People where looking answers on a questions like:

Why my sites don’t sell? Is market saturated? Are there to many website flippers?

My friend sold quite a few websites on sitepoint marketplace in a past year. What he did with great success in the PAST is this. He created good looking blog or website and then filed up that website or blog with PLR articles. To build one site from scratch, he spent no more than one or two hours. Then he just put site on the sale at sitepoit. Almost all of his websites went for BIN (buy it now) price in two days, sometimes in hours. But, everything has changed in the last two month.

He complained, that he hardly sells his sites and nobody puts BIN on his auctions anymore. I asked him what is reason for that in his opinion. He said that recession or market saturation is his problem. After some talking I realized that he is still making same sites in the same niches like he did a year ago.

And here is the big problem. It is not recession or market saturation. He just doesn’t build sites that people want and look for. He builds sites which he thinks people are looking for.

Did you know that more than 70% of website flippers never sell their websites or they get a lot less than they ask for.

When they make few sites and don’t sell them, they go around screaming that website flipping doesn’t work anymore and they go onto their next great idea. Believe me flipping websites still works and there is nothing wrong with website flipping market.

So, what did they do wrong?

• They created wrong type of content sites
• They put wrong price on them.
• They didn’t research the market.

Many of website flippers build a website and they don’t know exactly what type of websites are selling and for what price, they just assume that someone would buy their great website.

Wrong way!

What they should do, is to spend ten minutes going through the auctions that other flippers are selling on sitepoint or any other marketplace, and they could easily figured out what kind of sites are selling and for what price.

It is so simple!

Before you go and spend time creating your website, you should visit market and see what websites and for what price are selling. Then you should create your website.

Stop building websites until you don’t know what people want. What do people want? If something is selling, then you know people want it.

Here is what you should do it:

1. First go to sitepoint market place and spend there around thirty minutes. Search for sites that were sold in the last few weeks. On sitepoint market place, you can see what kind of sites were sold and for how much.

2. When you already know what kind of sites are selling, decide in which niche you will build your new website.

3. Go to Google free keywords tool at https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal and search for around 20 keywords with not too big competition. Don’t go for general keywords like “weight loss”, look for long tile keywords like “how to lose belly fat” (these are just examples)

4. Write 20 quality and unique articles or get somebody else to write them for you.

5. Search for good looking and simple blog or website template.
6. Make unique header image with your logo. You can do it online for free.

7. Add articles to your blog or website. Don’t forget about basic SEO

8. Add few great images to your website.

9. Promote your website. (social networking, forum marketing, ezinearticles…)

10. Monetize your website with your own product, affiliate products or adsense.

11. Get some back links. Here at warrior WSO section are few great offers on how to do it.

12. Get at least few sales. It is not necessarily, but It will help you to sell your site in no time

13. Write great sales letter and put your site on auction.

14. Wait for a buyer.

If you do all the above, you should sell your site at BIN (if it’s reasonable) price.

You can also keep site for few months, make some money with it and then sell it for even more money.

I know that you already heard all this many times before. Flipping sites is not rocket science. Anybody with basic computer skills can do it. You have to realize that this is not “push button” business and if you want to be successful, you have to put some hard work into it. If you are willing to do it, you can make a lot of money with website flipping.

Believe me, if you build websites the way I described above you will never have a problem with recession or market saturation. Your websites will sell like hot cakes.

Don’t worry about competition until you sell unique and quality websites. There are always more than enough website buyers for good websites.

What you need to do is cut through the hype

to find the very best offers to promote.

Doing so will not only put more money in your pocket, it will also lighten your workload and protect your reputation.

Here’s what to look for:

• Good support. Send an email to the affiliate manager (or call them if they have phone support). Is there someone on the other end promptly and courteously answering inquiries? If so, that’s a good sign.

• Proven track record. Spend a few minutes with your friend Google to dig up everything you can on the product and the vendor. You’re looking for someone who has a good history and a solid reputation.

• Training materials. Even if you’re an expert affiliate marketer, take a peek inside the affiliate program area to see if they provide training materials for affiliates. If so, that’s a sign that they care about their affiliates and your success.

• Pre-sell content. Look for affiliate programs that provide emails, solo ads, classified ads, banner ads, articles, reports and other pre-sell content you can use.

• High conversion rate. You can ask the vendor for the conversion rate. But the only way to know for sure is to test it for yourself.

Tip: A PPC campaign is a fast and easy way to test a new product’s conversion rate.

• High commissions. If you’re selling physical products or services, you can’t expect commission rates much over 10% or so. But if you’re selling digital products, then look for commission rates of at least 50%.

• Backend commissions. Some products offer one-time-offers or other upsells. Check to see that you get credit for those, too.

• No sales leaks. Finally, make sure the sales page and the vendor’s sales process doesn’t have any sales leaks. For example, make sure the sales page doesn’t have an alternative payment method (such as phone or through a different payment processor) that would cut out your commission if the customer uses it.

Drop by Google.com and do a little research. Ask around at your favorite forum for recommendations on top affiliate program offers.

Most article marketers create informative yet generic articles, which they use to drive traffic to any number of affiliate links or even their own squeeze page.

But here’s the thing:

Sometimes your prospect needs to be lead by the hand

and shown the exact solution to their problem.

If he spends even five minutes researching, he’ll see an overwhelming number of solutions to his problems.

Sometimes even the same article may recommend multiple solutions. It’s confusing.

That’s where your specific article comes in.

You take the position of a strong leader, take your prospect by the hand,
and confidently lead him to the best solution.

He doesn’t even have to think about it because you’re showing him what product to choose.

That’s one possibility.

Sometimes, however, your prospects are also looking for specific information about specific products. They may be on the verge of making the buying decision, but they need confirmation from someone else.

Your product-specific article can serve as that confirmation… which means you pocket a quick commission!

Tip: There are plenty of places to submit your articles online. One of the best places is EzineArticles.com.

Other directories include IdeaMarketers.com, Buzzle.com, GoArticles.com, and ArticleCity.com.

If you have more than one article, then set up a Squidoo.com lens or a HubPages.com hub.

Let me give you three examples to show you what I mean:

Example #1: You create an article titled “How I Improved My Golf Score In 30 Seconds!” Then the article gives the reader tips and tricks for improving the golfer’s stance and swing. It ends by talking about how the biggest improvements came when you used Brand XYZ golf clubs.

Note: Naturally, DON’T use an example like this if the clubs don’t actually improve your game.

Example #2: You create a “how to” article that gives people the secrets of growing big, tasty tomatoes. The article takes the reader through all the steps of planting, nurturing and harvesting. The money-maker? Your article explicitly recommends the reader buy “Tomato Tree” plants in order to get good results (and you provide your affiliate link, of course).

Example #3: You create an article that provides useful but incomplete information about how to save a faltering marriage, “Seven Ways to Save a Marriage.” The article gives the reader a good starting point, but she’ll need to purchase the “Save a Marriage” book through your affiliate link to get all the information.

You get the idea.

And this can literally work for any market and niche. In other words, it can work for you.

Let me be blunt: Affiliate marketing is a numbers game.

If you want to make more money, you’re going to have to massage one of the numbers. We’ve talked about a number of tips to increase your numbers, such as by massaging the conversion rate (by building a list and relationships first), and boosting your commission rate.

Now here’s another number that’s easy to manipulate: Namely, by –

Increasing the number of targeted visitors who see your offer.

Makes sense, right?

If you’re making $100 for every 100 visitors, then an easy way to make more money is to get your links in front of more people.

If 500 see your link this month, you make $500. If 5000 see it, you make $5000.

And so on.

There are dozens of ways to drum up more traffic, including (but not limited to):

• Using content marketing such as article marketing, blogging, etc.

• Working with joint venture partners.

• Taking advantage of media marketing, including social networking, social bookmarking, and submitting your content to sites like Squidoo.com and YouTube.com.

• Creating and distributing free reports, free videos and other viral pieces.

• Getting traffic from the PPC search engines as well as the organic search engines.

• Distributing press releases.

• Building your mailing list.

• Blogging.

And so on.

More traffic = more commissions. End of story.

Here’s something else:

It’s easier to sell to a “warm” customer than a cold customer.

And one way to warm-up and pre-sell your customers is keeping in frequent contact with them using a newsletter list.

Consider this: Imagine you’re directly promoting your affiliate link. If you’re pulling a 2% conversion rate on a particular product, that means you’re selling 2 products for every 100 targeted visitors.

What a waste!

You have 98 targeted visitors just slipping through your fingers, never to be heard from again.

Ouch! That’s gonna leave a mark.

So instead of sending your targeted visitors to the merchant’s page,
you instead send all your visitors to your squeeze page.

Instead of making a couple sales here and there, you’re now building a list – and you’re building relationships.

Since people buy from those they know, like and trust, your conversion rates will explode.

Plus now you’re NOT wasting visitors.

If your squeeze page is persuasive enough, your freebie attractive enough and your visitors are highly targeted, you could be getting 25%, 35%, or even more of these visitors onto your mailing list!

Now instead of getting one shot to sell one
product to them, you can promote as many products
(and make as many sales!) as you’d like.

You can do this over and over for as long as your subscribers stay on your list. And you’ll make a lot more money with this list than if you let 98% or 99% of your visitors wander away!

One of the things that I highly recommend you do in order to really get people to join your list is to…

Disclose Highly Desirable “Results”

The idea here is to inform the visitor to your opt-in page that in your special report or mini-course (I.E. Your list offer), you’ll be revealing exactly how you achieved some desirable result – with the implication that they can duplicate your method if not your success.

“Here’s how I did XYZ in XYZ with XYZ“.

One of my favorite examples for this is my friend John Reese. If you visit his AuctionSecrets.com site you’ll notice a list offer midway through his salesletter. Here’s what John says…

——- Begin John’s Opt-In Offer ——–

As you’ve probably already read, I actually made over $38,000 in PROFIT from one single auction on eBay. And I know exactly what you’re thinking!

“He must have sold a car or some kind of real estate…”

If you thought that you’d be wrong!

What’s even more amazing about that one auction is that it was something that I bought for $100. Yep, 100 bucks. Not a bad profit, eh? I think that’s something like over 300,000% return. I’d say that was a “good” investment.

You can learn EXACTLY how I made the $38,450.27 PROFIT in my FREE…

5-Day Email Mini-Course, “The eBay Home Business Explosion!”

——- End John’s Opt-In Offer ——–

Now, I ask you, if you’re even remotely interested in selling on eBay, could you possibly resist joining his list to find out how he did it? Of course not. It’s irresistible. And that’s the point.

You want to inform the visitors to your opt-in page that you’ll be revealing some specific information on tremendous results you’ve achieved. And hint at some “amazing” aspect of your results. Look at John’s copy, not only did he mention that he made $38,450.27 on ONE auction, but he also stated that he did it with something he bought for only $100. Now there is a built-in curiosity factor. Not only do I want to know “how” he did it, but I also want to know “what” he sold to do it!

See how compelling this is?

Disclosure of tremendous results + hint of an amazing aspect = irresistible urge to join your list!

Note: People are inherently lazy and want something for nothing or something very easy. (Listen, I point to myself as well on this – it’s just a fact of life, all things being equal, we’d like things done with as little effort as possible.) If you can point to a shortcut you have figured out, an idea or tool for automating a process, a way to avoid a troublesome mistake or the ability to get someone else to do it for you, you’ll have a very powerful motivating factor for getting people to subscribe to your list.

Now here’s a ridiculously easy way to make those backend sales:

Promote recurring billing products.

Just as the name suggests, recurring billing (also called “continuity”) are those sales that happen automatically. The customer is charged automatically – typically on a weekly or monthly basis – and the product or service is delivered as long as the customer doesn’t cancel.

It’s easy for the merchant, the customer and the affiliate.

SIDEBAR: You probably have several recurring billing contracts lined up both personally and for business. Common examples include your cell phone contract, your web hosing, your monthly payments for an autoresponder, any monthly membership sites that you’ve joined, etc.

Here’s the beauty of recurring billing products:

All you have to do is find and persuade the customer once… yet you get paid month after month for as long as the customer remains a member.

That’s an easy, passive affiliate income for you!

Here are three ways to find these passive-income opportunities:

1. Go to the ClickBank.com marketplace and look for products that have a value higher than $0 in the “future $” category. Those are your recurring billing products.

1. Search in Google for your niche keywords, a search term like “affiliate program” plus other search terms like “recurring billing,” “membership site,” “passive income” or similar.

1. Seek out known recurring billing opportunities in your niche.

Example: If you’re selling products in the Internet marketing field, then you already know that most mailing list managers, PLR sites, web hosts and similar offer recurring billing. So you can go directly to the main product or service providers in your niche to check for an affiliate program with recurring commissions.

Tip: Read the affiliate TOS (terms of service) and affiliate agreements carefully. While some vendors offer recurring billing to the customers, they may only pay the affiliates a one-time flat fee for the referral. You’re looking for programs that pay month after month for as long as the customer remains a customer. 

Again, it’s all about “numbers”.

Which of these is best…

• Promoting Affiliate Offer A which sells for $24.00 and earns you a 50% commission? Or, all things being equal…
  

• Promoting Affiliate Offer B which sells for $24.00 PER MONTH and earns you a 50% commission PER MONTH for as long as the referred customer remains active?

Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out “B” stands for “Better”!

THE ULTIMATE MIX: And when you find a “sweet” setup that offers both (A one-time offer that backends a recurring offer), that’s a huge neon sign flashing the message “Promote This One!”

EXAMPLES:

YummyPLR.com – PLR site that offers recipes (40% monthly commission).

ReliableWebs.com – Web hosting with free blog installs (20% monthly commission).

I say “about” because you may find that certain lower-priced products have a higher conversion rate.

Example: Let’s suppose you’ve found various products with 50% commissions. Now consider these figures:

• A $20 product ($10 commission) coverts at 5%. That means that for every 100 people who see the product, five buy… and that puts $50 in your pocket.

• A $100 product ($50 commission) converts at 3%. That means for every 100 targeted visitors who see the product, three buy… and that puts $150 in your pocket.

• A $500 product converts at a scant 1%. For every 100 targeted visitors, one person buys… and you put a fast $250 into your pocket.

See what I mean?

Do you realize the magnitude of this simple change in WHAT you promote?

Example three from above is 500% more profit for you
than example one for the exact same amount of traffic!

That should get you excited!

And it should also get you thinking about WHAT you’re promoting. Is it really your best option?

It may seem exciting to pull in multiple orders per day. But if you look at the “bottom line” figures, you may find that certain products put more money in your pocket with the same number of visitors.

That means you need to look for products with higher commission rates  as well as looking for products with higher ticket prices.

In other words, as a general rule “75% commission” is better than “50% commission” and a product that produces “$250” commission per transaction is better than one that produces “$50” commission per transaction.

And if you can find a high-converting, high-ticket product with a high commission rate, hire an accountant because you’ll soon have more money than you know what to do with! ?

The point is the same: your time investment is constant. The amount of money you make for your effort doesn’t have to be.

Regardless of the sales volume, your activity will remain the same…

• You’ll spend the same amount of time generating traffic.
  

• You’ll spend the same amount of time building lists.
  

• You’ll spend the same amount of time creating presell content.
  

• You’ll spend the same amount of time writing articles, posting blog comments, interacting at forums and all of the “marketing” stuff you do.

You’ll just make more money – on average – promoting affiliate programs that offer higher profit-per-transaction numbers.

• Physical Products
• Ebooks
• Reports
• Membership Sites

-Physical products

Physical products offer you the ability to put something real and tangible in the hands of  your buyers. Physical products are often marketed as “home study courses” which can be set at a higher price point than an eBook or a set of online videos. Although you will have to pay for the production of the book, the videos or the audio CDs, you can more than make up for those costs with your price point. With certain topics, physical products just make more sense.

-eBooks

eBooks can be anywhere from 30 to 200 pages long. They normally offer a more widespread look at a topic than a short report, but they have the potential for covering a lot more topic areas in the niche. The advantage of eBooks is that they can be priced at higher rates than short reports. They are automatically delivered to your customers so they get the instant gratification of having the product immediately. eBooks can be paired with supplemental reports, audios or videos depending on the niche and how many resources you want to offer your customers.

- Reports

Short reports are typically between 5 and 20 pages. They go in depth on a small part of a topic instead of giving a general overview like most large eBooks do. With a short report, you’re normally giving someone an actionable plan that they can use to fix an aspect of their life. “How to Calm a Colicky Baby”, “How to Improve Your Golf Slice” and “How to Lose 5 Lbs this Weekend” are all examples of the narrow focus of short reports. If you have a larger topic, sometimes breaking it down into short reports and offering them separately is a great way to make more money and establish your authority in the niche.

-Membership sites

If you have a lot of information on a niche and feel that you can provide month after month of content, you can create a membership site. The benefit of making a membership site with your content is that you earn money each month from multiple members. Instead of having a one time sale for your content, you can earn from it continuously. Your membership site can take many different forms. You can offer weekly or monthly reports delivered to your members’ inboxes. You can host a forum where members can meet and discuss the niche. You can also offer training through a private blog. The options are endless!

Before you decide on your product delivery system, make sure to research your niche to see what the norm is. Figure out what would be best for your niche and proceed accordingly.

In other words, it can help you make money!

What is it?

Blogs are websites where the freshest content is posted first. Normally, posts are listed in chronological order. There may be some static content in the sidebars or on other pages of the blog, but the homepage is updated when there is a new post. Visitors can post comments on your articles and you have the opportunity to create a real community in your niche.

Blogs are popular because they are very accessible. You don’t have to know much about setting up a website in order to use one. That makes them VERY “beginner friendly”.  Once the initial set  up is complete, they are as easy to use as a word processing program. To top it off, visitors love blogs because they can interact with the content. With a few smart posts and some traffic generation strategy you can quickly have an authority site in your niche.

What are three keys to doing it successfully?

1. Choosing the right blogging platform.

There are several different blogging platforms available to get you started with blogging. Wordpress has a bit of a learning curve but it is by far the best in terms of usability. You can completely customize your Wordpress blog so that it looks totally unique. You can also install several different plugins to make your blog more user friendly. For example, one Wordpress plugin automatically suggests related posts on your blog underneath each post to encourage visitors to explore your website.

2. Creating fresh content Posts.

A successful blog has to be updated at least once a week, at the very minimum. Many successful bloggers add new posts every weekday. You should plan to have new content on your blog at least once every seven days. This can be accomplished easily if you create an editorial calendar. Write down a variety of different topics and plan when you will post them to your blog. With Wordpress you can even write them ahead of time and schedule them to be automatically added to your blog at a certain date and time.

3. Cultivating your blog for profit.

It’s very easy to make money with blogs and you have a few different options to choose from. With your blog, you can make money through contextual advertising with ads that are displayed on your blog. You get paid when someone clicks on the advertising. You can also link to affiliate products or sell your own product from your blog.

Can you give me an example?

You’ve discovered that there is a demand for knowledge on cooking gluten free meals, something you have a lot of experience with. You start a blog about gluten free cooking and post your favorite recipes each week. After several months, you decide to write your own online cookbook and sell it from your blog.

There are a few basic business models to choose from. Each of them have their advantages and disadvantages. By looking over this list and considering your strengths, you should know where you want to focus your business.

- Author.

When you create your own product, you are in complete control of your stream of income. By writing a product, or hiring a ghostwriter to write one, you can set up a website and sell your product over and over again. You can set up an affiliate program so other people are selling the product for you. The only major downside is that you can spend a lot of time and money working on a niche product that may not pan out.

- Affiliate.

Unlike being a product creator, with affiliate marketing you don’t have to spend time and money creating a product. You just need to be good at promoting the product. You’ll earn commissions for sending buyers to the product creator’s website. With the right promotional techniques, you can establish yourself in the niche and make affiliate commissions from several different programs all at once. On the other hand, you are at the whim of the product creator when you use this business model. You never know when a product creator will stop offering the product.

- Administrator.

Starting your own membership site is another option. With affiliate programs and information products, you’ll earn money from a one time sale. When you own a membership site, you’ll have an ongoing stream of income coming from one website. You can provide monthly reports on a niche topic, host a forum or offer coaching for a flat fee each month. You can even use an affiliate program with your membership site so that other people will send new members your way. The downside is that you need to keep providing fresh content each month to keep your members sticking around.

- Auctioner.

eBay is one of the most frequently visited sites on the entire Internet. When you become an eBay seller, you’ll never have to worry about finding traffic for your offering. You can sell a variety of different things on eBay, including information products. Although there have been some recent changes to the way information products are sold on eBay, the amount of traffic and ease of setting up your offering make eBay a strong business model. The downside is that your business relies on a third party site who’s changing rules may negatively effect your business in the future.

As you can see, there are ups and downs to every business model available online. By looking at your own strengths and what you want to get  out of your business, you should be able to find the right model for you.

Ask your list members

If you’ve built a list from selling your first information product (and you should have!) the keys to creating your next product are just a few e-mails away. Your list can be a goldmine when it comes to product ideas. Create a survey using a free online survey program (like SurveyMonkey.com) and ask your customers what topic they are most interested in learning about next. You can make the questions multiple choice and give them a few different options. Add the link to the survey in your autoresponder program and then gather the results from your previous buyers.

This product idea method works really well because not only have you already established yourself in the niche, but you know that you have ready made buyers if you can create a product your list is looking for. Since surveys are so easy to set up, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be using this for product creation.

Browse through the product affiliate networks.

A great way to find a surefire product idea is to look at the product affiliate networks, like Clickbank, Ejunkie or Paydotcom. I’m not talking about ripping off ideas. I’m talking about finding existing gaps in the market and filling those needs. For example, if you’re looking through Clickbank and notice a lot of products on growing your own organic garden you know that those sellers are tapping into a profitable market. However, you also notice that not one of these books talks about how to store the abundance from your organic garden. This is an important part of making the most out of your garden. Since so many people are growing organic gardens these days, it’s going to be a profitable niche. On top of that, you can contact one of the people who have a gardening eBook and do a joint venture.

Check out peaking trends.

Tools like Google Trends can help you find out what topics are growing in popularity. By jumping on a rising topic, you can be the first to the market with a topic. Being the first product in a particular niche can secure your dominance in that niche, even after other people jump on the bandwagon. Keep an eye on peaking trends and see how you can create a product to meet the needs of those in on that trend.

Any one of these methods could give you enough topics for your next ten products. Don’t sit on your laurels after you’ve created your first product. Use that momentum to jump on the next product idea and you’ll be able to build a long term infomarketing business.

Learn how to host web sites and HTML and the basic things that come with Internet Marketing. Even if you outsource them, you maybe won’t always have the option to outsource them, so you better know how to do them. The basics are always important. That is why sports preach the basic fundamentals, as being the most important thing. You don’t want to become too dependent on other people and other sites.

I think that it is important to learn a specialized skill like copy writing or for putting up certain types of scripts or for web design etc. You can make a ton of money by just doing freelance work. This gives you something to fall back on. Even if you fail with your other online ventures, you can always come back to that skill or skills.

One of the biggest problems that people have with Internet Marketing is that they get distracted. One of the best ways to avoid this is to develop a routine. Human beings are a creatures of habit. We get used to sleeping at a certain time and eating at a certain time. We can also get into a good working routine that we can follow, over and over again.

Once you find a profitable project, then scale it up as much as you can. What this means is to scale up effort or outsourcing or both. Once you find something profitable, put more time and effort and possibly money, into it. This can be really a key to your online success. Instead of running off to something that you might think is better, key word is might. You go with what works and roll with it and expand your success.

I use a number of different marketing tactics to grow my online business. I certainly don’t rely on just Web 2.0 or any other singular way to market my business. If you’re having wonderful results with Web 2.0, then continue to devote a lot of time to marketing with it, but if you aren’t having success, then don’t be afraid to rely on other marketing methods.

Time management is very, very important and when it comes to an Internet Marketer, it is crucial. People want to talk all about the strategies for making money online and they don’t want to talk about getting your mind right and managing your time.

Look, I don’t care how promising a strategy looks and is, if you don’t have your mind right and can’t manage your time, it will fall by the waste side. Make sure that you have a clear plan of action, can manage your time and cut out the distractions.

Contrary to belief, having success with Web 2.0 can be time consuming and be some work. It can take a lot of testing and tracking, but I really like the results that I get from it.

I think the best bit of advice that I can give is to approach it like you would with any other marketing method. Don’t get blown away from extraordinary claims, hard to do, when you’re an Internet Marketer, but do your research and apply yourself.

Get your online business out there. The World Wide Web is a huge place and Web 2.0 gives you a great opportunity to tap into that. It is a great place to get noticed and have success. Just remember that you should be testing and tracking your results. It isn’t about becoming a celebrity, it is about the success of your online business. Don’t get too caught up in who is giving you praise, while your bottom line isn’t growing. Always remember that you’re running a business.

You will learn how to be successful your life.

It is more useful to read this book than to win a lottery. Believe me!

The Millionaire Mindset

Actually, I didn’t even get a Twitter account until about January of 2009. I thought that the whole thing was stupid and I didn’t sign up until then. Many months later I had about 100 followers, pretty pathetic, but I wasn’t promoting it.

I then decided that I would start following people and getting followers. Adding followers on Twitter, manually, really sucks. It takes forever and it is just not worth it.

So, I thought that the people that had all of these thousands of followers just got them because they had huge mailing lists. That may help, but these guys were getting most of their followers from some other means.

I started looking at their Twitter accounts and I would see that they were following more people than were following them, not everybody, but a lot of them. That tells you that they are getting their followers by following targeted strangers.

I know how lazy gurus can be, so I wondered, there is no way that they are doing it manually, right? I’m sure that they don’t and I doubt that they outsource it. Then I learned that they’re using software.

Set it up and forget software, that is how they’re doing it. They have software that is doing the work for them, big surprise, I should have known better. The jerks have an edge, haha.

Yeah, I use software to grow my Twitter accounts. There are some really expensive software out there, but I use the lively browser Twitter software. I love it and the customer service is wonderful. Search lively browser and go to the Twitter software. It’s really cheap compared to other software.

You can follow who the gurus are following or their followers if you’re in the make money online niche. If you’re in some other niche, find a guru in that niche and follow their followers. It isn’t rocket science, but it is effective.

You can set up the auto direct messages with tweet later, but I like to network and get to know people. You can always tweet about promoting your blog or website or products later. Take the time to ease your way into the relationship with your followers. I’m not a big believer in selling to someone that you just met. Build the relationship first.

Selling a product is tough. I’ve been in sales for many years and I majored in Sales in college. I did manage to make the dean’s list, a number of times. I know everything that there is to know about making a sale and I’ve made a ton of sales in person and a ton of sales online.

I used to be a top salesman at various jobs. I used to get that reputation because I was good looking, that wasn’t why I was successful. I was successful because I was good at connecting with people and understanding and solving their problems.

When it comes to Web 2.0 or online sales, what you look like, doesn’t matter. Heck, most sales are made without them even seeing you. I don’t have a picture of myself on my two best selling sales pages.
The key is to interact with people and build relationships. People usually won’t buy a product online if they haven’t been pre-sold. I’ve had so much more success when I give away something for free and then tell people that they can get a lot more, if they buy, but I’m not too pushy.

I always offer a money back guarantee and provide my e-mail address to people. If they have any concerns, I will ease them and they usually end up buying. In the end it is usually about trust.

Trust is usually earned when it comes to selling online. People are really skeptical to take out their credit cards and order. When they can talk and interact with a real person, it changes everything. I would say that 90% of the people that send me an e-mail about buying an item, actually buy it.

I don’t contact them with this big, slick, salesman e-mail, I just answer their questions and reassure them. It is coaching them through the whole process.

Think of yourself as a parent that is teaching your kid how to walk. If they fall down and ask for a refund, you grant it, but you should have the confidence that most of them will be very successful and gain a lot from the product. Confidence is what you need.

Make sure to get put on the do not call list, if possible, that should get rid of most of the telemarketers. When it comes to businesses, try to tell them that you prefer e-mail instead of phone calls, it is much less distracting to get an e-mail, as opposed, to a phone call.

People also spend way too much time reading e-mails and instant messaging. I know people that spend all day with their skype open and that would drive me bonkers. I would have people talking to me constantly, cut back on that stuff and don’t be on too many mailing lists.

The next thing that you should do is organize your bookmarks. Make sure to label your folders, I have like a dozen folders and various amounts of links in each folder. This cuts out the distractions of using search engines. Relying on search engines can be so distracting because you end up clicking on so many other web sites.

This will save you time because you don’t have to manually type in the web sites. Sometimes you want a bookmark to a specific web page on a huge site and that will also save you time.

Fill out a daily planner and prioritize your tasks for the day. This will help you cut out distractions by getting the most important things done first. A person has peak hours of performance. You don’t want to work your peak hours on stuff that isn’t that important or isn’t a priority.

I will always work on the most important things first. I’ve had enough of those nights when it gets to be about ten at night and I still have hours of work to do because I got distracted during the day with tasks that really weren’t that important.

I highly suggest that you write everything down and have a daily planner. It keeps a person on track and helps cut out the distractions. You write it all down the night before and you set it next to you and then you just check each task off when you’re finished with it. It is kind of fun and pretty rewarding.

You can obviously monetize the groups before you sell them, but the big money comes from selling them. If you’re making a good steady income from them and you’re happy with the returns, then keep them, but if you just want to build them and not worry too much about monetizing them and are looking for a big pay-day, down the road, then sell them.

I recently talked to a guy on an Internet Marketing forum that sold a Facebook group that he had created and built and sold it for $10,000. That really blew me away, I hadn’t realized how valuable these things could be.

I had heard of websites selling for all kinds of money, but I never really thought about Facebook groups being sold. But, it is like anything else, if people see a long-term profit out of something and the people have done some work for them, they will invest some big dollars.

The first thing that you should throw out, is that any idea for building a huge Facebook group, shouldn’t be considered. There are some of the stupidest Facebook group ideas that have over a million members.
I would like to punch slow walking people in the head has like over a million members. There are these groups that sound so stupid, but they have so many members. I think that the whole key is to make it sensational and to make it viral.

I currently have about the Facebook limit of 5,000 friends, if I’m not at it, I can be because of the back log of friend requests. The point is this. I can invite all 5,000 friends to a group and get a fraction of that to join the group. The viral effect is what is huge. I talked about that Facebook group earlier, it actually got onto tv, that probably helped.

Groups that take advantage of the moment or that cause a stir can get a ton of members. Build a mailing list, put up some CPA offers and see how successful they are. Make sure to encourage participation and to get people to come back, over and over again and to encourage them to invite their friends.

It is a wonderful resource for meeting new people and to network and even work out joint ventures. People are a lot more interactive and accessible than they are with just plain e-mail. You now have a face when you interact.

Web 2.0 also allows a person to get a ton of targeted traffic, lets face it, we all need it. It might be to your blog, web site, sales page or affiliate offer.

It allows you to get help from the search engines and to also get direct traffic. I love getting direct traffic because once you find a way to get it, it is pretty consistent and can be expanded on pretty quickly.

Facebook

There are a ton of different ways to make money with Facebook. It is a great way to network and connect with other marketers.

I’ve met and connected with so many other Internet Marketers on Facebook. If I want to find someone in particular, I just search for them and see if they have a Facebook, the vast majority of marketers do.
One of the great things about Facebook is the groups. You can find marketers on make money online groups. You can also start your own groups in various niches and get traffic from these groups.

Getting Traffic From Facebook

Groups – I start groups and get people to join and get traffic to a squezze page, my own sales pages, CPA offers etc. I also network and joint venture with members.

From The Profile – I get traffic by simply putting up a link on my profile. I have almost 5,000 Facebook friends so I pick up some extra direct traffic from my profile.

Buying Ad Space – You can buy ad space and advertise on Facebook. It isn’t something that I’ve done before, but some people have had good results with it.

Facebook Resources

Facebook Friend Adder:

http://www.livelybrowser.com/screen/FacebookFriendAdder/FacebookFriendAdder.html

100 Tools and Tips:

http://www.insidecrm.com/features/facebook-marketing-toolbox-012308/

Twitter

Twitter is something that I was slow to come around to. I started to use it and have gotten really good results. In the past couple of months, I have gotten over 11,000 targeted followers on my main Twitter account. I have several different Twitter accounts, also.

I’m getting sign-ups to my list every single day from Twitter. It is pretty much all automated. I make a few tweets here and there, but that is it.

If you want to know how powerful Twitter can be, a guy by the name of Perry Belcher just won Frank Kern’s affiliate contest, mainly with Twitter. He has over 100,000 Twitter followers. I should have that many followers on my main account by the end of the year.

Another great thing about Twitter is how easy it is to use. You can have a profile up and running with a custom background and everything in about ten minutes. Once you have that, it is just a matter of getting followers.

Twitter Resources

There are some great resources when it comes to Twitter. I use a ton of them and they make things a whole lot easier for a person.

This will help you get targeted twitter followers by following people who follow people in your niche:

http://wefollow.com/

This allows you to mass unfollow those who don’t follow you back:

http://huitter.com/mutuality/

This allows you to do a ton of different things with your twitter accounts. It allows you to send direct messages when someone follows you, allows you to automatically follow those who follow you and many other things:

http://www.tweetlater.com/

100 Twitter Tips:

http://www.twittinsecrets.com/

This will help you stay organized with Twitter:

http://tweetdeck.com/beta/

Customize your Twitter background:

http://www.twitterbacks.com/

A killer software that allows you to follow targeted people and automates the process. This software is just awesome:

http://www.livelybrowser.com/TwitterFriendAdder.html

Stumble Upon

Stumble upon is a really cool and unique site. It lets users go through and rate different websites, blogs, videos etc. When I discovered stumble upon, it was the first site that I had seen of its kind.
The big thing that you want to do with stumble upon is to focus on great free content. Make sure that you aren’t selling them on something, right away and provide great information.

Stumble upon is a great way to advertise your blogs. You can advertise on there and get a lot of traffic for free, but their paid advertising can be very effective and way better than Adwords, in most cases, in my opinion.

Make sure that the main theme of the blog is explained. Also, always remember that good free content is always king and if you can provide that, you’ll be in good shape.
Stumble Upon Resources

This Wordpress Plugin will encourage visitors to subscribe to your RSS feed:

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/what-would-seth-godin-do/

This is a really good Stumble Upon resource, there is some great information about Stumble Upon on there:
http://www.mikebogo.com/ultimate-stumbleupon-resource.php

Exchange stumbles site:

http://www.stumblexchange.com/
Share stumbles with Internet Marketing Forum Members:
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/
http://www.blackhatworld.com/

You Tube

I’m not going to say much about you tube. We all know about it and just by looking at some of the views that some of these videos are getting, is still just blowing me away. Some of them have millions of views!

You Tube Resources

Here is 30+ resources for you tube, mashable is a wonderful over resource, as well:

http://mashable.com/2007/10/08/youtube-toolbox-resources/

Another you tube resource site:

http://www.youtuberesource.com/

Some people will say the death of this or the death of that. Trust me, Web 2.0 isn’t going anywhere and marketing with Web 2.0 is going to continue to be a wonderful thing, going forward.

Yes, some aspects of it will change and you’ll have to adapt and make some changes here and there, but that is what Internet Marketing is all about. Experiment, make changes and adapt.

I highly suggest that you go out and take advantage of this wonderful resource called Web 2.0. Not only to use it to get targeted traffic, but also to network and joint venture.

Now, this can be applied to multiple niche markets, if you want.  It can also be applied to about any niche market that you can think of.

The one catch is that it will take some hard work.  The hard work will pay off because you will build a long-term business where you can make an unlimited amount of money and eventually set it up to be nearly hands off. 

The First Step

The first step is to create some assets to promote.  Lots of people aren’t successful online because they don’t create their own assets to promote.

Here are some options

Creating an Information Product – You can make upfront money with information products, build your mailing list with them, be an affiliate through them and open up your own affiliate program.

Creating a Blog or Website – This is an asset that you can monetize in a ton of different ways.  You can also promote your other assets through them.

Creating a Membership Site – You can do all of the things that I mentioned with information products, but you can also set it up to get recurring income.

Some Advice For Creating Assets

The more assets that you create the merrier, as long as you don’t over extend yourself time wise or resource wise.  You don’t want to just spend all of your time creating them and not getting traffic and making money.

Don’t get too perfect when creating assets.  Yes you want them to be great, but nothing is ever perfect.  You want to finish projects, they can always be improve on, later.

Don’t be afraid to outsource certain tasks.  If you aren’t good at something or if something will take you a really long time to do, you should consider outsourcing it.  I like: www.elance.com and www.odesk.com  

The last one is to simply take action.  This is one of the biggest problems that people face.  They over analyze  things and don’t take action or get distracted and keep going from one thing to another without finishing anything.

The Second Step

You will want to set up an auto responder sequence.  You want to send traffic through a squeeze page, where you capture their e-mail address and send them through your auto responder sequence. 

This is where you promote your information products, blog or websites and membership sites.  You can send the traffic through one source and promote multiple assets.  You also have a mailing list, another great asset, for long-term promotion.

Setting Up a Successful Auto Responder Sequence

The first thing that you want to do is to introduce people to yourself and your online business.  Get them to know who you are and get them familiar with getting e-mails from you.

Space out your messages.  You don’t want to bombard them everyday with messages.  People get sick of being bothered that much.  I usually space the messages out by three days.

Don’t be too pushy.  People want to be on your list to be enlightened and get good information.  Some of them are willing to pay for it, but they don’t want to be seen as a dollar sign.

Don’t just send sales pitches.  Make sure that you’re giving them some great free information and free resources.  You have to always ask yourself if you would want to be on your mailing list.

Go to www.aweber.com and sign up for an account.  It is about $20 a month, but it is well worth it.  I’ve used them for a long time now and they are by far the best auto responder service that I’ve ever used.  Their customer support, their features and tutorials are all awesome.

The Third Step

This step is all about putting together something to give away for free, in order to, capture e-mails.  It is also about having a converting squeeze page.

Advice on Putting Together The Offer

Make the offer have broad appeal.  You don’t want the information to be enticing only to a small percentage of people in the niche.  You want broad appeal and interest.

Giving away short reports is an effective strategy.  People love to sign up to get these free reports.  They give their name and e-mail and quickly get to read the report.  It also allows you to up-sell, be an affiliate and promote your business with it.

Structure your offer around intrigue.  People are curious and people hate to get left behind.  That is why playing on intrigue is so important. 

Advice on Putting Together The Squeeze Page

Short and Sweet – You aren’t asking them to pay you any money, so they shouldn’t need a lot of convincing.  They are giving you their e-mail address, but it shouldn’t be a really tough sell.  You don’t want them to have to scroll down too far to give their information and sign up.

Play on Intrigue – Like I said before, if people are curious, it is like an itch that they need to scratch.  Appeal to their curiosity.

Social Proof – Some  quick social proof can be a good thing.  It always helps people envision their own gain, if they can see that other people have gained from signing up.

Close and Have a Call to Action – You have to tell them to sign up.  If you don’t close hard, some people will leave without signing up.  Encouragement is always a good thing and will help close the deal.

The Fourth Step

This step is all about getting targeted traffic.  You have your offer in place, you have your squeeze page in place and you have your auto responder sequence in place.  Now you need targeted traffic.

Targeted Traffic Sources

Joint Ventures – Working out joint ventures is a great way to get traffic.  If you like what you see from another marketer, then approach them and tell them that you will promote them if they promote you.

Blogging – I talked about having a blog earlier.  You can have a banner ad or a place for them to sign up to your mailing list on your blog and get targeted traffic, that way.

Articles – articles can get you a lot of traffic.  You can write them yourself or you can outsource them.  Either way, you can get a lot of targeted traffic from articles.

Traffic Exchanges and Safe Lists – You can get traffic from these two sources.  Most of them are free, but you can find some gems, if you’re willing to invest some money into them.

Pay-per Click – This is one of the most famous traffic sources.  People don’t want to pay money to get traffic to a free sign up page.  Well, that is why you have front-end offers and treat your members well.  It is a long-term benefit and hopefully you set yourself up with some up-front gains.

There are many other traffic sources that you can pursue, for yourself.  The main thing is to take action and focus and finish projects.