How to start Internet Marketing Business on a Low budget
August 28, 2009 by Zane Abden
Filed under Affiliate Marketing, Zane's Marketing Tips
If you were put on the street, had no money but access to an Internet, what would you do to start your Internet martketing business ?
Article marketing…. absolutely, positively, and without doubt I would start with article marketing. Many people under-estimate the earnings potential from this free to use internet marketing technique. When you’re trying to turn ‘nothing’ into ‘something’, article marketing is the way to go.
What would be your strategy to grow this business?
Since I have to use all free tools and methods, this would be exactly how I would do this:
1. Go to cb-analytics.com and pick two products. Neither of these products would be in the “make money online” market – I prefer more “evergreen” topics. By “evergreen”, I mean topics that survive time, that are not “trendy” or time-sensitive; things like parenting issues, gardening, hobbies, etc. I want the things I put online to be relevant for a long time….and I want the markets I am working in to be less competitive than those in the MMO market (plus, less worry of people just buying thru their own affilaite link).
I would want the two products I choose to have good gravity, but not HUGE gravity. I want to know it (the sales page) converts, but I don’t want to have to fight hundreds of other marketers for traffic. I tend to look for ones that have a gravity of about 10-15 – but I have been pleasantly surprised with products that have gravity of 2 or 3, too.
Just a note too – while it is possible to market anything, I do tend to lean towards products that at least interest me. It may not be a product that *I* would buy, but it is not up to me to the determine value of a product for someone who DOES want it. I simply want the product topic to be interesting enough to me so that I stay motivated to work it.
Cost: $0.00
2. After picking two products, I would take the sales page urls (the web address of the sales page) and plug it into the Google Keyword Tool. Google would go ‘analyze’ that sales page for me and return all the keywords that it (Google) thinks the page is relevant to. I would then add all those keywords that ARE relevant to a txt file (notepad file) and save it. If the place that was allowing me to use the internet would also allow me printer use, I would print that list out and keep it with me at all times.
Cost: $0.00
3. I would then go make one Squidoo lens (Click here to download your free squidoo guide) for each of the products. The main reason for this is so we have a landing page to send our article traffic to. Most article directories will not allow direct affiliate links in the author bio area so we need to direct article traffic to another page that DOES allow affiliate links. The main goal of this lens (Squidoo page) is to provide more relevant information for the product I am marketing and to have strong calls to action to help the reader click thru to the product sales page via my affiliate link.
As an affiliate marketer, you job is not to sell. Your main goal is to get the user to click thru to the sales page….then it becomes the VENDORS job to do the selling. That’s what sales pages are for
As for content on each lens…. I would take my clues from the vendors sales page. Most sales pages are designed to hit the ‘hot spots’ for that market. There are usually bullet points on those sales pages and we need to pay attention to them. I would make a text module (area on my Squidoo lens) for about 4 or 5 of those bullet points and expand on those areas of interest ( or I would create 4-5 lenses – one each for each bullet point).
The content in each text module would be brief and easy to read. Here is a reality about online readers… we don’t READ, we SCAN.The main point of my content would be to join the conversation the reader is already having in their head.If you don’t know the market or don’t know want the consumers in this market want to know or are thinking, get yourself into a forum on that topic and read. Forums are priceless =)
Cost: $0.00
4. After my lenses are completed and published, I would start writing articles for article directories. Remember that list of keywords? I would write an article on every keyword in that list. Yes, every single one. If it is a crazy big keyword, then I would put that big keyword into the Google keyword tool and have Google give me all the long-tail versions of that keyword – and then write on all those keyword phrases.
My articles would:
a) have that specific keyword phrase in the title. I would also spend extra time making sure my article titles are interesting and “clickable”. Your article could be the BEST article in the world, but if the title sucks, no one will click thru to read it.
b) have the keyword phrase in the first paragraph (preferrably early, like in the first sentence) and then once more in the article content.
c) be short… like 250-300 words TOPS. Remember, people don’t read, they scan. We don’t want them bored before they get to the author bio box (which is the goal of any article you write for a directory)
d) would have a longer author bio area. Ezine Articles allows for max 300 words in the bio area. This is where you can be more ‘promotional’ in your content. I would have a link to my lens early in that bio area….and last thing in that bio area. (hint: If you can’t think of anything “good” to put in the bio area, try using the sales page headline. Those headlines are designed to attract attention…why not try it too?)
I’d submit all the articles I could to EzineArticles.com first (and then wait for them to approve and publish…and hopefully upgrade my author status so I can submit more later).
After exhausting Ezine Articles, I’d get over to GoArticles.com and submit articles there. GoArticles publishes instantly.
All in all, I’d write til my fingers bled. When the library (or whatever place I am being allowed to use the internet) closes, I’d go in their trashcan and get discarded paper and write articles on the back until I could get to the computer again.
other articles directories will be:
* ArticleDashboard.com
* iSnare.com
* ArticlesBase.com
* ArticleAlley.com
* ArticleClick.com
* ArticleCity.com
* Amazines.com
* SearchWarp.com
* EasyArticles.com
Cost: $0.00
5. After my articles are live, I would then ‘re-purpose’ those articles on a Free Blogger blog. You COULD re-write them to make them unique, but here is what I like to do. Reprint the article exactly as it is found in the article directory and include a link BACK to that article. BUT – here is the kicker – make sure your blog post has
a) a unique title
b) a unique intro paragraph
c) a call to action link AFTER your article directory article
For example for one of these type posts:
Unique title
Unique intro paragraph talking about the article they are about to read
Complete reprint of your article directory article (yes, title and all).
At the end, a call to action link via your affiliate link
Doing these things (unique blog post title and unique intro paragraph) helps to get your blog posts to show up in Google too.
Keeping the link to your original article can help your article directory articles alive longer.
I would also take the RSS feed from my new Blogger blog and add it to the respective Squidoo lens so that my posts show on my lens.
Cost: $0.00
6. After some time goes by and I am making a little money, I would buy a domain name (probably a .info since they are uber cheap – like $2 for a year) and forward that domain name to the sales page via my affiliate link. Doing this allows me to get my affiliate link in the bio area of my articles in a way that is completley inline with the TOS of the article directory. It also means I am sending article traffic directly to the sales page now. Then, I’d write and submit more articles linking with my forwarded domain name in the bio box. I’d probably link to both the forwarded domain and my Squidoo lens.
I’d use those articles on my blog too.
At this point I have four sites where people can click my affiliate link – Squidoo.com, EzineArticles.com, GoArticles.com, and my blogspot blog. That means for any one keyword phrase search on Google, there are at least 4 ways my stuff can come up.What’s cool is when out of 10 first page Google results, you have FOUR of them! And remember, each article and each blog post is a unique web page, you could have TWO pages form one of those sites turn up in a Google search. I would be creating a “web” or a “net” to capture this market’s traffic.
Cost: $2.00/year per domain name
7. After some more time passes and I am making more money, I would get a shared hosting package from HostGator for $9.95 a month and buy a domain name for each of my products/niches. I would then build out a new niche site and write posts using each of my keywords as post titles (these posts would be unique). At that point, EVERYTHING would link TO my new site, but my new site would NOT link back to any of my other free web pages (to give power of one way linking).
Cost: $9.95/month (for as many websites as I want to make)
8. After some more time goes by and I am making some more money, I would invest $19.95 a month into an auto-responder account with Aweber. I would put an opt in form on my niche blog and start building a list in that market. I would have a follow up series of emails that would all be designed to offer value to the subscriber and to help them get back to the sales page via my affiliate link.
Cost: $19.95/month (for as many lists as I want to build)
9. After those above 8 steps are completed and it all is getting consistent traffic, I would start all over at #1 with a new product from cb-analytics.com.
10. At some point during my “rinse and repeat” of the above 9 steps, one market might stick out to me as being “better” than the rest. At this point I would consider creating my own product to offer to this market. Remember, I would already have a list to offer it to =)
So, let’s say you do steps #1 thru #9 for 2 products per month (and 2 niche sites per month)
Your cost per month to run this business?
$4 for 2 .info domain names for product forwarding
$20 for 2 .com domain names to build niche sites on
$9.95 for monthly hosting fee
$19.95 for monthly auto-responder fee
Total monthly expenses for this affiliate marketing plan steps 1 thru 9?
$53.90 a month.
Odds are really good that just two Clickbank affiliate sales per MONTH will cover all your business expenses, too =)
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