1 Year, Made about $350

[83camaro]

I'm beginning to think affiliate marketing is just a big scam. Been working on things for about 1 year and have only made about $350 dollars from adsense. Well, I did make like 2 affiliate sales. The markets are completely flooded. Theres not 1 topic you can make a website about where your not gonna be in heavy competition. Well, maybe "barbecue steak grill in ohio" might get some visitors

I'm quite frusted, so my apologies for my negative attitude. Here are some of my websites. These have not been promoted too much and some may not even be listed in the engines yet, but it will give you an indication of what I'm doing.

http://www.cyberserious.info/
http://www.home-interior-lighting.info
http://www.college-dorm-decorating.info
http://www.cheapwebsolutions.info/
http://www.knee-pain-treatments.info
http://www.inapex.info/

Some of the links dont work and some could really use a renovation.

But, what does it look like I'm missing here. I mean, they are small sites because, no matter what I do, I can't make sales!! So why bother putting time into them.

Just a never ending circle of failure. Just so frustrating when I see people saying they are making $250 a day and I loose about $3.00 a day (after domain costs, hosting).

All in all I have about 55 of the sites like above. I really want to start making money through amazon or some sort of affiliate. As this is my only source of income and I have bills to pay.

Man, what am I missing here??

EDIT: Not posting for the backlinks.... Just want a serious opinion why everyone makes money but me

[Marc Meole]

What are you doing to promote the sites. The key really is to get people to you sites. You can have 5000 sites out there but is no one is coming to them, you wont earn at all.

[Sunshine]

[83camaro]

[jaidai]

well for one, you can stop the pity party. If this is how you feel after one year, I don't know if there is anything that can be said that will cheer you up!

If I calculate your hard expenses correctly ($3/a day x 365 days(1 year)) = $1095 for your first year in expenses, subtract $350 profits from that and you've only spent somewhere around $745 (I am sure you have spent more, but I am only going off what info you've given.)

I think you did pretty well for only one year.

The first thing you need to get rid of is the "get rich quick" idea that many so-gurus have planted in your pysche. I know that a internet business has less overhead than a brick/mortar physical one, but one thing the two have in common is that they are BUSINESSES!

statistics state that it takes about 5 years for the average business to make profit, I believe it is a little less for internet only businesses, since their expenses are slightly lower, but I don't think a 1 year is enough to say "I quit."

I would suggest going back to the drawing board, speak with some offline experts on what they would do to create an online business, maybe focus on only promoting you best 5 sites and promote those only. You said you used adsense and other tactics - well maybe you did not use those tactics to their fullest. And be honest with yourself - ask yourself "Would I buy from me?" And if you cannot say with 100% conviction that you would - ask yourself what changes would it take for you to buy from you.

And if you are still frustrated, maybe you should ask yourself if you have what it takes to be a business owner, because some do not. And there is nothing wrong with not having what it takes to be a business owner. A business owner has to make incredible sacrifices. He/She has to be the coach, the team and the cheerleader. He/She has to be the first one to get up in the morning and the last one to sleep. As you can see I am typing this response to your post at 1:32am. And I am doing this on what I consider a "break" from working...

[I could have the numbers wrong on this], But I heard a story of Edison that he failed 99 times before he was able to make the light bulb work... Just food for thought.

"Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration" - Thomas Edison

[chewbacca]

Hi,

I'm a newbie too but still I'm convinced it works. I'll tell you why. For a long time I was a sceptic too, until I put my first site online two months ago and saw it generate income after two weeks, without paying for advertising, without writing articles and without any significant optimalisation. I just put some adsense on it and one affiliate product. I was so surprised that it opened my eyes and now I'm going for more !

This site only has 4 pages and a review for the product (e-book) and has only one inbound link from my webdesign site (Pagerank 4). This site took only a few hours to make. It made me about 30 bucks last month with adsense, that's 360 bucks a year.

I'm just now starting to promote it and let it grow. My goal is to add a few pages every week now and submitting them all to a bunch of article sites.

So you see I'm very surprised that you only made 350 bucks last year with dozens of sites. Maybe it's better not to spend too much money on advertising and stuff right away and let the sites grow on its own, focussing more on inbound links.

Here's the link to my site :


Greetz,
Alex.

[83camaro]

Now how are you getting traffic in such a high competition niche? Seems like to get any traffic, I have to pick a keyword that has under 100 searches a month.

[chewbacca]

Well, I'm not sure. I did tell you I was surprised by it. I'm getting around 400 pageviews a month, which is not that high. But my adsense conversion rate is around 22% and that's really high.

Didn't presell a single e-book (through ClickBank) yet though, what's up with that ? I forwarded more than a 60 visitors thru ClickBank last month but not one sale ???

Greetz,
Alex.

[83camaro]

To make that same site, I would have to study weight loss for a week to be able to write some nice content like that.

[chewbacca]

Well, I'm only planning to make sites about things I already know about and love. I've always been passionate about healthy living so writing about it comes naturally. The only thing I'm lacking at the moment is time to write everything down. DAMN DAY JOB !

I believe people can tell if you're passionate about something you write or not. So learning some topic for a week and then write a site about it is something I will never do and in my opinion doesn't work.

[Lynn Terry]

[jaidai]

Lynn,
can you list where you can find people to write articles for around $10? I tried to barter our services for articles and recieved no response. I would be interested in finding writers for that price...

[Lynn Terry]

[PattyGale]

[83camaro]