Case Study for Making Cash

Everything is still on track to begin the case study, so be on the lookout for part 1 to be released on Monday. You didn’t hear this from me but there is something special in store for our RSS subscribers, so if you haven’t signed up, I would recommend doing so NOW! I just wanted to a take a few minutes and kind of discuss what we will be covering in the case study. I also would like to provide some answers to some of the questions and comments I have been receiving.

First let’s talk about mindset and how it really plays a big factor in your success or failure. Many people think that an online business means you can make money from virtually nothing, that is a misconception.  In this case study we will be using only $100 in marketing expenses.  That does not include the purchasing of a domain name, your hosting account or any other tools needed throughout the process.  And to be completely honest with you $100 is the bare minimum necessary to even begin to test a market. It will merely give you an idea of whether or not this niche has potential or move onto the next one.  You can’t magically turn $100 into $10,000 and definitely not overnight. If you think you can make money without spending money, you are not in the right mindset and unless you change that thinking you will never own a successful business of any type. I highly recommended if you’re just starting out, you need to have some type of a job, whether part-time or full time. You need income coming in to cover your expenses of living and money to spend on marketing.

Here is a list of my all time favorite plugins for WordPress.  Now remember these aren’t just for bloggers.  You can create great non blog realted websites with WordPress.

Anyways, here’s my favorite plugins and a little description of them.  Some of them cost money.  But all of the listed plugins are gold in my book!

1. Akismet – This is standard with all wordpress plugins.  Basically Akismet is a spam protection plugin.  I like it alot because it has already caught some 11,779 spam! Pretty freakin kool if you ask me. Sure saves me time. You have to register with wordpress.org so you can activate the plugin but its definitely worth it.
2. All in One SEO Pack – This is an excellent addition to any blog with a lot of content.  This plugin gives you control over the meta keyword and description tags.  You also have the option of overwriting the default title tag.  Definitely a plugin that every blog HAS to have.
3. Dofollow – It’s always nice to pay back your readers with a nice dofollow link.  The dofollow plugin disables the rel=nofollow attribute in the comments.  Thank you for all of your comments!
4. Bannage – Just what it says… This plugin allows you to ban commentors by IP, username, email or URL.  Unfortunately some people just need to be banned.
5. Gravatar and MyAvatars – Both of these plugins allow for those nifty little images next to your name.  This is great for identification purposes.  I have both installed right now incase someone has one but not the other.

Hello all! I’d like to thank Kris for the introduction in the earlier post. My name is Andrew and I am a 22 year old internet entrepreneur living in the Dallas area. I first come across affiliate marketing about 2 years ago, at first I guess you could say I was a little skeptical that you could make money online but after a few months I put up my first website. A few weeks into it I made my first sale using SEO strategies! Even with the potential I knew it had, I didn’t really have a focus until about August of last year. I was introduced to Pay Per Click marketing through some online videos of a past conference. So I began to read and learn in whatever way possible so that I could try it out. My very first campaign was instantly profitable. Within the first 4 days I had profited over $1,000 and to say the least, I was hooked! Earlier this year I have transitioned to being a full time internet marketer and absolutely love it.

To encourage you and help you understand how it is possible to make a career with an online business let me briefly fill you in on my situation at the time. I moved to Texas when I was 18 and was living on my own, no family and only had a few friends. I began full time college and also had to work full time to be able to cover my living expenses. I was only making about $1,800/month and most of that went to pay bills, so I didn’t have a whole lot left over.  Here I am today, I have downgraded my school and I am a part time student, focusing my attention more on my business endeavors. Do I make 6 figures a month? Not yet, and if I did I probably wouldn’t share that information. Understand that you don’t have to be making $10,000/month to take the plunge and become self employed. We’ll talk more about that later.

So a couple months back I met another PPC marketer here in the DFW (Dallas Fort Worth) area. His name is Andrew. If you see him in any forums he goes by Creatunity.

Andrew started PPC a marketing full time a few months back.  He has been really successful.  He is one of those guys that can get along with anyone.

Anyways, I will let him introduce himself.  Andrew is going to be writing up a case study for us.  Over the next few weeks he is going to show us how he makes money with CPA Networks via PPC.

While he is giving the PPC case study and other PPC information I’ll be free to post about SEO, List Building, Email Marketing, and other related topics.

So keep with us here.  We’ll be giving you some good juice!

The Motive Network is yet another affiliate network on the line.  Now I know you have all see a bunch of affiliate networks out there.  So what is so different about Motive? It’s the interface!

As I’ve mentioned before I have signed up with a lot of CPA networks.  They are like a drug to me.  But Motive has definitely stood out to me as a cut above.  The reason for this?  Their killer interface.  I must say, this is some serious interactive stuff.  I’m going to attach a YouTube vid at the end of this post of their new Advent 2.0 interface so you can see how nice the interaction is once inside.

Motive Interactive was started up in 2003 by Brendan Smith.  Currently they are located in San Diego, CA. Brendan started out working for NetCreations which is an opt-in email marketing company.  They work with large corporations such as MSNBC and CNET. Brendan is also a founding member of The Online Lead Generation Association (OLGA).

Advent 2.0 is pretty advanced for an affiliate platform.  My favorite feature would have to be the simple fact that I can log in and look at a huge graph right in my face that tells me how well I am doing.  The graph they got is from Maani, but it definitely integrates well with the site. Also, once inside you have the option of adding several offers to a quick view.  That means that once your in right under the graph is a list of offers that you are currently promoting and their live stats.  If all affiliate networks integrated this quick view I would be much happier.

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to speak at the Dallas Affiliate Marketers Associate.  There I spoke about focus and getting started.  I wanted to take some time in this post to respond to “Grow Your Own Bamboo”.  (hmmm interesting choice for a name HAHA).

GYOB asked “What do you do to stay focused?”  The answer unfortunately isn’t one I want to tell you.  Why is that?  Because then you wouldn’t read the blog anymore HAHA just kidding.

Focus is a difficult thing to accomplish especially when you are trying to work from home and on the Internet.  Often times we get discouraged because we aren’t making any money online.  The only reason for not making any money is the simple fact that we aren’t focused on getting a job done.

Most if not ALL new Internet marketers experience an inability to focus.

It’s a sad statement but its true and I was one of those people that couldn’t focus when I started online.  So how do you break the cycle and get your butt into gear?

JUST DO IT!

Unfortunately this is one of those easier said then done tasks. When I started online I spent over $5k on junk products and ebook that promised the world to me.

“BUY ME I’LL MAKE YOU RICH!”
“LEARN NOW I MADE 10k IN A DAY”
etc etc etc

You’ve heard those stories and I wouldn’t doubt it if you have fallen into the cycle of buying things from the “Gurus”.  So what got me to stop the cycle?