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Lazy Affiliate Marketers 12 Step Program

The Bum — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 00:06:09 +0000

Hello, My name is The Bum and I’m a Lazy Affiliate Marketer…

We admit we are lazy and have our minds constantly thinking about the quick buck. Our theology is making us poor and living with our mothers.
We have come to believe there is a Power greater than ourselves that can put us in our place. Lets just hope Mom will still make us dinner.
We have made a decision to change our ways, to stop the endless night of e-whoring and other black hat methods that have no future promise.
We have sat down and searched for the reasons we are lazy and have come up with answers besides “waking up at 2pm keeps me refreshed”.
We have admitted aloud that we are lazy and have not done ENOUGH to reach our goals of being a successful Affiliate Marketer.
We are entirely ready to have our mothers pick on us for being lazy and making us realize that these are all defects we can be rid of… by nagging us further.
We humbly ask others for help and actually LISTEN to the answers instead of looking for the shortcut in their answer.
We have made a list of all the things we have done incorrectly over the years and are taking the necessary steps to learn from them as well as fix them.
We have correctly identified and fixed all shortcuts we have taken over the years.
We never stop evaluating and learning about ourselves so that we do not start to fall back into old lazy habits.
We take the necessary trips to the golf course, casino, or bathroom to take a little time away from the computer to really think about what we are doing. Using the time to really be creative without the answer right there in front of you and a few keystrokes away.
We receive our first honest check and realize that these steps have given use a base to start from. Something solid and long lasting that you can build around…..and we also see our mother’s hand out to collect her monthly living fees :-/

I’m pretty sure I am at step 7. Definitely had my mother give me enough “encouragement” to change the way I have been over the last 2 years. Can’t wait to get my first real check so i can give her some cash from it….. ugh

A Real Start…

The Bum — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 21:35:29 +0000

Ok ENOUGH screwing around. The whole point of this blog was to document a money making journey from start to finish. Have I done that? NO… I had the idea, but didn’t have a plan. Which is a good lesson for anyone who is reading this blog right now. All of us have a lot of ideas, god knows I have had a LOT of ideas which I have thought up and left on the back burner. The idea is not nearly enough. We all have ideas, but the only way to make an idea reality is to sit and plan out all the proper steps to complete your goal.

I’ve just blown your mind with inspiration right? No? Well I am going to try a little harder. I was working at a job I didn’t like much and finally got away from it. Now, I find myself in a unique situation where I have a little freedom to take a little time and get things rolling for myself. I have some time, but not a lot of it and need to make sure that I use it wisely. See if I can’t figure out a way to make some money on my own, then I will have to go and find a job that I really don’t like…again lol.

I spent the last week reading and came across a few helpful articles. One article I read in BlackHatWorld.com was extremely helpful to me because it mapped out a plan over the course of 2 months and answered a lot of questions people had about the plan he was attempting ( READ HERE ). He is a guy who already knows what he can do and knows what it would take to achieve his goal. Over the last couple weeks he has answered questions that other forum members asked and has given updates on his results. Seeing his plan got me to think about this whole idea that I have tried to get across to all you readers. This is a guy who is running a side project just to see how it goes. He isn’t doing this to make a living, so I know its not out of desperation. He knows what it takes to get going on the internet on his own. So, over the next few weeks I am going to follow his lead where I actually DO and not just talk. I promise you all that I am going to have a FEW different things going on over the next couple weeks and we are all going to experience them together. Stay Tuned

It’s Coming Back To Me Now!

The Bum — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 10:59:14 +0000

Ive let my readers down. I gave up and I went on to more boring and lesser profitable ventures. Yea that’s right, I GOT A JOB… Yea one of those real things where they pay you a salary and you work a certain amount of hours during a specific part of the day. It’s been about 3 months now and I can honestly say…. I MISS YOU GUYS. Yea I can’t give this up and I promise you all that there will be more to come on this website from me. I have not made enough money to call the journey a success yet, but I am learning a little something about how business should and shouldn’t be handled. At the moment I am an Internet Marketing Consultant / Salesman. Mainly helping local businesses improve their visibility over the internet. I love talking to the people about what I know and why it is important for their businesses, but the sales part of it (hardcore cold-calling) is just a pain in my ass. Everyday calling people and having them listen to me talk and telling me they are not interested after letting me speak for 10 minutes. Shoot me. A good day is when I get to go to a clients place and break it down. Talking websites and marking makes me a happy boy.

So what brought me back? Well 2 things really got me back into the marketing mood. First, the incredible amount of readers who have signed up to my blog over the passed 7 months. Seems like every day I am getting a new member to the site which makes me feel like a real ass since I have done nothing to earn it for the past few months. Second, I am looking for something else to do to make money. I’m not active on the net with the job I have now. I want to be the one designing or blogging. All I do is talk and I know I didn’t get into this to talk for a living. I belong on the computer and not the phone. This is why I am going to do my absolute best to bring you more and more content every week. I have some plans in the next few weeks where I will be doing some PPV advertising so that will be great and I’ll make sure to share everything I think will help.

I cant write a blog and not share something with you, so I am going to give you a helpful link that I found tonight. I was looking at some jobs that were out there and I submitted a few resumes to SEO Expert listings. I know I have done a lot with SEO in my life, but what is considered an “Expert”. Well in my search for this answer, I looked up some tips pages where I could kind of brush up on the basics since I have been out of the game for a little bit. I came up on this one site with 54 tips. I wanted to share it because I went to about 4 other websites previous and all of them gave me 10 tips and pay for the other 47. Don’t you just love it. Thank god I haven’t been out of the game too long and know to KEEP SEARCHING. I did so and found this http://www.searchenginejournal.com . Take a look if you are kind of unsure about how SEO works. This will help you A LOT with PPC campaigns and relevancy. A lot of it is pretty standard stuff and if you are well versed in SEO then you can skip it, but it was a nice little refresher for me.

ALSO!!!

Seriously take a look… amazing read.

A Good Read for My Readers

The Bum — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 14:51:25 +0000

So a man by the name of Josh Todd did all of his readers a big favor and wrote this PPV guide. Since this whole journey is about be learning and starting from the basics, I thought this would be a nice read for me. Turns out that this was the most useful thing I have read online about affiliate marketing that was free. Please understand, I say this knowing that what he is talking about is for the beginner looking to start with no basic grasp on PPV advertising. I have very little experience with PPV and I feel like I got a lot out of the targeting and bidding sections of this pdf. He explains in the introduction that you cant make millions from this alone. He simply wrote this to give you a platform to think for yourself and become an innovator. I really did get that feeling when i was reading this book. As i went through the steps, my mind was thinking of the twists and that was exactly what he meant for this to do.

Like I said, this is a free pdf. All you have to do is give your name and email address and the site will send you an activation link, then an e-mail with the pdf link. I would just directly link you to the pdf, but He did a lot of work and should get some credit for it. I hope you guys benefit from it like I think I will. I am going to set up some campaigns later today, so watch out for a V-Log later for an update.

Insideaffiliate.net – PPV 101 – Everything You Need By: Josh Todd

Finally… Some Potential – CPALead.com

The Bum — Wed, 12 May 2010 11:11:50 +0000

Well it has been a while since I have written about something you can actually use and make money with. I been mainly just complaining and blabbing about lessons learned. Don’t get me wrong, i believe everything I have told you so far has needed to be said. Not only for you own good, but also for me personally because its important for me to have the reminder.

Something I found to work and actually make a little cash with are gateways. For those of you who don’t know what gateways are I’ll tell you. A gateway is basically a form of CPA advertising that floats over website content. In order to view the content on the page, you must fill out a CPA lead. Once this has been completed then the user is allowed to view the content behind the gateway.

I signed up to CPALead.com a few months ago, but really didn’t mess with it too much. When I did mess with it, I honestly didn’t use it correctly. The funny thing about all that is that I knew how to use it correctly, I just didn’t realize I had the right tools to make it profitable to me. The important thing to remember when you use a gateway type of ad is to put it over content that the users want to see. Quality content is key. I first tried to put it over “sexy” videos, but this turned out to be pointless because you can go anywhere for those kinds of videos. People don’t want to sit there and waste their time by filling out a survey to watch a 2 minute video. When that failed for me I kind of put the gateway thing off to the side and went with other ideas. I totally forgot that I owned a website with original content that got about 500 views a day. I was the only person with this content and If they didn’t fill out my lead then they would not be able to use the content I provide for them. This is a key factor in my recent success. Now I am not telling you that I’m now making good money, but I am telling you that if you have a website with quality content then you might want to check this form of advertising out. I was actually pretty happy with the conversions I have been seeing over the last couple days and am currently looking for more ways to take advantage of this.

I read some stuff online and they did give a method that kind of ran with this same idea. Personally I am not going to run it myself, but I am going to try to expand on it somehow. Basically you make a WordPress website with the theme of TV shows. You want to find embed codes of television shows that are popular at the current time. Try to send some traffic to it via link exchange, SEO, or paid traffic. Hopefully you can get enough quality traffic that wouldn’t mind filling out CPA leads in order to view different TV shows on your website. Put the gateway over your websites content and hope for the best. Its a fairly simple method and may or may not work. I suggest you get good quality shows and update daily. The more legit it seems then the better conversion you will receive. This form of advertising depends completely on quality content. If you can find a way to get quality contnet then you will make a killing with gateways.

Join Under Me At CPALead.com

My Realization… Batter Up!

The Bum — Sun, 02 May 2010 12:37:45 +0000

I been really bored the last few weeks. I mean the kind of bored where you find yourself talking to people you don’t even like to talk to just because they are the only people online at the time. I hope you know what I am talking about and it is not a feeling the The Bum is privy to.

I been up and thinking about why I am still trying so hard to make it big on my own. I have about $100 bucks to my name at the moment and big things look like they are on the horizon. Yea I said big things, but how big? I don’t know to be honest. I personally don’t even know if It will turn into anything big at all. That’s the thing though. I have heard myself say that sort of thing before and then nothing came of it. Things that I thought i planned out perfectly and had all intentions of going through with, but just never had pan out the way I thought they would. So, why is it that I am continuing to do this to myself when I know that in 2 months I will have to find a real job and become a working adult? Well I am a little crazy for one thing. Besides a little bit of lunacy, I think I am conditioned better than others for this type of disappointment. I played baseball for 17 years of my life and if there is anything baseball players are exceptional at is failing. Who do you know is happy with succeeding 30% of the time. We feel one day and we get back up the next and try again. I think that’s why I know I am right for this field of work. Affiliate marketing is exactly like baseball. First of all, it takes a lot of practice and attention to detail to be successful. Secondly, You will never bat 1.000. You will fail a lot trying new stances and new techniques, but when it all comes together you will be able to see the ball coming at you like a huge watermelon. I have failed so fair in my journey to becoming a self made marketing superstar. My coach has sat me on the pine, but I know that my time is better spent thinking about the next adjustment I need to make rather than picking splinters out of my ass and feeling sorry for myself. All it takes is one idea and one solid method to get back into the lineup. Find that grove… get into that zone… and see a watermelon sized wad of cash flying towards your wallet.

I guess the lesson here is to figure out if you can handle the stress and the failure. It can last for a week or years, but you will get to a point where everything comes together and you just click. It’s all green from there baby!!

Happy Easter!!

The Bum — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 14:08:21 +0000

OK so For Easter I thought I’d give you all a little money making advice. This is not really an online marketing solution, so you will have to walk out into the sunlight this one time. First thing you have to do is drive around and scout places that seem to be hosting Easter Egg Hunts for children. I would suggest parks and churches for the best and biggest Egg Hunts. Once you have scouted them out a little bit, pick one out and try to blend into the crowd a little bit. Yep this means you will be around PEOPLE and you have to do your best not to come off as a pedophile or else this method is pointless. Start helping some of the children find the tougher eggs. Now here is the trick… Once you find an egg, DON’T GIVE IT AWAY JUST YET. Look around and point the child in the opposite direction in order to be alone for a minute. Pocket the egg and it’s contents. Repeat these steps about 10-15 times and you should come out with some gas money. Either that or you come out with some good chocolate to shove down your throat while you sit in front of the computer tricking horny guys into filling out E-Mail submits all night. WHAT!? I’m the only one???

HAHA Hope you enjoyed… Happy Easter Everyone!

To Be or Not To Be…Legit?

The Bum — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 10:17:26 +0000

     I have a dilemma. I might be afraid of making money. I said MIGHT BE. It is either that or my pride is getting in the way of earning an income with CPA marketing. In my case, I have been trying to start legit and by the book in order to make a nice steady income, but the truth of the matter is that its tough as hell to do that when you have no cash to back up your mistakes. Coming to the realization that my lack of funds is ultimately causing me to be scared to test the market, I ask myself I should start smaller and cheesier. In order to make a few bucks now, should I go and try E-Whoring or run Craigslist Job scams? This questions has been nagging at me for some time now and I feel like my pride is basically the only reason why I haven’t been subjecting myself to a less than respectable means of making money.

     First I would like to describe my thoughts on why it is so difficult to remain honest with no money to back it up. Real marketing consists of tests, research, leads, and statistics. You have to be able to use all the information given to you and put it to use for you in such a way that would give you the best opportunity to make a little profit. testing takes money and time. If you believe what they say then time also equals money so you are just getting hit twice there too. You may have a flawless method that has a lot of potential to make you money, but if you don’t put it to use in the right niche then you are screwed! Takes time to fine out what niche will serve your method the best and time is expensive. Now I feel that knowledge is a use factor in this time equals money formula. The more knowledge you have about marketing then the less mistakes you will ultimately make in the long run. Less mistakes equals less time spent looking for the right formula to make money. I kinda like to think of this like how I was in high school knowing I had pretty good grades so a good SAT score wasn’t as important to me as it was to a person with sub-par grades. Knowledge and money kind of counter balance each other. More knowledge you have less cash you need and vice versa. I fall in the category of needing a little cash to get something going.

     Now that I have identified myself in the “need cash” category, I have to make a choice. Do I stay legit and struggle or do I make a sacrifice and go after horny people for a living? It’s a good questions right? well maybe its not. Maybe there is something I am missing in all of this. Well there is. What is blackhat? My definition of blackhat may be different from yours and I may be lumping a lot of things into one category. Think about it when you read these blogs from “superstar” marketers. You think they are blackhat guys? Do you think they are totally legit? HELL NO! These guys are for the most part fallowing the rules, but they are stretching the rules as far as they can without getting caught. Some people like to call this grayhat marketing. Over the past year I have come to the realization that nothing is really as nice and clean as it seams. There are always little loopholes that people use in order to take advantage. This is where I need to be. There is a line between fraud and legit. Luckily that line is really thick and isn’t straight because different companies and different people have conflicting views on where the line is drawn. Most affiliate networks will look the other way as long as you are bring them some cash. If the advertiser comes to the network then there may be some disiplinary action, but until then you can get away with the little stuff that may give you a nice edge.

     You might have just read this and thought,” Is he done yet?” or “If you knew this was the case, how come you wrote about it?”. The simple answer to that question is this. We read the success stories about people making five grand a day and they think one of 2 things. Either the guy is cheating his ass off or he is a genius with a great network of methods. Truth is that most of these guys are no smarter than you or me. They just grew a pair and took the extra step. They learned the rules and figured out how they could be skewed in such a manor that would help their cause. Anything wrong with that? not at all. You aren’t sitting there talking to half naked 50 year old men trying to get them to fill out leads all day and you are not stealing from innocent people. Simply using the system to your advantage and raking in a little extra cash.

     So, I guess the question has changed. To be or not to be…legit? No… more like, when you gonna get off your ass and just do it?

Welcome Back Bum : V-Blog #6

The Bum — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 22:48:23 +0000

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auGxky799cA

Easy Tweety No No : V-Blog #4

The Bum — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 02:02:54 +0000

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkPJGUguJDA

Here is a little video getting you caught up with the things I am working on right now. AdWords giving me headaches, Adcenter making me pull my hair out, and I refuse to say anything bad about Twitter anymore.