Am I on track?

[scottkeith75]

Hello,
I just joined this forum, and am in the 'newbie whirlwind' that has my head spinning. I was working in the construction industry until my mother had gotten sick recently. I decided to stay home and care for her myself, and now I have to find a way to make money from home... affiliate marketing seems like a viable solution. I never built a website before, but I now have 2 online that I am currently writing content (articles) for. Unfortunately, the funds I have available to invest in my new business in next to nothing; I do have a boatload of enthusiasm, passion, need, and even desperation at this point.

Everyone seems so helpful that I am in hopes that I might get some needed direction. Thanks to all in advance. Here is what I have, currently am, and plan to be doing:

* I built two sites whose topics I have interest in. (they are pretty basic as of now, but I am learning as much HTML as I can online [free information])

* I am writing, not posting, about 3 articles a day. I am saving the articles until I am ready to start driving traffic.

* I am planning to start driving traffic to my site once I have about 15 articles in reserve per site. I will then post 3 articles on my sites, then add 1 article every other day. I will try to keep a +10 article reserve so that I can continually add new content.

* I plan to submit one article every other day on Ezines (and like posting sites) to attempt to drive traffic.

* I plan to start social networking via linkedin, facebook, and twitter.

That is the basic plan. I have no choice but to succeed. I have my Fianc'e, and my mother relying on me. I am honestly scared to death, but I can't allow myself to be bogged down with fear. As Yoda said "do or don't do, there is no 'try'.

Thank you again.

Keith

 

[StackCash]

Hey Keith,

I just started a few months ago, and it appears to me that you're on the right path. Just remember that your site doesn't need to be pretty. Ugly sites convert just as well as good looking ones. All that matters is that you're driving targeted traffic to a site their interested in which promotes products they want to purchase.

You'll want to make sure that you're on top of your on-site and off-site SEO. I know that user 'Minstrel' knows a lot about this, so you may want to check out some his posts or message him directly if you have any questions.

To really get the traffic flowing, you will need backlinks. There are soooo many ways to get them that it's mind boggling. But, once your sites are built and have content, you will want to spend most of your time getting backlinks. If you're not getting traffic via backlinks, then you'll want to drive traffic via paid methods such as PPC, Media Buys, etc...

Currently, I'm making most of my money building backlinks for other people and/or writing articles for them. If this is something you're interested in, let me know. We can see if we would work well together, and if not, I can show you some good places where you can find quality workers.

Also, remember that no matter how bad you want internet marketing to work out, you always need to put your family first. If it comes down to spending money on the website and putting food on the table, make sure you're getting those frosted flakes!

 

[scottkeith75]

Hey Keith,

I just started a few months ago, and it appears to me that you're on the right path. Just remember that your site doesn't need to be pretty. Ugly sites convert just as well as good looking ones. All that matters is that you're driving targeted traffic to a site their interested in which promotes products they want to purchase.

You'll want to make sure that you're on top of your on-site and off-site SEO. I know that user 'Minstrel' knows a lot about this, so you may want to check out some his posts or message him directly if you have any questions.

To really get the traffic flowing, you will need backlinks. There are soooo many ways to get them that it's mind boggling. But, once your sites are built and have content, you will want to spend most of your time getting backlinks. If you're not getting traffic via backlinks, then you'll want to drive traffic via paid methods such as PPC, Media Buys, etc...

Currently, I'm making most of my money building backlinks for other people and/or writing articles for them. If this is something you're interested in, let me know. We can see if we would work well together, and if not, I can show you some good places where you can find quality workers.

Also, remember that no matter how bad you want internet marketing to work out, you always need to put your family first. If it comes down to spending money on the website and putting food on the table, make sure you're getting those frosted flakes!

Hi, and thank you for the detailed reply. I appreciate the advice, and particularly found a few things you said to be very interesting. I suppose I first need to understand what 'backlinks' are, as well as how to set them in motion. Right now I have to do everything on my own due to very limited resources. I have read many people on 5 Star say that you need to focus on content. I have listened, and I am following that advice by spending most of my time on writing articles. No worries, I feed my family first and foremost.

Thank you very much for your time spent responding,

Keith

 

[Laura61]

I agree that knowing SEO to some extent is important, as well as the backlinks StackCash mentioned. Getting traffic is probably the toughest part of affiliate marketing, and it takes time to make decent money. But consistent effort is rewarded.

I know it's scary, but we're here to help.

 

[scottkeith75]

Hi Laura!

I am fully aware that you guys are here to help, and it still surprises me at just how helpful you all are. It has filled me with determination to evolve into someone who will give back on this site once I have attained the knowledge (and success). I am so very appreciative of all of you..... this feels like home to me.

Thank you for your kind reply Laura.

Keith

---------- Post added at 05:00 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:58 AM ----------


Hi Stackcash!

Would you be so kind as to give me some examples of what you are doing to build you 'backlinks'... that is a term that I still do not have a clear understanding of.

Thank you for your reply!

Keith

 

[StackCash]

The verrrry first thing you need to learn about internet marketing is that help comes to those who help themselves.

By this, I mean that you could have typed "what is a backlink" into Google and had thousands of relevant results returned to you in seconds. Why wait for a forum response when you can have your answer immediately?

But, I'm a softy, so here ya go:

"Backlinks are incoming links to a website or web page. Inbound links were originally important (prior to the emergence of search engines) as a primary means of web navigation; today their significance lies in search engine optimization (SEO). The number of backlinks is one indication of the popularity or importance of that website or page (for example, this is used by Google to determine the PageRank of a webpage). Outside of SEO, the backlinks of a webpage may be of significant personal, cultural or semantic interest: they indicate who is paying attention to that page.

In basic link terminology, a backlink is any link received by a web node (web page, directory, website, or top level domain) from another web node.[1] Backlinks are also known as incoming links, inbound links, inlinks, and inward links."

---------- Post added at 03:19 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:18 PM ----------

And, in terms of how to achieve backlinks:

- Article Marketing
- Forum Marketing
- Blog Commenting
- Purchasing backlink packages from forums/marketing websites
- Backlink software

 

[scottkeith75]

Hi Stackcash,

I honestly appreciate your candid and helpful reply. Please know that I do research everything that I ask on this forum and much more. I have read through a lot of this forum, Google searches, Youtube vids, and Wykipedia pages. I am on a quest for knowledge while I write content for 3 sites that I have yet to even start promoting--my thought is that I truly want to give helpful content to future visitors, and don't want to waste their time until I have enough content to make it worth their while. I post the questions here because I trust the honesty, integrity, and expertise of you folks. I have come to realize the there are many purposely imbedded misconceptions amongst Affiliates out there (protecting valuable information). So I try to do my research, and verify it with the replies I get here.

Thanks so much for your time and help!

Keith

 

[BlogDiva]

The verrrry first thing you need to learn about internet marketing is that help comes to those who help themselves.

By this, I mean that you could have typed "what is a backlink" into Google and had thousands of relevant results returned to you in seconds. Why wait for a forum response when you can have your answer immediately?

But, I'm a softy, so here ya go:

"Backlinks are incoming links to a website or web page. Inbound links were originally important (prior to the emergence of search engines) as a primary means of web navigation; today their significance lies in search engine optimization (SEO). The number of backlinks is one indication of the popularity or importance of that website or page (for example, this is used by Google to determine the PageRank of a webpage). Outside of SEO, the backlinks of a webpage may be of significant personal, cultural or semantic interest: they indicate who is paying attention to that page.

In basic link terminology, a backlink is any link received by a web node (web page, directory, website, or top level domain) from another web node.[1] Backlinks are also known as incoming links, inbound links, inlinks, and inward links."

---------- Post added at 03:19 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:18 PM ----------

And, in terms of how to achieve backlinks:

- Article Marketing
- Forum Marketing
- Blog Commenting
- Purchasing backlink packages from forums/marketing websites
- Backlink software

I agree that search engines are the place to start, but I also like asking the same questions I ask google here on 5star. The reason is that real people are responding to my specific question and I am not as in danger of being spamed or sold. I always do my personal research, but I also like the communality offered by asking even simple questions on forums.