The Warrior Forum

Free Stuff Friday is proud to present one of the best internet marketing forums around. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you may even learn something! Check out the main internet marketing discussion to post your general questions, or move into the rarified territory of the Adsense/PPC/SEO forum.

Once you’ve got a handle on the basics, you can join the exclusive Warrior War Room for expert tricks and advice, or check out the deals in the Warrior Special Offers section. Either way, you should be well on your way to an exciting time in the world of internet marketing!

PLRPro Review – The Old

I first joined PLRPro back in July of 2008, at that time the new Project Green Button,  (PGB), was being hyped to arrive within about 60 days and I wanted to get in on the ground floor and take advantage of what was to be a superb tool for online affiliate marketing. Unfortunately, that dream never turned into a reality.  Fast forward to today and PGB is basically an epic failure, not only was it never fully completed in all of this time, but it was amazingly buggy throughout its creation – and what really irritated me was that it took over a year to get to where it’s at today and not the two months it was supposed to take, (and that was a lot more money!).

Also, I’ve not been very impressed with the quality of the PLR articles themselves.  They are obviously written by non-English speaking people and they are full of “fluff” and keyword stuffing.  That being said, the keyword research they give you is good, the articles also come in multiple languages, and the header graphics are very professional looking and they give you the .psd as well.  And let’s not forget that at the price they charge you are getting what you pay for.

If you’d like to check out the quality of their PLR articles for yourself; you can get free PLR articles from PLRPro by signing up for a free account at Free PLR Articles

Their Article Marketing Automation (AMA) started out well, but a month or so into it they changed the way it worked and the categories didn’t map out into the niches very well and now my AMA blogs receive too many unrelated articles to them.  I’ve yet to submit an article to AMA, so I can’t speak to the quality/quantity of traffic and/or backlinks it generates.

The forum is a dead zone.  Seriously, a dead zone.

With all that being said, I’m still a member of PLRPro today and I bet you are wondering why.  Well first off, let me say that I believe in Daniel and Marc, they obviously care about their business and their business is to help you make money online.  EVERY time I have sent an email to them they have replied personally.  How many online marketing gurus answer their own email?  How many of them are willing to apologize to their membership when they make a mistake?  These guys are the real deal.

Secondly, and this is embarrassing to say, but I have not actually followed their system.  Seriously, I’ve been a member for 14 months and NEVER used one of their PLRPro packs to make a website.  How stupid is that?  How can I really even review a program that I’ve never taken advantage of?  Well since I can’t give a true review without actually trying the PLRPro sytem, my next couple of months will be spent working on PLRPro Case Studies.  I’ll create two sites using the old PLRPro method, two sites using the new PLRPro method, two sites using the PLR articles as is, (no rewriting at all – adsense only), and also measure the traffic and backlinks that I receive from utilizing the AMA system.

It’s quite possible that I’m sitting on a gold mine.  =)

Also, I should point out that PLRPro is completely revamping the way they do things.  The PLR articles will now be separate from the Article Marketing System which will also be separate from the training they give you.  Of course those of us that are long-time members will continue to receive all three items and over time I will review the new PLRPro system as it becomes available.

Don’t forget that you can try free PLR articles from PLRPro by signing up for a free account at Free PLR Articles.

You can also use AMA for your own blogs for free by signing up for a free AMA account at http://www.articlemarketingautomation.com/register (not an affiliate link).

Keep checking back here or subscribe to the full RSS feed to find out more about PLRPro as the reviews become available.

The Thirty Day Challenge

Today I’d like to tell you about the best internet marketing course in the world!  It’s called the Thirty Day Challenge.  What makes it the best?  Well, it’s comprehensive, meaning it takes you from zero to hero and teaches you everything you need to know about the basics of affiliate marketing – and it’s free!  Talk about bang for your buck!  Along the way you’ll receive trial versions of Market Samurai and Wordpress Direct that can be upgraded to their full versions at a special price.  The forum is filled with helpful people who try to answer your questions, and the training is simply top notch.  Not only will you learn a ton, but you’ll have fun doing it.  =)

So give them a try!  Sign up for your free account at http://thirtydaychallenge.com/

And leave me a comment if you liked it, (or even if you didn’t).

What is Affiliate Marketing?

Let’s say that you are a complete affiliate marketing newbie.  Naturally, your first question is just what the heck is this thing called affiliate marketing?  And how exactly am I supposed to make money from it?  Well, the answer is surprisingly simple.  Affiliate marketing = sales.  That’s right, you’re a glorified salesperson.  Well, glorified if you make the big bucks that is.  =)

However, this isn’t face-to-face sales like a used car salesman, (unless you are doing video I suppose), affiliate marketing is all about pre-selling the customer and adding value to the transaction.  You see, there are plenty of companies out there with products who need those products sold, and there are plenty of people out there that want to buy those products; affiliate marketers are the middlemen in between who get the two together.  When you do this, you collect a certain percentage of the profit as your reward!

To find these interested consumers, you might set up a review site, a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign, a niche site that collects emails (opt-in), a Squidoo lens, a wordpress blog, or any number of other ways.  Once the prospective customer gets to your website/landing page, you need to let them know why the product is so great that they can’t pass it up, and give them an affiliate link to buy the product. When the customer clicks on your affiliate link, a cookie is placed on their machine.  This cookie allows the merchant to track which affiliate is responsible for bringing in that particular customer.  The prospective customer is sent to the merchant’s site and after buying the product, the affiliate is credited with the sale.  That’s how you get paid!

Of course, it all sounds simple on paper but the reality is a little tougher.  The affiliate newbie has plenty of concerns: how to get targeted traffic, finding the right niche, keyword research, tracking conversions, and many more.  Keep checking back as I will cover these and other issues in future blog posts.

How I got started in Affiliate Marketing

Ancient History

Back in 2003 I had been looking to purchase real estate as my “path to riches”, but instead wound up buying my own personal home.  As happy as I was in having my own house, the payments, (and the rest of my bills), kept me from being able to buy anything more.  Knowing that one house wasn’t going to make me rich I knew I needed some other way of getting rich.  Enter Google Cash, PPC, and the whole “make money online” field.  This seemed like the perfect idea!  Spend a little money, make lots of money, and all from the comfort of my own home!  What could go wrong?  Well, after a couple failed PPC campaigns I lost interest and simply continued plugging away at my J.O.B. Around 2006 I tried again, this time I thought I’d “flip” websites and domain names.  Well, everything I bought I kept!  Hard to make money when you don’t want to sell lol.  Next up was BANS, (Build a Niche Store), I made a couple stores, sold a few things, and lost interest with that when I realized how much content writing was involved.  In the meantime, I sold my web skills to a few friends, made some cash, bought memberships, (PLRPro), joined the Thirty Day Challenge, (awesome!), read a ton of ebooks and forums, and basically puttered along like so many wannabe affiliate marketers do.

Where am I today?
I have one regular client that I host their site and make a little money on doing changes for them, 2 BANS stores, 2 adsense only sites, and about 50 domain names waiting to have sites built on them.  If it wasn’t for my PLRPro membership I’d probably break even or make a pofit, but only because of all the web work I do on the side.  Which unfortunately, is basically just another J.O.B. and not the “hands-free income stream” I was hoping for.

Why am I writing this blog?
It’s simple really. Within these pages I plan on amassing the sum total of all affiliate knowledge so that I become enormously wealthy and terribly difficult to get along with because I’m so damn rich!  Mwahahahaha!

Well maybe not.  =)  I’d be more than happy with the “skills to pay the bills” as the internet marketing god Shoemoney puts it.  I’m tired of the day-to-day 7:30am-6:30pm grind, (counting commute time) and I want my freedom back!  In order to do this I need your help to stay focused.  As I chronicle my journey from Affiliate Noob to Affiliate Rockstar, the comments that people leave, and their expectations of hearing how things are going will give me some much needed motivation to keep writing and keep trying.  Also, the Internet Marketing/Affiliate Marketing world is crazy, it’s constantly changing and there’s so much hype and B.S. to wade through.  It’s hard for the noob to know where to start, who to trust, or what tools are really worth using.  I plan on helping out by giving honest reviews, real case studies, and links to resources that I feel are worth knowing about.  Eventually this blog will help me organize my thoughts to the point where I can make a free ebook that breaks down everything the Affiliate Noob needs to know to get started and does so in an easy and friendly manner.

In other words, I’m going to do my best to provide value to anyone reading this blog, and in turn your questions will motivate me to keep going, and that motivation will be crucial to my success.  We both help each other – it’s a win-win situation.  =)