Make Money Online, No Money Invested?

When I started this blog, I wanted to see if I could start a career in affiliate marketing without spending anything. Earn as I learn, I phrased it. I wanted to see if I could make money online, no money out of pocket and start something from scratch?".

I started this blog, trying to get traffic to a site I had no idea how to put together. I paid for a domain and hosting every month. It wasn't much, but it wasn't free, either. For the duration of 2012, I blindly posted on blogs and wrote articles, trying to build traffic without much luck.

Then I started thinking about an affiliate program called Wealthy Affiliate I joined back in 2009. I was a member for only about a month but was happy with what I was getting. Thing is, I wasn't mature enough to do the actual work necessary. Ever since then, I haven't been able to forget about their program and wanted back in.

So at the end of January, I joined again and wish I had done it much sooner. At least looked into it. I could have saved myself a lot of time, aggravation and money.


Some of the tools I took advantage of seem invaluable now that I've used them.

The keyword tool is worth the paying subscription alone. I have had tremendous turnaround in my article views and have a much better understanding of how keywords work since using this tool.

The education I've been getting is also very valuable. I joined in the end of January and took part in one of their training modules. I have learned more with better results in the last month than I have in all of 2012 trying to do it on my own!

The sign up process was simple and I didn't need to pay anything to access some of the best tools I've come across, for free!

You can actually set up a website, have it hosted and market it without paying anything. What I found was if you wanted to learn about the business, paying the subscription fee is well worth it. As you can see on my profile, it's the best education I've paid for (or my parents).

Using Wealthy Affiliate, I found it is possible to make money online, no money out of pocket and potentially build an online business out of nothing. It will just take lots of time, patience and consistency.

Market Niche Overlooked? Not Good For Affiliate Marketing

It's been just over a year since my re-introduction to affiliate marketing and many lessons and mistakes have been made along the way.

Originally, I wanted to create an income out of nothing, but I abandoned that when I became too impatient and wanted to have my own website. It made it much easier to become an affiliate for particular products and to market, so over the last few months I've spent some money for my domain and hosting.

Getting back to my marketing endeavors...

Seems I need to learn things the hard way (ie. my own way) sometimes, so I'm looking at the last year as being very productive in education. Optimistically, I see the last year as opportunity for knowledge.

I haven't earned anything yet, which is why I'm going to weigh heavily on the educational aspect of this experience. Education has a value in and of its own, so I guess it's just a matter of how much I value my time.

Since beginning myaffiliate marketing aspirations, I've come to see many important aspects that need to come together to optimize the efforts put into my site. Market research, SEO, proper keyword research and applications along with working with all the social networks and email marketing all play a large role in promoting a website.

But the one big marketing technique I never implemented was finding my market niche.

When I first started my affiliate marketing campaign and began writing articles, I had all sorts of ideas of what I wanted to offer on my website.

As I was developing my website, I would come across something I would feel complimented my site.

So I added it. So on and so on, I began adding offers from different products, expanding my site by adding pages to it.

I first thought this was good, developing my offerings and hopefully reaching a potentially larger audience.

I found myself overwhelmed. I had read the advice to begin with a focus on a small, reasonable market, but I didn't heed it.

As I was developing my website, I created more work than I was ready to handle. It was a mistake to take on so much when trying to learn the basics at the same time.

Thinking if I used a broad area such as personal development, it would leave me room to go in many different directions.

Sometimes there can be too many directions to go in when it comes to affiliate marketing.

I've found out that if you don't have a specific direction, you can get lost in the vast universe that is the internet. There are to many big guns to compete with so you may never be seen. Very few search beyond the first page of results, so getting pushed back in page rankings from more established companies is very likely.

The plan now?

I have the basics of the site in place. I want to optimize my site by finding a good market niche to implement, but it will have to be one page at a time. See what I mean about creating too much work? But breaking down page by page at least makes it seem more manageable and still gives me a broad area to work in, accommodating my short attention span.

Still not sure what page I want to start with my site, but it's going to use a market niche technique to narrow in on stronger buyers.

I'd at least like to work on the one particular page long enough to measure a result. Then I'll know I'm going in a positive direction.

Affiliate Marketing-A New Year

It's just been just over a year now since I first realistically threw my hat in the affiliate marketing ring. It's been a long year of a lot of reading and research looking for the path of success with affiliate marketing.

You see, when I began this endeavor, I had all intentions of doing it for nothing, primarily as an experiment. I didn't want to spend a dime and test to see how viable it would be to build a lucrative presence on the web without an initial investment.

I started a free lens on Squidoo and began writing articles trying to drive traffic to it. After a few months, I wasn't getting much traffic at all, so I started my own website.

After a few weeks of trying to figure out in what direction I wanted to go in, I established my website in a way I could expand on it. I figured the more I could build on it, the more potential traffic, and in turn, more sales.

This has come with a double edged sword.

I still love the idea of being able to offer help in many different areas, but at the same time, it can be overwhelming.

I still consider myself very new to affiliate marketing, and that is what has given me issues in growing my site to the potential I had hoped for.

Trying to put together a multiple page website while still learning the ins and outs of affiliate marketing hasn't been a smooth process.

It seems the more I learn, the more potential I see, and with that, more to learn. It's very easy to become flooded with possibilities that can easily distract you from your original goal. You see or hear of success in some area, so I would look further into that.

This has kept me from becoming affluent in any particular area, keeping me almost distracted from completing my education from the task at hand. A lot has to do with my personality, but it can also be due to the hundreds of different avenues you can go down when pursuing an affiliate marketing endeavour.

Over the last year, I have learned a lot. I still only incur the one website maintenance expense and still plan on pursuing all the free marketing available.

But if I'm going to truly learn one thing, it's to try to remain focused on the task at hand.

My website has 7 pages right now. I think my best option is to concentrate on one of those pages and work on it. Treat it as my only page for a month or two and then move on to another. Continue writing articles, social networking and any other free networking out there for it. After going through all seven, I'll begin to look at expanding and adding new pages again.

It's hard to stay focused when everything so new and novel, especially with the potential you hear about. So this year, I'm designating focus as my "mantra" to carry me through and continue.

Using Google Adwords Keyword Tool For Article Marketing

It's hard to believe it's been so long since last updating this blog. I've been doing a lot of research and gathering information the last month, working on SEO for my website for the search engines.

I added a few pages to my site (was trying to beef up the content) and really didn't get much response from the changes. These pages broke down the sites categories into a smaller niche oriented page that offers other products to help round out the main pages theme-a balance of mind body and soul.

But I did it...blindly I guess you can say. I really didn't have a strong understanding of doing the proper keyword research knowledge, so the content was out there, but not being picked up by the search engines.

That's when I decided to buckle down and try to get a better understanding of keyword research and effectively implement it in my website and affiliate article marketing campaign. I've got a good bit of material out there and if I can maximize its effectiveness, the payback could be beneficial.

I think I have a much better understanding how to use Google Adwords keyword tool and have been having some good responses on the recent articles I've published. Many times I would only get a few views a month when I wrote an article without doing the keyword research. The last few article I wrote and took the time to work on keywords have turned those few views I used to get a month into getting them a day.

I was able to dig up some phrases for my articles that were extremely low in competition but felt they still had enough searches to warrant an article. Goolge Adwords keyword tool reported some keyword searches in the range of around 90-120. When I did a search for competition, I only had a couple sites to compete with.

I've also worked on SEO for my website. I used Google Adwords keyword tool to find some phrases related to my page that had a higher search, but also higher competition, thinking my website would have a better chance with these more aggressive keywords.

The keywords used for my website were much more ambitious, resulting around 30-40 thousand competitors, but also had a relative increase in searches to justify it. I'm going for a broader audience with my website because I don't want to put all my resources into only 90 searches a month for that page.

I'm going to use these keywords for my site at let them run for about a month, then see what I should do from there. I've seen an increase in traffic since using these new keywords, but there's always going to room for improvement. I figured a month could give me a pretty consistent idea for now.

Press Release For Affiliate Marketing- It Seemed To Help

It's been quite some time since I have posted anything to update this blog, attributing a great deal of my absenteeism to the fact I have a difficult time with something not to a certain standard, especially when my names attached to it. Not that I'm 100% done (there's still a lot of work and changes ahead), but it's a start.

Well, I worked on my website for a while, trying to get it just right. Added content, changed my mind concerning the direction I wanted to go in and wavered with the simple layout for longer than I needed to. Getting it just right can be nearly impossible if you really aren't sure what you are doing in the first place.

This went on for about a month when I finally decided I was never going to get it perfect and I just needed to publish it without the need for perfection. Not that I got to the point where I figured I would just publish garbage. I just have to remember; I can edit it any time I want to.

This being my first website and a beginner with affiliate marketing  I got lost in the learning curve, trying to figure out things without even beginning to try them out. I was afraid of making a mistake before I even started, breaking down my chances to learn simply from the mistakes I wasn't making make. Make sense?

It was time for me to commit and just decide. It may not be the best decision, but who knows what experience I could come across.

So I finally put it out there and made www.lordxatl.com public.

Since doing so, my hits started off very low. I could only find it using Google and when I tried Yahoo, it came up with no results.

I waited a few weeks to see if anything changed and it hadn't. So I did a little research and looked into press release. I came across some sights that would handle my press release for at least 89 dollars to start, but that just seemed unnecessary.

I looked a little deeper and found Freewebsubmission.com and discovered a decent response almost immediately after.

Now this is my first site, so I have no idea what to expect from my one attempt at developing a web site. I started with an average of 11 hits a day, but after submitting my site to the other search engines, I started getting mid to upper 30's. This has been going on for about two weeks, so I'm exited to see what else I will come across to improve my presence.

Not that I have seen a lot of feedback from writing articles, but I'm going to continue anyway.

Working On My Web Site

I finally finished a web site and published it in the beginning of this month, so lordxatl.com is up and running. Why just “a” web site? Because I know that this first web site of mine will be added to, modified and changed many times over. And that's the very reason why it took so long to publish.

After first purchasing the domain, it has taken me well over a month to finally make it public. I found myself trying to become an expert in everything involved in developing a web site and it was simply impossible. There are so many different areas of development that you can get yourself lost in. Picture and video management, template organization and even just learning how your particular hosting software works all can take considerable time to learn.

So I found myself trying to over do what I knew and was comfortable with and come up with the final web site I, in reality, should be building up to. I have an idea in my head of what I want eventually, but thinking more realistic, I'm trying to bite off more than I can chew. I spent quite a bit of time overdoing what I knew and that can become frustrating. And when you get frustrated, you tend to avoid the one thing that is making you frustrated.

So now I spent about a month suffering from information overload and only frustrating myself. The site I finally published recently is quite simple, no where near what I wanted it to be, but I figured I wanted to have my site active so I could at least experiment with driving traffic to it. You need a vast amount of knowledge in many different areas of Internet marketing and development to do what I dreamed of, but it just doesn't make sense to wait for the perfect site while not using it to sell at least one item and put the articles I have already written to good use.

I originally envisioned my site offering a few more items, but one in particular needs to see more site traffic before I can become an affiliate. What I may do is offer a similar item with a vendor who may be a little more forgiving for now and build more traffic, opening the door to the other vendors with the products I originally wanted. There are so many different directions I can go with this web site, it can seem intimidating. I really don't know how to operate the templates on my hosting account, so that alone is going to keep me busy for some time. While how much time it involves to properly and effectively translate my vision to the computer is still unknown, but I anticipate it to be substantial. Once I get a handle on it, I'm very optimistic of the potential of this site.

Starting A Site

Now, I began my affiliate marketing using the article marketing technique because I didn't want to invest any money, proving to myself that it was possible. I still believe it is, I just don't seem to have the patience for it.

I'm still looking for that good, consistent time to devote to my affiliate marketing endeavor that will keep me on track of my goals. Even an hour a day can pay off in the long run, so it doesn't need to be a substantial amount of my time. When your writing, it's not that bad to sit down for maybe twenty minutes and then take a break. It can almost be more productive using that approach rather than forcing content out of a four hour work block. And it can be surprising how quickly your output can increase and accumulate over time, so doing it now is of the utmost importance.

I have sold some items on Ebay, creating a positive balance in my PayPal account. Once I discovered I could purchase the domain and hosting using funds from that account, it didn't take much of an investment to obtain a website.

So a lot of my time is being spent behind the scenes, playing around with the templates and learning what to do. Being completely new to this, it can be overwhelming with all the options that are available to you. Sometimes you can over think it, causing more frustration than progress. It's hard not to think I have to get it perfect before I make it public. But thinking about it more, I think I may loose out on an accidental opportunity or even learning from mistakes, teaching me more than if I didn't do anything.

I have the option of launching an instant page, so I plan on spending available time to get that up and running this weekend. It shouldn't take to much time, but I'd like to have it up to decent standards before I publish it. But not be concerned with perfection. This page is available until I have the actual site running. That alone should give me enough flexibility to help learn.

Total cost for the website and hosting was just under ten dollars, making it surprisingly reasonable. But at that price, it gives me customization and a lot of research will accompany that. It already has.

The biggest obstacle I've encountered is myself. Trying to take too much in on all the aspects of developing a website. I want to be creative, but that desire slows me down, causing me to waiver between two or more ideas with an inability to make a choice.

I know I'll get a great sense of accomplishment when I actually have my web site up and running. I just need to stop over thinking and just produce.