and then sticking with it!

A lot has changed since I started this blog. In the beginning I was mingling with others in the blogosphere, reading up on a lot of blogs and my inbox got crowdier and crowdier.

The traffic for this blog started growing steadily and I got more and more comments, gotta say, I loved the attention but at one point I was spending hours daily knowing that I was not going to make a penny with this particular blog and other projects that I was setting up got put on a sidetrack, eventhough the attention there was to actually make money.

What a stupid way to go in “business”, all play and no work!  If I were to do this working for a boss, I would have been sacked ages ago, but I kept telling myself I was just in the learning stage and trying to figure out what really worked.

So, I have gone through quite some changes recently, but the most important change is my focus. Instead of wanting to learn everything there is, instead of signing up for a zillion programs that were going to teach me, and others that were going to make me money for sure, and buying domain names left and right with the purpose of setting up that million dollar business thought that popped into my head, I am now sticking with what I already know and have at my disposal.

And I am wondering, just how many people are auto-sabotaging themselves?

In the first few months of running this blog, I met some really nice people in this field, all trying their hardest to make money, some do make a few bucks left and right, a few actually make a lot, and then others are having a hard time not to throw in the towel completely.

Most still are stuck at the level of being able to buy a cup of coffee from what they earn online, and are struggling to get where they could actually buy dinner from their earnings. I have gotten to the level of where I can pay my foodbill, but man, looking at return of investment, I have been a complete sucker so far!

So far, my paycheck is still way below minimum wage per hour, but I get by because of the huge amount of hours that I am putting in.

Think about… if I were to work for a boss, I would have been stamping my feet in a tantrum for the low hourly pay, and would have left ages ago.

If you have been reading my last entries, you know I have signed up for moreniche, yet another one of the affiliate programs out there.  So far I have not made a sale yet, I have some sites set up now that I am quite happy with though, and have started to systematically build links to them. I am convinced though that this time around it is all improving, because I am cutting out a lot of my time-wasters and focussing on the bigger picture and roadplan I have set out for myself.

When going into the support forum where other members join and ask for support, there is one thing that stands out to me.  It seems there are still a lot of people who think that affiliate marketing does not require having to work. They seem to think that as soon as they have set up a site, no matter how louzy it is, money will come rolling in, so they sit back and pray for traffic, eager people who are looking to buy.

However, when that doesn´t seem to happen after a day or a week, they are becoming upset and start screaming the program doesn´t work. They start looking around and some even start  buying “unique hits”, thinking that that traffic will get them sales. So they spend $25 on 10.000 unique hits, without realizing they are throwing away their money. At no point do they step back and have a closer look at their page, thinking whether or not they themselves would fall in their own “trap”.

Others leave a message saying they just signed up for the program and “what to do next”? They are asking for help and it seems they are still in the frame of mind of thinking there must be some “secret” to making big bucks, but nobody is willing to share it. So instead of reading the free guides the program offers and actually following the advice, they want to know the shortcut to bring in those bucks.

Well, there aren´t any shortcuts, especially not if you don´t have a few pennies to spend on outsourcing most of the work.

What happens? They give up, maybe go to another program, another way to make money, but as long as they don´t realize that affiliate marketing is just like any other job, they will not make it anywhere.

This morning I received an email from another blogger I have been in contact with over the past few months. We talked about MoreNiche a few times and about a program he had signed up for (read about it on here). And I noticed myself again just how volatile my own mind is, there still is a tiny part in my brain that wants me to think that there must be a secret to making money, although by now, fortunately a larger part of my brain knows there is only one secret and it is called “work at what brings you profit, ditch all activities that don´t bring in cash and keep working at building links”.

You see, too many of us want to do it all perfect and therefor don´t undertake action. We are tweaking and perfecting all sorts of projects without them making any money yet, while I believe we should find whatever works for ourselves, and only then start tweaking the projects that have started bringing in cash, no matter how little.

Instead, we tweak and perfect projects that are not working yet,  see no results, jump to the next “big thing to sign up for” without giving ourselves a real chance to make money.

Anyways, I´d be interested to see all your comments and experiences. I have been deleting a lot of comments lately though, because it seems this blog got onto different D-lists (lists of blogs that do-follow) and many posts seem to become spammed, with stupid “great post comments” or comments that just show the post wasn´t read at all.

If you arrived here because of one of those lists, realize I have no problem with giving away linkjuice, just don´t abuse me!

You want the free link, work for it! 

If you are looking for a place to learn and make money, you should consider signing up for moreniche, the free guides are offering some valuable information and blueprints on how to set up websites, how to build traffic, how to improve your website, improve SEO, good templates to set up professional looking websites, graphics, very good customer support, the lot!

And once you make your first sale, there is an extra bonus upto $45 to show how much they appreciate your work

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So it has been little over a week that I decided to give MN a second run and have to say it has done a lot for my “learning curve” as well as my productivity level. When I first joined MN I had a quick look around at the free guides they are offering for the affiliate program but now that I am back there, I decided to actually give it a real shot and started reading the guides.

Gotta say I am really impressed with all the free information and level of support they are offering, either through their affiliate forum or contacting them directly.

So what have I during last week?

I have actually set up 4 new websites, and only have to finish some details and then upload them which will be done later this day, plus starting promotion strategies in order to get the linkbuilding going.

Terence gave me some good points to look at when I first posted about this program last week and I will certainly keep his comment in mind, for now though I find there is a lot to learn in their affiliate forum.

I picked a few products which I have experience with from the past and started building sites with all the material they offer for promotion. Most product in the program come with several ready made templates, loads of content and designer help (banners, pictures you can use freely etc)  and other information given good ideas in order to promote.

Cool thing about this program is that they are now uploading a lot of review videos in their forum, actually reviewing sites made by affiliates in order to improve them and point out where a site is lacking in view of selling and promotion.

Even after all this time I have been into affiliate marketing, there was a lot of things I hadn´t thought of and it is proven to be of great value to have somebody else look at your site and show you where you could improve it. I was certainly impressed by the time they put in to offer this service to their customers.

Now, some might say “yeah right Mirjam, they just want to earn more money” and I believe that is a fair statement, they are after earning more money through their affiliates promoting their products, but they can only do so, if their affiliates make more sales too.

So basically that is a win-win situation. Plus think about this, if you have been struggling like I have to get those sales in, you are doing something wrong. I was doing a lot of things wrong, and finally found some place to actually point out where and what to improve on. This is all information I can take along with me into other ventures outside of the program, ie, information I can use and implement to promote other products from other affiliate programs since it is all about the basics and then tweaking it to improve sales.

Through MN I have found to have made mistakes in the basics of all the sites I have set up in the past, with the consequence of not getting higher returns on the efforts I was putting in.

Funny when I come to think about it, as soon as I started this blog months ago, I have actually started learning a lot more than the years before and it does feel like pieces are finally falling into its place.

When I first started learning about affiliate marketing, I thought I did not have enough knowledge so I kept buying and reading guides on how to make things happen and the more I read, the more I felt like there was a lot of knowledge lacking to become a “super affiliate”.

It actually started feeling like there was some sort of secret to success and that the next book I was going to buy and read, would give me that secret.

I have certainly wasted a lot of time and effort. If only I had started building on the foundations straight away, making it secure with the basic information I had at that time and only than started learning about how to improve on those basics, I would have been a lot further already, but it is never too late to start.

MN is putting a lot of pieces together though, and now, when looking at the forum, I see a lot of people asking for help to become a super affiliate. They are making the same mistake I was making, thinking there is this big secret out there which is holding them back as long as they don´t find out.

Again, the secret is in the basics, following some beginner guides which tell you exactly what to do before even thinking about tweaking and improving.

If you don´t have the basics though,

there is nothing to tweak nor improve!

It is like wanting to run without first knowing how to get on your feet and start going step for step.

Anyways, I am going back to work now, just wanted to give a little update so far on what I think about MN  and what I have done so far. If you have been looking for ways to make money and so far aren´t succeeding in affiliate marketing, I would certainly recommend you to check out their free beginner guides which you can access after signing up for the program. The free guides offer information on how to start, how to build a site, how to promote and build links etc, sort of a step by step program on how to get on. After that, there are more guides on how to improve everything, including a free SEO guide by Brad Callen which offers some great inside tips on how to get your site ranking high and fast.

Again, the sign up is free and they are offering bonuses (upto $45) when you sign up with them. You will only be able to get those bonuses by making your first sale, which is what you are after anyways, I suppose, right?

Feel free to leave any comments and questions, I will try to answer all of them:)

To Our Success! 

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