I need help! What am I doing wrong?

[thea67]

Please help me! I have been trying to make money on the internet for around a year now, but I am just not having any luck. Could one of my problems be, that I just don?t have very much money for paid promotion? I?ve been down on my luck for the last year so I don?t have very much money. I have read success story, after success story, about people who have made big money on the net and didn?t have to spend any to start making it or spent just a few dollars and made a nice check the next month. How are these people doing it?

I?ve tried all the free advertising I could find, but all I get is my mail box choked up with other peoples advertisements. (I saw your ad, Replying to your ad, Etc?) I?ve tried Yahoo groups. I even tried starting my own Yahoo group. I am a member of a few free safe lists. I have a life time membership at Blast4traffic. Then there are the FFA?s, I stopped posting to those also because all I get are the FFA owners advertisements saying, ?Don?t post! Get your own FAA site!? Then they don?t tell you where to get your own FAA site. I have also tried some cheep paid advertising, targeted and untargeted. With the untargeted, the only sign ups I got were people in places like India and Russia.

I have no problem with people from other countries being in my down line. I want them in my down line also, only if they're serious about making money though. But that?s just it, they?re in my down line as inactive because either their e-mail doesn?t work or they can?t speak English or they were just curious about the program and had no intentions of doing it. So there they are, cluttering up my positions. The only way to get them off is if they opt out.

I don?t think it?s my program because my sponsor is making a lot of money. He says because of the program he was able to purchase a big house and give his family the life they deserve. I have also talked to other people who have made it well with the program. I have also, actually helped one person make it in this program, but I lost her to my sponsor because I wasn?t able to purchase my monthly volume points one month. So I lost that effort I made. My program is the only program out there that does not require a monthly autoship and that is one of the little things about my company that actually works in my favor.

I have been told in the past by others, that you simply just can not make money with out an autoship. But this company gives an incentive of ?VIP status? which gives a very important benefit that works out in the favor for the affiliate to earn even more money on the direct sales. (Please don?t think I am trying to promote my company with these statements, I am just merely trying to explain a little about how my company works, so I can get some help.)

I have also tried a couple of other programs that required a monthly autoship. I ended up resigning from those also because I just could not afford the monthly requirements.

I think it is advertising or the way I am promoting my business that is the problem. They say you have to promote to get seen, because if you can?t get seen you can?t make money. I?ve done everything I could think of to get seen aside from spending a lot of money that I don?t have on advertising. I am just so frustrated about he whole thing, that I am just about to give up.

Please, if any one has any suggestions on what I should do. Help me! I'm desperate for answers.

Sincerely,

thea67

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hi thea67,

I feel your pain, I really do. However all those people that tell you how much money they made SO EASY with no $ outlay are ALL trying to sell you something or get you to join their programs - right?

All the safe lists and FFAs and ezines and MLM and other Internet marketing crap is just everyone "trying to get rich on the net in their underwear" by capitalizing on all the other newbies that are hoping they can find the magic formula to "get rich on the net in their underwear."

A few at the top make money with their hype and c0n jobs on all the newbies. Sorry but frankly it makes me a little sick.

The reality is for MOST people there is no shortcut to success. Making money online FOR MOST requires learning, trial and error and then finding a proven system that works and working it smart and hard!

I can't tell you what the right path is for you to take. But I CAN tell you for certain, that if you keep going down the path you are on, you are doomed for more disappointment.

Read a little bit here about REAL honest affiliate marketing - selling real products that REAL people need instead of a bunch of webmasters all trying to sell "get rich quick" schemes to each other. See if you think you may want to try TRADITIONAL affiliate marketing. It's not quick easy money but I know many affiliates that make over 10K a month and quite a few that make over 100K a month. The difference is I will tell you the truth and tell you that the people that make that kind of money are few a far between.

No blue sky here at 5 star. But if you study what we do and decide this is where you would like to put some energy to learn more about - we can help and answer your questions.

 

[Larwee]

People have dreams and goals, thea67. They want them to come true. People want to believe that these people really do want to help them and that it is easy to make money. All of the wonderful dreams are fun. A person has a good feeling. The truth can often be very painful.

Linda told you the truth. I am also going to tell you the truth. Neither one of us is trying to sell you anything. Both of us have been at this for a long time. We have seen people make it and we have seen people fail.

One problem I've noticed often is that when people are holding onto a dream and are on the wrong path, they don't want to hear anything that goes against what they are trying. They have been feed so many lies and given so much false hope that it is sometimes difficult to get them to accept reality.

You have a great resource available for you and you are using it now. You can read what is posted here at 5 Star. It is free and you will be able to learn a great deal. Knowledge so often plays a very big role in success.

There is a rule here against self promotion and it serves a very good purpose. People read 5 Star posts often when seeking help and useful information. They deserve quality information. When people post and use a post for self promotion they aren't trying to provide quality information, they are thinking of themselves and trying to benefit themselves. That is why we don't want any self promotion in posts.

You can learn a great deal reading these posts. You can find out about the mistakes people have made. You can find out what works and what doesn't work. You can read how people have learned from their mistakes. Doing this can also give you some ideas as well as some inspiration.

A person can be on a trip, or they can just be going through life. In each case you want to reach a certain place. There are times a person can be on the wrong road and taking the wrong road won't get you to where you want to be.

The Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) road that you are on is the wrong road. You need to get on the right road in order to reach your destination.

I am aware that you have a very long URL for you site and that you are using one of those free services.

You need to take a very serious approach and register your own domain name. This can be done for less than $9 a year.

You also need to find a host for your site with your own domain name. Good professional hosting can be found without spending a large amount of money.

But before you take those two steps you probably need to have an idea as to what you want to do in order to make money. You are a better judge of that than others would be. However it is possible for others to offer you suggestions.

One route that many people take is to start a site about something they have knowledge about or have an interest in. This makes it much easier for them to devote attention to the site.

You will need to keep in mind that there will be work involved, you will make some mistakes and find that money might not be real easy to make. But you can make money and you can be happy. But the chances are very high that it isn't going to be as easy as those people selling all of that get rich quick junk are say it is.

Once you get your site started you can get advice from 5 Star members on what you can do to produce income with your site. They can tell you what type of programs have a chance of working for you and in some cases even suggest specific programs.

Affiliate marketing could work for you as it has for so many people. Once you start seeing some money, you are going to feel a lot better.

There are many people who are doing very well with affiliate programs and other sources, such as AdSense. There are so many opportunities available.

Yes, it is possible to make good money without spending a lot of money. In fact there are many free ways for you to promote your site. But not some of the free methods that you have mentioned.

People do actually like to help other people. You will find that there are people who were able to reach their goals because of help they received from others. Many of these people want to give back by helping others.

After you have done a lot of reading here at 5 Star, and if you have a desire to do what our members are doing, you will receive help just by asking questions.

The best of luck to you.

 

[Ernest]

Listen to both Larwee and Linda. They speak the truth.

I went the route of free classified ads, articles and blogs to trying to make money being an Affiliate Marketer. Din't make much money with that path. I figured it was the wrong thing to do or something like that. I ran around in circles in my head and on the internet to try to make money from affiliate marketing. Nothing seemed to work. I was only making about $20 every 2 weeks. It's does get frustrating going long time without making money or hardly making money. Sometime people quit before they get to a year. I really respect that you stuck with it. If you read posts, articles and other things you'll find the right way to do what you're doing for money. Good Luck.

 

[winningratings]

The Answer

I would say first of all dont take any notice of people that say "it easy" or you can make money online without much effort - they are all basically trying to make it sound easy so that you will buy their product

Now to answer your question directly - I would say you are probably advertising in the wrong places and with the wrong strategies

You mantion FFA sites - these have been a waste of time for a long time - you will find you will hardly get a single click back from these sites. They basically operate by getting people to post their ad - but actually all that is happening is that "pro" members use the email address you use to send you all sorts of SPAM. So this is a big no no if you want to be successful. Im sorry but it took me a while to work out FFA's were a time waster!! You are probably spending alot of time on methods which dont work

Now success online is extremely difficult - certainly not easy

In general I would say go back to the beginning
Make this your simple rule:
Only use advertising that produces a definate result
This means testing different things to see what works for you and your "niche"

If you want to use free advertising - thats fine but the results wont be great
However you could start your own email list without it costing you anything
You can also do alot in search engine marketing - where you simply write content to match the various keyword phrases that are related to your website and that people are actually typing in when doing a search
You could also start a blog and write content to your blog every few days - always make sure you list your blog on MyYahoo and make sure you "ping" your content every time you do a post. Also have a links page on your site where you put a link to each individual post you have on your blog

If you are going to pay for advertising I would concentrate on the smaller Ezines - they will take a solo ad from as little as $9.99 - and you could also use PPC - but this is more difficult because the "bids" could be outside your price range

So my conclusion would be:

1) Build your own email list
2) Develop content on your website to attract the search engines
3) Do a blog and keep posting
4) If possible try and develop your own products e.g. eBooks
5) Remember it does take quite a bit of time - sales can be very slow to start with

 

[cheryl17]

I have learned a lot about making money online from this persons blog: http://beachgirlsbudgetblog.blogspot.com. Maybe you will find some useful information although it does focus on other things besides affiliate marketing.

 

[thea67]

I have made some decisions

I was about to give up on making any money, but some one advised me not to give up. So, I'm not going to do that. Some one advised me to find my ninch or what I want to do. I have found it. I have decided that I want to be in health and wellness. There is no ifs, ands, or buts about it. I have also found the company I want to be with. There are several reasons I have chosen this company. One, they have exceptional health and wellness products. Two, I don't have to limit my audience to the internet. If I choose, I may run ads in my local paper and get customers and business sign ups that way. I don't have to use the internet at all, if I don't want to. I think that's a big plus for me. This company does give me both ways to gain my customer base. And best of all, they are not a get rich quick scheme and not an mlm.

I want to thank every one for their dedicated help. Now if any one can give me some ideas on where to obtain legitimate advertising, none of those, FFA, safe list, surf programs, bulk e-mail programs, ad-blasters, etc. Real and legitimate, free or paid advertising. Is what I want to know about. Again thank you for your help.

sincerely,

Thea

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hi Thea,

So happy you didn't give up and am glad you found your niche. Anything health related is still pretty competitive so if you can specailize in a certain area, certain types of products or a particular ailment that you products would help - that may be a good way at least to get started. Remember not to sell the product but the benefits and what it can do to help people feel better, look younger or whatever.

For advertising - here is an AWESOME FIND! It's a company I'm soon going to be representing, but I'm also buying some advertising with them because the ad buys are so incredible right now. It's a new blog ad network and they have some DYNAMITE ad pricing.

http://performancing.com/partners. Click adverters then view blogs by topic. They have lots of health blogs - most are $25 a month or less. Obviously find the ones with highest traffic that are a good match for your products.

You can also find some really good buys at www.adbrite.com I do lots of advertising there.

For FREE traffic you should start blogging. Write 2 health related articles a day filled with great info and all the right keywords. Then submit to all the rss feeds using http://www.feedshot.com/. Use the paid version which is a WHOPPING $1.99 and well worth it. Then after every article you publish to your feed use pingomatic or pingoat to ping all the servers to let them know you updated. Building up a good blog is one of the best ways to get free traffic.

Hope this helps and best of luck!

 

[reina]

Yes listen to all of them. They do speak the truth. There, however, are many free and low cost methods of advertising out there. It's just that the gurus
don't want you to know so you'll buy their stuff. Furthermore, I have found that it is all about how your market your product. If you can write catchy
ads titles that are attention grabbers, it will fly. Here are some strategies I have used to market what I have sold:

First of all, i write ezines. They are written for specific groups and i have found them to be effective. Here are some free and low cost ezine sites below
for you to try that have helped me:

www.Ezinead.net

www.AmazingBillboards.com
www.TrafficSwarm.com
This is not only for writing ezines, it is also a traffic exchange. It has other features as well.
www.partenon.com/paa/orderpage.shtml

Furthermore, I am in favor of article writing. It can be a bit tricky: however, here are some helpful sites that I have used below to tell you how to write
effective articles:

http://searchwarp.com/swa102120.htm
http://www.sba.gov/managing/marketing/100ideas.html
http://searchwarp.com/swa16238.htm

Here are also some directeries for free article submission sites:

http://www.arcanaweb.com/resources/article-directories.html
http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art12838.asp
Plus, you can submit to www.about.com and www.searchwarp.com.

Then, you can write press releases. If you are not sure how to write one or just need an example, go to www.lunareclipse.net/pressrelease.htm

Here are some press release sites for free or low cost submission:

www.webnewswire.com
www.free-press-release.com/
www.pressbox.co.uk/cgi
www.pr.com/press-releases
www.express-press-release.com/submit-press-release.php
www.1888pressrelease.com/
www.usanews.net/submit/archives_post.htm
www.pressmethod.com/release.htm

Try out all these things, and see what your results are. It would be hard to believe if nothing happens because I have found these extremely successful.
It's all about your delivery. However, if you just find that you are not budging anywhere. I would recommend you start over. Starting over takes so much
time though, and you won't be bring in any money. So, if you do decide to start over and want money in the meantime, go to www.clickbank.com which is the highest affiliate network on the web. It is free to join and there is no monthly fee. You will be paid your cut when you make a sale. The three things you should market that are hot right now are:
1. The Rich Jerk
2. Prophet Monster
3. Google Cash

These products are downloadable which will make it easier for you, and selling downloadable products will help to put your business on autopilot. Not only that, these products will give you over $30 a pop in commission. Good luck with your venture. I wish you well. With Internet marketing there are many bumps and bends in the road: however, if you get the right help and have a positive attitude, you'll succeed!

 

[Oregon Coast Guy]

For my RSS and blog pinging, I use Ping Goat at http://pingoat.com/

It's FREE! Weeeee!

 

[Linda Buquet]

Wow reina, not sure how I missed your post, but THANKS for the in-depth, resource filled post!

Hi Oregon Coast Guy - I use and like Pingoat too. It pings more places than pingomatic. Plus Pingo is often bogged down or busy so the GOAT is a nice alternative to have in your arsenal.