PLAN. This is what I have been working on. I was going to try and share what i have learned so far here and try to make it simple as possible but Michelle did an excellent job and just motivated me to grab the notebook and get back to work. Because at the end of the day its a job and at any job you only get paid for what you put in. (your not going to get a raise if you dont put forth the effort) I would say the same is true here.

One thing as a newbie I have seen a lot is that there are a lot of people that think they have learned it all. They start marketing affiliate's make a few bucks and think they have it all figured out and there financial freedom is right around the corner. But what has been helping me clear my mind the most out of all the information around the web is just repeating in my head "this is a business" if you dont treat it like one you may make couple fly by night hundreds or maybe thousands, but eventually like any brick and mortar business without a plan you will fail.

With that said, going into a niche you are passionate or highly knowledgeable about is great, and will make it all that much easier. Now this is my personal opinion and the more experienced marketers here can correct me if im wrong. But what I find very intriguing about the internet is that you can get more information on a niche, such as traffic,sales, and even get very accurate numbers for this. Most of this can be obtained free or by spending a minimal amount of money. Imagine if every brick and mortar business could know exactly how many people were going to walk by there doors and how many people would actually walk in the door. That type of information is priceless.

So without rambling anymore what im trying to say is that if you pick something your interested in it will be a lot easier for you to "want" to blog,promote, or sell that service or product. But i find it quite possible to just be so interested in marketing in general you can always go into a niche you dont know much about (Just make sure you know EVERYTHING about the statistics) and you can learn about that niche and be just as excited about marketing and learning to make it fun and profitable at the same time.

This is just my 2 cents i didnt mean for this to be a long post.

Actually, I'm fairly certain selling traffic constitutes a form of either product or service, depending on how you do it.

Wouldnt that be a service?

Interesting way of looking at it. But I still say if an advertiser is using your site to promote there products your servicing them by letting them advertise there. So it seems like a service to imo

OK, so I need to find a niche that I can be certain that I can affiliate and create traffic for click-thrus. This does not have to be something I am interested in or passionate about but it helps a great deal if I am.

From reading Michelle's (Nightengale's) post, I will be in the affiliate market with a blog/articles? Is that right? Or is it Bill Farham's traffic model?

Also with a blog or just writing articles (are both of them the same thing??), can I still build a list? Why do people need to subscribe to read articles.. or is it just to alert them when a new article is published?

nb. How do I thank people or do new warriors not have this functionality until later.

Anyone who's been involved in IM for any length of time knows it's much more than just throwing up some affiliate links on a site and hoping for the best. Think about it. If nobody sees the site, the links don't matter.

Do this in baby steps. Focus on ONE site to start. . .especially if you're just starting out. Trust me. I've felt what you're feeling, as has everyone else in your shoes.

Get your site exactly the way you want. Then, here's what I recommend: Start a blog. I know, I thought the same thing too when I heard that advice. What the h*** am I going to write about? Here's my suggestion, and I learned this from a very well respected marketer, Alex Jeffreys. Here's what he says: "Write for people, not for the search engines."

Heck, you can get TONS of PLR articles for free that you can use for content. I don't recommend using a spinner because, as I've found out, "garbage in equals garbage out." Take a few minutes and reword the article adding your own flair, then add it as a post to your blog. Truthfully, it'll take 15 minutes for one post. Trust me, 30 minutes of your time per day will be well worth it. To quote Alex Jeffreys again: "I don't know how blogs get traffic. They just do." Adding some Google AdSense links can only help.

Just post content about what you're going through, what you're learning, what you're experiencing, etc. People will start to follow. Another experienced internet marketer I've studied, Paul Nicholls, says to sell through your blog. . .always. That way, people will know, like, and trust you.

I could go on and on here with advice, but I hope this has at least answered some of your questions. Please shoot me an email (bob@bobmooremarketing.com) any time you have questions, and I'll be more than happy to correspond with you. I just want to help others the way others have helped me.

To your success,

Bob

The thanks box is in the bottom right hand corner. Not sure if there is a post count you wont see it on your post but its the black button to the far right at the bottom of the post you want to thank.

Blogging and Articles can be excepted as the same thing. (Someone correct me if im wrong)

Are you good at writing? This seems to be key in almost any type of market you go into online. If not dont worry neither am I but the good part is its a skill and all skills can be mastered with with practice

Yes you can still build a list, and want to build that list. You can use the list for letting people know when new articles are posted but it can also be used further down the road as once you build that list you now have a group of people in that target market should you need to promote something relating to that niche or market.

I'll be very blunt: 99% of successful bloggers write about their passions and worry about the niche only as an afterthought. People who create minisites worry about the niche, but minisites are much less effective today.

Now, the reason that 99% of successful bloggers (again, world of difference between a minisite with a handful of pages and a blogger who creates hundreds or even thousands of pages over time) write about what they are passionate about isn't because it's what makes the most money for them. Rather, writing about something you are passionate about makes you successful because your own personal voice shines through and gets people to want to read what you have to say.

Plus, when you write about something you are passionate about, you'll find that on day 173 you're still looking forward to publishing stuff on your blog. If you try to write about something you think will make you money, you'll eventually give up in frustration and walk away as the vast majority of bloggers who think it's easy to make a fortune online do.

Now, all that having been said, you do need to find something you are passionate about which other people are likely to be passionate about. In other words, you may find belly lint to be positively fascinating. You may collect the stuff and have specimens of it from hundreds of different people (hey, people have all kinds of crazy collections). However, the fact is that the number of people who will share your passion are going to be pretty small to say the least. So choose a middle ground and find something which many others are passionate about which you are also passionate about.

Welcome Beginner:

Before you decide on any course of action, there are basic skills you will need to learn. I strongly suggest you take the time to learn the basics. You have been given some very valuable information in this thread; however, if you don't know the basics how will you be able to take action on their suggestion. The biggest mistakes most newbies make is not taking the time to learn the fundamentals of IM.

It is suggested you find a niche. How do you find a profitable niche?
It is suggested you have drive traffic to your blog. How do you drive traffic to a blog or website?
It is suggested you set up an autoresponder. How do you set up an autoresponder?
It is suggested you monetize you blog. What are the various ways to monetize your blog?
And so on...

As you ca see from these questions there is basic knowledge that every internet marketer must have. Take the time to learn the basics now, so that you can take advantage of many of the really good opportunities presented here on the WF and many other sites online.

P.S. Having a mentor(a good one) is nice, but if you can't afford it, you can still be successful without one. Besides, any mentor you get, who is worth their salt will tell you what I just did, Learn The Basics. The mentor won't be able to help you if you don't know the fundamentals, you won't understand what their talking about and telling you what to do.

P.P.S. If you are interested I will happily send you my WSO for free, a little bit of help so you can go forth and prosper.

Welcome to the forum I hope you find all the information you need to get things in order for yourself. Like many have said above there is going to be a nice size learning curve with IM but there is no reason why you can't earn while you learn.

The best advice I can give anyone just starting out is to keep super duper focused and don't all these methods mess your head up my friend. Pick one business model and work it to the best of your ABILITY until you get the hang of things and start earning a profit.

Remember this is an industry that rewards hard work and dedication and ton of action taking on the lessons that you learn. Start small and grow big "bootstrap" shall I say your way to a nice size income.

It can happen for you just like it has happened for myself and many others who just took the needed time out to MAKE a way for their business and not just hope and day dream.

To your success,
Bryan Lillard

Focus is key. Pick one idea, develop it into a website/blog/forum and choose a niche that you are passionate about.