Information Overload, Confession Of A Reader…

It’s flattering when you meet up with someone who reads your blog and your emails.

And a few days ago, I got an email from Aadile who is from Mauritius, here in Malaysia on a vacation. I thought I’d meet up with him for chat. So this morning, I went to the apartment (owned by his tycoon businessman uncle) where Aadile and his family are staying and we really had a good chat.

It turns out, Aadile just started reading up on Internet marketing since last April … wait, that’s almost a year. Anyway, he has spent a serious amount of money. Close to $5000 USD, all on ebooks, software and a bunch of other things.

But he confessed, he’s at a stage where you call information overload. This is where you are overwhelmed with all the things that you can do online that you don’t know what to do.

Well, my advice to him is just to do it.

When talking with people, my advice has always been this. If you have money, you can wait and sustain for the check to clear into your bank (plus, if you are outside USA, it’ll take a while for the check to clear), you can go with PPC as your main strategy. At least with PPC, you can start to see fast results.

What you do with PPC? I am not really good at this. But I’ve seen friends do it successfully. But when it comes to actually doing it, I don’t think I can give you advice. But in general, if you want a plan, start by promoting affiliate programs. You can do this with a landing page or direct traffic to the merchant. Just do what is best for the affiliate program that you are promoting. If you feel the product requires more convincing, you may want to consider a landing page before sending traffic to the merchant.

And the plan does not stop there. When you found a really good product to promote, what you do is create a similar product of your own. You know that product sells well. You already have a winning PPC campaign. All you need to do is create your own product and put up own website.

Let’s take a look at what happens when you do that…

If you are promoting an affiliate program which pays 50% commission and selling the product at $50, you make $25 per sale. If you spend $10 to make one sale, you profit $15. Imagine if all factors remain the same but this time you have your own product. The product sells for $50. There’s no affiliate cut. You spend $10 on PPC to get a single sale. You profit would be $40. More than double the increase.

Alright… that is if you have the money… What if you have limited funds to invest on?

Well, then you need to build your list first. Get an autoresponder and build a squeeze page. Create a free report to giveaway. Now, start writing articles and get it distributed to article directories.

OK, here’s my strategy when it comes to article marketing. You see, a lot of people do article marketing just for the sake of getting traffic. They write the minimum 400 word requirement and target too much of the keywords.

But the truth is, articles like that don’t really help people much. Why can’t you write something really good. Something worthwhile reading. You still target for the keywords, but this time try writing something around 800 to 1000 words. Articles like that normally are worth reading. Plus you can really “teach” something with those kind of words in your article.

Plus, when you write good article like that, that really provides value and good information, your chance of getting it featured in top websites are a lot better. Imagine getting featured in websites like SitePoint? Can you imagine the traffic you can get? One time I was featured on Shelley Lowery Web-Source.net and the traffic … Wow!

Now, what do you do to get money?

Start by promoting affiliate programs. And later, when you feel that your readers will take it, you can create your own product.

Wow… this has been long. Anyway, what I am rambling here is exactly what I shared with Aadile. I do hope you benefit from this too…

Aadile, it was nice meeting you. In the photo, from the left, Kidino, Aadile, Sahla (daughter), Zakiyya (wife). Sahla got cranky and shy because she missed her nap time. I understand. Iman behaves the same way.