How a 16 year old sets up a complete affiliate marketing funnel with traffic in 12 hours

Hey, my name's Kris and I always see people typing up informative posts and thought I might have one. It seems relatively easy, and like a good way to promote myself - erhm I mean give back to the community. Heh.

If you had one weekend to yourself, you could be running a totally new business. I've actually done this for skateboarding - although I know nothing about it, and ditched it. Hahaha - I just wanted to test this out for myself.

Feel free to ask any questions. I'll answer them all!

Hour One: Niche and Keyword Research.

1a. "Unprofitable" Niches Are A Joke

I always try finding topics that I'm passionate about. Every single niche is profitable. At first, people will laugh at you for having a blog about tortilla chips. But once Doritos starts calling you up and wants to advertise with you, then it's not so funny to them. People love what they love, you'll always find a profitable niche.

Unfortunately I picked two niches which are highly competitive... Dating, and making money blogging -.-' But whatever, you've gotta do what you've gotta do.

Sure, some niches are more desperate, and more suited to short-term but what I'm getting at is starting a long-term business.

And even starting off in the local pond, like "Victoria, BC" for me would be much easier and you'd have so much less competition. You have a built-in market, and can dominate it. The options are endless.

1b. Cash In Instead of Passion
If you're looking to do a sniper site, then this is for you. And here's how it works: find a product, then determine keywords for it. I recommend getting George Brown's Google Sniper. (Edit: I got rid of my affiliate link, apparently I can get banned). Just go over to Gsniper.com, and you'll find it.

Method 1:
Go to CBEngine.com, and type in your niche with the Top 10 setting. Maybe even the recurring payment setting if you want to get paid more than once.

Method 2:
Go to CB-Analytics.com and go to the new products, and find the products submitted for that day. Or some other day, and find an uncompetitive niche.

Method 3:
Go to Clickbank.com and find it straight from the source.

2. Finding the Right Words

Head over to Google's keyword tool and type in some broad terms about your niche.



The criteria for your main keyword:
a. 1,000 - 3,000+ searches per month (local or global, doesn't matter to me)
Preferably 3,000 or more!
b. "In quotes Google search" has less than 50,000 results
For instant and potentially long-term benefits - I'd go with under 10,000
c. (Optional) Without quotes Google search doesn't bring up too many authority sites >> PR 5+ is a problem.
Anything under it is easy as hell to dominate, so don't worry too badly. If there are also About.com pages, and Wikipedia that's a bad sign... On the other hand, Yahoo Answers, and Blogger sites are a good sign (unless the Blogger blog is PR5 -.-')
d. (Optional, for those who don't like "" searches) Less than 50,000 results on Allintitle, Allinurl, and/or Allinanchor searches.

LSI keyword criteria:
a. More than 300 searches per month
b. Less than 10,000 competitors on the "---" Google search
c. Not many, if any, authority sites on without quotes search
d. Same as the d above - less than 50,000 results for allintitle,allinurl, and/or allinanchor

Find 1 keyword as your main keyword. Then find 2 more supporting keywords (ones from the main keyword researching that didn't quite meet the criteria). And find 10 LSI keywords min. If you feel like over-achieving, then go ahead and find 30 LSI keywords.

This won't always fit into one hour, and you can change up having a passion as a niche or not with just finding profitable ones. I still think that passion will win in this system, however.

Hour Two: Your Lead Magnet

Now, there are generally two ways to solve this:
1. Make it yourself or
2. Swipe it

It's okay either way - but if you want original content just make it. If you want to just copy resources, and turn it into a lead magnet, feel free to do that as well. But originality is usually the safest bet.

You don't need anything big. You can make a pdf Special Report that's 7-14 pages long, record a video, or record yourself and make an MP3.

Criteria for your lead magnet:
a1. It solves a big, huge problem in your niche or
a2. It gives great insight into a problem
b. Isn't a course of some sort

Nothing kills profits like a course. 7 day courses are good, but they often get foiled because of spam filters, and are not strong to lead off with. They also slow down the optin-to-profits process, to a degree since they have to wait a little while (unless you monetize a few ways, which I'll talk about).

Get to work - this hour will be grueling, and rewarding. Also, come up with a kickass name.

Here a way to determine if you should write a PDF, make a video, or make a recording:

What is everybody else in your niche doing? Either do the opposite, or do it better. If people are making a PDF report, then you make it 10x better, or you make a video. If someone's doing a video, then you -- etc.

Hour Three: Your Email Process

Okay, now things need to be set up quickly, and preferably for free. This is why I recommend www.MailChimp.com for your autoresponder needs. Aweber, or GetResponse, or whatever you currently use if you want to do that.

MailChimp will let you have your first 500 subscribers completely for free - not a trial, just for free. It's a lot better than free trials at other paid autoresponders, and a hell of a lot better than FreeAutoBot.com.

In this part, you'll be setting up your follow-up emails and such.

These are the emails you'll need:
Confirmation email
Welcome email
(Optional) E-course emails

Remember how I said that your lead magnet shouldn't be an ecourse alone? Well it shouldn't - it should be a supplement! It's just a little bonus for signing up to something free =P

You're doing this to cash in a little, and to simultaneously give value. Now, normally I'd recommend making PDF files or webpages for this, but your emails will be so short that it won't matter. I'm talking 300 words or less.

In the 7 emails, you give a short tip, and leave some links in the body and PS or closing statements.

Here's an example email from my skateboarding niche autoresponder:

=============================
Subject:
The God Equation? B+S+(-BM)+P=PS

Email Body:
Board + Skateboarder + (-Big Mistakes) + Practice = Professional Skateboarder. Could this be the perfect equation to learning how to properly ride a skateboard? I think it might...

The equation tells you that all you need is a board, and you need to keep trying.
That is all you need. Perhaps a little knowledge here and there, but really
if you went at it long enough you would learn so much.

The mindset that you need is having to just ride, and keep trying. Tomorrow I'll cover
getting the skateboard you need.

Hope you enjoyed day 1,
Kalen Rowse
Skateboarding Tip

PS. If you haven't downloaded the Secrets of Skateboarding special report yet then you can get it at Get Secrets of Skateboarding - Secrets of Skateboarding

=============================

That's the little lead magnet I created, and the blog I setup. The blog was sertup in 5 minutes with another 5 minutes for a short post. Then the squeeze page took me about an hour.

Be somewhat original with your titles, for God's sake. This is what makes people open them. I go over to Social Bookmarking sites, and see which headlines are pulling eyeballs. Then I go and use it for my emails! Or adapt it, like I did with the God Equation email.

Setting these up won't take too long, and it's like re-promoting yourself over and over, or giving yourself a raise.

You'll also notice I used a different name in the email -.-' Lol, but I did use my initials, KR.

Hour Four: Squeeze Page

We don't have time to deal with hosting, and all that crap. We want some money right now, right? We want leads, and simplicity. So where do we turn to?

We turn to Weebly.com for our squeeze page needs. Even our salespage needs if you want to create a niche product. You can manipulate their drag-and-drop templates until they're squeeze pages they almost demand it because they just stack up one over the other.

Here's my skateboarding squeeze page:


Secrets of Skateboarding - Kalen Rowse

You can swipe that template. It's the below-the-fold template. You can have any number of templates - most people recommend above-the-fold, but this has worked well and was recommended to me in a course by Jimmy D. Brown.

*Pre-headline
*Headline
*Fancy Name + Name + Picture
*Benefits + What They'll Learn
*Call to Action
*Email course bonus
*Opt-in form
*Testimonials - if I had any, but I don't
*A little note about privacy
*Legal stuff

This should be easy as pie. Just swipe the template, or make your own and have it setup really quickly. You could even html embed a video if you want to do a video squeeze.

If you want to setup the legal pages in less than a minute, then copy somebody elses'. They've probably put much more time and effort into it, but you can adapt it in a fraction of the time.

You should also create a "Thank You" page, and a "Download" page. You should monetize them both by putting a little low-end offer. Hopefully the offer is free + shipping and handling cost, and not just a little product because they tend to convert a little better on these pages. However, it will do just fine either way.

Hour Five: Blogs Are More Than Just A Diary

Okay, I didn't post too much on my skateboarding blog... But at least it's setup!

Skateboarding Tip

Again, you want speed, and ease of use. If you want then you could use Wordpress and hosting but this is about getting setup FAST.

This is where you put your main keyword into play. Use it in the title, blog url, and in the first few posts and more posts later on if you so choose. And in the description this is where you put the main keyword again, plus the 2 supporting keywords I mentioned. It also can't hurt to put in a couple of good LSI keywords you want.

Long-term blogs:
Try finding partners
Post often
Setup Feedburner

Short-term blogs (snipers):
Post 3 times - first post doesn't matter, second post is a helpful article, and the third post is a pre-sell article. I'l talk more about this in the next section.

Both:
-Rewrite your helpful articles, and submit it EzineArticles.com, GoArticles.com, and ArticleDashboard.com. Maybe even ArticleAlley.com too.
-Put an "About Me" section at the left, and have your posts in the sidebar
-Only monetize them with AdSense, and affiliate links once they're indexed to keep Google off your back a little more
-(Optional) Add Google Analytics to track your blog visitors

Hour Six: Creating Seed Content

You want to post content that shows you're a worthy site. This is why you set it up like this - post twice, then get indexed. Then post again to show you get updated.

Your First Two Posts (Before You Get Indexed)...
Post One: This one doesn't matter. I usually just make this an "About" page where I mention my keyword in the title, and once or twice in the post in bold.
Post Two: Helpful post. You want to give write a 3-500 word article about your subject that is truly helpful. Put a supporting keyword in the title (maybe both), and make it attention-grabbing. Put the supporting keywords in the beginning, the end, and a couple times in the middle plus yoru LSI keywords.

Remember - no affiliate links yet! Just keep it to straight-up information.

Your Third Post (After Getting Indexed)...
Post Three: Once you're indexed, you throw up your pre-sell post. This could be a story post, a help article, or a hybrid between the two.
Extra: You'll also want to put in your opt-in form, have a section that says, "Recommended" in the sidebar with your affiliate link, and put in affiliate links in the rest of your posts if you want to.

You'll also want to have the main keyword in the title, in the beginning, the end, and a couple times in the middle. The post should be about 3-500 words. Sprinkle about 5-10 LSI keywords in here.

Affiliate link placement...
In the beginning of the post - maybe in anchor text. Here's an example of how I like to place affiliate links.

(Update: apparently this website got hacked and is giving out viruses and talking about Baghdad and stuff... Here's a new example! Enjoy.)

http://krisroxas.com/your-first-sale-online/
http://krisroxas.com/blogging-profit...-and-platform/

Now there are two!

This is a free sniper site I setup. I'm actually surprised how well its' doing considering I used free things, and kind of screwed up making it. It still ranks well, and gets lots of organic traffic, though! I was happy about that =)

If I posted a few more things, I could probably do even better. And add some AdSense perhaps. But this is more than enough for me.

I have examples of posting them in anchor text, and in italicized text, and plain text.

In the ones where it's just a sentence, I always put a "Click Here to..." without assuming they'll buy something. I only want them to know they'll visit that site once they click on the link.

There are also 3 links min. in each post - and they're never placed after saying something negative. Always after something positive.

And this concludes the setup for your blog. The next 6 hours, you'll only be driving traffic.


Hour Seven: Hear Ye, Hear Ye
Press Releases.
These are a good way to drive a spike of traffic, even though I hate making them. Here are some guidelines...

*Be news-worthy
*Don't be self-indulgent, or hypey - give pure facts

Structure for press release:
Headline
Summary
The Lead
The Body
Quotes
The Boilerplate
The End
Contact Information

Or, if you want more information you could check out Press Release Fire by Brad Callen. Or just check out Press Release -- How to Write a Press Release, Press Releases, Sample Press Release Template and get a pretty good idea from a press release site itself.

Hour Eight: Blog Comments
Blog Comments.
Find 5-30 of the biggest blogs in your niche. Make relevant comments, and don't leave any links in the body of your comment for God's sake. Just leave it in the name - and no, you won't have a keyword optimized name - just a regular one.

A good little guideline to your comments are that the more helpful you are, the more traffic you'll drive. You could also be controversial which gets you lots of traffic too.

This may not take you a full hour, but if you're leaving helpful comments then it probably will.

Hour Nine: Forums

These are a pretty good way to drive some decent traffic (Thank you WarriorForum =P). Introduce yourself, help people out, and write how-to's and so on. I've driven lots of traffic from dating forums to my dating blog by doing this. I've also got opt-ins.

Find 1 main forum, and 2 others that you'll just have a presence in, and be semi-active.

Hour Ten: Social Bookmarking
Okay, go over to Digg.com, StumbleUpon.com, Delicious.com, Twitter.com, and any others you want to.

Become active members of each site, and don't just bookmark you own things. And on Twitter, follow 50 people per day, then 10% people per day after you reach 500 followers.

OR. Just do the same thing, except for Twitter you tweet a few cool things, add 100 people, then tweet about your site.

Hour Eleven: Social Content
Go over to Squidoo.com and HubPages.com and make a lens for your keywords. Especially your main keyword. Go with the same rules as your blog posts.

On your Squidoo lens, aggregate your RSS Feed. You could also do this with a few other sites, but I'm pretty sure they'd just end up looking like spam sites. I'm not too sure about it, maybe you think otherwise, but it's like setting up a spammy auto-blog if you do this too much.

Have lots of pictures, and have personality when you write - as you always should.

Hour Twelve: Article Marketing
Oh yes. Bring in the articles. Honestly, I hate article marketing though... They need to get approved and stuff, and the sites I've been on require me to take tests before I can post.

Basically you want to take your helpful article, re-write it, then submit it to EzineArticles.com, ArticleAlley.com, and GoArticles.com.

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Jesus Christ, the twelve hours are over. Whew O.o It took a while to write. Anyways, I hope you enjoy!

Give me any feedback, and feel free to ask any questions.

-Kris Roxas (yes I am the 16 year old, like is implied in the title)