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$500 to invest in online marketing - Is Adwords a good idea?

41plus41
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$500 to invest in online marketing - Is Adwords a good idea?

I have $500 to invest in online marketing, and heres my deal: Im a full-time Engineering student, and I have a part-time job, so I have very limited time. I have little to no knowledge of making websites, doing blogs/articles online, etc., so I would really like to make a consistent income doing Adwords only. Is this possible/practical? I dont really need the money right away, so time is not an issue, but is it possible to do well with Adwords alone? Im extremely motivated, and I have done extensive research on PPC advertising. I feel confused, overwhelmed and scared about the whole thing right now, and I just need some advice/motivation from the wise people at Affilorama (that's you!! :D) as to whether or not its a good decision to start spending my money if Adwords will be my only source of income online. Any help would be greatly appreciated!! Thanks...
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chatyak86
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Man if you are not sure what to do with the money you can ALWAYS send me some. It's good you are excited to get into it but never rush your first adwords campaign or you will blow your money. Take things slow.... in this business only bad things happen fast.
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41plus41
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Yeah, I didn't mean to sound like that...My total daily budget is set at $5 right now, so I'm not going too fast. I just want to hear some success stories from people that have done well only implementing Adwords. Thanks for your advice, Adrian. Those were wise words, and I appreciate them...
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papabear
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41plus41,

Have you wathced Mark's videos on Adwords yet? That would be a great place to start.
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markling
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If all you have is $500, then adwords is probably going to be too much of a gamble for you, as it is easy to burn a bit of money at the start while you are figuring out which keywords are profitable and which are not.

Also, it is easy to burn too much money on adwords early on when you are not good at making optimal landing pages that convert well.

I suggest following the 90 day plan. You can use that $500 in order to get some stuff done for you, such as article creation.

regards,
Mark
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41plus41
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Yes, I have watched all of the videos. I have already gotten two small paychecks from adwords alone, so I know a little bit about it. The problem is I don't know how to make my own landing pages/domain names, etc. I just want to promote other people's products, and direct customers to their professional websites that I know convert well. I'm sure when I have more time I could learn how to do more, but is it really not worth it to take all of the advice from the videos, and just do Adwords? I'm sorry I have asked so many times, but I am looking for motivation and help here, and everyone has shot me down so far...If it's not possible, then I have to give up completely for now, and that's not my style. Thanks for your advice guys...
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chatyak86
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You did not get shot down. You were given advice on how to best use your money at this given point in time.

All the best,
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markling
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I never said use adsense. That is one strategy, but it is usually better to affiliate to products related to your website and earn a commission.

Adsense is fantastic for business to business and no how-to websites where appropriate affiliate programs may not exist or pay out very well (eg chemical manufacturing, physical product markets, acting schools websites, etc)

regards,
Mark

ps who is shooting you down?
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markling
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Sorry I might have misread what you said. I was thinking adsense, not adwords.

Adwords are great, if you have the money to allow for it.

Right now you don't, so you need to create money out of nothing, whereby you need to do it by creating a free content website and doing it that way. What sites do you have right now? You said you are already making money from adsense, perhaps they can be monetised better with affiliate programs?

You can try adwords, but I'm worried that with only a $500 budget, you may invest in the wrong keywords etc and end up losing out. You can easily burn a bit of cash while discovering profitable keywords with adwords, that's all.

regards,
Mark

p.s. I'm also adding new seo videos in the coming month from my interview with charles heflin from seo2020 (plus a document that goes with it). That will help you even more with things.
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41plus41
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Cool, that makes more sense! I don't have any websites now, but I'm going to look more into online article writing, and forum posting to try and earn some money to up my budget for Adwords. I would like to get to a point when I can focus primarily on Adwords, though. Do you have a suggestion for an amount I should save up? I know there are many variables, but even if I have to "master" one site at a time, and take it very slow, that's fine. I appreciate the help guys. I feel much better about things now... :D
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sean06
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Engineering student, part time job, I know exactly how you feel :)

What sort of eng are you studying?

Forum posting and articles is a good way to start promoting your sites. Just get stuck in!

Adwords is great, but there are plenty of other ways to generate traffic, which can be even better if youre starting from scratch. Hopefully Mark can give you a better idea of how much you should be spending on Adwords.

Cheers.
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4ubest
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You are NOT in the position to spend money on Adwords unless you want to see how fast you can burn through your $500. When I read your first post I was not really thinking you understood what adwords were about and the second thought was "How can he make money with Adwords as it is the direct opposite of Adsense?"

I would really suggest you follow what Mark has already said and start generating some money for if you spend money on advertising with Adwords, what exactly do you plan on advertising?

Long story short, Adwords is not something you want to spend your only funds on learning especially when you have no product/service that you want to send your adword referrals to.


Peakperformance Ken

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marclindsay
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If I had $500 today and nothing else this is what I would do.

Do some keyword research first using free tools on the net (a little searching in google will give you a good base) but if you really want to make the most out of it.

Sign up at themezoom.com for 1 week (costs $35) and get every possible keyword for your chosen niche.

This can also be used for finding a viable niche for you to go into. Obviously you will need to judge your niche for profitibility, products you can promote how hard is it etc etc.

Get some hosting with your favorite host and purchase a domain name.

You can get a basic shared account with hostgator for $6.95 per month.

Go over the video's in your affilorama membership if you havent allready, and take note of the SEO video's you will need them later.

Also download Brad Callens free guide on SEO at http://www.searchengineoptimizationmadeeasy.com

If you want to (and I highly reccomend it) go over to http://www.seo2020.com and purchase "The Master Plan" I have just been reading it and have gained some excellent tips from that one. Was very pleasantly suprised.

Splork from this forum and also ours has done an excellent write up on it, check it out at his site.

(broken link removed)

Go into rentacoder and find a quality writer who will write articles for you for $4 per article. You can find them just be very specific about what you request for.

Okay so lets add up the costs here.

ThemeZoom.com $35
Domain and Hosting $85
The Master Plan $97
Content $254 (equates to 63 articles)
LinkMarket Year Membership $29

I presume that you are allready a lifetime member of affilorama for this also.

Also I know you can get good articles written for $3 per article too so depends on the price, but you mainly want to get the best quality you can for that price range.

Now with everything above, Marks advice and this forum.

If you cant get that site making you at least $10 per day in adsense and affiliate commission combined.

Then you are really doing something wrong.

I am not saying that it would happen overnight. I would expect more like at least 3 months to be really cranking, presuming you know what you are doing.

But yeah it would work well. And depending on the niche extremely well.

So I would expect a site like that could do between 300 and 1500 a month, maybe even more but like I said all depends on the niche and how much SEO you do with it and how much traffic you get to the site.

Also how sticky or viral you have it.

But that is what I would do.

Regards
Marc
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[url=http://www.plrpro.com:390dgv68]PLRpro.com - Where content meets quality - 440 articles per month limited to 200 people per group.[/url:390dgv68]
 
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markling
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Sounds like a good plan Marc.

I'd like to add that I recommend that people start with $10-15000 on adsense if they are learning. Or if you have done a lot of study and hit the ground running, then $3-4000 could be a good start.

But even then, seo is probably best for such a small investment as it will help you more in the long run.

Also with regards to Marc's articles, it's not that easy to find good sources of $4 articles. Personally I get most of my articles written in house these days (not all, but a lot) and they wind up costing about $25-50 an article, but they are very good.

Ones I outsource to elance, etc, usually cost $9-15 an article, I've had trouble finding good cheap article writers to outsource too as in my experience they are always not the kinds of articles that I feel visitors would actually want to read (or I discover that they have been plageurised, or the english is bad). That's not to say they wouldn't make money, I just like to create "sticky" websites that will also pass a human review if it ever comes to it in the future. What say you on that one Marc?

regards,
Mark
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marclindsay
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With a budget of $500 its not really viable but you allready know that :)

But yes would 110% concur with you as far as price goes, if you want quality you have to pay for it.

And it is certainly a good idea for when you have your sites setup and earning you some sort of stable income.

Regards
Marc
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themezoom
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Hi,

If I only had 500 dollars I would do keyword research by hand and not bother with Theme Zoom since you will not develop the skillsets you need in one week. (That price is going up profoundly due to demnd and the shortest time will be a 2 week price). It takes at least 60 to 90 days to understand the business-to-web infrastructure at a high level. This is why Mark calls it a 90 day plan. ; - )

My suggestion is to to take at least ONE seminar in REAL LIFE, with Mark Ling or another instructor. Save that 500 bucks towards an educational process that is equally as demanding and perhaps even more lucrative than your engineering degree. ; - )

Respectfully,

Russell Wright of Theme Zoom
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4ubest
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Is that there really is no way for someone to start with virtually no money even though they have a desire and strong worth ethic.

The numbers that you are quoting to do these things are out of the reach of most of the people that I know and planned on introducing to Affilorama so that they could get a start on the internet.

Am I mistaken in understanding that such large amounts are required or am I somehow comparing kites to kiwis ?

Thank you guys,

Peakperformance Ken
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chatyak86
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4ubest wrote:Is that there really is no way for someone to start with virtually no money even though they have a desire and strong worth ethic.

The numbers that you are quoting to do these things are out of the reach of most of the people that I know and planned on introducing to Affilorama so that they could get a start on the internet.

Am I mistaken in understanding that such large amounts are required or am I somehow comparing kites to kiwis ?

Thank you guys,

Peakperformance Ken


You can start with no money. It's what I do. I built and wrote all of the information on my sites. Sure you'll need some money to set up hosting etc... but just take your time. Money only speeds things up.

Adrian,
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sean06
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Yep, if you dont have any money, it just means you have to do everything yourself. Its going to take a little while longer to get off the ground, but that shouldnt matter once things get moving.
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