If You HAD to Start Over - What would you do Different???

[jcorkern]

That is a hall of fame post if I ever seen one!

Thanks Mr. Martell,

Jim

[Linda Buquet]

Good point Jim, I added it!

Thanks!

[Ksilv]

Linda- I think thats an excellent point and I believe a lot of affiliate marketers should learn something from you.

As an affiliate manager I hear tips all the time on what people would do differently or what they tell others.

One great point would be if you are a Search/PPC marketer - don't ever hesitate to jump in there and try out new offers. When you find a niche it makes your life a whole lot easier! A great tip would be to not jump in there spending all the money you have to find something that works. Spend smaller amounts and find out not only what works for you but what you enjoy spending time on!

Another one would to be involved more in forums such as this. This is such a great learning tool for everyone to find their ways of marketing. Sure some may prefer different ways than others but this is how it all starts. Especially in this forum, rather than focusing on the downside of affiliate marketing and the bad points of networks, you can find yourself learning from people with positive attitudes and advice!

For myself as an affiliate manager - I would definitely have started reading through blogs/forums much sooner. Utilizing these have taught me more than any book would. This industry changes every day and it excites me to see what's new and if I knew this earlier the learning process would be a lot faster and cheaper lol

I can go on forever but I will keep it short & sweet to the basics

Enjoy!

[MoMoMoney]

Everything!!! No telling how much time I've spent reading useless information on the internet about internet marketing, make money online, get rich quick and so on. WASTED losts of money also on useless products.

It is very difficult for a newbie to get off to a good start in the internet marketing business. I've found that there are a lot of sharks out there that will sell you a product and not really care if you make money or not. On the other hand, I've come across some people who are geniune and really go out of there way to help you out. Unfortunately, most of the time it's hard to tell the two apart.

Newbies need a trusted resource guide of legit marketers that have a track record of actually helping people become successful. Now, that would be nice!!!

Steve

[Clintoc]

Having just started into IM, I have already made a mistake. I created a site, started building content, without any real thought of how to monetise the site. And with the content I have started with, I will find it difficult to really move past Adsense being the main way to monetise it. Then its in a niche that I do know well, although I really want to get away from it (its in the industry that I currently work in).

And while some would consider this failure, I would actually consider this failure a small success.

For starters, I think I picked up SEO pretty quickly. This was my first website and in one week I managed to get it to the 12 spot on google (top of page 2).

Secondly, it has already made a little money (nowhere near a paycheck, but a couple of dollars), which was enough to show me that this can work.

I have really started looking into affiliate offers lately, and just this early experiance has me looking at other things in a different light. I looked at one affiliate and have thought about ways to really build this site up (and its something that I have no experiance in, although it does interest me). So the fact that it changed my mindset is a considerable victory.

[Linda Buquet]

Originally Posted by Clintoc

And while some would consider this failure, I would actually consider this failure a small success.

…So the fact that it changed my mindset is a considerable victory.

Hi Clintoc, thanks for sharing that. You actually did yourself more good than you realize. Trying, testing and failing can be your biggest boost toward success.

If fact there's a saying in this business - fail early and fail often! As long as you learn from it and re-adjust your course as needed - you reach your goal sooner than if you played it safe and didn't learn any hard lessons!

[Scott_McGregor1]

Maybe had focused on ppc a bit more.Will still get around to it, but seem to be very busy with my free traffic methods

[razorblades]

I don't know if I'd do anything different, I've learnt sooooo much over the last few years, and to be honest, I only learnt from the mistakes I made (ebooks on ebay, trying to promote click bank all that kinda thing). Im glad I never went for the get rich quick things. I am always happy to work for what I get, so Im glad I didn't get sucked in (I know some people swear by them but cash gifting and matrix programs never seemed to be worth a whole lot to me).

BUT, if I could go back in time about 12 years I would most certainly get involved with google adsense and adwords, but isn't hindsight perfect vision!

GREAT THREAD BTW

[tyroneshum]

It’s good if a person have to think about a certain career or industry before pushing it forward. Sometimes being a risk taker causes more problems along the way. I am just a novice however when it comes to decision-making, I learned to analyze the disadvantages and advantages of it. Will I benefit from it or not? Will I be able to grow as a better person? Will it be a help to me and other people? These are some questions I came up with and ask myself before crossing the fence. I ask these questions because I don’t want to end up again blaming myself for any decisions that I made.

[Clintoc]

I mentioned a few posts up that I would have thought out a different niche to start in, but as time goes on that first website has really been the pillar to this whole endeavour.

1 - It jumped the first hurdle that creating and managing a website is difficult. While that website is not beautiful by any means, it taught me that it really isnt hard.

2 - I am fully willing to test new ideas out on that website. I tested out a landing page design (one similar to what Minstrel posted about a few weeks ago that claimed a near 50% CTR) on the site, about a product I totally believe in... and amazingly enough.... 50% CTR (even on the shoddy design.) Hardest part about that was learning the HTML code to make it happen.

3 - I have learned quick and effective ways to drive SEO traffic to my website, and how to make my landing pages SEO friendly so they get indexed and ranked highly. The landing page I talked about in the last bullet sits at rank 10 for the product name. And in fact, I own 3 out of the first 20 spots.

4 - How to get indexed in a hurry, and drive traffic immediatly. I launched my new affiliate site yesterday. While it is based around a dozen or so clickbank products (all closely tied together in one niche), I was indexed within 24 hours and have already seen a half dozen visitors... and the beautiful part about that is that it is only a landing page right now.

So even in what I consider a failure, good things continue to come out of it.