Net Strife - providing smashing tips on Internet Marketing

Most successful internet marketers agree that having your own product and affiliates is the #1 way to make a large income. In fact, if you look at the top players in the internet marketing field you will find that most of their sales when they launch a new product come from their JV partners and affiliates. So how do you actually go about recruiting affiliates?

First, if you have a digital product like an ebook, software or membership site, I recommend you set it up through Clickbank and let them handle your affiliate program. This gives you exposure to over 100,000 affiliates signed up at clickbank, and it’s just easier. Your affiliates won’t have to sign up and they’ll promote you because they KNOW they’ll get paid. You can of course set up your affiliate program with your own in house script like JV manager if you want, it’s totally up to you. I personally only use clickbank to sell products.

Anyways, once you have an affiliate program set up, here’s what you can do to get affiliates to sell your product. I’ve tried each of these myself, and they should work fine in any market.

Getting The Ball Rolling For Affiliates To Promote Your Product - Use Forums:

The first thing I do to pick up affiliates is go to forums. Specifically, you can use the Warrior Forum and Digital Point Forums. These are two very popular webmaster forums, with hundreds of thousands of members.

Digital Point has a separate affiliate forum where you can post a new thread advertising your affiliate program. If you sell a product through clickbank, for example, just go to their clickbank subforum and post a thread about your product and its affiliate program. This is GREAT free advertising. It only takes about ten minutes, and you’ll typically get hundreds of views. Just go through what commission you offer, your products price, and everything affiliates need to know. If you are an active member of digital point with lots of posts, you’ll get plenty of people promoting your product.

With the warrior forum, what you can do is post a WSO (Warrior Special Offer) for $20. This is WELL worth it for the price. As the name implies, this has to offer something “special” for members of the warrior forum. What you can do is make a WSO asking members to promote your product, and offer one-on-one support, as well as a free website to promote your product and other promotional material.

In addition to posting a thread on both digitalpoint and the warrior forum, you can advertise your affiliate program in your signature on these forums. This will come up at the bottom of every post you make.

After You Have Posted On Forums About Your Affiliate Program:

You want to pick up affiliates from:

• people already promoting products similar to yours as affiliates;
• product vendors that are selling a product similar to yours;
• your customers

To find affiliates that are promoting products similar to yours, I use Affiliate Elite (my affiliate link), which is a really neat piece of software that can give you a list of every website promoting a product. You can then get the WHOIS information for each site, and contact the owner asking them to promote your product too. You can find bloggers, website owners, and other marketers that already promote a product competing with yours - then just send a friendly JV request. Make sure you have a strong argument for why they should promote your product over your competitions.

You will also want to do JV’s and partnerships with product vendors selling a product similar to yours. I have to give Mike Filsaime credit for this one. Let’s say you have a generic weight loss product, and you find someone selling a product on how to build abs. These 2 products aren’t directly competing but they appeal to the same kind of person. So, you can make a deal with the person selling the product on building abs where they promote your weight loss product to their customers, and you promote their abs product to your customers. It’s beneficial for both sides.

In terms of recruiting affiliates from your actual customers, this is obviously much easier if you are selling an internet marketing or B2B product. I haven’t personally sold a make money product before so it’s harder, but you can still tell your customers that they can refer their friends to your product and make commissions. You’ll naturally get much more word of mouth exposure and customers becoming affiliates if you have a great product that actually works.

How To Make It Enticing For Affiliates To Promote You:

The main things affiliates look for in a product to promote is:

• The strength of your sales copy, and how well your website converts visitors into buyers;
• The commission % they get for each sale they send;
• The price your product is sold at;
• The quality of the product itself

Therefore, you want to invest in writing a compelling salesletter that converts, offer your product at a high price point, give affiliates high commission (you can give affiliates up to 75% in clickbank, which is what I recommend) and create a good quality product. To justify a higher price you will want to include additional bonuses and everything else that makes your product a good deal for the buyer.

Of course this post is just scratching the surface of some of the things you can do to build a successful affiliate program. I’ll touch on some more things later.

What’s Happening in the World of Flipping

I have noticed that a lot of people are attempting to flip website these days. The sad part about it is that quite a huge number of these people do not have plans, outlines, or whatsoever to help them make the most out of their flips. In order to address this problem, I decided to create a website flipping checklist that you can refer to so that you may know if you’ve got everything you need to maximize the earnings for your website flips.

Things You Need To Maximize Your Website Flips

I have flipped more than a dozen websites already. From niche blogs to autopilot content sites, I’ve experienced creating them all and made a profit by selling them within a specific time frame. Through my experience, I managed to think and realize what people really need in order to have successful flips.

First, you have to have a budget plan. Website flipping must be treated as a business, not as a “random thing that you want to try”. I usually do this by creating an Excel spreadsheet and listing all the things that I need to spend on. Put the cost of domains, hosting, promotion costs, etc. in there. More often than not, I include “time” in the list, and put a value of $50 or something. I do it because I value my time, but it’s totally up to you if you want to do that. Then, calculate the total amount and there you go, you have a simple budget plan. This is important because you NEED to know how much you’re going to spend in order to know what price you’re going to sell the sites for!

A relevant and catchy domain name is a plus. Some people just buy $1.00 domains from others, and often they end up with completely unrelated domains like xc45545.org for a politics blog. When flipping websites, try to resist your inner “anti-expenditures being”! Trust me, when it’s time for you to sell your site, the returns would be great if you have a good domain.

A profitable and hot niche can bring in more money. While others prefer to work on sites that actually interest them, building sites in hot and lucrative niches can help you make the most out of your flips. Supposing that you spend the same amount of money in developing websites (for example, the same premium theme for blogs, the same price for header customization, etc.), then the only factor that can increase your net income is the selling price — and this is determined by how hot your site’s niche is.

A custom logo or mascot can add value to your website. Let me ask you, which one would sell for a higher price, supposing that they have the same content - a blog using the default Kubrick theme, or a blog using a free theme with a custom header? The latter, right? I have this technique of selling websites for a higher price just by getting a logo done for it. First, I find a logo designer. Not necessarily the ones which cost $100 for one draft! There are decent designers who are willing to do a logo for $10 or maybe less. Then, depending on the quality, I state in my salesletter that the logo cost me $50 (or more). Voila, instant increase on the site’s value!

Unique and timeless content helps a lot. I know that buying databases for website flipping can save you a lot of time — I have done it myself. Then again, if you have unique AND timeless content, your website’s value will significantly increase. Sure, some people are okay with buying a recipe website which has 10,000 recipes that can be found on hundreds of other sites, but it would definitely be better even if only had 5,000 unique recipes. It would be hard, yes, but you can just pay some people to rewrite or add a little bit of zest to the recipes that you had collected. At least your site would have the potentials of standing out and becoming an authority site - buyers would be willing to pay big bucks if your site has these potentials.

Having a very good salesletter will boost your site’s sale price! I have written about this before (Sort of, well, it was about creating good site auctions). Basically, the more attractive your salesletter is, the more people are going to be interested in buying your site. This will eventually yield a “bidding war” and you will end up selling your website for the highest price possible.

Summary

There are things that you need to do/get in order to maximize your website flipping efforts. Having a budget plan is very important in order to make the most out of your website flips. While it may sound silly to some, I like treating things like flipping as a business, and not just something that I’d do during my free time. Things like a good domain, a hot niche, and a custom logo can really boost the amount for which you will be selling your sites for. Unique and timeless content can attract more potential buyers into paying more for your website. Moreover, writing a good and creative salesletter will have the same effect. All the things that I mentioned are essential if you’re taking website flipping really seriously.

If you have any more things that you want to add here, feel free to leave a comment. I’m always open to your suggestions, insights, and arguments.

P.S. The current contest will end tomorrow. Thanks to all those who joined! Good luck to everyone!

My schedule this week is very hectic, so I would appreciate it if people can send in quality guest posts. The blog has almost 100 subscribers (80+ at this moment in time). If you’re willing, please do contact me immediately.

To those people who want to participate in some Q&A activity, please click here. You would be given a link if you ask a sensible question!

I was not supposed to publish any article today because I had set my posting schedule for tomorrow. However, there was a rather peculiar (and quite funny too) event that instigated me to put a post together today.

Your Actions May Reflect Your Skills

Let us say that you are a lawyer. You are talking to an acquaintance, but you had not yet informed him about your occupation. While you were chatting about certain things, he noticed that you were using concise and deep words. You were also very specific with every detail. Your acquaintance then said, “Ah, you must be a good lawyer!”

As you can see in the example above, your action reflected what you are capable of doing — convincing people and exposing all details you need to expose.

Now, this very same concept was evident in my experience just a while ago! Let me tell you more about it.

The Peculiar Yet Funny Experience

I was looking for a person who is capable of writing high-quality internet marketing articles a while ago so I could pursue my article marketing efforts. I posted a few threads on different forums showing my interest, and I received quite a lot of private messages.

There was one which really stood out — it was from a guy who apparently sees himself as a “quality article writer”. Note that I am not trying to insult anyone here, but I just found it rather ironic that he called himself a quality writer because of… the following message!

Private Message Title: Articles Writing!

Hi!!

[my forum username]. I saw you posted, and you need some internet marketing articles. I would be very very interested in writing for you, but only if it’s still available! I am quality article or content creator,, I’ve been providing different firms in my country very good article.

Please, give me some topic to write, about, and then I will be give you articles 500-words each for $10 each. And I can, right now, create 5 articles for you!

Thanks and very kind regards!!

[his forum username]

Oh wow. A quality article writer, eh? Sure, sure. Now, if he had only written a properly punctuated and grammatically correct private message, then I could have considered him for the job. Since he did otherwise, well, he will not be getting anything from me. Not that I’m a perfect writer, but still if he had the guts to call himself a “quality writer” then he should have produced at least a decent PM. Don’t worry, I didn’t insult him or something like that. I politely replied that I have certain criteria that he did not meet as a freelance writer.

How YOU Can Get Clients as a Freelancer

As you can see, the guy did not get me as his client. Now, what can YOU do to get clients as a freelancer? Here are some of my tips.

Flaunt all the skills that you have, and do this from the very start. Don’t be like the guy above. If you’re a freelance writer, then by all means introduce yourself to a potential client using a formal (or semi-formal, if you want to get a bit personal with clients) tone! Write properly; proofread your messages before sending them. Make sure there are no grammatical mistakes whatsoever. For those who are not writers, just imply that you’re a trustworthy and professional freelancer by telling them what you can do in detail — don’t use too much jargon though.

Show your portfolio with confidence. If potential clients ask for a link to your portfolio or some samples of your work, then don’t hesitate unless you find them suspicious. Don’t say “I think my work is not good enough,” or something like that. Weird, I know, because it will only lessen your chances of getting hired, but I’ve received a similar message before!

Always be open to suggestions and ideas of your potential clients. Some clients have great ideas and want to help you finish their project with ease. Always listen to them and consider all their suggestions. If you think your plan is better, then just say it politely and with respect.

Have flexible rates. There are some clients who send in projects in bulk. Make your prices flexible, if they want you to create 100 articles then maybe you could give a 10% discount. That would surely increase the chances of having them as repeat customers (more money for you!).

Never ever lie! If they ask you, “Can you finish it in 48 hours?” and you can’t, then say you can’t. Don’t beat around the bush or worse, lie, because you will gain nothing but trouble.

Lastly, don’t offer to do something that you’re not really good at. As per my example, please, to save yourself from total humiliation, don’t offer to do something that you’re not good at. The worst thing that you could do is say you are an experienced person in terms of doing a certain job, but in reality you have not even tried doing it. For example… If you can’t write, then don’t look for people who want some articles to be written.

Summary

Succeeding as a freelancer highly depends on what you can do and how you present what you can do! Always showcase your skills from the very start and show what you’ve got with confidence. Don’t lie or give false information to your potential clients, or else you would be in trouble. Last but definitely not the least, do NOT offer to do something that you’re not really good at. That would just embarrass you — and not just the normal level of embarrassment, I’m talking about total embarrassment here!

Hopefully, you will be able to get more clients because of the tips I mentioned.

If you have not heard anything about typo domains yet, let me explain what it is. It’s when you buy domains which are common typos of another known domain, so that you can either redirect it to your affiliate link or simply steal traffic from your competitor.

I have tried this already, but I haven’t explored the whole of it yet. I only tried it to make some web hosting affiliate sales. A few months ago, I owned typos of the domain “hostgator.com”. I think I had three or four. Guess what? I managed to refer 7 people in one month (that’s $75 per person for a total of $525), and I spent less than $40 for the domains!

Instead of killing myself by writing persuasive salesletters and sending numerous e-mails to everyone I knew, I went the “effortless way”. I bought domains and… ta-da! Profits rolled in.

The use of typo domains is not limited to gaining affiliate sign-ups; you can also use it to steal visitors from your dreaded competitors, redirect typos of your own domains to your main sites, and so on. Actually, the only limit is your creativity on how you’re going to use them!

So, I think some of you are already going to buy dozens of domains right now. But wait! Let’s weigh out the pros and cons of this method before you do so. I’ll let you decide later whether it’s worth implementing or not.

Why They’re Worth It

First, typo domains have the potential to reel in BIG profits. As I had mentioned a while ago, I owned some typo domains of hostgator.com. Sure, I could have just marketed my way into getting sign-ups, but I chose to sit back, relax, and wait for people to bring themselves to my domains.

You can easily convert big sites’ traffic into your own traffic. Imagine if YouTube didn’t have a policy about typo domains (I’m not sure if they have.), you owned yiutube.com, yputube.com, toutube.com, and youyube.com, and then you redirected them to your own video site. I reckon hundreds of thousands of people would be flocking over your site in a day!

You can STEAL your competitors’ traffic. I know this is an evil thing to do, but usually marketers are evil so… you get the point. If your competitor’s domain is bum-marketer.com and he’s getting 10,000 visitors a day, maybe you should get bun-marketer.com or something similar to steal around least 10% of his visitors.

You may be able to sell them for more than 100% profit. I strongly believe that there are people who want to own all typo domains of their sites — and they pay a fortune just to get them! If this is the case, then more typo domains equals more money for you.

Why They’re Not Worth It

You never know, a lawsuit can be filed against you! There are people who can file lawsuits if you buy certain typos of their domains, so I guess it’s better to not get the $100 you can earn from the domain than to shell our $x,xxx for a lawyer.

Some typo domains just don’t bring in conversions. Even if you buy all the typo domains of a certain site, you might be unlucky and not get even a single conversion. I’m sorry to say this but sometimes, this just happens. So if you bought 10 domains (that’s around $80), and you get nothing in return, then you would lose almost a hundred bucks. That’s not something to be happy about!

Net surfers tend to stay away from sites on typo domains. Let’s say you bought bun-marketer.com, a typo domain of your competitor’s bum-marketer.com. I don’t know why, but some people get angry when they see people trying to steal visitors from other sites. Maybe they’re so loyal to “bum-marketer.com” that they will curse your typo domain and your site forever.

What Do YOU Think?

Now that we’ve taken down some advantages and disadvantages, I’m throwing the question to you: Are typo domains worth it? Share your insights with me through the comment form, and I’d be glad to concur… or maybe have an interesting debate with you!

I figured it’s better if I get more personal with this blog… Starting today, my posts will contain more of my personal experiences. Don’t worry, quality won’t suffer. I hope you enjoy this post!

Nowadays, WordPress themes are hot as there are literally tens of thousands of blogs out there changing themes frequently. I had this idea (and probably some others too) way back, but only had the chance to share it with people now. Now this isn’t anything revolutionary or what — it’s something that people have been doing already but you may not have realized it yet.

Now this method of mine needs a decent amount of capital — somewhere around $150 to $500 would suffice. If you’ve got less than that, then you might not be ready for this yet.

What I Do

What I usually do is ask my friends is to check webmaster freelance forums for some designers and give their contacts/instant messenger IDs to me. I couldn’t do it myself because I’m either busy or lazy. You couldn’t blame me for the former, and the more you couldn’t blame me for the latter. It’s just me okay? You have to accept it. I’m not that fond of posting on forums. Now, you could do this yourself especially if you’ve got time on your hands.

Once I get the designer’s contact details (normally I get to collect everything within 3 hours), I add them all up to (usually) MSN. I interview them — nothing too personal, just things like how long they’ve been doing themes and such, ask for their portfolio, prices, and related stuff. I screen them and choose the best in terms of price and work experience/quality.

After I get to “know” the people I want to work with, I ask them to create 1-2 themes each, depending on their availability and willingness to work. I always make sure that the themes will be usable and fully functional, so if you want to do that too (I bet you wanna), then see this checklist for things that you should look for in WP themes. Usually, I pay around $50-$100 for the themes, and I order 3 to 5 themes at a time. Let’s say you do the same.

Total money spent (assuming each theme is $50 each): $150 to $250

*Note that these themes are not too unique as those cost much more. They’re nice-looking themes which are similar to those themes on WordPress.net that get thousands or at least half a thousand downloads. Sometimes, they’re even better!

After I place my orders, I start getting excited. Kidding. I wait for them to finish their jobs. Most of the time the themes are finished within three days maximum. I ask for changes which take them less than 24 hours to do. Once all themes are finalized, it’s time to make money!

From here, you can opt to do one of these three things:

1. Sell the theme with full exclusive rights for a higher price
2. Decide to make the theme premium and sell licenses
3. Sell sponsored links and distribute the theme for free

I rarely do #2 as that takes a lot of hard work (promotion, getting a site up for the theme, etc.). What I usually do is sell sponsored links. Now, I don’t sell them myself because I told you that I’m not fond of posting on forums. I commission my friends to sell them for me (if you do it yourself you will make more than I do)!

If your theme is appealing, then sell three sponsor links with a starting bid of $20 and a buy-it-now (BIN) of $50 to $60. More often than not, you’ll be able to get bids in less than 24 hours! I often sell links on themes that cost me $50 for $40 each. Three links = $120, that’s a $70 profit. Not too shabby, huh?

Let me simulate a situation just for you. Say you bought 5 themes for $50 each. You’ve got $250 of expenses. Then you sell three links on each of them, and each link cost $30. Now you have a total revenue of $450. Subtract your expenses and you’ve got a hefty $200 profit. Not bad at all for literally a few not-stressing hours of “work”! I wouldn’t even call it working because all you had to do was talk to the designers and tell them what you want. It’s just like expressing your opinion — with money involved.

Tips on Hiring Designers

Now this might be the hardest part of this moneymaking method. Finding (and eventually hiring) decent designers take time — which is why I just ask my friends to do it for me. Here are some of my tips on hiring designers.

Check their past design sales (if available). Did their designs sell like pancakes? Or did it take weeks for them to sell? Get a designer whose work can be described by the former.

Ask yourself: If you were a potential sponsor/theme buyer, would you buy the designs that the guy has? If yes, then you’ve found the right person. If no, better look somewhere else…

Don’t hire people who would lessen the quality of work if you pay less. Weird and nasty as it may sound, it happens. Some designers don’t put too much effort if they don’t get paid that much.

One bonus tip: Haggle, but don’t go overboard! Some designers will be willing take a few bucks off their rate if you just ask. Don’t be afraid to ask — there’s nothing to lose and lots to gain!

Summary

To succeed in this business, you must be able to determine which design is good and which is not. That way, you’d be able to hire the most suitable designers. Another thing is you have to have a decent capital. Remember that to make a good amount of money, you also have to shell out a good amount of money! If you have nothing to spend/don’t want to spend, then this business is not for you… yet.