Monthly Archives: October 2009

“Dog Training” is Not a Niche Anymore

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I bet anyone related to internet marketing somehow, have heard about the famous dog training niche. I can name a hundred ebooks which give that very niche as an example. I just don’t get it. Why do people keep giving the same ancient example although there are millions and millions of niches around. I am sure dog training was a profitable niche years ago, but not today, not for the newbies. Same about the weight loss and make money niches.

dog-training-niche

Take my word my friend, those are not niches as some ebook authors claim. Those are mega niches which have hundreds of sub-niches that have thousands of micro niches within. And those examples are one of the reasons for  newbies struggle choosing a profitable niche. Once they see that dog training niche example, they try go after some mega niches like free software, web hosting or game downloads. That’s the point why they fail at the beginning.

It is close to impossible for a beginner to dominate one of the mega niches mentioned above. I am not saying it is undoable, I say it is not worth the effort, because it will take years to dominate those mega niches. Ask yourself if you are the type of person who would work hard, put enormous effort and be patient enough to wait the amount of return of investment in years to come. And note that no matter how hard you work, it is not guaranteed that you will dominate a mega niche, since a huge number of people -who knows what they are doing- will be working on it too.

Knowing that the sole purpose of a beginner is to make money as soon as possible, it will be most wise to start with a micro niche, which is easier to dominate.

So, what’s a niche, a sub-niche and a micro niche? I will try to give an example to clarify this. As we talked above, web hosting is a mega niche. Here, dedicated web hosting is a niche and linux dedicated web hosting is a sub-niche. So, a micro niche for this example could be cheap linux dedicated web hosting. If you roughly have 1,000,000 competitors for the mega niche, you will have 100,000 competitors for the niche, you will have 10,000 competitions for the sub-niche and you will have 1,000 competitors for the micro niche.

This is the methodolgy of choosing a profitable micro niche. And keep it in mind if you search for a niche to dominate in a short time.

An Unbiased Review of the Wealthy Affiliate University

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Because I am not a member of Wealthy Affiliate anymore and their affiliate program is open to members only, rest assured that this review can not be biased in nature. I will not be promoting them -since I can’t-, just reviewing them.

OK, here it comes.

After conducting a lot of research and hearing dozens of great feedback about Wealthy Affiliate, I decided to join them about one year ago. I was just at the beginninng of learning the internet marketing stuff and I was a bit confused. That’s why I looked for a step by step action plan that I could follow easily. Fortunately, I found what I was looking for and more than that at the Wealthy Affiliate University. Kyle and Carson, the founders, had explanatory articles, video tutorials, an 8-week action plan, many useful software to help you get started and speed up the process, a forum full with success stories, they even had a hosting plan included. Great start for a beginner.

I stayed three moths as a member at the Wealthy Affiliate University. I had to cancel my membership due to offline reasons that I was not going to be online for a long time.

In that three months time, I learned much about internet marketing, especially affiliate marketing, -those are not the same thing, you know-. Using one strategy discussed on their forum, I made my first sale ever with a Clickbank product and others came after that.

I never managed to complete the first week of the 8-week action plan. I don’t know what would have been if I could follow that. I am not good at sticking to plans, you see. But I am sure if I had followed that plan I would have been at a different point today.

I established the core of my internet marketing knowledge in that three months. Nevertheless, as time passed I left Wealthy Affiliate and continued the journey on my own.

The one thing I can say about Wealthy Affiliate is that I feel myself lucky that I met them at that time, when I was desperately looking for a step by step course. To conclude my review, I will talk about who will mostly benefit from the course and it is up to you to decide if it is for you or not.

Wealthy Affiliate is for you, if you are

  • a complete beginner, e.g. just heard about internet marketing.
  • a beginner, have some basic knowledge about this stuff but do not know which direction to go.
  • an intermediate, but in need of a step by step action plan.

Wealthy Affiliate is not for you, if you are*

  • an advanced internet marketer and know what you are doing.
  • a pro that can write the book of internet marketing.
  • looking for a fast action blueprint that will show you some tactics to make money right away.

* Note that I am not saying that you will not benefit from WA, if you fall into this group. I saw some guys who have been there for 2-3 years and they were very comfortable about what they were doing. Besides, I am considering to join them in the near future too, to catch up with the latest news and trends going on there.

Here is the link to Wealthy Affiliate.

That’s all about Wealthy Affiliate, see you in another review.

My First Clickbank Sale

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Do you remember how you made your first-time money online? What was the thing that you sold/promoted? How did you promote it? How did you feel when you first saw that sale?

I remember my first sale ever online, which was on May 19, 2008. Been more than one year now. It was a Clickbank product related to downloads. It made me feel like flying over the clouds when I checked my account and noticed that sale. I was so happy that I knew my life would never be the same again. It took about one month for me to reach that level, from zero knowledge on internet marketing to having made a Clickbank commission. Although it has been more than a year now, I am not at the point where I would like to see myself today, due to some offline factors. Nevertheless, I can say that I will not leave this path until I find myself at that point someday.

I will try to briefly explain my process from zero to first sale, below.

I don’t remember how exactly I got infected by the internet marketing virus back in April 2008, however what I remember is that I found myself searching for some guide on how to make money online. I was like an internet marketing virgin and vulnerable to all the attacks by the sneaky internet marketers at that time. All the promises and fantastic offers were to good to be true, and I believed most of them. Luckily, I was not someone who could be sold easily. After some research, I decided on joining a membership site where I would find the necessary information and tools to start and follow step by step whatever they suggested.

Fortunately, I came across two of the great courses of the time. Wealthy Affiliate and Profit Lance. I did a lot of research on both programs, as what features they had, what people said about them. My final decision was the Wealthy Affiliate University, although I believed that Profit Lance would have been a good choice too.

Let me open a paragraph here about Wealthy Affiliate, because they deserve it.

I stayed as a member for three months and I was totally satisfied with what they offered; great articles, tutorials, videos, software and a priceless forum. I would continue my membership if it was not for some offline reasons. Thanks to WA, that was the first and last time I spent money on a how-to-make-money product. I learned the very basics at Wealthy Affiliate and now I figured out that I do not need any more make money reports since I know almost all the things about it, just what I need is to take more action.

Back to the story.

In a short time, I learned about affiliate marketing, digital products, promotion strategies and finally Clickbank. I signed up with Clickbank and started to explore it. At one instant, I stumbled upon a forum post by a fellow wealthy affiliate, Travis Sago. I am sure most of you have heard of him before. The post was related to Clickbank and USFreeads. Travis was illustrating in videos how he used USFreeads to promote Clickbank products. I really liked the style of Travis, he was explaining each step so detailed that I followed him immediately.

I registered at USFreeads for a premium account. I went to Clickbank Marketplace and grabbed an item -a product related to downloads- without looking for much. Then I created a really simple ad on USFreeads that described the product. I created some more ads about other products that I found in the marketplace.

The next day, when I checked my Clickbank account, bingo! I had made a sale from the first ad. I jumped out of the chair and started dancing. Words can not describe your feelings at that moment.

I made two more sales like this in the following days. It was just some plain simple ads on USFreeads without any marketing. It was the beginning for me. And I knew that it will not end soon.

So, what is the story of your first sale?

The Essentials to Get Accepted into Affiliate/CPA Networks

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Although it is not as difficult as some people believe it to be to get accepted into an affiliate/CPA network or affiliate program in general, there are some requirements to be met before you get approved.

Some affiliate networks require nothing at your side to join. Clickbank is the best example for this. As long as your country is listed within the allowed countries, you can join by simply signing up, no requirements. And better than that, you can start promoting whatever you like from their marketplace immediately.

This is not the case for all the networks around however. Some of them require a website, some require decent traffic, some ask for a tax ID, some needs phone verification and so on. Even when you get through all these and join, that will not necessarily mean that you will be able to promote any products/offers that network serves. For most of the affiliate/CPA networks, once approved, you will need to apply to each advertiser’s affiliate program individually in order to promote what they offer. While some networks and advertisers don’t care much about the quality and the quantity, meaning that they will accept you once you meet the minimum requirements -website, phone verification-, some have really strict rules.

Now, I will talk about the things to keep in mind that will increase your chance of approval.

1. Be honest.

Make sure that the information you submitted is correct. Do not try to fool them by any means, since soon or less they will discover it. Giving a wrong name, a non-working phone number or someone’s url will not help you get in. Just tell them the truth. Afterall, what can you lose, if you get rejected try better the next time.

2. Have one or more websites.

Although your own domain would be highly preferrable, you could use a self-hosted blog like Blogger, WordPress, TypePad or Weebly. Believe me you could. I got accepted to CJ, LinkShare, ShareASale, PayDotCom and MaxBounty with one single Blogger blog which is a not so decent one. You can see it here.

Having more than one website will help you. If you have one, good. If you don’t have one and can’t afford to register a domain name and pay for hosting, just create a Blogger blog, like I did, about whichever niche you want to target. Note that all the networks have categories like shopping, health, software and so on. Therefore, it would be wise to choose a general theme for your blog at first. Or, simply contact the network support and tell them that you would like to join and ask what kind of offers they had.

For some networks, getting on board is not enough to start promoting right away. You will still need to apply for the affiliate program of an advertiser inside the network. Some advertisers will directly approve you. Some will check your website and a small perccentage -the big shots- will also check the amount of traffic you get. Do not let this discourage you. Over 90% of advertisers will approve you as long as your website is targeting their niche. For example a shoe-selling company will not let you in, if you only have one website related to cell phones. You get the idea right?

So, what to do to get approved? Let’s say you joined the network with a website related to PC games. Then, while browsing the advertisers, you felt like promoting a product/offer related to jewelry. If you have time and money, you could register a domain name related to jewelry, host it and fill it with content. If you don’t have much time and don’t want to spend money for just to get approved by only one affiliate program -and also, it is not guaranteed that you will be approved even with a decent website-, just go to a free blogging platform, Blogger in this case, create a jewelry related blog and fill it with content you find on the internet which is distributed freely, like articles or videos. That should take one hour at most. And now you can apply that affiliate program.

There is one more thing you can do if you really don’t feel like creating a website or Blogger blog. Although I don’t recommend this method and it is highly risky that you could get yourself banned from the network, it works. Find a website or blog that is related to the niche you will target and that doesn’t have ads from that network on it. Go for not so popular and not so made-by-an-internet-marketer ones. You can find tons of blogspots on literally any niche you can think of. Once you find one, add it to your accound and apply to that affiliate program. The advertiser will then browse your website portfolio and spot the one that is related to his business and will approve your application. Once you get approved you can delete that website from your account of course. Although this is a little grayish, it does no harm to anybody because you will not be using the content of that website for your promotional efforts.

Why would someone want something like this? It is simple. There are dozens of marketing methods which does not require you to have a website like PPC, forum marketing, email marketing, classifieds and so on. By any of these, you can promote anything you like and make money.

3. Be on the other side of the phone when they call.

I know this is the most dreaded part for most of the newbies but believe me there is nothing to get scared as long as all the information you submmitted is correct.

Most of the times, the affiliate manager will call you just to verify your identity and that you are a real person and what you submitted was correct. They may ask you a few questions about which offers you will be promoting and how, if you have any previous experience with other networks. Stay calm and tell them the truth. Note that the affiliate manager will make money whenever you make, that’s why they will be interested in accepting you. The only thing they want to be sure about is that you know what you are doing and you won’t go into shady blackhat lands for promoting the offers, which will be bad both for you and your manager.

That’s all. So, to recap, in order to get approved to an affiliate/CPA network or program, you need to be honest, you need to have website/s and you need to answer when they call. It is just that simple. Do not even think of paying others to get you approved. Why would you risk getting banned for life? Try honestly for once and if it doesn’t work, review your application, websites, phone call and try again.