[Alpha Mind]

In my short time being active on this forum I've seen a lot of people talking/asking about internet marketing, passive income, etc., so I figured I'd help out.

I run a large (10K products) ecommerce website and a top 100 (rated top 100 by serps.com) SEO agency, and have experience in most internet marketing related spaces. I've sold a few ebooks, but none of them have done spectacularly well.

To start, anyone can get into internet marketing. There are no barriers to entry--other than your own motivation--and you can easily start a business with minimal investment, not including time.

It's also worth stating: truly passive income is very difficult to accomplish. What's commonly referred to as a lifestyle business, is far more realistic.

For the younger guys on here, if you're in college or fresh out, look for paid internships or full-time gigs with companies that are in the space. Some cities are better than others, but there are rich IM guys/firms all over the US.

Craigslist has more gigs than you think and almost everyone I know posts IM-related jobs there. Check marketing and web/internet related categories daily. Yes, daily. It's much faster than going through 3 weeks worth of marketing gigs.

Meetup groups are a group source, assuming you know how to chat people up and network. Make sure you have biz cards, even if you don't own a biz. Make sure you know the acronyms. People love to test you with that. It's my one gripe about the industry. Anyone, feel free to add more and/or any variations of these that you've heard.

SEO - Search Engine Optimization
SEM - Search Engine Marketing
PPC - Pay Per Click
CRO - Conversion Rate Optimization
CPC - Cost per click or cost per conversion. Most people mean cost per click when they say this.
CPA - cost per action - this can refer to the cost per action/conversion, OR CPA networks, which are affiliate networks (like clickbank) that pay per action/conversion/sale you send their way.
IM - Internet Marketing (commonly refers to the info product scene, which is kind of it's own space)
SMO - Social Media Optimization (easily biggest boat of shit talking wannabe marketers on the planet).

There are more, but you should know what those are and entail before you go asking for jobs.

MediaBistro can be legit as well, but most of the firms that post there want qualified people.

Identifying small companies in your area that are in a space you want to learn is relatively easy and if you're persistent, you can usually get a job there; just show them you're interested.

You'll learn more at a small ecommerce or product development (assuming they sell online) company than you will an agency. Agency gigs are fine, but you'll typically be doing one thing only. SEO is probably the best to learn. PPC advertising--in my opinion--is awful. The only thing I dislike more than that is accounting.

If you can land a gig, you can learn the game relatively quickly.

For those that are jobs they can't leave, there's a website called The Challenge, at http://www.challenge.co/. It's free, and will teach you basic stuff. The guy makes money off of his software recommendations. I don't agree with all of them, so if you have questions about the tools, message me.

There is a very solid chance that your first business/website/product WILL fail. Don't get frustrated. You're just one step closer to making cash.

Oh, and if you run any form of Google AdWords, there's a free software called word watch that will optimize your bids for maximum number of clicks.

If you have questions, let's open this up. I'd also love to hear from any other people in the space.

[RichieP]

Would be cool if we discuss what the work is actually like, for each skillset.

I've done some SEO, for example, and to me its about:

-Researching the search volume and competition for different keywords, analysing and strategically picking the ones that you want to rank your site for (IMO enjoyable)
-On-site optimisation - revamping the link structure so the most profitable pages get the most internal links, getting keywords and tags set up optimally (IMO somewhat OK, not totally mind numbing)
-Link Building - getting links from other websites to point to your pages to boost their rankings (IMO absolutely tedious)

I'd like to know more about PPC and CRO... what is the work actually like?

[WanderingSoul]

(08-23-2012 03:06 AM)Alpha Mind Wrote:  

I run a large (10K products) ecommerce website and a top 100 (rated top 100 by serps.com) SEO agency, and have experience in most internet marketing related spaces. I've sold a few ebooks, but none of them have done spectacularly well.

I have done affiliate marketing/seo for a few years. However, I am now jumping into E-Commerce. I am planning on getting into small niches where I can establish a dropshipping relationship with the manufacturer or distributor. Looking at medium to high ticket items with good margins. I don't want to be selling 30 t-shirts a day to make money. I'd rather sell 5-20 items per week with a good profit margin.

Any resources/tips/hints you could give me?

[alphascout]

i noticed most SEO guys are english. Huge opportunities if you speak any language other than english along with english (to have access to the most up to date SEO techniques)., particularly countries with high value currency, like norway.

[SVK]

What is THE leading intro book to Internet Marketing, SEO, etc? Looking for the Internet Marketing/SEO bible, the definitive introductory book, preferably for people with IT background. I'm a professional software engineer, but have near zero experience in this area. Not really looking into Internet marketing being my bread and butter, more so just to be better at promoting my products (mobile apps).

[ColSpanker]

Took the Challenge course a year ago and found it to have some good advice. However, Google doesn't like to be gamed and soon updated their software to make SEO that much harder. I have one blog that ranks at #3 and another which is just starting to rank after a month. My own company website barely pulls a 3, so it's not easy to get all that traffic.

[freshcream]

(08-23-2012 03:06 PM)alphascout Wrote:  

i noticed most SEO guys are english. Huge opportunities if you speak any language other than english along with english (to have access to the most up to date SEO techniques)., particularly countries with high value currency, like norway.

I speak norwegian... is that an advantage?`

[Alpha Mind]

(08-23-2012 12:58 PM)RichieP Wrote:  

Would be cool if we discuss what the work is actually like, for each skillset.

I've done some SEO, for example, and to me its about:

-Researching the search volume and competition for different keywords, analysing and strategically picking the ones that you want to rank your site for (IMO enjoyable)
-On-site optimisation - revamping the link structure so the most profitable pages get the most internal links, getting keywords and tags set up optimally (IMO somewhat OK, not totally mind numbing)
-Link Building - getting links from other websites to point to your pages to boost their rankings (IMO absolutely tedious)

I'd like to know more about PPC and CRO... what is the work actually like?

Personally, I hate PPC. I managed an account spending over 20K per month and it was fucking miserable. CRO is okay if you're a legit designer and know marketing via web design.

I'm an SEO, so I'm a bit jaded, but in my opinion, CRO > PPC, but PPC is total shit without CRO.

[Alpha Mind]

(08-23-2012 02:07 PM)RioNomad Wrote:  

(08-23-2012 03:06 AM)Alpha Mind Wrote:  

I run a large (10K products) ecommerce website and a top 100 (rated top 100 by serps.com) SEO agency, and have experience in most internet marketing related spaces. I've sold a few ebooks, but none of them have done spectacularly well.

I have done affiliate marketing/seo for a few years. However, I am now jumping into E-Commerce. I am planning on getting into small niches where I can establish a dropshipping relationship with the manufacturer or distributor. Looking at medium to high ticket items with good margins. I don't want to be selling 30 t-shirts a day to make money. I'd rather sell 5-20 items per week with a good profit margin.

Any resources/tips/hints you could give me?

The highest margin products are the ones that you OWN and don't wholesale. I've been working a (lax) 9-5 in the product development space--doing IM for them (ecom)--with a wayyyy open schedule, but they wholesaled their way into making wayyyyy less money when they already owned the market.

Look into importing. You can buy 10-20 products via AliExpress.com and test sell it on Amazon. You just need your own UPC code and then you have to brand the product. Hire someone on text broker to write ~400 words about the product (hire the highest level writer possible, which may cost you ~$14), max out the amazon description, get your friends to buy/review/product tag/amazon like your product and see if it sells. If it does, import at a larger level.

If you're dropshipping, make sure you're getting at least 30% post-shipping and be absolutely certain that they either a) have the inventory regularly, or b) you can hire someone to turn their daily inventory report into a csv data feed, specific to your store's requirements.

[Alpha Mind]

(08-23-2012 03:37 PM)SVK Wrote:  

What is THE leading intro book to Internet Marketing, SEO, etc? Looking for the Internet Marketing/SEO bible, the definitive introductory book, preferably for people with IT background. I'm a professional software engineer, but have near zero experience in this area. Not really looking into Internet marketing being my bread and butter, more so just to be better at promoting my products (mobile apps).

The best book--IMHO--is SEO for WordPress 3.0 by Michael David Spaddanici (spelling..). Easy to understand, and technical enough that I learned something when I thought I knew more than enough.

General IM people real general business books. And by IM I mean info product guys.

[Alpha Mind]

(08-23-2012 04:12 PM)ColSpanker Wrote:  

Took the Challenge course a year ago and found it to have some good advice. However, Google doesn't like to be gamed and soon updated their software to make SEO that much harder. I have one blog that ranks at #3 and another which is just starting to rank after a month. My own company website barely pulls a 3, so it's not easy to get all that traffic.

For SEO, focus on branding over keyword anchor texts. YourWebsite.com is way better than "dog walking austin," anchor text wise.

It's still very easy, but you gotta be smart about it. The reason we survived is because we believed in diversity. It's all about looking natural. For anchor text, you cannot go wrong with http://www.yourwebsite.com.

I know dudes in the space who ONLY do that and bank.

[Alpha Mind]

(08-23-2012 04:41 PM)freshcream Wrote:  

(08-23-2012 03:06 PM)alphascout Wrote:  

i noticed most SEO guys are english. Huge opportunities if you speak any language other than english along with english (to have access to the most up to date SEO techniques)., particularly countries with high value currency, like norway.

I speak norwegian... is that an advantage?`

Yes. Learn SEO and you can dominate. I'm willing to bet there are very few legit SEO companies in Norway that do great work. It's work, but it pays VERY well. Def. not passive, but you can travel enough..

[Alpha Mind]

Roosh...I bought your book, and took the upsell (because I like upsells).

And holy fucking shit, I even learned something and it got me laid in LA.

Let's get some kind of IM category/sub-thread going.

[alphascout]

(08-23-2012 04:41 PM)freshcream Wrote:  

(08-23-2012 03:06 PM)alphascout Wrote:  

i noticed most SEO guys are english. Huge opportunities if you speak any language other than english along with english (to have access to the most up to date SEO techniques)., particularly countries with high value currency, like norway.

I speak norwegian... is that an advantage?`

its easy to get great domains for norwegian and other non-english words for keywords that have high exact match and PPC + Click through rate for ads. Also, the competition for these is like butter according to the analysis software.

[Kitsune]

What is your business looking like from an employee/office space etc. point of view?

I ask because I run ecommerce stores but have been asked by various people to do social media/SEO work for them, and I'm looking to go in that direction. However, I want to scale it up because actually doing the SEO is tedious and I'd be better served spending time macromanaging everything.

Do you have employees/an office, or outsource, or do the work manually/automated with software? I'm presuming your company is big enough that you don't do everything.

[WanderingSoul]

Alpha,

Which E-Commerce platform would you recommend? My site will have less than 1,000 products. Probably closer to 100-300. I hear Magento is best, but very slow. Would it be overkill for a site as small as mine?

Which E-Commerce platform is the best for SEO?

Thanks man.

[Alpha Mind]

(08-24-2012 03:06 PM)RioNomad Wrote:  

Alpha,

Which E-Commerce platform would you recommend? My site will have less than 1,000 products. Probably closer to 100-300. I hear Magento is best, but very slow. Would it be overkill for a site as small as mine?

Which E-Commerce platform is the best for SEO?

Thanks man.

BigCommerce. Hands down. Don't waste your time with Magento. BigCommerce is better across the board, and I've used almost everything. Shopify is decent, but they take a percentage of your sales. Go with BigCommerce, you will not be disappointed. Those guys know what they're doing AND they have an app that let's you manage your orders from your phone.

[WanderingSoul]

Thanks man. I've been looking at BigCommerce.

How would you rate them for SEO? The large majority of my traffic will be from organic results. I've done lots of SEO work, but only with Wordpress. So a bit curious about how well E-Commerce platforms rank in comparison.

[Alpha Mind]

(08-24-2012 05:27 PM)RioNomad Wrote:  

Thanks man. I've been looking at BigCommerce.

How would you rate them for SEO? The large majority of my traffic will be from organic results. I've done lots of SEO work, but only with Wordpress. So a bit curious about how well E-Commerce platforms rank in comparison.

It's the best for SEO, hands down. My eCommerce site is all organic and ranks very well innately, because it runs on bigcommerce.

WordPress may still rank better than BigCommerce, but it's not setup to handle a massive amount of products.

[Andy_B]

In my experience, making money in internet marketing is quite realistic and achievable if you're a smart dude.

I'm not exactly an internet marketer myself, mind you, but I'm a copywriter who caters to IM clients, and what I've found is that breaking into the business of providing services to IMers is quite easy. A lot of them make scads of cash every single day and are willing to throw some money your way for writing or design very quickly, after just a few minutes' conversation on Skype.

[travolta]

(08-23-2012 07:27 PM)Alpha Mind Wrote:  

(08-23-2012 12:58 PM)RichieP Wrote:  

Would be cool if we discuss what the work is actually like, for each skillset.

I've done some SEO, for example, and to me its about:

-Researching the search volume and competition for different keywords, analysing and strategically picking the ones that you want to rank your site for (IMO enjoyable)
-On-site optimisation - revamping the link structure so the most profitable pages get the most internal links, getting keywords and tags set up optimally (IMO somewhat OK, not totally mind numbing)
-Link Building - getting links from other websites to point to your pages to boost their rankings (IMO absolutely tedious)

I'd like to know more about PPC and CRO... what is the work actually like?

Personally, I hate PPC. I managed an account spending over 20K per month and it was fucking miserable. CRO is okay if you're a legit designer and know marketing via web design.

I'm an SEO, so I'm a bit jaded, but in my opinion, CRO > PPC, but PPC is total shit without CRO.

Can you elaborate on why you were miserable from managing PPC accounts? I've been doing PPC affiliate marketing for several months now. I'm currently applying for PPC jobs in NYC so I can get more capitol for testing new shit out (if anybody knows anyone in NYC looking for a PPC/SEM guy let me know).

I haven't actually done any SEO, but from what I hear that it's a bit too slow. Correct me if I'm wrong-

SEO- you create website/write content, pray that it makes it onto the first page of Google. If you make it to the first page you'll make a couple hundred bucks a month, but if Google happens to change up the algorithm or something happens, your website gets wiped off the first page and you lose that income source. (but it's really cheap to get going and requires little maintenance once it's up and running).

PPC- you pay for traffic and can get thousands of highly targeted impressions per day (depending on your targeting parameters & budget of course). Takes a substantial chunk of change to get going, but you can quickly make a shitload of money if you know what you're doing (and lose a shitload of money just as easily).

[WanderingSoul]

(08-26-2012 07:09 PM)travolta Wrote:  

Can you elaborate on why you were miserable from managing PPC accounts? I've been doing PPC affiliate marketing for several months now. I'm currently applying for PPC jobs in NYC so I can get more capitol for testing new shit out (if anybody knows anyone in NYC looking for a PPC/SEM guy let me know).

I haven't actually done any SEO, but from what I hear that it's a bit too slow. Correct me if I'm wrong-

SEO- you create website/write content, pray that it makes it onto the first page of Google. If you make it to the first page you'll make a couple hundred bucks a month, but if Google happens to change up the algorithm or something happens, your website gets wiped off the first page and you lose that income source. (but it's really cheap to get going and requires little maintenance once it's up and running).

PPC- you pay for traffic and can get thousands of highly targeted impressions per day (depending on your targeting parameters & budget of course). Takes a substantial chunk of change to get going, but you can quickly make a shitload of money if you know what you're doing (and lose a shitload of money just as easily).

This isn't even close to being correct. My next project is a niche e-commerce site. People ranking in the top 3 for niche terms such as "Pitching Machines", or some other under served niche, can literally make six figures per year.

It all depends on your niche, monetization strategy (e-commerce, affiliate marketing, adsense, etc.), traffic, profit per sale, etc.

Many people ranking on the first page and hoping to make a couple hundred dollars are in the niche adsense game. To be successful there you have to make dozens and dozens of sites. However, some people have made a lot of money doing this. If you have 100 sites averaging even $50 a month, you are doing pretty well. If you have 10 sites averaging $300 a month, you also aint doing too bad. The key is to automate the process and crank out lots of sites. This can be dangerous these days though with Google closing so many accounts. I never went this route.

[Alpha Mind]

SEO > PPC

PPC is a pain in the ass to manage if you're in a serious space. I'm talking about ads for 15K products.

It's a nightmare. I'd rather just pay someone to do it, or use software.

I don't pay to play anymore. SEO is where it's at.

If I rank #2 for a brand (the brand itself usually ranks #1 in retail), I'll make a few grand.

That's the difference between eCommerce and AdSense.

[travolta]

Makes sense. Most of the bad things I've heard about SEO comes from PPC dudes who are doing well. Not that it matters anyway.. money is money. I do plan on getting into SEO, but that will be sometime down the line. If anything, just as a way to diversify my income. A good friend of mine has been killing it with PPC and has been my mentor for the the past several months. As with anything, having great mentors who knows what they're doing is like night and day when it comes to learning this sort of stuff.

[travolta]

(08-27-2012 01:29 AM)Alpha Mind Wrote:  

PPC is a pain in the ass to manage if you're in a serious space. I'm talking about ads for 15K products.

What's the difference if it's a 15K product or a $5 product? If you're using good tracking software (CPVLab, for example), and set everything up properly then why would this be an issue?