Jason Fladlien
The Traffic – Content Conundrum by Jason Fladlien
Dec 28th
Today’s Guest Blogger is Jason Fladlien, creator of numerous products, such as : Double Your Productivity For Life 7 Minute Articles & $40 An Hour Ghostwriting System
Here’s where a lot of people struggle. In order to get good, continual traffic, you need good content.
But just creating good content on its own usually doesn’t bring you any traffic. So what do you do? That’s the rub. That’s why a lot of people have trouble making money online. They face this traffic/content conundrum.
Option 1..
The first thing you can do (and almost everyone DOES) is to try to bypass the good content creation phase… And go straight for the traffic. A push button software program perhaps could do the trick? You plop down some cash on one of these gizmos… And you might even try in earnest to make it work.
It usually doesn’t. That’s because what value are you providing to the marketplace? Usually none. You can spin an article 7 ways till Sunday – but if that article sucks, you’ve added not just one piece of junk to the Internet landfill… But a whole heap of it.
Nice try.
Option 2…
Go the affiliate route. Makes sense – you can tap into someone else’s high value content… And still just focus on traffic to get eyeballs to that person’s high value content.
For your reward you earn commissions on sales. Sounds swell. Maybe you can use some of the content they give you. Problem – every other affiliate is using that same content. Again, no value is being created in the marketplace. Just more noise. And if you’re going to use your own content… Then you need to be good at creating content anyway. Sigh.
Option 3…
Go long tail young man (or woman)! You can create some content… Based around keywords like “Weber Q 100 Portable Propane Gas Grill” and play the SEO game. Boy that sounds like a picnic, doesn’t it? It can be made to work – but what value are you really putting out there for the marketplace?
Option 4…
Become a “high value content creator”. This is hard. Laborious. Little payoff in the short run. Requires a lot of your time – especially at first. Something with few short cuts attached to it. The toughest road to travel. That’s why it’s the best. That’s why it’s the model that will work most often. But it’s also the least attractive. Plus it requires the delicate balancing act of practicing and fine tuning your skills to create content… And also getting SOME short term payoff.
Where’s The Money?
If you’re with me so far, you’ve reached the conclusion that the most predictable… Most scalable… Most long term valuable thing to do to build online wealth… Is creating high value content. The trick is getting paid to practice.
When coaching clients come to me and are just starting their online business… They ask me if they should create a blog. Often I say no. While a blog is a great place to practice creating high value content… It requires you to BRING people to your blog. That’s challenging.
On the flip side, what about an active forum? There are people already going there… You just need to get the attention of a few of them. So you create high quality content for an active forum. The main purpose is to get good at creating high value content – while getting some short term results.
Warning – You Won’t Get Rich!
Sadly you won’t make a lot of money doing this. But you can make some in the short term… And get paid to “practice”. And you stand an okay chance of making SOME money at first.
Let’s get specific. The first thing you do is observe. You have to spend a few days going to the active forum you’re targeting… And just take in the “culture”. Each forum has its own unique identity. There are things the forum as a whole is favorable to… And things it hates. Be aware so you can do the things it likes and NOT do the things it hates.
More importantly observe this forum with your “opportunity antennae” on. You’re looking specifically for this – a problem shared by a large number of visitors to the forum who are desperate for a solution to that problem. Once you’ve figured out this problem – it’s time to get your hands dirty and do some work.
I’m talking serious research. Serious effort to create the granddaddy forum post that will become the de facto “go here” thread in the future any time someone brings up the problem.
You might have to spend 2 hours researching the solution for the post you’ll create… And another hour crafting it. It will be worth it. People will love your for it. You might even get some cash out of it.
Example…
A huge problem people have in Internet marketing is setting up an affiliate program. I know. In fact I’m creating software for it that I’ll launch in 2011 because this is such a big problem. However, in the meantime you could – hypothetically – provide your own solution on a high traffic Internet marketing forum like the Warrior Forum (http://warriorforum.com).
What do you do? Here’s what I’d do if I was in your position.
I’d start with the outline. I’d aim to cover the 3 major, most popular affiliate program solutions. And I’d also try to cover 3 “obscure, little talked about” solutions. I’d have to dig around for these and hopefully test them out if they’re free or rather inexpensive.
Then I’d write that granddaddy forum post. For each of the 3 main ones, I’d write a step by step tutorial on how to set up an affiliate program with that program, including screenshots. I’d also research my butt off to uncover all the pros and cons I could think of related to each of those.
I’d do the same thing with the 3 obscure ones. Would I throw an affiliate links in at any point? No. Not only would it probably violate the rules of that particular forum… But even if it didn’t I’d still not get greedy.
Remember the focus is on GIVING… Creating high value content… The end all, be all solution for this problem. People will reject it if they think you are trying to be sly and take advantage of them. Don’t be foolish.
So How Will You Monetize It?
One of two ways. Either with a low key “forum signature” or with people literally seeking you out and private messaging you for further help, which often they would be happy to pay for. (That’s when you know you did it right!) A low key forum signature could be something like – “I help set up affiliate programs for people. Email me at email@example.com if you’d like to discuss hiring me.”
Simple, right? Yes.
What can this mean for you? Well I’m looking at a thread right now on the Warrior Forum that has 21,260 views. Guess what it’s about? How to get the most out of an ezine article! Not rocket science. It’s not even that good content.
This post is 2 years and 2 months old. So don’t expect to get 21,000+ views immediately. But do the math – that averages out to about 26 views a DAY over the span of two years and two months.
Sounds good to me.
Now what if you created a post like this once a week? In a year you’d have a lot of things going for you…
- Tons of high value content out there.
- Stuff to repurpose into free (and paid!) products.
- Experience which sharpens your skills.
- Enlightenment based on results. (Can’t get that in an ebook.)
- Some money in your pocket.
Hopefully along the way you aim at getting a little (just a little!) better with each piece of high value content you create. If you do this – in a year you will laugh when you look at a blank screen – because it will be so easy for you to create high value content… Since you’ve done it so often.
Plus, you’ll be more finely tuned in to how people react to certain things that you do… Meaning you are consciously able to create FAVORABLE reactions consistently.
You will be a high value creation machine. Which you can leverage so many different ways to get traffic. Which in turn you can then pick among the many proven models to make money online. It’s not glamorous. It’s a little slow. But it works. Don’t you wish you would’ve spent the last year with a plan like this instead of being distracted by fancy, pie in the sky solutions?
Jason
I would love to hear your comments – click here to comment
How A Complete Newbie Made His First $100 Online
Nov 28th
Introduction by Keith Everett
As you know we feature guest Bloggers here on KMMT every now and again, some are experienced marketers who are making a lot of money, but Kenny, a student living in Colorado, USA – caught my eye as he is using techniques from Master Marketer Jason Fladlien, whose techniques, I myself use in my daily Internet Marketing. Here he explains in layman’s terms how he got started and how he uses the Warrior Forum to further his Internet Marketing career.
How A Complete Newbie Made His First $100 Online – By Kenny Wyser
A little while ago I had my first $100 day, what an awesome feeling! I thought I would share how I did it, so that anyone struggling can try it out as well.
By the way it only took about a week from when I started this method until I had the $100 day. This is easy stuff anyone can do this.
The first thing I did was find a really good product on RAP bank, I chose them because they do instant commissions and most of their products offer 100% commissions on the front end, which is awesome. I found a product that really caught my eye and when I read the sales page I really wanted to buy it, I figured if I wanted it, other people would want it as well.
The particular product I chose happened to be a Jason Fladlien product, he’s awesome. So I read through that ebook and it really was great, so I knew I could promote it with confidence. Next I took the basic concepts from that ebook and wrote my own ten page ebook. I did not copy anything, all I did was take what I had learned and wrote a more simplified version of what he taught in the book.
Then I created a squeeze page listing all of the benefits of my free report and collected emails from my subscribers on the squeeze page. Here is the process people went through when they put in their email address:
1. Page telling them to check their email and confirm. I told them,they can’t get the free gift until they confirm their email, this helps with people that just want the free gift and will never actually confirm their email address. On this same confirmation page I had a little bit about the product I was promoting and why it’s so awesome.
2. Next they confirm their email and get sent to a download page which has a link to the free report I just created and another little bit about my affiliate product.
3. They get the first email which introduces them to my email list and what they can be expecting, I’ll get more into the autoresponder messages in a second.
4. The report I made is actually useful and also has a few affiliate links sprinkled in it as well as a long paragraph recommendation at the end.
So that is what happens at the beginning, now I’ll talk about what I actually put in my autoresponder series.
I hate the giant email lists where every single email is an affiliate link. I figured most people felt the same way so I wanted to make my list different.
I flat out told people that yes I would be promoting to them, but everything I ever promote would be something that I have used and loved myself (which is true). I would also be giving them real value in the emails I send out, which is also true.
I filled in the first 6 emails which came out to a little less than 2 weeks. The first 5 emails were nothing but useful content, it was either something I had learned that helped me, or a link to a useful article or video or something, no affiliate links.
The 6th email was a recommendation to a product that I had bought recently that was a great deal and really had incredible value to it, I loved the product and so I told my list about it. I was an affiliate for it and made that clear to my list.
Now I have everything set up and am ready to send some traffic to it. The first thing I did was put a link to my squeeze page in my Warrior Forum Signature.
After about a day of participating a bit more than usual in the forum, I had a total of 15 subscribers and already one commission from the affiliate product I was promoting! Which happened to be $17.
Here is the part that really made me excited. I decided to release a free WSO (Warrior Special Offer) and had a link to my squeeze page in the WSO offer. This brought me just under 100 subscribers and 6 sales of my affiliate product!
That gave me 100 new subscribers to my list and just over $100, not bad I’d say.
This is a method that literally anyone could do. It doesn’t take that much time and all you need is a bit of elbow grease and time. Yes it takes a little bit of start-up cash but not much.
I hope this inspires people to get started, gain some confidence and give you some ideas!
Thanks for reading.
Kenny
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How to Make Easy Money As An Affiliate Broker
Oct 1st
Starting Out
When starting out in the wonderful world of Internet Marketing, it can take you many months before you see even a shred of income. It took me five months of working long hours every single day, before I saw my first cheque arrive. Believe me, even though I had invested hundreds of hours, placing Tweets on Twitter, Networking on Facebook, writing articles and shooting videos, getting my first check from Clickbank for $285.86, was a fantastic feeling.
It was a huge stepping stone for me – to finally get PAID..
Perseverance WILL pay off, provided all your efforts are being geared to actually making MONEY…
Now, let’s be honest – as much as we all like making FRIENDS on Facebook, Twitter (whatever), joining forums, online SHINDIGS & Membership sites..
Internet Marketing is not a CHARITABLE institution.
The bottom line is…we do this for the MONEY..
Yes, maybe we also do it for
1) Getting future JV Partners
2) Gaining prospects
3) The Crack ? LOL
At the end of the day, we do it for the MONEY!! – The Cash, The Wedge, The Mazooma, The Dough!
There, NOW I’ve finally said it, I can now come out from behind the SOFA, without FEAR of getting a SLAP.. for my INSOLENCE..
“It’s TRUE.. SELLING is often overlooked.. especially among new people to Internet Marketing.
At the end of the day, regardless of how much FREE content we give away to attract people to our “LIST”, we eventually have to SELL something to them, because no sales = No Business.
Giving stuff away to attract “Buyers” definitely works, but people do not just join your list or view you Blog, and then automatically go and BUY from you. You can go on sending people FREE content until the end of time, but unless you ASK them to buy stuff from you, your Internet Marketing career will turn into an Internet Marketing SOCIAL CLUB… and your hopes & dreams will just – DIVEBOMB..
Monetise You
So how do we MONETISE ourselves in our early marketing careers? OK, so we can create web pages, squeeze pages and give FREE gifts away to encourage people to opt in to our lists… We can learn all the tricks to drive traffic to our Special Offers…BUT..
We still need products to SELL…
Now, unless you have a range of KILLER products already written and waiting to be unleashed on the WORLD, we will probably sell affiliate products for now. I personally would sell affiliate products as well as my own products even in the early stages. Obviously for the commission but also for thelearning process of how the whole affiliate platform works.
As I have mentioned in previous articles, this is a good way to get started in the whole selling process, as selling other people’s products cuts out the hassles of creating the sales page, the product, the merchant & delivery process.
The downside is of course, the vendor gets to keep the customer’s name & email address, to use in further mailings – however provided that the vendor has an affiliate program in place that tracks your affiliate ID for the life of the customer, you will still benefit from any future sales made by that customer, even in a year or so from now.
The affiliates hoplink, or tracking ID is recorded by cookies, being placed on that person’s computer to track your ID. You SELL the product, Kerchinng – you get paid. Simple as that.
I sell affiliate products from my Blog, my fan pages on Facebook – Twitter, Articles, Videos and of course to my list.
Let’s take a look at each step
1) Your Blog. Write a short post or tip related to the affiliate product and drop your link into the post as “more information”
2) Tweet your message including your affiliate link on Twitter, although don’t just Tweet affiliate links, Tweet useful content as well or you will soon see people unfollowing you.
3) Write an article, drop in a related affiliate link below the fold (lower half) of the article & submit to Ezine Articles or the many other Article submission sites. Note – Ezine Articles will not accept affiliate links, but you can circumvent this by buying a $10 domain name and forwarding it to your affiliate link. This WILL work. I do it all the time.
4) Shoot a video on a particular subject, then add your clickable affiliate link under the video. Make sure the two things are related. Don’t shoot a video on Article marketing if your affiliate link goes to a weight loss product.
5) Facebook. Don’t spam people. Deliver some good content throughout the day of use to people, then every so often, drop a subtle affiliate link in at the end of your post.
6) If you have a list, mail them every 2/3 days with some useful content and drop your link in at the bottom of the email.
Recommended Affiliate Program
Now. What affiliate programs would I personally recommend?
My FIRST choice would have to be products from Jason Fladlien
Here’s why.. Jason Fladlien has a trusted name, he has many great products that near enough ALL over deliver & make perfect sense.
I flagged Jason Fladlien up amongst my 6 most trusted online marketers a while back and I then decided to sell his products. I like his products and I like his affilaite progaram. WHY?
Because his affiliate program has lifetime tracking of cookies, which means if you recommend someone to him and they don’t buy for a year, when they do – you wil lstill get your 50% comission on the product. He has many webinars whereby he gets a lot of attendees, on Tuesday, he did a webinar and got 3000 people on it. He clearly has a big following and his products are in demand. If one of your customers goes ot any of his webinarsand purchases a product from it – you get paid.
ALSO, another thing I like about his Affiliate program is the 10% 2 tier system. This means that, if one of your enquirers or buyers decides to become an affiliate too, you will get paid 10% of any sales, he or she makes forever.
So, you see – that is why I have opted ot sell his products. They sell well plus you get paid monthly by paypal. If you are a good affiliate and you earn over $500 a week, he pays you WEEKLY.. Now Jaso Fladlien does have hundreds of affilaites and many of these earn a lot of money.
But, it’s like anything – you have to WORK at it… Sure, give pleny of GOOD quality content away, but SELL good products. And if they are not your own, sell products from REPUTABLE people…
You can make money form the above system just by promoting Jason Fladlien’s affiliate program and recruiting affiliates.. This way you are an Affiliate broker and you receive 10% of everything they do… not bad eh?
I hope you have enjoyed today’s money maing tip, please do leave a comment here. Thanks
Keith
