Infrastructure First - Offers In Place - Traffic Is Next. December 27, 2008
Posted by Riley West in : The Making of an Internet Marketer , add a comment
Building Bridges
Hello Aspiring Internet Marketers!
I’m addressing this message to people who are interested in building a business online that will support them year after year and grow while doing it.
Here’s what you are going to need, beyond a computer, internet service, and a place to sit.
You are going to need a blog. You will use it as a content management system/blog combo and, you don’t know it now, but it’s super helpful in managing all your website offers. I recommend Wordpress and so does just about everybody else.
I highly and proudly recommend hostgator. I use them and I think they have the best support staff in the world! I think you should get your first domain name there and your hosting, too. Here’s why.
Hostgator comes with a ton of extras but, right now, you just want Fantastico and they give it to you at no extra charge. Fantastico will slap your Free Wordpress Blog up on hostgators servers at your domain address so fast it’s fun!
Now…I’m telling you exactly what I did to build my business. I went to Yahoo for my other domain name - rwestdotcom.com/. They make it so easy but here is the main reason to have them host your html web page offers.
I love how easy it is to fix a webpage at Yahoo. This is big! You are a beginner. There’s going to be mistakes.
Listen to this…when I spot a misspelled word on one of my webpages (and I have many and growing) I can, with one click, be right in among the files, and usually I can fix it right there. That’s without having to download the file out of Yahoo to my HTML editor, fix it, and then re - upload it.
This is a killer time saver and makes you look like a pro when you can fix a web page mistake on the fly.
So that’s me now. My blog is at Hostgator and all my HTML sheets are hanging over at Yahoo.
By the way, I have dozens of webpages selling for me on ONE DOMAIN and HOSTING plan at Yahoo. They don’t seem to mind heavy loading. Think about how much that saves you!
Here’s how that works. my domain name is www.rwestdotcom.com….if you go there it is my index page but I hardly ever use it.
But, if I want a salespage for my website tutorial I just bang out the rough draft and, with one click, I upload it to a new domain name that I just make up! Make them up intelligently so you can tell what it is from it’s file name.
It’d look like this ….www.rwestdotcom.com/websitesalespage.html and THAT is right where my website sales page resides. Go take a look. It took 5 to 10 minutes from scratch so you ought to be able to put a good sales page up in an hour or so.
I have one other piece of infrastructure that, for me is indispensable and that is my $20/mo AWeber autoresponder. This single piece of equipment is what makes it possible for your website/blog combo to sell something on automatic without you having to be there! You CANNOT do without it.
I almost forgot PayPal! Just do it. It’s so easy. You can get fancy, expensive checkout systems later when you might need them. This is how you get paid! Why not keep it simple?
Now, that’s the infrastructure. Here follows a list of other things you’ll need.
1. You’ll need a website HTML tutorial and the software. I have it for you.
2. You’ll need a blog installation tutorial to get your Wordpress Blog up at Hostgator. I have that for you.
3. You’ll need an FTP program for when you want to move a LOT of files really fast.
I have located two free FTP’s and I use one. I’m on Mac. I have them both for you here FREE! Cyberduck…and…Filezilla.
4. You’ll need an article marketing tutorial so you can learn to drive traffic to your offers and blog. No traffic no sales BUT…this is cool…blog’s attract traffic because search engines love them. Still, you need articles for great targeted traffic.
By the way, the first things I sold were the very things I used to do what I did.
If you want to see what I did go to my blog and look around a bunch. Click a ton of the links. Don’t worry, these links don’t cost me anything.
So what I am telling you is that my blog/web page combo works fine and is producing sales. You can have one just like this one. Just use all the things I did and copy me.
The only thing you can’t copy is the actual “copy” or words that I use in the way that I use them. They’re copyrighted.
And, you are going to have questions. Use me for that at riley@rwestdotcom.com.
This way works. I was shown it by my mentor at the time because he knew it worked. You are welcome to it, a proven path to sales and a growing business.
Here’s to your success,
Riley West - An Oregon Pioneer making his way in the trade
A Killer Resource That Doesn’t Take an Arm or a Leg! October 23, 2008
Posted by Riley West in : The Making of an Internet Marketer , 2commentsHello Folks:
I have bought and paid for a LOT of how to ebooks and about half of them were OK to good and a few of them were totally excellent. The totally excellent stuff is what you’ll find in the blog.
You might want to slap me around a little for not telling you about this sooner.
You see, back in the day, when I was careening from one ebook to another I fell across one book (not an ebook) that literally changed the way I saw marketing on the net. I could see clearly now. I understood. The big picture.
The man behind this is named Ken McCarthy and you would do very well to hear him. (or read him) He’s a great writer and makes it fun! But, there’s a catch. Isn’t there always?
The catch is that a big part of his information is FREE.
As it turns out this guy is one of the pre-eminent teachers of Internet Marketing Skills in the world.
I hadn’t heard of him a couple of years ago and it wouldn’t be a surprise if you haven’t either. You may not have heard of Ken but all the big name marketers have. Many of them studied under him.
Every year he has this big gathering called the System Seminar that people from all over the world come to attend. A $2500 event. Plus travel and incidentals like food.
So it’s high end stuff but it’s presented in such a way that totally sets it apart from the other things you may have read about or attended.
But I’m getting ahead of myself! Here’s the nugget! This guy hands out free information like he has to get rid of it fast!
And this information is better, often, than anything you can buy and it’s all about how to Market on the Net.
Here’s what I did. He gives out so much info in the form of mp3’s (ipod) that I just put them on my ipod and listen to them when I’m out for a walk or driving somewhere.
Each of these tapes (not really a tape but I don’t know what to call them) is about an hour long and is an interview between Ken McCarthy and one of the people who is going to be teaching their specialty at the System coming up.
What’s really great about these interviews is that they are not a pitch-fest! They are an in depth look at a certain area of Internet Marketing skills with lots of good useable, actionable tips and skills that you can take away (FREE) and use to build your business or skills or both!
I love what this man produces! I think many of you will too. This is both bedrock action info and advanced techniques that will blow you away. Exciting stuff.
Go here and sign up for the Free Pre-System Seminar. A free information series you will not regret! This will really add to your arsenal of good usable knowledge. I did it and I won’t quit doing it! It’s Free and it’s Good!
They also sell products, too. Who wouldn’t? And this Internet Marketing information is absolutely top drawer. But that’s getting ahead of ourselves. Go get the Free Pre-System Seminar right now and, please, come back here and tell me what you think. I’d love to hear it. As always you can email me at riley@rwestdotcom.com/
Thank you - Please leave a Comment!
Riley West - An Oregon pioneer making his way in the trade.
PS: Next Post: Get weekly lesson sessions that will take you from no where to making money.
The 10 Basic Things You Need for Successful Internet Marketing. October 20, 2008
Posted by Riley West in : The Making of an Internet Marketer , 3commentsHello Folks:
Before we get into the meat of this days discussion I’m going to give you a link to free PDF called “Ten Basic Things You Need for Successful Internet Marketing.
Look at it when you get a chance. If you are looking to get into Internet Marketing you need to know what these “ten basics” are! Plus, if you purchase the PLR rights, you can put your own affiliate links into the document, Pass them around FREE and you’ll get some link pops from the people you give this to and who in turn, check out one of your links and ends up buying. This is a money-maker.
So here it is…“The Ten Basics…..”
And now todays post…
Did you ever go fishing without the bait? Did you ever try without hooks? Or a line?
You can’t fasten down your handlebars without a bolt. Or a wrench of some sort.
It’s hard to do anything without the right tools!
I could go on. I just want you to understand that there are some basic ingredients to Internet Marketing that you really can’t do without.
OK. Enough! You want to know what the ten basic things are that you need to know to be able to successfully market via the internet.
In order to have an article here that doesn’t get way too long I am going to put links into the list for additional information and resources.
With no further ado…here we go…
1. You must understand what IM is, it’s various forms, it’s jargon, and have a little grasp of the lay of the land. It’s made up in part with Affiliate Sales, Selling your own product, E mail marketing, and sales of physical products to name the most well known.
2. One really must be able to make up a simple website for themselves.
3. A beginning marketer should know what a domain name is, and how to get one. The same goes for hosting. That’s the outfit that will put your webpage up on the web with your domain name as it’s address. In this catagory you must know how to upload the files you need to make that website appear on their servers. That would be FTP software. You need to learn about that. I recommend hostgator. It’s the one I use and it has great support!
4. A student of Internet Marketing (IM) has to know about automatic email followup sales campaigns. I use Aweber. It’s the best. Almost everyone uses it. Great tutorials! Only $19.95/mo. Worth three times that.
5. You need to understand what keywords are and how to work a simple keyword tool so that Google (or someone else) can show you the keywords. Other terms for keywords are “keyword phrase”, ” long tail keywords”, or even “search query”. Additionally, you should open a Google account. It’s free and has so much cool stuff that it is a killer resource.
6. You need to know how to drive traffic to your website. You can learn all about that here. Otherwise it will just sit there, unvisited. There are various methods. One of the most popular is writing articles. When I first heard of this I was intimidated. After I had learned how to write and submit articles it was easy and it caused traffic to come to my salespages.
7. You certainly would want to know how to let people pay you for what you offer and how to collect it. (It’s automatic) Start with Paypal.
8. One should get a blog started. They are easy to do and sometimes they can substitute for a website and/or drive traffic to a website. I recommend Wordpress hosted on your account. It’s FREE!
How I did it: I signed up for Domain and Hosting at Hostgator. They are great to deal with and have the very best customer support I have encountered. That alone is BIG!
They also include a free program called Fantastico. It will install your wordpress blog effortlessly. When you get that done email me at riley@rwestdotcom.com and I will email you an ebook For FREE that tells you how to set up your blog for maximum traffic. Works for me at 24 Hour Wordpress Guru.
Tip: Don’t fall for the free hosting Wordpress offers (Or Blogger) When you have your own name and hosting you are in control. Wordpress hosting does not allow sales pages and affiliate links.
I tried it once (because it was free) and they caught me right away and sent me packing!
9. FTP! File Transfer Protocol. What a name! Someone is just trying to sound geeky. Don’t worry about it. It’s totally easy. Way easier than doing it by hand! (Yours truly tried to hang on to the old ways but finally got dragged into the 21st Century)
Use it to upload files to your hosting servers so your webpages can be on the net. There’s lots of them for sale. I use a free one! Cyberduck. Yes Cyberduck…odd name… FREE! Works Great!
For the PC/Windows crowd there is FileZilla! It’s FREE too! I’m not sure why but EVERYBODY freaks at the idea of FTP (File Transfer Protocol) At First. I guess it sounds hairy…but it’s NOT!
FTP Makes the whole process of uploading and downloading files darn near effortless! Now, I LIKE that!
10. Maybe you are one of those folks who want to be taken by the hand and carefully led down the path to Internet Marketing Success.
I don’t blame you! If this had been available when I started (and I knew about it) I would have gone this route for sure!
It’s the Internet Marketing KickStart Course! I recommend it highly.
If I had this list and the information and resource links within I would have gotten off to a lot better start.
Thank You,
Riley West - An Oregon pioneer making his way in the trade.
PS: This Report/List will stay about the same but the links to further information and resources will grow. Check back now and then.
You can download this list in the ever Popular PDF form and give it away or use as a bonus!!
It is for your personal use only. You are authorized to give it away or use as a bonus. You can not alter it in any way. You must preserve the links within.
If you would like Master Resale Rights to this list so you can sell it, give it away, put your links in it and modify it in any way you want just hit the paypal button and cruise through to the download page. It is only $7 and it comes with HTML, Source doc, license, and rights list. It’s a no brainer. You won’t get rich but you sure as heck won’t go broke, either. My recommendation…use it to get paid to compile a list! ie They Opt-in for the Free Report and now they have your links and you have their name and you KNOW what they are interested in, don’t you?
Copyright 2007 © rwestdotcom.com All Rights Reserved
Keeping It Simple - Building Webpages October 18, 2008
Posted by Riley West in : The Making of an Internet Marketer , 4commentsHave you ever noticed the tendency of Internet Marketers to overcomplicate things?
I’m serious here. I’m sure few people would have been as impressed with this fact as I am. I have ADD. That makes it hard to concentrate and even harder to learn!
I’m not whining. I’m so used to it that by now that it seems totally normal. It makes multi-tasking seem more natural to me because I can hardly maintain a straight line of thought anyway. But, multitasking works against me.
I have to render the complicated down to little steps and do them one by one. It’s how I put together this offer today
Maybe thats why I seek simplicity with a certain level of doggedness that irritates my wife.
Some seek simplicity because they want it. Their lives are already too complicated for them. I seek simplicity because I have to.
You see, if I can’t keep it simple I can’t keep it!
This doesn’t mean I can’t handle something complicated. I can. It means that I can’t learn something presented in complexity.
I learned to fly high performance aircraft. That’s complex! But I ate that elephant one bite at a time.
So let’s get back to how this affects our perception of how to learn about Internet Marketing!
Well, let’s change the question to “How to learn to earn money with knowledge of IM strategies and tactics.”
My answer to that question has to be “Put an offer in front of the right people in such a way that they buy it!” Boom! That’s it. Simple. Takes a lot of little steps, though.
Now, a lot of folks are going to say, “It’s not that simple!” I agree. But it can be stated that simply. And that, for me and a lot of others, is more to the point and more easily acted upon.
Acted upon! Get it done! One step at a time. Keep moving!
Here’s a sample situation.
Say that, for example, you still don’t know how to edit a webpage and this keeps you from being able to present an offer!
How to start..
1. Get a webpage editor onto your computer. Here’s a FREE way!
2. Open the web building program.
3. Open a blank document.
4. Put a table on that blank document. (Looks like a rectangle)
5. Fill the table with some text ..maybe add a picture, change the border.
6. Save this doc. as an html file. HTML editors do this for you.
If you stopped here you have gained a lot of experience. And if you really want to go somewhere…continue.
7. Get a domain name
8. Get a host.
9. Using your domain name as your web address upload that document to your hosts servers. Use an FTP program for this. I use cyberduck and it’s FREE! Works great, too!
10. Now, open a browser window..any browser window.
11. Type in http://www.yourdomain.com
12. See the document on the web? That’s yours! Wow!
14..Go back to your webpage editor pull up that orig doc.
15. Modify the doc. Another pic More text etc Colors,etc.
16. Save that new doc. as anotherpage.html - upload it.
17. It’s address will now be http://www.yourdomain.com/anotherpage.html
18. Check it out on the web. See?
19. Pull that No. 2 doc up in your webpage editor and select some text.
20.Creat a LINK from that text to the firstpage.
21. Upload that so that now this page http://www.yourdomain.com/ anotherpage.html has a LINK to this page http://www.yourdomain.com/index.html
22. In a browser window address bar…Type http://www.yourdomain.com/anotherpage.html and Click that Link!
23. Did it Work? Probably. If it didn’t fix it.
If you didn’t know anything about making webpages and If you actually stepped through this process, you now know way more than you ever did about it.
In reality you delved into webpage building, domain names and hosting, ftp upload/download file management, and links. Quite a few other little details, too.
Tip: When uploading a modified file that was previously uploaded I delete the previous file so that things stay simple.
And, once you’ve done it a few times it is actually simple and straightforward.
I consider webpage building, handling, and manipulation to be one of my core assets and I’m sure I couldn’t get along without it!
Why? Because, if I didn’t know how I wouldn’t be able to “Put an offer in front of the right people in such a way that they buy it!” Boom! That’s it.
I have an offer right here for you. I think you are going to like it.
Thank you again! Comments are welcome!
Riley West - An Oregon pioneer making his way in the trade.
I Didn’t Like Blogs When I First Saw Them! October 14, 2008
Posted by Riley West in : The Making of an Internet Marketer , add a commentThat’s right. I was all about websites. I learned how to make them. I learned how to get a domain name and hosting. That’s what actually takes your web files and presents it to the world as a screen filling webpage. It’s simple… you just have to get into it and get ‘er done.
I got my start making websites that feature furniture people have shown an interest in. I have an inventory right here in town. I have a store. Always have. Now I’m looking for another way to get people who might be interested in what I have to sell to come into my store.
And I’m finding out that folks don’t have to wonder, they can just follow a proven path!
I wanted to use websites to drive customers to my store. And, now, I am doing it. Customers are coming to my store daily and saying that they saw it on the net. Some say they found me on Google!
One of the things that used to perplex me was this idea. I put up some Google ads and people from Nairobi click. I pay for the click and they can’t come to Oregon.
No problem! Did you know that you can now trace a circle around on a map and set up your ads to ONLY run inside that circle! This is big.
We have had 16 months of record business and we attribute the increase in sales to the Google Adwords campaigns. And nobody clicks from Nairobi! Or even California.
I mean people now days are going to Google like the new phone book. And now you can use it for Stanley the Plumber in Eugene, Oregon.
I’ve been using Google Adwords for almost 2 years 24/7. I’ve made some mistakes and now I’m quite a bit better.
Now I also offer products in several countries but those are downloadable.
Stanley the Plumber doesn’t want to fix somebody’s toilet in New Zealand, even if they CAN speak English.
The point I’m making here is that, as soon as I made my first website, I ran over to Google Adwords and put an ad campaign together. I knew in the first days whether or not this was a winner and if it wasn’t I could pause and tweak it!
But, as you know, Google isn’t the only way to get traffic to a website. There’s lots of ways.
But Google is the only low effort, low cost (if you know what you are doing and are NOT forgetful) way to find out fast whether a site will sell or not.
So now, I get an idea, I make a simple website fast and advertise it on Google. That can still take me half a day but I’ll know whether I’m on to something or not 2 days later. That’s Testing!
Listen Guys and Gals. There are lots of clever dudes out there trying to sell you the latest greatest, wipe out the competition, keyword robot and cash collector.
Fuggeddabouditt! Stay small and learn the basics. Then you’ll not have to be embarrassed when someone asks you if you have websites. You’ll not feel awkward when they ask you if you have ever made any money at this, because you will have made some.
When I was a 12-13 year old I took newspapers down to the busy corner in my little town. I held them up and said “Read all about it!” I sold some.
Here’s the simple formula for busting in to the world of Internet Marketing.
Learn to build a webpage so you can put together an offer!
Learn to name the project (Get a domain name)
Learn to get it hosted.
Learn to Upload files to your ISP’s servers. Now you are up and online.
Now - Get Traffic to your offer. Hope they buy. If they don’t buy - know why!
Getting Traffic - that’s the biggie. Lots more on that later.
Your comments are welcome,
Riley West - An Oregon pioneer making his way in the trade.
PS: Start out right bylearning how to make a webpage.
psps: If the offer above doesn’t interest you (which would surprise me!) get my FREE PDF.
After you read this you will have webpage building software AND a real opportunity for making a few bucks on the web.
Build A Webpage that Sells! October 13, 2008
Posted by Riley West in : The Making of an Internet Marketer , add a commentA webpage, as it’s referred to is one page. A website is made up of webpages.
Sometimes the one page sites are referred to as “mini-sites.
I like to think of them as an advertisement!
The reason I put up one page websites is to sell something.
In order to sell something my site has to satisfy some conditions.
It has to offer a solution to somebodys problem! And many peoples problem is that they don’t know how to build a webpage!
So a relevant example would be a site that sells web software and a tuition course for that software. Website making software is one of the biggest sales catagories on the web.
That’s precisely because they can be used for so many different things AND be made to reach those people who are interested in that websites offering.
Think about it! When you run an advertisement in the newspaper people who need tires for their car see your ad for pianos. Bad match.
But, when you make a website about the history of pianos…the people who type a search query into the Google box like “history of pianos” may discover you almost immediately. That’s relevance. These people are NOT looking for tires. Otherwise they would have typed in “tires”!
It’s a message to market match! That’s what makes websites work.
To make a website page (webpage, page) you need an HTML editor. Basically this is a word processor (sort of). When you type onto the page the word “Hello” the editor software creates the necessary HTML code that computers can read on the web.
You don’t want to know everything about this code. You want to be able to write “Click here for more info” on the page and when someone sees it on the webpage and clicks on it the software code takes the clicker right to it, right away.
These wonderful things are called “links”.
Thank you so much,
Riley West - An Oregon pioneer making his way in the trade
PS:If you want to make simple sites that sell The first thing you need to be able to do is make one with an HTML Editor. I have a great offer at my website about websites. AND if you are interested (and who wouldn’t be) I also have a perfect product for you to sell on your spanky new webpage and it’s just $9 bucks.
My Methods Need Constant Improvement! October 12, 2008
Posted by Riley West in : The Making of an Internet Marketer , add a commentHello Folks:
It was a quiet night even though our University had it’s homecoming and the football team won, too.
I remember one year when they lost. Marie had a boyfriend and he was in the game. It was Thanksgiving day and little Marie cried all the way through dinner.
Little things like that give me reason to NOT take myself too seriously.
I have had my slow days. What I recommend is…”Just keep pluggin’ along.”
Seriously folks, here is what I do to move ahead. Every day I pick what I think is the most important thing I could accomplish that would move my business forward. That’s the thing I do that day. That’s 30 things a month and, actually, many other details get handled in the process.
A while back I had this one website promoting a weight loss product. Big Market. Huge. Lots of guys making good money.
Not me. I had a bounce rate of 70%. Now, I’m a little nearsighted. But my Clickbank bars were so short that I had to have a friend find them for me.
Whenever a check came in I was literally shocked! I was afraid to cash it thinking I may have to send it back. And in any case the amount coming in was not good enough by a large margin.
I’ve had several Internet Marketing boondoggles.
But, and I don’t take this lightly, a very major Internet Marketing guru who I have studied for months on end, said…”You might only be a couple of tweaks before you hit it out of the park!” (or something like that.) It may need more tweaks than one but surely it is finite.
Well, that gave me comfort because I had been slogging along at the bottom of all internet marketers setting records for small money for huge effort! And now I find out that my slogging days may be coming to an end?
What gives me that idea? Well, for one thing I am a bit of an optimist. And, for another, I have started this blog. This blog is going somewhere. It already has more traffic than other things I have done. And the traffic is increasing. Thank you, readers!
Why is that? This blog is going to grow for several reasons. One reason is.. daily progress, frequent posts.
The information in this young blog is coming to you from someone who has been in the trenches for a while now. I have even made some money. That’s a whole other story but, for now, suffice it to say that it wasn’t the way I had originally intended.
What I showed up here for was to find out what a wordpress blog is and see if I can turn it into a business by providing quality information to people looking to get into some form of Internet Marketing. Well, I gotta tell you…a Wordpress blog is an awesome tool.
I’ll keep you posted. (I wrote that last line and then noticed it was a little pun - not intended.)
Riley West - An Oregon pioneer making his way in the trade!
PS: For more more on Wordpress blogging platforms go to http://wordpress.org/
Why I am Here. October 10, 2008
Posted by Riley West in : The Making of an Internet Marketer , add a commentOne of the things that makes this interesting to me is that, in my conversations with my subscribers or just people along the way is this one fact…
They are all in a different part of what I call “the progression”.
Some folks start with almost zero knowledge. They can make it but they’ve got a lot to learn.
I was lucky enough at the outset to already know what marketing and sales were.
Plus I’d done them both for years. I taught those topics as well.
I also knew how to write ad copy as I’d studied that for years. I’m not the best but I know who is.
35 years of experience running your own business is a lot of preparation.
But, still, prepped as I was I stumbled right into some really stupid places at the start. They wasted my time and money! They disgusted me. They made me mad.
And I was tied up in the bad info for months! Many would have quit right there.
THIS is what I mean when I say you don’t have to fall into one of the many traps set for you on the un-level playing field of Internet Marketing. (IM).
IM is all about information and how to use it! One of the major pitfalls is that there is good info and bad info and LOTS of it! If you are new to this, you may not be able to smell the difference. Well, I can.
And, interestingly enough, separating the wheat from the chaff when it comes to Internet Marketing information is a task I am prepped for and lucky enough to enjoy.
So, that’s why I’m here. I want to help newcomers get a good start. And, this blog may be the perfect way to get that information to you.
Thank you very much,
Riley West - An Oregon pioneer making his way in the trade.
PS: If you are very new at this you need some training! No better place than this.
Also - You might want to download the FREE PDF about the Basics.
The 10 Basic Things You Need to Know for
Successful Internet Marketing.
This is a PDF Document. You can download
this at http://rwestdotcom.com/10basic.pdf
The Whirlwind of Money October 6, 2008
Posted by Riley West in : The Making of an Internet Marketer , add a commentMan, have you seen the financial markets and world news lately? Never has there been a better time to get an income stream (or two) coming in to you by means of sales on the net.
Look, I have to say this before it slips by and gets run over.
Half the time I feel like I am standing in a little whirlwind. Like a mini tornado but not destructive.The whirlwind is the Internet and my Internet Marketing efforts are in the center of that wind.
It’s like I’m being circled by high-speed 100 dollar bills and if I could just reach out and grasp one!
Then I could do another! And another!
That’s sort of how it is when you are becoming an Internet Marketer.
Here’s what happens to the average newcomer. They get in over their heads. They try to jump from one thing to another. They try to find the easier, softer way.
And there isn’t one.
People (cons) will tell you there is an easy way to riches. All you have to do is give them your money and they’ll show you. Now you are left not knowing what to do and a lot lighter in the wallet.
Let me paint a picture for you.
After you have learned a few things you are going to spot an opportunity that sounds right for you.
I say go for it! If you have followed good advice and good instincts you are probably on to something. Go ahead, put it together. By this time you will have acquired the skills that have been missing, holding you back.
You can make a webpage that sells the product. You have paypal on it so your customers can buy.
You have a domain name and a hosting company that you know how to work with and are helpful!
You know how to write little articles and drive traffic to your salespage.
Maybe you will use a little adwords to speed things up and test different ideas…like headlines.
Perhaps you even put a little form on your website to collect names and emails, and, if they didn’t buy the first time, you have another shot at them with the email. Automated email at that.
You can see a market and you have a product that market likes to buy. It doesn’t matter if other people are selling it, you just need a small slice of the action for starters.
There is the possibility you won’t make any money. Happened to me!
But boy, you’ll learn a lot! And when it comes to actually making money.. soon you will. It will only be a little at first but when that happens, all kinds of lights are going to go off in your head and away you go! You will be becoming an Internet Marketer.
It’s the transformation I refer to as “The Making of an Internet Marketer”.
See, if you are going to follow my advice, you are going to start slow and small but correctly. When you get a little going you are going to improve that.
If all you ever did was take your first small thing that works and improve it over and over, and do it over and over…it’ll get pretty good.
Then you can do another. And another.
But first, are you ready to give it your first, best shot? There are those things you need to know that I talk about all the time.
They are the Internet Marketing terminology, concepts, and skills that all successful IM’ers use and that you have to learn or you can’t do it.
But those skills are actually easy (and fun) to learn.
Here’s where it gets interesting. And I can help a little. Here’s a FREE LIST of the basics you need to get going at sales on the web.
I’ll see you on the road to success,
RW - An Oregon pioneer making his way in the trade.
PS: Knowing Internet Marketing and doing it your own way is actually easier than following someone else’s plan! After all, you are not them. You are you and you can do it. What I’m going to show you are the best ways to learn and start fast. - rw
What Would You Think if You Went to Your Blog and it was Gone? October 5, 2008
Posted by Riley West in : The Making of an Internet Marketer , add a commentHello Folks:
I feel Ok now but I had some really intense inner conversations this morning.
You see, up until now I hadn’t bothered to keep backups of my posts. I didn’t see the need. After all I add one almost every day. They are rather common. To me, they seemed nice and secure in there in my Wordpress blog.
But, this morning as I sat at my big work table in a glassed in room that overlooks a nice piece of forest tranquility I went to boot up my blog and upload a file or two.
When I had the ftp browser up I saw a few files that seemed out of place. So I moved them into the folder they shared an address with.
Then I went out to breakfast with my wife and a friend and I went to visit my Mom in her assisted living place. It’s really very nice and Mom says she likes it and is making a bunch of new friends.
I decided to go back up the hill to my place and throw another post on the blog.
When I got to my computer I sat down and clicked to load my blog in admin. Nothing but some mysterious error messages! So I ran over to a website of mine and clicked that link back to my website, but uneditable. Same error messages.
Gone! I panicked. I ran through my files looking for backups and not finding them. I saw the mountain of work slip through a crack in the silicon I felt lost.
I started thinking about redoing all that work and thought about the momentum I was going to lose. I really didn’t like that!
So, I called my hosting company (Hostgator) and the first guy I talked to told me I probably wouldn’t lose all my data but that he couldn’t help me because it was an issue of corrupted code lines.
Then I notice they have 24/7 phone support. Usually I steer away from these because I have difficulty with accents and bad connections so I try to figure it out for myself.
But I was worried! So I called and got put on one of those automatic things that keep telling you where you are in line and that a representative will be with you soon.
When the rep answered he had a strong clear voice. I felt better. When I told him that I had moved a few files and now my blog was gone, he said, “Let me take a look.” After about one minute he came back on the line saying, “Your blog is up and running now… I just had to straighten up some files.”
I said “You fixed that almost immediately! You must really now your stuff.” He said he knew some things. I asked him how old he was. He said 17.
Blew me away. His name is Joseph Zennix and he only works Sundays. I’m sending in a glowing testimonial to feedback@hostgator.com.
That’s Hostgator. Bunch of neat folks. If you haven’t picked out a hosting company I recommend this one. I’ve had hosting companies who had such bad help that I just quit them and didn’t look back. (If you want to know who the companies are that I dropped due to bad service and difficult usage issues you can e mail me at rwestpnw@comcast.net) and I’ll tell you.
I don’t feel right bad mouthing these outfits in public. But I know who they are and you shouldn’t go there. I have several sites up at Yahoo but since I got into working with Hostgator I haven’t put a new one up at Yahoo, I just go there to maintain them.
Well, that’s all from me for now. I’m just relieved that my blog still stands and that all it took was a cool 17 year old kid at Hostgator to fix me right up.
I’ll see you on the road to success,
Riley West - An Oregon pioneer making his way in the trade.
PS: If you would like to build your own websites and sell things from them I think you should read this… rw
psps: And, if you are ready to know about all things IM related - see this!
