Over the years students have asked me: “Professor, am I failing Accounting–or whatever course they were taking? Well now, I find myself in the same boat asking “Am I failing Affiliate Marketing?”

My first clue is that I am not yet making the kind of money I want to be making. Yes, I am working hard at building sites, getting backlinks, and sending traffic to my sites. I think I am following the best SEO tactics. So, why am I not making more money?

Suddenly, I start reading “Are you selling products that don’t sell?” During the past two days, there is a recurring theme that has jumped out at me–Are you selling products that don’t sell?

Here is a quote from Jason Gazaway’s Bloggers Pitfalls and Solutions: “Whatever the case, picking products that don’t sell are recipes for disaster as if others can’t sell them, what makes your blog so different that it can?”

But then, guess what else he said. “However, it should be noted that while choosing the wrong product is bad… choosing too many products is worse.”

Here is the reason he gives for why choosing too many products is worse: “….. your monetization options are going to be ‘stealing’ traffic from each other, as clicking on an advertisement would mean that a visitor probably won’t come back to buy from your affiliate link!”

Oh my gosh, am I guilty of doing these two things–picking the wrong products and choosing too many products? I hate to say it, but it must be true.

I went seeking more information and this is what I learned from Chris Rempel on his Lazy Marketer blog: “It’s WHAT you sell, folks. Not how “hard” you try…”

For me, this was eye opening. I had listened and read so much about how to pick a niche, how to find the best keywords, and how to follow my passion. There have been so many videos on how to select your products in the Clickbank marketplace? Didn’t this lead me to select the best products to sell?

I remember Greg Cesar saying it so well at one of the conferences I went to that you needed to find out where the demand was and go there. He emphasized how important it was to find out what was hot and go there. As Chris Rempel says, you should stand in front of the stampeding herd.

Chris also said this and it really hit home:

“You wanna know what’s sadly ironic?

What’s sadly ironic is that I (or any other experienced affiliate) could build and promote a site in 3 stinkin’ days that will earn more in affiliate commissions this year than most starry-eyed newbies would make even if they went ”full time” online – putting in 40 hours a week building sites, building links, etc.

Why?

Because I know what actually sells, and what kind of traffic to drive.”

Whoa! For me this was heavy! Of course, Chris talks about paying the price and going through his “ignorant years.” I guess that is what I am still doing–going through my ignorant years. Am I tired of it? Yes. Do I want to complete this phase of my learning? Again, yes. Unfortunately, I am still paying the price.

O.K. My journey through this maze of internet marketing information has been full of twists and turns. Sometimes I admit, I heard “how to” tips that were good, but weren’t relevant to me at the time. When I go back and look at videos again and reread ebooks, I do not always come away with the same information to use. There are times when I really get the significance of what is being said and other times it is wasted on me. This is all a part of the learning process.

In the end, I am making progress but I do not mind telling you that I am getting tired of the “ignorant years.” I do think I will be more cautious of selecting products from now on. How about you?

Since beginning the pursuit of riches through Internet Marketing in December, I have spent most of my time feeling lost. There have been many hours spent trying to figure out what to do next or how to do a particular thing. Because I am a good researcher, I would continue to seek the answer until I finally figured it out or stumbled across it. I kept wishing I had a coach that I could just ask a question and receive an answer. But, there just wasn’t anyone close to me that remotely understood what I was even doing.

Once I started down this path, I certainly learned that it was going to be hard work and it wasn’t going to be easy. My first mentor James Martel who wrote the Affiliate Marketing Handbook (you will find the link on the right sidebar) warned that you had to learn to work in isolation and learn to figure things out for yourself. He tried to provide as much information as he could and he wrote an excellent manual that was very detailed and helpful. He also held great bootcamps that answered a lot of questions. Here comes the second “but”–it only went so far. James is an affiliate marketer and did not deal with listbuilding, sales pages, or thank you pages.

When I visited forums, I did not have to look far to find many newbies sharing the same feelings that I had. Soon, I was fortunate to find my way to the Marketing Beginners Forum and Randy the Hermit. Imagine the fact that Randy our guru reads the posts every day and answers every question that anyone asks about Internet Marketing. The other members are also helpful. I wanted to tell everyone about the forum and share my good fortune.

In addition to this good forum, videos were my next salvation. Words alone do not always provide you with the details that you sometimes need. JP Schoeffel has developed a set of videos entitled Videosense that explains in a great deal of detail how to do niche marketing. If you are still wondering how to make money and what you have to do in each step to make it, these videos contain the answer.

Here is the perfect opportunity to help fellow newbies find their way. You probably have a limited amount of money to spend and are tired of buying videos and ebooks that don’t help. Finding your way to the Marketing Beginners Forum and watching the Videosense videos can be the beginning of a successful career. Just don’t forget to say “hi” to me in the forum. The optin at the top right hand corner will also lead you to Marketing Beginners. Please add your name to my list. I look forward to working with you. In case you are wondering, I am well on my way.