Wealthy Affiliate Success Story – Started in His early 50s

You are wondering if anybody in their fifties can still start an online business. They become their own boss, having income where they can do the work from home.

No longer need to deal with traffic to go to work or dress up in in suit or uniform. Can work anytime they want and spend most of their time at home doing things they love instead of following orders to make extra money. Is it possible?

Anyone in their fifties, being good at their job is not a guarantee to keep the job. Sooner or later, they will have to compete with much younger people ready to work with less salary. Would that be the end for them, hoping that they made enough saving for the rest of their life? Or is there a chance for them to start a business without needing any specific skill?

Keep reading to find out how a guy from 9 to 5 job, started his training at Wealthy Affiliate in his early fifties, now has his own online business. For those of you who don’t know, Wealthy Affiliate is a online training platform that will teach you how to make an easy website and turn them into a business.

You can access their website, Wealthy Affiliate, to find out more about them. They have been in the business since 2005 and with their easy step by step tutorial and community, they already helped a lot of people to have a successful online business. You can also read my review about them here.

The question is can anybody in their fifties do it? In this article I will share with you one of many success stories. What exactly would they learn and how they do it from learning until running their business at Wealthy Affiliate.

This is my second success story article from Wealthy Affiliate member. You might wanna check out my first one, about success story of a guy without a college degree.

Click or tab on any sections from the table of contents to jump right to that part. Use the red arrow button on the bottom right corner of the screen to head back to the top

A Little Background Story

His name is Robert Prescott. He used to be one of those who work 9-5 job.

Robert started working with internet industries since 1988. Back then, just minor file swapping, and early email before dealing with larger files when he was introduced to video gaming industries around 1995.

At video game industries, he worked for a testing company. He was good at his job, starting as a test engineer, and move up to become lead tester, then QA Manager and eventually as a Producer for 8 years.

For 17 years he worked as a video game tester, dealing with games for multiple consoles like Nintendo, Sega, PlayStation, and eventually online casual game or advergame for companies like ESPN or Kraft, then game application for iPhone. The last couple of those years, around 2009, he began working from home.

As I said before, it’s not that he was bad at his job but eventually the company he worked for got downsized from 42 employees to 5 people. So, he needed to find other way to make money.

Back then, he was helping his parents selling their unused stuffs. They started with a garage sale before realizing that he could sell for higher price and faster online via eBay.

From selling offline they could only make like $150-200 on weekend haggling with buyers. Then, by selling online, he could sell them for thrice the price and he just need to take pictures and the item would sell itself.

He started selling on eBay since 2000 before it become regular income. He can make like $300 every month, selling 15-25 items per week. Three years to make it profitable and he become a powerseller ever since.

The problem with selling this way is that there are additional fees both from eBay and PayPal. He knew that doing online business is the key, so he looked to diversify to make more.

This was the time he knew about Wealthy Affiliate and affiliate marketing. By selling on eBay sometimes he needs to buy things first, do the storing and even setting up his packaging and shipping while affiliate marketing we don’t need to deal with them.

Realising that he can make more money with less effort, he become a full time affiliate marketer. He stopped doing eBay business at June 2016 around 3 years since he started affiliate marketing.

Now, he has his own business and website, offering to teach people to learn the same thing or to build them their website. Started at his early 50s and continue to work from home.

His Milestone at Wealthy Affiliate

• Joined August 2013, become Premium right after
• Started right away with 2 niche websites before moving on to bootcamp training
• First time earned money on December 2013 from his second niche website
• 1600+ days as WA Ambassador, started after 6 months
• Reached BEP after 7 or 8 months
• 7 months, got first WA referral commissions and after getting 100 referrals
• 10 months before he can cover the yearly WA membership
• in less than 4 years he said he made over $3000 per month and working only one hour per day
• October 2017 (4 years): 1000+ referrals / 157 premium, 353 blog posts indexed, 8 websites
• August 2018 (5 years); 360+ blog posts, 70 trainings

Niche Websites

Online Entrepreneur Certification (OEC) training from Wealthy Affiliate is where we can learn how to turn our passion, interest or hobby as our niche into a website that could generate income. Preferably we need to choose a niche that either we love about it, or at least willing to learn more about it.

The main reason is that we are going to write a lot of articles about it in order to make money, which is going to take a lot of our time. Imagine if we have to deal with something we hate for a long time, we will eventually get sick of it and stop, and that would be the first reason anyone would fail in this business.

For Robert, he chose his experience and knowledge about natural health and his career in video game industry as bases to build his websites. Both of them because he already spent a lot of time dealing with them in the past for a living. So it’s easier for him to start and to learn more about it.

FLU SHOTS NICHE / NATURAL HEALTH NICHE (nomoreflushots.com)

I think the flu season was coming that time so Robert decided to start a website about avoiding them. Based on his experience getting flu shots or using western medical isn’t going to help anyone at all. So he wanted to share the natural way to get cured.

A lot of his family members and friends often asked him about this because he only got several flu from all of his life, compared to other people who might get it every year despite already taken the flu shots. So what he did is basically writing what he always tell people to answer that as an article and post it on his website.

Content Overview / Case Study

There are a lot of pages that any natural health niche would commonly use like facts about the ailments, supplement, food choice, natural way to cure or treat or reduce pain of some ailments. We can also write about how human body, the immune system works to help with natural treatment.

For supplements he could write about nutrition that we need according to the ailment or to keep healthy. They could be from supplement products, nutrition specific or from food ingredients. The same goes for the food choices, basically where we can find the nutrition we need. Maybe an article about juice recipes.

Since this is based on his real experience, he added a page about how he takes the supplement. If the supplement pages contains information about general facts, this page is about whether we need or not to follow the intake suggestion. He wrote it as an opinion and shares the result.

I think one of the unique page is about how to find a doctor. So this is not just any doctor but those who are open with natural treatment and not just forcing patients to take medication because they want to make money. Since this website’s purpose is not only to promote natural treatment but also to avoid unnatural treatment, he also added a page about his opinion on medicine industry, side effects, advertisement and why we should avoid them.

As far as I can find, the only affiliate link is the Wealthy Affiliate vertical banner on the side widget. On an answer to a comment he said he put an Amazon link for the supplement or maybe he just said as chance to make money.

Comment about the website

This is his first time building a website. He built this within a few days, dedicating many hours everyday to write around 10 pages and few blog posts. A few more posts added for the next couple of months.

Basic WordPress design, static homepage, several colors added for heading, using bold is for important line. I think that every content is very informative, a bit too advanced for common people or maybe it’s just me. We can see the difference with his posts today, which is now more personable, a bit more conversational tone and easier to understand.

Robert said that this one is a “mistake”. He didn’t specify which part of this was a mistake but it helped him to make a better one on his second website. Only that he should have given more time to develop instead of moving on to the next one.

From what I can tell about his first website is that the website is “finished”. Maybe he thought that he only need to fill the website with some contents, getting indexed and ranked well each.

He didn’t realize that he could and should keep adding contents from time to time and expand his niche to a broader one. Eager to start the second or maybe even the third one and when he realized that, he no longer have time do it. Focus on developing one of them.

Robert is still keeping the website until now but no more content added since 2014. Only replying if he get any comment.

VIDEO GAMES (TESTING JOB) NICHE (getpaidplayingvideogames.com)

His second niche website is based on his career as video game tester. For 25 years he has tested a lot of games for multiple platforms, earned him promotions from a tester into even a producer.

When people heard about a video game testing job, usually their mind will immediately picture it as either something fun or like a joke not a real job. Most people would think if they can play a game well, or finish it, they have what it takes to be a tester. The fact is, it’s far from that.

This kind of misunderstanding is the reason why Robert built this website. To tell the world what a testing job would actually do. It’s not all fun, in fact, it could get boring. Repeating the game over and over again, trying every possible scenario a player can take at any part of the game to make sure there is no bug in it.

It could take hours of playing. Nine to five is just the official working hour but in reality, overtime could happen everyday. Using this website, he has written what he knows and his experience with this job.

Content Overview / Case Study

The website is not about the video game but more about the testing job. So it is more suitable to a job or employment niche which narrowed down to a video game job niche.

There are few pages that Robert has on his website directly related to this. We can write about job qualification, what people need to know or any skill they need to have before applying for that job.

We can also write something related to job description. In this case, the testing scenarios, how to work as a team, how many people do we need to do the job.

There are some articles on this website about video game industry that could affect the job. It could be about a specific game, the console, the economy or advertisement involved, news, events, etc.

For example, Robert wrote about Nintendo, how they move from a fixed place console to a handheld mobile type and how the console evolve. How they add more buttons to the joystick which means more testing.

Since this is based on actual working experience, we can add some resume information. In this case, Robert add a list of games he ever tested or become part of the designs.

He also shared some experiences with the working environment. For example, how to do a testing job from home or the fun time with the whole team, because this could help boost motivation and productivity on their work.

So this could also be like a proposal for a company to tell them how well do we know about the job. In fact, two different companies did contact him for a job after visiting this website.

We can put a LinkedIn share button for work related niche. Maybe it could help our website reach a potential employer.

He successfully made his first time money on this one. He put several ad banners on side widget. One for online survey program and for Wealthy Affiliate and several more offering games for 2 major consoles, Xbox and PS4 and one for other consoles, via Amazon Associates.

Clearly the one making money are those offering the game. So offering a product not directly related to the niche, even just on the side widget can still make some sales. He also wrote a tutorial how to make a video game website offering SiteRubix.

Comments about the website

As mentioned before that this second website also suffered the same problem with the first one. Robert’s eagerness to right away build the third website has made him no longer have time to keep adding content on his previous one.

Compared to his first one, I think Robert had a better time writing for this second website. Unlike the first one, which was written in a very detailed scientific way, this second website he could write with a tone more suitable for common people. There are some still a bit advanced.

This is not just about the writing but also the topic selection. The subject of the writing is not limited just about the testing job but he could write more about video game industry.

The problem is that he could have pointed out the relation between the video game industry and how they could affect the job. I think he was still not sure about the website’s direction. Is it going to be about the testing job only or the video game industry as a broader niche?

As a result some posts about video game industry feels like completely unrelated to the website. The potential is there, so he just need to set his focus if he wants to develop them.

He could also stick with the testing job. Instead of just making a list of games maybe he could actually write details about how one game pass the whole testing procedure.

I realized that there is a problem when picking a niche based on past experience. In Robert’s case, there is a chance he could not have access to his work as a tester. It has become a company property and he has no copy of documentation as his source to write a post on his website.

Even if he has one, at one point, he would have trouble adding new content related to testing. He could add articles about something else but maybe not another game testing.

The problem is not with the outdated subject because there is always someone who loves old stuffs. But this business model would require constant adding of contents in order to succeed. Either we need to be the company who is still doing the job or at least being part of the testing job.

Maybe it’s just my concern by being inexperience. Let me know if there is a website who can succeed with this.

Anyway, just like the first one, Robert keeps the website, with no new content has been added since February 2014. Just replying any comments he get.

CANCER NICHE / NATURAL HEALTH / NATURAL TREATMENT NICHE

Just like Robert’s first website, it is built based on his experience dealing with the illness in natural way. He was diagnosed with oral cancer and instead of taking chemotherapy, he chose to look for a natural treatment. Almost two decades has passed since then and he is better than ever.

The reason why he decided to build this website is a bit personal and maybe emotional. While he could survive fighting against cancer naturally, his father and one of his sister couldn’t make it. They believed in their doctor and took chemotherapy.

Robert is convinced that the chemotherapy only make things worse with small probability of curing, a lot of negative side effects and yet very expensive. While he could finally persuade his sister to take natural treatment like him, the damage is already done.

Losing his sister motivates him to build a website, dedicated to save more people from cancer using the same way that keeps him alive to this day.

Contents Overview / Case Study

Robert wants this website for educational purpose so he didn’t put any money making attempt like affiliate link or display ad. He thought selling something would beat the purpose of promoting natural treatment.

So if usually he places ad on side widget of every website he built, on this one he doesn’t use any ad on it, just a disclaimer text. Instead, he build another website to sell his late sister’s artworks for funding this campaign.

Just like his first website, there are several pages for natural health niche. One of them is a page about the illness, in this case, cancer and since this is also a campaign promoting alternatives, a “truth” page about why we shouldn’t follow the standard medical way.

Another one is page about how to prevent cancer but no treatment page just posts. Even though there was no update since 2017, he planned to add another post for treatment.

The special parts of this website are dedication page, about the purpose of this website and what motivates him to do so. Since it is based on his experience dealing his oral cancer in natural way, the About Me page is used to share that story.

Unlike his previous websites, this one has a lot of videos to support his campaign, promoting alternatives and avoid the standard medical way.

Comments about the website

He used Gravida as the theme for this website. Last update was 2015.
The theme uses smaller font size than other regular themes. Even more with gray text on comment section makes it hard to read. Somehow the theme doesn’t display the latest comment as the first one.

Even though he said it’s a cure website but there is only a page about preventing, not a way after being diagnosed. He did write two as a post while i think he should have put it as a page, containing a blog roll of other articles with more in-depth writing about each treatment.

I think Robert didn’t plan well for this website. Not only about the time and focus to build this website, but also about pages he put and any posts he no longer add. Like it was driven solely by anger or emotion of losing his sister.

Personable vs Larger Audience

While it is suggested that we should put a bit of personal touch on our content, like using our own experience, to engage a specific group of readers, make them feel related to our writing, at the same time it could also keep other group away from it.

Usually we want to serve more people with our writing but trying to appeal to everyone could mean appealing to no one. So we have to find some balance between the two of them.

In this website, Robert is using his religion views as approach to convince readers. While this is a way to make it personable, I think it is a bit unprofessional, unnecessary and could be counterproductive to his goal, to save more people.

He could have stayed with just the scientific claims which would work better for general audience. For me, mentioning about God in general is okay, maybe not for some people, but mentioning a specific religion and how he change religion in order to reach a conclusion could be sending a wrong message.

Sure, once again, this is his website, he can do whatever he wants with it. Saving more people or appealing to fewer audience.

Extensively using videos as part of contents

I think this is Robert’s first time using a lot of video as part of his content in a comprehensive way. Before, he could just write something, and the video will be the visual explaining the same thing as the text. But for this one he actually try to pick some relevant part of them.

Clearly Robert needs to learn more about using a lot of video as part of his content, especially from other sources.

It’s not just about putting a video link on our article, but where to put it, before or after the headings. Point out which part of the video, like on what minutes, that he wants to take.

While the website or the theme is responsive but not the video. We could see that from our mobile that the video is out of the vertical alignment.

Videos are from various sources, interview from people with various backgrounds. While they present some useful information regarding the niche, but since this niche requires information from credible authoritative sources, readers need time to know that first.

He could have written a review about the video itself first before trying to write something else, as two separate articles. In the review we could talk about who are those people in the video, what is the purpose, why do we need to see this, how we could trust them or what we can learn from it. That way the article doesn’t need to be long because of serving two purposes.

There are also some of videos feels like completely out of place, if not completely irrelevant. He could just said that we could watch all parts of video from the original source or refer back to his review article about the said videos. No need to spread them in an article while he just need one of them to make his point.

Planning and don’t do it based on emotion

I still think that he could once again expand and update his website even for educational purpose. For example he could ask other people who had similar experience of taking alternatives or bad experience following the standard medical procedure, to share their stories here.

In fact, one of his video source was from a website called Truth about Cancer, demonstrating exactly how Robert could develop his website. Learning from his first website, using other people’s stories, maybe he could eventually collect a list of doctors from around the world who really would help their patient taking the alternatives way.

Nevertheless, since this was built based on emotion with poor planning and execution, I doubt that he would continue to build it. Not only that he won’t have time to update them, but the website itself is not finish. No social media accounts to follow, only share button of every article.

At least, it seems that Robert is still re-sharing this website using social media. We can see that he’s still getting new comments to this day even with no new contents added. But then, he replied like a few months after, while usually within 24 hours.

OTHER NICHE

Cannabidiol (CBD) hemp oil niche. Also natural health related niche, another product that can help our health extracted from hemps plants. Robert said he already bought several domain names for this niche.

It seems that he has decided to sell them using drop shipping, maybe via eBay, instead of creating a website, although he is still open with the possibility to create one. If not, he has the opportunity to add this product to the existing natural health niche websites.

Bootcamp Website (and WA blog)

Affiliate Bootcamp training from Wealthy Affiliate is a tutorial to build a website specifically to promote Wealthy Affiliate. Using link from their affiliate program, any member can make money, even as starter member.

After creating two niche websites, Robert’s third one is the bootcamp website from this training, legitimatejobfromhome.com. As a premium member we don’t actually need to make a website in order to get referrals and make money.

We can just share our link, maybe on social media or we can write an article and post it on WA public blog. Any blog published on WA blog can be use by any member to get more referrals by adding their link to the URL.

Robert is one of the members who use all of these features. He built a website, writes a lot on WA and shares them on social media.

This was also the time when Robert changed his goal from making money, diversifying to helping other people, mostly on WA. With so many ways to make money using WA platform, he could easily help his referrals and at the same time keep getting a new one. Writing a training tutorial and becoming an Ambassador are another ways to make money on WA.

WEBSITE OVERVIEW / CASE STUDY

There are several pages to start that can be accessed on his menu at the top of the website.

Getting Started / Start Here page

Since I’m just a starter member so I don’t get access to the training for the premium part but I think this is the signature from WA bootcamp training. We can see on almost every member’s website.

The idea is that this would be the next one to access by any new people visiting after reading any article on the website. Assuming that we don’t offer them anything else related to the article they just accessed, we are helping them navigate within our website.

Using the word “start” is very self explanatory, but it doesn’t mean the content must be the same for any member. Based on their broader niche for promoting WA or their theme of the website, it could be very different.

There are some members who use them as a link directly to the Wealthy Affiliate. Others are using them for WA review with or sharing their success stories.

In this case, Robert’s website is about online job from home. So Robert didn’t talk directly about WA on this page but instead he talked about the possibility for anyone to walk into online scams, especially while looking for opportunity to make money online. This is also based on his experience.

So it’s like a review post, saying that instead of looking for other money making opportunity, people should try building their own business using WA training that he offered. He, then, added three posts as a drop down for that page for additional information regarding online job from home.

The first post is about how to start home business, this is the actual promotional post of WA. The second one is about what we need for our home business, like laptop or PC, wifi network, maybe printer, based on his third post. The last one is about what exactly has Robert done as a home business and that people can do it too.

Target audience / Who is this for post

Who is WA, the training for? This page or posts are a promotional for our target audience. They could be college student, unemployed, retired, disabled, home moms, and minimum wage worker. Every target group has its own promotional posts addressing their own condition and how it is perfect to WA.

Understanding their current situation and write it down on a post could be the engaging factor for our audience. We could point out how we can turn their condition as opportunity for succeeding on making business.

Tell them why this is perfect for them, how easy to do it, some related success stories, the catch of other money making option or if they keep doing what they do. All of them related to their condition. Answer their possible doubt and convince them the prospect and opportunity to succeed. Maybe even possible niche.

• College student: cannot do it full time, has a lot of passion, hobbies or interest, instead of partying, they can use their time to build their business, point out the catch, like even if they graduate, looking for a job could be hard, or having to pay college loans.
• Retiree: job for retiree is even harder to find but still need some income, probably adult and limited to their physical condition, work outside and deal with traffic or from home, good enough income with little effort, start before retirement, not enough saving yet getting more expensive to afford things, free to set their own working hours.
• Disabled: just need to sit, read, and type, maybe even use video just to talk about a subject, job for disabilities are available but still inaccesible, how hard to deal with outside world like weather, traffic.
• Stay at home moms or dads: still can’t or don’t want to leave their kids to someone else, sporadic time, their experience on wedding, pregnancy, early parenthood could be their niche, relying on one source of income, very large spending for now and need investment for later.
• Minimum wage worker: can’t properly afford, worries about possibly losing a place to live or for meds, can’t live healthy, late payment leads to shame and guilt, risk of taking extra job

Other tips for promoting WA to specific target audience:

• offer what having a website can do for them
• tell them why we need to do it right now and there is no get rich quick scheme
• remind people the cons of other money making options. like working from 9 to five, get dressed, traffic, etc
• alternatives aside from affiliate marketing that we can do after WA
• emphasize how low cost the WA including the domain yearly

Money Making Program Reviews Menu

This menu contains every review about any money making program that Robert has written. Some of them he already tried and the rest are other programs that he heard of from friends.

Usually other members can write a lot of programs and separate them between recommended programs and scams. Robert only did several reviews, usually to convince his referrals who keep asking his opinion about the program.

So far, the program he reviewed are related or similar to WA, MLM, survey, writing or drop shipping. All of them are based on his experience. He already tried the legit one so he can compare them and easily write a review.

Tips for writing a review about money making program

• state our source of info, based on experience or as active member or heard it from other active members
• state the best feature or what makes them different than the others
  pros and cons
• there is a chance that the program maybe not making money much from the main feature but can make more passive income from affiliate
• state our experience in detail from joining, doing the work, how long until we can cash out, how long until getting paid after request
• if recommended, state the cons but not the deal breaker
• improvement over the years or retrogress, even changing a program name could mean something, let alone payment
• notes like even if it opens to international members but there are signs that only limited area will get full benefit
• state if we are making an assumption and explain the reason
• state our doubt at first sight
• use some news about the program to make our point. If it is a scam, maybe somebody at the top suddenly stepping down for no reason
• sometimes scams duplicate their plan as a different website or program in order to get more money, even the same person could fall for that
• if the program got blocked from certain big corporate like Facebook or Craiglist, something is wrong with them
• explain the rate from our rating system, why we give that number
• use other review, maybe even video to support our claim
• legit program is not just offering product but a value, means that the training can be use somewhere else not just the product they offer
• look how transparent their business, at least to get to know the owner, how easy we can access certain pages like earnings disclaimer
• a legit program can also be mismanaged
• be prepared to get attacked by the supporters of the scam program. Even the owner could contact us asking to take down our review.
• some of supporters are going to say that they can make money from scams but usually not their referrals or most of members.
• for scams, provide alternatives with a legit one, compare both of them.

Tutorials / How to Menu

Following the theme of this website, the tutorial page or menu contains every aspect for creating a website for home business. Here’s the list of what post Robert has written as tutorial.

• how to build a website (easily)niche,
• what is and how to choose
• keyword, how to use
• writing content
• using image for content, how to find free images
• social media marketing, how to use each social media platform for marketing
• how get on page 1 of Google Search Result (what people need to know about SEO)

While these cover important aspects for creating any home business website but not all of them. One thing that he didn’t include on the list is the money making part. He could have written about at least an affiliate program.

The list is not even in sorted in order, just like a collection of posts, so no direct connection between one with another. Sometimes he mentioned the other aspect on the content but nobody knows the whole picture.

He could suddenly mentioned about Wealthy Affiliate or even link to WA blog post. Maybe he just need to update them. Having a lot of options to publish a post, whether it is on his website, as page or post, or on WA as blog or tutorials, makes it seems very unorganized.

There is a rule that forbid posting a link on WA blog to our website but not the other way around. So the concept of utilizing both platform is to write any detailed tutorial or post on WA and mentioned it on promotional post on our website.

Sometimes he could come up with two keyword for the same content. He could either share those he didn’t use to other members or use them to write two different posts for both blogs which at least could complement each other.

That way, any reader would eventually have to access or even join WA should they want to know more about the subject. As for Robert, I think he already realized about this, it’s just he hasn’t had the time to update his website.

Frequently Asked Questions / WA FAQ Page

This page is very common for any WA member to put on their website. They got a lot of same questions from their referrals related to Wealthy Affiliate in specific or what we do in internet marketing business in general.

We can keep adding more as we go on, get to know new people and they still get another question. Some of members put it in their WA review or their success stories instead of a page or a post.

Some of them doesn’t want to explicitly mention the name Wealthy Affiliate but just training instead, so they would set it as general internet marketing FAQ. In this case, Robert would mention Wealthy Affiliate but as mentioned above the rest of the content could still talk in general.

Side Widget, Secondary Menus and Website design overview

Just like his other websites, Robert only use visual advertisement like banner on side widget. For this one he put two banners, one for Wealthy Affiliate and the other for drop shipping business.

Other than recent post categories, he also use some text and his profile picture for greetings and introduction to his website. Robert also used a secondary menu where he put custom categories. People usually put it on side widget as well.

The website design is very basic using Mesocolumn theme by Dezzain. There is no logo, just website title with the added words “The best” from his domain. White background and some blue color on lines and contents title.

Blog Posts Series

One of the key to succeed in this business is to publish regularly a quality post from time to time, especially to maintain ranking on Google. Having blog post series, which we basically would write something similar on different subjects could be the answer.

When we have the template about what we are going to write about every time, and we know where and how to research about the subject, it will be easier to write over and over again. We just need to make a list of subjects and do it regularly, no need to waste time thinking what we should write about next.

Essentially we need something that offers a lot of options to choose. Some people can write reviews of a product from different models and brands. If the options are limited, we can choose several products or having several series.

This way people can publish a post weekly. Some can even do it daily.

Remember that the more we do it on the same topic, the easier to write. A product with different models and brands usually has some similarities so we can reduce the amount of time to learn something new. Some only have minor upgrade so we just need to add a little time to learn.

Robert didn’t have this on his previous websites but he did have a series on this one but not because he intended to be a series. More like it’s just come up while trying to do something else and he write it.

Usually we can spot the post series on every website based on their categories. For Robert’s website, reviews would be one of them which he placed them on the main menu.

Niche research would be a common example for bootcamp website. For this, niches that Robert has written about are military, wedding, hemp, Christianity, Star Trek, Batman, automobile, fashion, fishing kayak, and many more.

For writing this kind of post, we can start with prospect and detailed description why the niche can be profitable. We can suggest some related affiliate programs or other products that might be relevant to the niche.

Some members can even do some keyword research, make a list of possible keywords for the niche with low competition but high traffic search. Sometimes Robert could also break a broad niche down to find possible sub niches.

What We can Learn

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ABOUT SUCCESS IN ONLINE BUSINESS

Robert always reminds us how Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, needed two years before reaching break even point for his company. Now, Bezos is the richest person with the biggest ecommerce company in the world. The similar thing also happened to Robert when he started online business.

Robert’s first venture on building online business started with selling on eBay. He needed three years before he made a profit. Based on this experience, he understands that it takes time to build a business whether it’s online or offline.

If we learn how he become successful in eBay, the first thing to do is to build reputation, build trust. No one will buy from a new guy, especially if there is another option to buy. So, he started by being a buyer first, collecting positive feedback so people are convinced that he is a real person not just scammer.

It takes time and hard work

While he was doing that, it doesn’t mean that he was just spending money and do nothing. He used that chance to know the buyer’s perspective while doing a transaction via eBay. What information would they get, what would they see or what would they ask the seller, and so on.

Another thing is to know about being a seller. What would they offer, what else do they have to deal with, like shipping, fee, refund and complaint and so on.

So, he was also building his knowledge, he now knows what kind of item would be profitable, how to sell it and when to sell it.

By doing so he eventually became a powerseller, selling products worth thousands of dollars every month for years. Nobody would stay that long if it wasn’t making any profit.

Online business is the key for future success

Before Robert started to sell on eBay, he was helping his parents sell their unused stuffs by opening a garage sale. They needed to wait for any customer to come and even so they would have to deal with them demanding for a lower price. Eventually they made a sale but eventually a lower result and exhaustion.

By selling them online, Robert realized that the internet would help them reach their potential buyers easier, faster and wider. They could reach a buyer not just people in the neighborhood but also from the other side of the country or even from other country in the world.

Any buyer doesn’t need to wait to have some free time to drive or walk or even fly to their home just to see the product. Anyone could look at pictures we provide and read the description before decided to buy. And also, any buyers doesn’t need to wait for them to open their house or store in the morning, instead, they could access the information in the middle of the night.

They don’t need to sell their products to people demanding for lower price. The internet could easily reach other people willing to buy for the price we set. It’s like the item is selling itself for 24/7.

We just need to provide a complete set of information about the product.

Automation doesn’t mean right away

We live in the world where technology has made many things instant and automatic.While it helps us a lot but at the same time we are no longer capable to be patient. We want to see the result right away. Even several hours of power out can drive you crazy.

Now building a website for online business is easy. We no longer need to do or learn about the coding on our own like before, although it can help. While building a website is easy but building a business still need some time.

How long until we make money? This is a question that will always come up from any people starting their business. The answer is, there is no set time frame because it depends on the individual’s work effort.

Online business still depends on how fast a buyer can decide to buy. Even if they are willing to spend money, they want to make sure they spend it the right way. So they are going to need some time before making any purchase.

They need time to know about the seller and the product. Not to mention, sometimes they need time to make the money to spend especially for something they don’t actually need, like for a hobby. Sometimes they have to wait until holiday season or at least wait for their paycheck every month.

That’s why we usually need to give a year or two to see the actual result of our business, let them pass some holiday season to know. Some people can make their first sale within weeks but to make them a full time income generating a lot of money they still need months or years.

Never quit

If we keep working on our business, we will eventually find our success but if we quit, that would be the end of everything. We wouldn’t know why we fail or how to get up again.

The same goes with Jeff Bezos. When he started his company, he only had the business plan, he needed investors. He even told them that there’s a 70% chance they might be losing money, that this Amazon company could fail.

So even Bezos had doubts with his plan but he didn’t quit. Two years to reach break even point and three years for the company to go public. It didn’t happen overnight.

Some sources even said that Amazon was not going to make any profit for the first four or five years which lead to some complaints from shareholders, raising a question whether they should keep up or just sell their shares. Turns out that within four years Amazon really made its first profit, surviving the dot-com bubble that destroyed many of its competitors.

His dream was big, and he knew it would be hard, criticism and controversy was part of his journey. So he started small, selling only books before moving to other products. Now the company is the biggest ecommerce, selling all kinds of products.

Better chances now

Unlike the technology we have today, Bezos started his business at the very early age of internet. Back then his business model was considered as unconventional, and yet the company survived and succeeded. Maybe because it was unconventional, it could adapt with the advancement of technology.

Now after decades since we got internet, we no longer need to follow the exact same way as Bezos to achieve his success. There are a lot of ways for us to make money online. We don’t need to be the richest person or have the biggest company. We can set our own level of success.

All we need is to take action. All the resources we need are there.

We now have a chance to build our business where every single of our hard work will eventually pays off, no need a fancy degree, no need to depend on employment, set our time of work and work everywhere. We just need to learn how.

The learning curve is not so difficult, but still requires time, different than when Bezos did over 20 years ago. He had to plan his own business with a lot of risk of failing and losing money. Granted that it might be the reason to become the biggest company, but we don’t need to walk that path, not that we can’t.

Success doesn’t always mean money

When we want to define success, the easiest way is to ask about how much money we can make. The problem is that for a long term business, this could be discouraging. Eventually these people would stop working while the success might be just three feet away.

Success or even wealth doesn’t always mean money. it could be about helping people, getting some recognition. When we get people or organizations recognizing our websites for the information we provide, there is no better feeling of accomplishment. It truly is an honorable feeling.

By getting recognition, we are getting more leads which could be translated into more chance of exposure, opportunity or even sales, and it means more money. Like Bezos, can anybody just come up with business plan and investors would believe in them? Or should they become like Bezos first, a vice president of a Wall Street firm.

We need to know anything that could help our business grow. Spend some time to build our reputation and become an authority in our business.

Success is a journey not a destination. Getting knowledge is the first thing to start our journey.

Avoid scams

While it’s true that with the advancement of technology, we have more and better opportunity to have business online and be successful. At the same time, there are also a lot of people trying to use this opportunity to scam other people. There are a few legit programs but a lot of scams we need to be aware of.

We need to know how the scams works in order to understand which program is legit. Here are a few tips from Robert.

• Scams will prey upon the desire to live easy life so they would show us display of nice house or cars, an income claim showing a large amount of cash or paychecks. The real one would say we can but not an easy one and certainly not overnight. We need hard work in order to achieve them.
• A real business training opportunity will give you possibilities, flexibility to expand. If they only offer one way which very strict, probably not a good idea. Their plan was only to make us as the follower not the leader. Do not play follow the leader but look for those making us the leader.
• Scams offer multiple upsells. Their intention is to get more money from their members. They would say that paying more would be the key to success. if there are two or more, then it’s an indication that we are going to make less money even if they promise us otherwise. Sometimes they would add or change offer entirely. Real business only have free and one upsell or just one paid membership with no free.
• Usually there is a cost of getting started. Scams will force us to pay upfront or we won’t get anything. They even offer money back guarantee to convince. Money back guarantee doesn’t make them legit because there are terms and condition in order to ask the money back. Sometimes it’s very limited time and not enough to explore the important feature. We may even have to wait before get the refund, assuming we are getting one. On the other hand, real business would offer trial membership to give us a chance to try first.
• Try to read their fine print, TOS, privacy policy and contact information. Not just to understand them but sometimes scammers made it hard to access. One program didn’t put it as a page which can be accessed immediately but they rather buried it and people have to scroll down to find. If they are legit, they will try to follow regulations as a prove not hide it. Real business opportunity will have all of these information in a plain view and not contradict themselves.

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ABOUT WEALTHY AFFILIATE

Learning and training in WA are like laying the foundation for our house or building. Take our time because it’s critical for success.

WA offers everything we need to be successful but not our determination.

No one starts out perfect, we’ll get better as the time moves on and keep creating content.

Even though Robert had experience as internet tech, doesn’t mean he understand about building online business.

Everyone move at a different pace. Not a race. Just don’t quit and keep work hard everyday. The success at WA doesn’t need a set speed.

Help first then money will come later. Gain respect from others, and the more we help them the more likely they will come back to make a purchase from us.

WA ranks are based on the activity for the community not an indication of success in WA let alone making money. Focus on those creating wa blog for the sake of building a business website on consistent basis not creating a lot irrelevant contents.

We can ask community to choose domain name after all the options.

WA backup probably provide data from a few hours ago including plugin that cause the problem. Better to make our own alternative backup from before the problem.

Diversify while we can and only do when you are ready, affiliate marketing is way to do it.

Do research, don’t make any rush decision because of fear. Fear of unknown is common, but to succeed we have to overcome those fears.

One reason why people fail in online business is the lack of flexibility of choosing the thing they like to work on and they will lose interest pretty fast.

Sometimes mistakes were worth making.

His mistakes on his first and second website was that he wrote a lot of contents as soon as possible but then stop. Google wants to see something fresh, to know that the website still relevant. So for the third website he slowed down and posting consistently just one per week on Thursday.

Not only adding a quality content consistently but also social marketing, tweaking the previous existing content are going to need our dedication to do it.

After he built the first website he immediately jumped to build his second. He got his attention on the second and the first one got abandoned. The second got traffic while the first suffered.

Then he waited to finish his second before moving to his 3rd. Now both first and second websites just to respond any comment as additional content.

Make those mistake, learn from it. Do it again, plan ahead before redoing it.
The more we do it, like a full time job, the better chance on getting our success.

Robert thinks that his first website is where he made a mistake but each subsequent website has been better than the previous. One step at a time, do not start another new website until the previous one finished.

Update website once a week, as page or post, can do more but preferably whatever suits him.

Don’t get distracted and scammed by those offering get rich quick scheme. It’s not gonna happen in a few weeks or few months. don’t try to rush things, don’t even expect to make much within the first year just keep moving.

We all face personal adversity in life, and it sometimes hurts really bad. Then someone you care for very much, whose life was changed in a split second is fighting for hers, it makes all of your problems seem inconsequential.

No matter what life throws at you, never give up.————————————————————

ABOUT WORKING FROM HOME

When we talk about working from home, self employed, having our own business, or be our own boss, people tend to look only on the freedom they can get. The fact is everything that is usually done by the company or the boss, we now need to do it ourselves.

We have to look for clients, set our income, do our financing, set our deadline, motivate ourselves to do our job. On the other hand, working from home offers us a plenty of pleasantries. Having a bed, television, games within our range all the time could keep us away from working.

Having been working from home since 2009, Robert suggests 3D that we need to have for working from home.

Dedication, determination and discipline.

Dedication, means we still have to meet deadlines and deliver our work. We still got bills to pay every month so we have to make sure we have clients that we could work for and got paid enough for entire month.

Determination, means we have to treat our home not like a home but like an office, with boss, coworkers. Sure, that we don’t need to dress up, deal with traffic or pay for gas, but we still have to set our working time everyday, set boundaries between house and office.

Discipline, means don’t let the surrounding pleasantries distract us. This is not just inside the house, everything outside the house can easily distract us as well. We can have interaction with kids, family or even our neighbor anytime which could be a bad thing. Working from home is great but sometimes the littlest distraction can cause a big down turn in productivity especially if the distraction is pleasing for us.

Here are some equipment to work from home.

• Laptop instead of PC because we can work everywhere around the house to not get bored.
• Internet and wireless network to support the portability.
• Other wifi friendly printer/scanner/fax/copier
• Some handheld gadget for taking pictures, video, audio record or just to take notes when we got some idea
• Room that can be closed or even locked stay away from distraction or noises.

Working from home, doing internet marketing can be a routine and frankly boring. Set small target and attach a reward to motivate ourselves. Find something that we love but only experience it once we achieve something or finish our work.

When rewarded with perks, people are motivated to work harder and longer. When we feel the motivation flowing, make sure to ride that wave while it’s still pushing you forward. Motivation has a way of escaping from us over time.

Over time loneliness can also be a problem. Especially if we live alone and doing internet marketing which our only interaction is with the people from the internet. Like Robert, after 7 years, at one time he decided to become Uber driver just to have interaction in person.
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ABOUT MAKING INITIAL MONEY FOR BUSINESS

This business is for a long term goal. We need patience and time to before it can become a full time income. Start right away don’t wait until we need money because there is no get rich quick scheme. If we already need money right away, it’s better to find a job. Hoping that this business could make money right away would be counterproductive.

We need to sacrifice something in order to succeed. Sacrifice our unnecesarry spending, from hanging out, or maybe drinking morning coffee everyday or even our time to sleep. Sell some unused stuffs like old phone or laptop on eBay instead of keeping them.

Robert himself could save $120 by stop going to weekly Friday. He did just eat banana and tea for breakfast, one home cooked meal for lunch, and for dinner just soup or sandwich. He was selling on eBay for the first few years building his websites as well because he also needed to pay his car loans.

We need to afford to wait for several years before our website become full time income. If we need money right now to pay the bills, use the knowledge from Wealthy Affiliate to make money first, and invest our earnings to our website. We can find other company from freelance writing gig to write articles for them using SEO technique and keyword tools.

Start with 2 cents per word or $4 for 200 words product description. Avoid freelance writing for limited budget and the place where we have to bid on, find the one with fixed price.

Remember that the more we do it, even if writing for someone else, the easier for us to do it. Consider it as an investment as well.
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ABOUT SELLING ON EBAY

Even Robert said that affiliate marketing is easier than drop shipping or selling on eBay, but sometimes we still have access to certain products that we don’t or no longer use. With affiliate marketing, usually we promote new products right from the company but when we want to make money from what we have, we have to sell it ourselves.

Maybe we bought something that we only use one time or no longer fit for us. Maybe we get something from friends or family that we cannot use. Instead of keeping them and take up some space in our house we can sell them.

Sure, we can sell them on our website, but building a website takes time to get traffic not to mention trust with customer. If we need money right away, it is better to sell them on ecommerce website where people already know how to buy it from.

Selling on eBay is just one way to do it. Doesn’t matter what way to sell our stuff as long as we know how and this is the one Robert knows how to do it.

Where to start on eBay?

Nobody would like to buy from someone they don’t know. Especially online, where anybody can say anything about themselves. The same goes with selling on eBay. Before trying to sell we need to let people know, at least we are real people. The good thing is that there is a way for that.

On eBay we could be a buyer or seller with the same account. We can collect positive feedback first by being a buyer then we can use that to build trust as a seller. Robert said he collect until he got 50 positive feedbacks before he started selling.

Another good thing by being a buyer first is that we can do research first. From buyer perspective, learn about what other sellers offer, how they handle things like replying questions, shipping, refund, complaint, etc.

We can also do research based on the item that we are going to sell. It helps greatly if we know what it is that we are selling. We can answer any questions that may arise from potential customers by learning from other sellers.

Learn also about their price. That way we could offer a reasonable price for similar item.

Being a seller

We need to be aware of a few things as a buyer. Fees, there are several fees that we need to pay for doing transaction on eBay. First, there is a $0.30 fee for listing for every item. They will charge us even if we fail to sell.

Second is fee for final value. If we successfully sell any item, eBay will charge us with 10% from the item cost, shipping and handling. The last one is fee for the payment processor, PayPal, for 2.9%.

We can use eBay store but with monthly fees. Robert said we don’t need them to sell. He can become a Powerseller for years without having a store.

When we become a powerseller we will get some free listing every month and discount of seller fees. What we need is to make sales worth $3.000 for a year. For that, we need to start learning how to sell first, before we could sell a large amount weekly, even monthly. Eventually we can make sales like 100 items per month for 3 months.

One of the requirement of becoming a powerseller is having a minimum 98% positive feedback. So building positive feedback as a buyer first is a good idea.

After we build enough reputation on eBay we could actually make a website with our username as a brand. The idea is to cut all of the fees by using eBay service. Move gradually, like maintain selling on eBay first while building and moving to our website.

EBay also has an affiliate program. Robert said that we can do better affiliate program on Amazon and use eBay for selling. From what I heard the auction feature on eBay makes them a good place for smaller industries while Amazon is better for larger and more established companies.

What to sell?

According to Robert here is a list of things that profitable to sell on eBay.

Older iPhones, Androids, Kindles, iPads, iPods, Digital Cameras and Accessories, Film Cameras and Accessories, Used Video Games, Used DVDs, Used CDs, Old Toys, Board Games, Collectibles, Jewelry, Watches, Winter Clothing, Gloves, Shoes

Start small and free

As mentioned above, don’t try to jump into drop shipping right away, or anything with a large number. Learn and do research first. Start by selling our unused items that we still have around the house.

Another way is to help other people sell their stuffs or buy from them and resell again for more profits. The idea is to diversify what we sell increase our portfolio. That way, we don’t need to stuck with just one product, expand our market or move from one market to another.

Later, when we do drop shipping, we will look for something new or fresh but it doesn’t need to be the same type of product. When the product is no longer fresh, we will have more competitors, we can easily move to sell another new things.

If we want to sell for other people. Robert says that we should charge like 40% of profit but we need to pay the shipping and fees. For buying and reselling other people’s used items, do research first, maybe the owner would give a cheaper price than the potential. Do not buy before we know we can make a profit.

Move on to bigger leagues

When we ready to move on to a bigger league, we can try buying from a wholesaler, or any small industry manufacturers and resell them for higher price or even drop shipping.

For buying and resell from a wholesaler or small industries, we are still handling the packaging, shipping, even returns. Don’t forget we also need to do some storing to make sure there is no delay.

With drop shipping, we just do forwarding orders and let those companies handle the shipping. We are like a customer service, maybe a sales customer service for the manufacturer. Aside from promoting product and forwarding orders we are also forwarding complaints.

For both of them we still need to make sure that when we set a price, it is still profitable to us.

Find small company that want to sell on eBay, we can write content or product description for them. Find them on Craigslist, but be careful there are scammers or the one selling fake products.

While selling on eBay for other there is a chance that we will like the product and the distraction would be instead of getting paid we ask them to keep the product. Remember that we should use that money for investment not spending on something unnecessary.

Sometimes selling for someone on eBay, we got complaint, customers want a refund and send the product back but the company said that customer can just issue the refund and let the customer keep the product. The customer ended up sending the product to us.

New or Used Item?

Assuming we follow Robert’s suggestion to start small with our used items, we need to do packaging and shipping by ourselves. For shipping in US use UPS for bulk order or postal service for smaller order.

Use priority mail from postal service for free envelope and boxes. iI still too big or too small, find other option like purchasing our envelope or boxes from the wholesale directory.

For new item, research the wholesale program, read their TOS, take our time to understand, get familiar with them. If the item is still in closed packaged use buy it now feature.

Opened package but new item, sell them with auction or buy it now. For used item, use auction only. Try not to sell broken item at all, better condition means better selling. If we think it is still valuable, state the condition to make it clear.

How to use auction feature

Use the 7 day auction listing. Robert usually starts the auction on Friday at 1 pm to 9 pm or on Saturday from 5 to 11 pm. This way we can get a lot of exposure from weekend, giving them time to think for a week and a time to buy next weekend.

Use this method especially on holiday occasion like Thanksgiving or Christmas as the best time to sell. For each holiday, start the auction a week earlier which ends on the holiday. Do it multiple listing on several days from Friday to Monday a week before Black Friday to Cyber Monday.

We can even start on Thursday like at 11 pm. If we use both feature auction and buy it now, there is a chance that the final value from the auction is higher than on buy it now.

We need to do research for reasonable price. Look at the same product on auction for more accurate price assessment. If listed under buy it now price, the price can actually be lower. Wait and watch, if nobody buys it at the end of auction maybe overpriced.

Find the lowest price acceptable when we set it on auction, the price will get higher. Acceptable means that we can still make profit not just sales.

Tips for successful selling in eBay, we need.

• Good quality products. Don’t just sell any product but we need to be able to tell people why this product is better than other similar product. This should be explained on the second thing we need.
• Detailed description. If we write a story about the product, we get better chance on selling. State what is included in the products.
• Provide pictures. Use 12 pictures maximum limit for every item. Be descriptive showing all parts, not just from the same angle.
• Listed with reasonable price. Do research from other ecommerce website or other sellers. Try selling something else instead of selling overpriced item.
• Securely pack and fast shipping. Free shipping offer is better than low price, don’t do reserve price, set it higher. Set your price, if the buyers are cheap, that’s their problem.
• Offer exceptional customer service. Offer a simple thing like fast, polite and helpful response.
• Money back guarantee. Set a policy that the buyer have to return all items included and pay the return shipping fee to get a full refund. if not maybe partial.
• High feedback profile rating. Build from being a buyer and maintain buy selling more products.

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ABOUT AFFILIATE PROGRAM AND MONETIZING OPTIONS

When we want to build an online business, we need to understand many ways to monetize or simply make money online. It can be for our website or just write content for other ecommerce sites or even just promote them through our social media.

Understanding every options available can help us determine the direction of our business.

Affiliate Program

Some affiliate programs can be promoted even without having a website. We can use social media for promoting. even though having a website can make it easier for the long run. We need to read their TOS. Some of them will ask anybody to have at least a website first, maybe even to get some traffic, or to make sales within certain period.

Try to avoid using Amazon affiliate program if we can. Always look for alternatives.

Why? First, they only give a 24 hour cookie. It means that any buyer needs to complete the transaction within 24 hour in order for us to get paid. Of course, there is another term that says if that person put something else in their cart we get another 90 days.

The second thing is that the commission is very low compared to other affiliate program. Another thing is the limited service area.

There is also a chance that the product would be sold out. Based on Robert’s experience promoting game console, PS4, after they got sold out, other merchants charged like $700 to $1000 more, which could also be bad for us as the publisher.

It’s true that everybody feels safer and prefer to buy from Amazon because they are well known. It’s not gonna hurt to give another options, though.

Google Adsense or Displaying Ad

Using displaying ad network service like Google Adsense is also a way to make money for our website. But, there are some reasons why we should avoid using them.

The first thing is that we can’t choose the ad to display. We have to rely on the developer’s algorithm to decide which ad would be suitable for our website. The chances are that the ad could be totally irrelevant to our content.

Based on my own experience, I think geographical context or where the reader live is a strong factor for this. As someone from a non English language country, sometimes I see ads from my country when accessing an international based website with English language. Other time were ads for a digital product like hosting.

So I think local ads that the reader came from would become the priority. The problem is if there is no relevant local company to the content using the ad service, we could have limited option of ad that we are going to see. We could see the same ad over and over again from one website to another that use the same display ad network.

The second thing is the ad make our website look cheap, like trying to sell instead of trying to help. This can drive away any visitors, especially when the advertising is in the way of the content. It can be counterproductive to the effort and time of writing.

The income we can get is very low. There is no argument that using affiliate program has potential to generate more. On the other hand, trying to use both of them, we could be losing money instead.

If there is no affiliate program that we can use, maybe Adsense can be an option. Regardless how we monetize our website, we still need to write quality content and get more traffic.

Domainers

Instead of building a website, we could just be a domainer. We buy several competitive domain names and sell them for higher price.

What we need is to do a keyword research to determine which keyword could be exact match domain (EMD). We can also look for any trademark for a growing company and sell those domain to them later.

For this, we need money and time. It’s a bit risky for investment.

Website / Business Building Service

We can offer a service of building not just a website but also a business for other people. There are some people who just want to invest and don’t have time to do it themselves and we could get paid for helping them.

We could build a website, set initial framework, fill with contents until it can generate traffic or even income, then we could sell them to other people to continue. Robert said he can get like $600 to $800 to build a website.

We can also continue adding contents to that website, become a freelance writing. For this Robert said he can get $120 per week writing content and $275 per week for product description. We could also do it for several other people, no need to stuck for only one.

For this, we need to have one website for ourselves. Set it like a resume to show our future employer the example of our work. Show them how much traffic our website can get or how much money we can make and tell them.

Remember that not everybody that come to our website is a customer. They could be another employer or ask for consultation. Robert said he got a job offer for his video games tester website from two different companies.

Become knowledgeable and the authority by writing consistently on a subject and people would notice our work and website.

Here is a tip: for those who doesn’t want or can’t build their business on their own and asking for our help, don’t tell them that we do it from WA. The less they know, the more they would like to ask us for help.

Selling (our own) products

While with affiliate marketing, we can just promote product, no need to store anything but it doesn’t mean that our website can’t sell an actual product, whether it’s a physical or digital.

If we already have someone we know who build their own product, we can help them sell on our website or other ecommerce site. It doesn’t have to be someone else’s product but we can also create and sell our own.

When we become knowledgeable on a subject we can write an ebook with that information, maybe in a handbook size. For cooking, as example, so people can easily access the information while cooking, no need to open our website.

Another thing, of course is to do direct sales or drop shipping. We buy from wholesales with cheaper price and sell them again for higher price and make a profit. We can either buy first and do some storing, packaging and shipping or just taking orders from customers and forward them to the manufacturer and they will send them to customer.

This would be an option if the manufacturer doesn’t have any affiliate program yet, or the product is relatively new. Maybe from a small local home industries.

If they eventually have affiliate program, consider to do that option because it will be easier because we don’t actually sell anything, or need to buy something and we don’t need to compete with giant retailers because we basically are their partner.

In drop shipping, we basically become their shop and customer service. Sometimes we have to deal with complaints, returns or refunds.

Understand that there are companies with products to sell. They actually don’t care how we sell them, unless we provide a misleading information. We can do it without buying or even to meet and convince people or direct sell. Whether we actually open a shop or just share them using links on our website, it doesn’t matter.
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ABOUT SOCIAL MEDIA

They say that social aspect is one of the main part of SEO. Using social media platform is one way to boost that aspect and help our articles or website rank well on search engine. Instead of waiting for someone to access via search engine, we try to reach our audience.

Social media is where people hang around with one another and they will keep growing. It can be a great potential for traffic but it can also turn ugly. We basically are going to deal with any kind of people, not just those interested with our niche.

We are not just learning how to collect clicks, likes, shares or pluses because anybody can do it for free, even those who doesn’t really care. They can help to get us more exposure to find which one would be a loyal customers to our business. So we need to learn to know which one is potential to be our audience and also how to build them.

Robert said that learning about social media marketing is essential for our business. Even big companies are using them too.

Here are some benefits of using social media for marketing, according to Robert.

• Brand recognition. The more we post or share your article, the easier people to recognize us as the expert of the niche
• Building target audience. Find people with same interest or like-minded people, follow them or follow back
• Increase in website traffic. Search engine will do it automatically but social media could help us faster.
• Higher ranking in search engine. One of the SEO component is to consider how popular about our article, some social media like Google Plus even considered as something to get higher rank.
• More opportunities to conversion. Some would call it the snow ball effect, the people we interact directly will eventually share them with the one we never interact
• The cheapest way, free advertising. We don’t have to pay people who share this, even though there is a way to do so.
• Interact with similar brand. We can get to know our competition, especially if they are doing much better than us. Learn from them.
• Develop good customer service experience. Learn how our customer complaints and how to address them
• Customer feedback (buzz). Encourage people to ask further about what we are selling, make our campaign better, add more content to our existing one.
• if the content we share is well written, it will advertise and promote itself.
• Help us to reach reputable company or website, and when it does it will boost our rank.
• Our target audience could be much younger or older than us. They probably have different culture, language, idiom, etc, almost like a totally different language. Social media is the place to learn and adapt.

Rules and tips for using social media for marketing.

• Do not share too many within short periode of time. They will think us as spammer and eventually get blocked. Wait for 20- 30 minutes between sharing different contents and do not share the same content within a day.
• When people think of us as a spammer and the same goes to the company you represent.
• Read guidelines of each social media platform.
• re share our content over and over again but watch the guidelines because some of them would forbid us to reshare within a month
• Like the comment and shares of others. Comment their post after reading the content to make them relevant
• Share smartly, only relevant post to relevant niche. do it publicly if we haven’t made any group. Use extended circles features on Google Plus.
• Usually every social media are busiest in the morning until noon and from afternoon to evening. Pinterest is the exception, start in the afternoon to evening and again at night. Based on niche it could vary the exact time.
• For business or job related, use LinkedIn too.
• Get to know about other members first by commenting and reading their post
• Take note who likes our post and share it. Invite them to join our circle.
• Do it slowly. It’s an ongoing task that will never end.
• For those who likes it share our content privately for them.
• Focus on people outside WA. Keep cultivating them, as many as possible.
• Do not hang around on social media. Just post and share our content, like and comment on post or tweet relevant to building our business then logout. Discipline is the key.
• make sure we have enough content worth sharing first before jumping into social media
• post our content manually not with share button, not effective for posting picture, upload picture first then attach the link. let the reader use the share button. except for pinterest, we will get the large size image
  pinterest effect: post picture related to content not just the content, get more clicks
• Be prepared. Keep a document file of list of our content including the url and the shortened url, maybe the relevant hashtags or canned pitch sales, something that we can just copy and paste. That way we don’t need to think again what to post when re sharing the same content. The shortened one doesn’t work on Pinterest
• Leave relevant comment not just compliment, mention the author’s name to give credibility. It could help other website get better rank.
• What goes around comes around, pay it forward and we will be rewarded
  if we don’t have time, at least help them by sharing on social media. It only takes a few seconds.
• it’s hard to get a comment in social media, but dont be discouraged, keep posting. Share it several times because there is a chance that people didn’t see the link the first time.
• Put a call in action not just to comment but for them to leave their link so we can return the favor.
• Do not buy followers. Do it old fashioned way, cultivate them by interacting with them.
• Don’t forget to check your spam folder, there could be a legit comment. Could be a future customer.
• Do triple check before sharing anything. Or we will have to delete all of them and do it one more time. It could take 2 hours.
• Look at the bio of people before follow them back. Don’t follow just anybody. Depending on our niche they could be potential customer
• No need to separate business and personal account but when it comes to family and kids, we need to be more careful. Use Google Plus for business and Google hangout for personal message
  Don’t use pseudonym. Just like any offline business, they will want to know our real name, projects openness and trust instead of hiding. Make a connection with our other business by using the same name and profile picture.
• if we don’t have enough content to share, don’t start sharing. The idea is not to share the same thing over and over again in short period of time. We need to show some variety. Create enough content and also share other people’s content, like WA training.
• For WA Premium member, we could use the 25 free siterubix website to create a post with affiliate marketing. this is a way to get around sharing on social media that blocks every WA affiliate link. Since we are going to do the marketing ourselves on social media and not relying on Google, we don’t need to worry about getting penalized for that website.
• We do have to give up some privacy by using social media but not personal privacy like family relation or contact info such as where we live.  Exposure is important. No one can’t experience success if we keep our internet business private.
• Learn social media one by one, like 30 minutes a day to learn. Don’t rush.
  Careful getting distracted using visual social media like Pinterest and Instagram.
• Essentially learning social media is like learning to socialize on WA and what’s more WA is more strict.
• Keep a collection of images related to post. That way we could add, or use different image for the same link or post we shared. At least people would think we share something different by looking at different images. Set it on different folders and we could use the same image for different purposes.
• There are people posting garbage, like negativity and fake news especially on Facebook. Don’t let them distract us.
• Ignore some personal interaction like with friends while working and focus on customers. Respond them later when the working hour is done.
• Have at least two or three images on each content.
• Static form or news feed form. Static platform like Google Plus or Pinterest, we need less frequent posting unlike news feed platform which our post or tweet will be buried within seconds. Usually they have pinned post feature instead but only for one.

Choosing (the first) social media platform

Clearly it’s better if we can use all of the platforms. But since most of people are reluctant to even use one, to try and learn just one at a time might be a good idea. The question is which one to start?

From what I can tell from Robert is that every social media is still a growing platform. People will use them but they might get sick of them and try to find another one or maybe the platform will add a new feature to keep their users.

There was a time when Robert praised Google Plus as the most important one since it is owned by Google. Then came a news about Google, the search engine, finally got access to crawl on Twitter feeds, and since then, Twitter become one of Robert’s favorite platform from one of the least.

Now, the last thing I saw was that Facebook has become the most important platform for Robert. He used to say that Facebook was a waste of time, too clutter and people are moving away from them.

The reason for this was that Google Plus suddenly changed a lot of things and Robert has not tried them yet. The worst part was removing Extended Circle feature, which turned out to be the reason it can be a powerful marketing tool.

Over time all of these platforms will try to keep their users by changing, adding or removing their feature for better or worse and it could affect how we use them for marketing. Something happened to their business and they have to change their service. This is why we shouldn’t rely on just one platform should we choose to use them.

Google Plus Tips

Google uses the social signal we get on Google Plus to help our content get better rank. Try to accumulate “+1” by socially engaging other users. Remember that what goes around comes around.

We have to build our target audience by joining a community. Pick a group with 500 or 1000 members.

First day just introduce ourselves, and state our interest on joining, don’t post anything yet because it’s like a spammer. When we do post or share our content, do it slowly, and make sure to put anybody who give us plus 1 on our circle.

Build circle to make it easier to target them. Circle essentially the same as category. Build circle based on niche, friends, people who follow us but not quite fit to niche circle and people we follow.

Do not do this for the internet marketing niche because its a lost cause. Google plus used to have extended circle feature to let people in your circle share your content to their friends that we don’t directly interact. Instead, look for people trying to build their home business or being self employed, focus on non WA members.

Google Plus bans any link from WA blog but we can do it on another social media like Pinterest or Facebook then post that link from other social media on Google Plus. Try to shorten link won’t help.

Make a variety of post, people will feel more inclined to want to follow us so we don’t need to worry if people don’t like our niche. Another way is to pick a niche with great market that most people would love like natural health.

Use asterisk for bold text and underscore to italicize text to make our headlines more appealing. Use three hashtags for every post.

Facebook Tips

Facebook page can only generate “likes”, which doesn’t do much conversion to traffic. Even after the owner spends a lot of time promoting their page, it is still not as effective as using groups where people hang out. Create a

Facebook page for the long run but post link to our website to targeted Facebook group has better results.

Facebook group is the feature similar to Google Plus (community based). Using Facebook group, Robert can get like 100 referrals and about 25% become premium member.

Find group using search bar, not page or website. Do not make a new one because we would need more time to get more people to join. Find a group that would be great for sharing our content. Add more words on search bar to find more groups.

Read their rules or guidelines. Every group has different rules we need to understand, especially for closed and secret groups. Some of them need approval from the owner just to post.

Focus on public group, as we will get more exposure than private groups. Join private only when invited and most of the members we don’t really know or become friends in Facebook.

Write an eye catching post and end them with “interested?” with no link. This way is effective enough to lure some people and when they ask a question for more information, send them a prepared private message with a link.

By doing this way, Robert said he can get like 12 referrals within 3 days not weekends. Facebook will block anybody using too many links. So sharing links via inbox is the safest way.

Another way to do it on group is to first, add a photo then write a captivating promoting headlines with links. This way we could add a different picture than the one on the post. Of course, we could just write a post with a link and Facebook will use the image on the post. Never just post a link.

If we follow several groups it is best to focus each day just to share on one group and do it on another group on different day. Post it on group not our profile so it would be relevant and we won’t bother friends and family with it. Robert said he follows like 17 groups.

When interested with the content, people will check the profile of anyone who shares something. Put additional info on our profile and tell people to check.

Remove any comment offering another product. Block them if they keep doing that.

For money making online niche, most people on the group usually want easy cash and get rich quick scheme. But there are still some members really looking for business opportunity. Clearly state that this is not about any money making business model like drop shipping, or MLM to filter them.

Most people log in to Facebook first thing in the morning. Consider the target’s time, post accordingly.

Twitter Tips

Don’t fully use the 280 characters on twitter, more is not always better. Try to do 140 then use more if needed. If we still want to use all 280, remember that we need 22 free character spaces for link or URL. Images aren’t included.

Use the search bar to research some popular hashtags that we could use on our tweet. Use just two hashtags per tweet, three if one of them has similarities. Always use #BMRTG (Business Marketing ReTweet Group) and #BTRTG (Business Talk ReTweet Group) for tweeting our business. They will automatically retweet them to every follower and our tweet can get like 500% more exposure.

Find and build our audience using search bar and hashtags. Giving “like” on someone’s tweet is great but on twitter retweet is more important. Check our notification, there might be a person who likes our tweet but not a follower. No need to follow everybody but at least give them “like” or retweet.

Engage with other users is essentials of using social media for marketing. They will see that we are not just bot but there is a person that they can ask for more information. No need to reply unless we got something important to say regarding the tweet.

Another thing is having a variety of tweets from other users means that we are not just want to spam with our content but we are interested for discussion with the subject as well. Our profile would be more appealing.

Use “View Tweet Activity” feature to research our tweet engagement result. Maybe we can find out how to construct a better tweet and when to post with optimum result.

Using images on every tweet can get more views. They can stand out between other tweet feed any user get. Unlike other social media, we need to upload image by ourselves.

For links, Twitter will automatically shorten the url without changing the result.

So far there are no limitation about tweeting the same thing over and over again. But, this doesn’t mean we should do that. We can tweet the same link like 3 times a day but make sure we use different tweet, hashtags and image. Mix some old content with a new one each day.

Pinterest Tips

Pinterest is very strong, not only because they use images, but also we can still look at every feeds by accessing their profile. No need to scroll down too much which could be years from now. So the board is like a shortcut.

Pinterest peak time is at 3 pm until 10 pm east coast time US time zone. Do Pinterest at the end of the day because as a visual platform, the images can be very distracting and wasting time. We could risk wasting our time to work if we do it early.

Come up with short and informative message about our business and place them on the header beside our profile pic. Change them to find one with the best result. Don’t forget to include our web URL.

Use a lot of boards, not just based on niches or our business categories but also everything we love like hobby, tv show, movie, etc. Add like 4 more boards beside our business. The idea is that if someone like one thing about us, there is a chance they might looking for something else from us, maybe they will look at other pinboard of ours.

The good thing is that we don’t need to follow someone in order to look at their boards or even to re pin them. So the snowball effect is easier here.

Reposition the boards we want to get most exposure to the top row, especially on peak pinning times. Different niche maybe have different peak time.

Consider Pinterest like any search engine, any board on the first spot will get more exposure. Don’t ask our visitor to scroll down, prioritize any boards that could lead some traffic to our website

Understand that when people use Pinterest, most likely they are not trying to promote their business. So they don’t care about arranging those boards. For building our audience we have to do it. Sometimes we need to scroll down to find the relevant board, not the shared one, to find their interest, so we could follow them and hoping they will follow back.

Pinterest users are mostly women, perfect for female oriented niches. If not, the amount of men users also growing steadily.
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ABOUT IMPROVING PRODUCTIVITY

Use a test website to test any customization we made before apply it on our live website. Use it to help other members as well.

If we do the training, especially the one with video, don’t watch the whole video then do the task. Instead, pause it replay until we completely understand, do the task before continue the video of the next part. This way we can make sure we don’t miss anything. Use multi tabs, or even two monitors.

If we feel overwhelmed by the WA training, just take a step back and focus on just one thing. For example, just focus on the main training and don’t listen to other training created by member. We can turn off the notification until we understand the training.

When we are ready to move on to the next, we can turn it back on. Wait until night to look at email notification. Don’t let them distract us from our main job, creating content, building business.

Set a goal of how we want to proceed everyday with training and working your website. By doing that we can be more productive and know how to increase the goal, like add another 30 minutes or one hour. Without that we wouldn’t know whether we are increasing the time or just getting good at it.

Don’t have to be smart to start but do have to start to become smart. Be patient, don’t be lazy. Use our free time to learn or develop our website or maybe just skill. Redo the training in WA, We can find something we miss before.Learn everyday, not 1 or 2 hours a day but 5 or six or more.

Procrastination can be addicting, especially when learning something we know nothing about. If you really hungry for success, eventually we will beat the procrastination. It’s normal to get stuck in anything. The important thing is not to let it become reason to procrastinate. Just ask in WA. There are no stupid question except the one that is not asked.

If we keep procrastinate, we are prolonging the time we have to spend working for someone else. We are making them richer but not us.

Reread, proofread our writing a day after. Get some rest first to clear our mind, we can spot problem easier with clear mind.

Delete web URLfrom website comment. No benefit for doing that.

Write on MS words for grammar check, paste on text/html to uncover hidden code.

Sometimes reading the same information presented in a different way will get the point across better.

Write 50-75% of post and finish them the next day. Need time to find 2 or 3 relevant images, proofreading and tweak. After done writing, proofread, see how it flows and if we need, correct them then proofread again until we are satisfied.

With vlog we are gonna need to make a whole video to update and edit the content, text is a lot easier.
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ABOUT TRAFFIC, SEARCH ENGINE RANKING, OFF PAGE SEO

Comments are important, can raise our website ranking even just for a couple of posts. Even the commentator can write something with a keyword and get index by Google.

Use Google Search Console (GSC) to know this. Maybe we can write something new based on the comments we get.Check our ranking using incognito mode or private browsing. Any search engine probably use our search history as a base to give the search result.

Use GSC to find out other queries that people use that lead to our website. Use it to update the content or create a new one.

Meta tags is just a suggestion for Google not a guarantee that it will show them. Google might choose the relevant part of our content based on the keyword people use.

So if somehow, we use keyword techniques, and any reader use the same keyword, we can make sure which meta description is being displayed by Google. Do our own search using incognito mode and that keyword, rewrite if we think we need to.

Try to experiment to find which one with better result but don’t try to mislead. Make it compelling and best describe what the content is about. Write 140 characters because the date will take over the rest.

Google prefer Google friendly plugin like All in One SEO compared to Yoast. They loves wordpress because it is a CMS, easier for Googlebot to crawl.

Google is so smart that it can see the target keyword just by the title, in first paragraph would help but the title would be enough and in url.

They can also figure out what the content is about by match the keyword in title with LSI word in body content. Stop writing for rank and start for people searching for it.

We need two dozen posts (>1000 words, preferably almost 2000) for Google to start pushing our website up in rankings.

Even ranking got changed based on click data. Sometimes result on #2 got more click than the #1.

For getting on Google page 1, write quality content on long tail low competition keyword. Use keyword on title, first paragraph and last paragraph or near end of content.

Share link on every social media network multiple times a month every month. Continue add quality content on consistent schedule.

Use and submit sitemap. Use analytics and search console.Be patient and wait.

Check our result on search engine a few weeks after publishing. Use the social media and comment engagement to drive up the result to page one. Wait two weeks because there is a factor of freshness. So, if we immediately check we might get high rank but suddenly drop. Wait for the real rank.

The more content we add, eventually Google will notice and consider us as a reputable source, an authority in your niche. After that we will get better ranking. Usually after 20-25 combined contents.

The best way to get backlinks is to create quality content and stop trying to get it.

Keyword research is based on data, traffic or search per month. When we apply them, there’s still a chance that the trend would go downwards.
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ABOUT WRITING

In this business, content creation in the form of writing is essential. The end product could be a text, audio or video. Even by making a video log, we still need to write down what we are going to talk about so we can record it in one take, less editing.

In a good writing we are not just presenting an information as a list but instead we present the information as a whole article that could convince, engage and make any reader relate to our writing.

If we just put any list of facts or information, there’s a chance that the reader might not understand, whether it’s a good or bad thing, or else, they might not even care because they think they don’t have anything to do with it.

Engaging the reader

On the other hand, by putting those facts as part of a story, a condition or setting, not only we could convince them because they think we understand their situation, we could even give them a new perspective. We could show them that there’s an additional benefit that the reader can get but overlook.

If we are trying to sell something, we have better chance if we write a story about what we sell.

Engaging means like having a conversation but instead of saying we type it. Get them thinking and make them relate, get them involved.

Imagine that we are talking to a family member or close friend, in a two way conversation and instead of talking we type.

Communicate with our potential buyer not to the e-commerce. Put ourselves in their mind, what exactly the information that they are looking for. Answer that and anticipate the follow up question.

Even after they understand the first information, they will ask themselves. how to buy it or get it. If it is about clothes, how to keep it clean, If a recipe how to prepare it, what are the ingredients or the cookware. Walk them through the process

Offer some relevant stories, some product comparisons, some personal reviews, some humor, some personality, some pizzazz, and get our reader to think about what they are reading by engaging them through questions. Have fun with stories or humor.

Don’t just provide lines of information, facts, even upsells. Engage with analogy or visualize with something familiar to reader but relevant to our content. Asking a question is a way to engage reader.

Write content to help people to better understand the thing they are looking for.

Add personality to our writing to make it memorable, don’t write it like reading a manual. Write it so our content defines who you are. Better not to rush publishing, take our time to put some character and make it well written. Just don’t hesitate to publish after that.

We can always add something later. Don’t delete anything especially when already indexed. Perfect doesn’t convert, not even exist.

Write long for those who love to read but give a way to skim for those who don’t. Not everybody wants to read 2000+ words post just like nobody would read 600 words post.

Make sure writing in a conversational tone is something we project in our writing style. Use question.

One of my favorites when explaining something somewhat simple or that requires common sense I will say something like, “Think about it! What will…?” or “Don’t you think you are worth it?”

Writer’s Block

Even after become an expert, writing for more than 12 years, we can still have a writer’s block. A condition where we don’t know what to write even after doing over and over again.

Robert said that we can try forcing it, break the block, keep trying to write. Or, we could also get out, forget about our work for a while. We do something completely irrelevant to clear our mind.

There’s a chance that we might get an idea while we were out. So take something to record the idea. A notepad, taking picture, a video or just record our voice how we get that idea.

Sometimes a picture we take can be very relevant to our niche or just to decorate our website with original pic.

Using Keywords.

Don’t do keyword stuffing but instead use synonyms or similar terms to replace if we must use it.

Keyword is still important but not the most. If we stuck, just write naturally, then find and replace some words with a better keyword.

A good, quality writing will content other keyword and get rank as well. Use keyword only on title, first paragraph and one near the end.

No need to use keyword less than 10 searches or traffic, unless it’s a new product or service.

For grammatically incorrect keywords, look for the correct one, maybe the competition is not so different than the incorrect one. We will still get the benefit of the incorrect one.

Look for not only the low hanging fruit keyword but also long tail keyword.

Visually Appealing

First impressions are everything, make sure everything looks right before publishing it. Images paints a thousand words but we need both image and text to get our point across.

If the picture is vertical, not rectangular, place it on the right, if rectangle put it on center. Rarely use picture more than 710 pixel wide, keep the memory size down.

Put 2 to 5 images depending on how long our content. Just distribute them, or skip one section and put another on the next.

Use pictures at least 2, heading tag, and short paragraph for visually stimulating. image or captivating headings as people landed on our page, put it on top.

The image doesn’t need to appear as a whole, just enough to make people scroll down. Image can be very captivating just don’t do it too much that it can take over.

We need not only to provide information but also find a way to grab their attention to keep reading. Use captivating heading tags. Use H3 Tags every 3 to five paragraphs.

About content

Start with promoting just one product, we are going to write a lot of contents not just one post per product. After a few weeks we are going to run out of ideas to write about the first product then you can move on to the second product.

What we do is to make money but by providing information to people. Give our opinion about what we are promoting and why it is or isn’t worth for them.

Website heavy on information and light on selling, more profitable, sounds odd but it is how it works.

One thing to remember is that what we see on another person’s website is a result of tweaks and customization over the course of time. As it grows, it gets visually better.

No more than 2 affiliate links for long content (2000+). Nobody would want to buy from a desperate. For 1000 words blog, 3 or 4 affiliate links should be the most and if so, don’t even use the same advertising line or banner.

Don’t do link bombing, do it very subtle. Just one banner at side widget and or ask them to read on a centralized page with affiliate link. Provide them with internal link.

Especially on suggesting/ tips or advice for blogging, action speaks louder than words, so show them that even we follow our own suggestion.

Do grammar and spelling check to deliver the right message. In some cases the right grammar can mean other thing, like in different culture.

Use famous people’s quotes to convince or make a point. Here is a list of Robert’s favorite quotes.

• Warren Buffett said, “if you don’t find a way to make money while you sleep, you will work until you die.”
• Franklin D. Roosevelt, “…the only thing we have to fear is…fear itself…
• Nietzsche said, “He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.
• God never made his work, for man to mend.” – John Dryden, 17th century English poet laureate
• Will Smith, “The first step before anybody else in the world believes it, is you have to believe it!”
• Matt Cutts of Google has said, “To write good content you have to enjoy what you are writing about.”
• “Necessity is the mother of invention”, English Proverb
• “If you build it, he will come”, Kevin Costner on Field of dreams
• “If I can make it there I’ll make it anywhere”, Frank Sinatra – New York
• or remind them how they achieve success like Jeff Bezos who needed 2 years

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ABOUT USER EXPERIENCE

Think of it as a guided tour for our website. Help the reader to find their information.

Keep our website simple, easy to navigate and mobile compliant. Do for the visitors not the Google.

Short and simple, not block of paragraphs, use headings no more than 6 lines of text, preferably 3 or 4.

If need a long explanation try make it not boring. Educating, entertaining and exciting for the reader.

Use image to entertain, keep people interesting and give them description about the whole content but Google won’t be able to index them properly. Image is like a break from reading too much.

Optimum placement for image would be centered, as opposed to the content’s left margin.Make people easily understand the pattern of our website, keep the pattern. When reading from left to right our eyes need that edge to be uniform.

Optimize the landing area. Above the fold area, the first thing people would see or read without the need to scroll down.

Put our most important page tabs on top navigation bar. Easier people to navigate after the content. Don’t let them get lost.

Use drop down menu for displaying more in limited space. Plan ahead what we are going to show as menu and drop down menu. Don’t place another row of page tabs. It can be confusing when having too many.

Use menu on sidebar for bigger website with a lot of information. The point is for user experience. Give the reader an easy way to access any kind of information.

Rarely put image on top, but when we do, put it on top right align. So people can still see the beginning of paragraph and also the keyword.

Best to create website on desktop but we need to check the result on mobile as well.

Do not put link to close to each other, hard to tap to one of them.

Use featured images, Especially if the homepage is a blogroll. We won’t see them in mobile but good for tablet and desktop.

Do not open link to a new tab unless going to another website.

Make website fresh idea by using manual ad rotation on widget, like once every 2 months. Affiliate programs probably offers monthly discount.

Adsense banner can be very distracting. It is also off topic, especially in sidebars they are based on visitor IP while in the content can be relevant but more distracting from the content.

Don’t think just to make money that we even put so many ads and drive the reader away from our content.

Give people the information that they are looking for with the least amount of distractions with too many ads. Just one or two ads for sidebar.

Use EMD/brandable domain name or both. Always use dot com, dot net is the next. Avoid 3-letter names, hyphen and number, less confusion is better.

If we want to use pop up try to at least put it on the side and not in the middle which blocking the content. Another way is to wait for 60 seconds or when people done scrolling down. It can get email list but don’t be that desperate.
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ABOUT NICHE

A niche can be anything from our surroundings, including what we wear from top to bottom, from what we use, gadget, couch, etc. Look at a photo, anything we can see there, we can buy, probably a lot of people are looking the same way and going to buy.

Niche doesn’t have to be a passion, or doesn’t need to know first hand knowledge.The important thing is our willingness to research and learn about it.

We can also read a magazine to find niche. maybe monthly one. Check any featured website relevant to desired niche, maybe they have affiliate program. Treat magazines as source of content.

Pick a broad niche but focus on sub niches so break them down first into sub niches.

Use Google trends to show that the potential market is there. Do not choose a niche because it’s profitable.

Evergreen niche type are health, make money, romance. Hobbies niche type can be about sport, cooking, traveling, or game. Popular niches are video game, cooking, weight loss, computers.

Automobile niche has very big market and most people are familiar with them. People can have more than one. Some even love them more than they should, like a family member. A lot of products in an automobile so it has a lot of sub niches and people love to personalize them.

Collectible niche, usually for geeks. A geek will always buy anything related, great and growing market of fan and there’s no slowing down, not to mention the old fan will always be fan.

Keep the collectibles in original box can have high value, can be an investment, even for insurance for the projection value. For comic book maybe has to be in mint condition.

A collector, loyal fan would always ready to spend few hundred dollars to add anything to their collection. Same kind of fan for famous people, they love to buy anything related to their idol.

There are products associated with famous people, and there are potential buyers who would pay stupid money to get those specialty products. They could even sell those products for over 5 times the real value in some cases.

Some popular event can be a niche like natural phenomenon. Don’t make a website based on very rare event but use that to generate idea or find related niche. Like solar eclipse event for telescope niche.

Do research about different affiliate programs selling the one type of product, especially consumable or medicine. How the production are done can affect the end result. Maybe not truly organic, not 100% because the ingredients has to be imported first. Find out which the industry have access to the main planting area.

For example not using solvent to extract CBD for making CBD hemp oil. This way it can make them a pure product, the ingredients comes from Northern Europe, where the organic hemp grown. Different brands are using different method for producing, hence the quality. Knowing this kind of facts would be a key point on selling.

In depth research is important for many aspects of taking on a new niche especially if we have no real first-hand knowledge.

For basketball shoe niche use Nike or NBA program, stay away from Sports authority, Modell’s, Dick’s, foot locker. it’s about the poor commission compared to the first two’s.
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ABOUT FREE IMAGES

Using image is a way to make our post more visually appealing. For free images, we can either take a picture on our own or look for one on the internet.

Not all of the images we can find on Google or internet are free. For some of them, we need to pay, ask permission, just mention the author or even free to use, as a whole picture, parts of them or edit them.

Royalty free means we might still need to give credit to the author or artist but the problem is that it takes time to find information about the author. Sometimes, we can’t afford to waste our time searching for that information so it’s better to use a free one.

Use Google advanced search, usually the displayed images are from Wikimedia commons or Pixabay. On top of Pixabay page there are also non free image with shutterstock watermark. Use the first suggestion not the one after we click the image.

To find free image on our own, not from search engine, there are two things we need to understand. Public domain image and Creative Common Zero (CC0). Public domain images are free to use under restriction of copyright law, doesn’t mean worldwide, even same country like us with different states or jurisdiction. In Germany the right to be identified as the author cannot be legally disclaimed.

Creative Common Zero (CC0) is a tool to submit the creative work to a public domain worldwide. So for some jurisdiction, any artist can just say that their work is free to use but it doesn’t work everywhere. To ensure his intention, the artist needs to use the tool.

Just use MS paint or Paintbrush to edit the picture, no need fancy software. From one picture we can use it partially for several different niche. From a picture of a person we can zoom in to highlight the shirt, the shoes, just to support our article or niche.
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ABOUT PROMOTING WEALTHY AFFILIATE

Offline promotion

Why do we still need to promote our online business offline? Can’t they just access them online?

First of all, those people who could use the benefits from this business the most probably spend most of their time doing their job offline. Some of their work probably doesn’t require them to access the computer.

Like people who work as janitor or cleaning service could use some help. There are some people out there with minimum wage working offline.

Even if they could access the information from their mobile, with a lot of scams out there, they might be seeing our website as another scams. Let them know that there’s an actual person behind our website could really help us getting their trust.

Secondly, on the other hand, while we could work and spend most of our time in front of our computer, we still have life outside. Eventually we are going to meet some people and interact with them, like family gathering, or maybe just when we buy coffee or groceries.

Especially when we still building our business and still can’t replace our job as a full time income, we still go to work, meeting with coworkers or clients, or just anybody around the office. That is a big opportunity to promote our business.

Not to mention, when we go to vacation, or someplace else like friend’s wedding. There is no way we are going to do writing right on that occasion. Yet, we could still use our time promoting our business. We just need to talk about what we know, no need to do research.

We don’t sell our business, just answering question

Selling directly is never a good way, especially promoting a business or money making program from a stranger. People will only think that we are just trying to get their money.

What do we do then?

What we actually do is to wait for them to ask us about our job. So, we just need to be prepared when they finally ask the question how.

We build trust with them first. Just have a friendly chat, try to forget the idea of promoting. But when the opportunity comes, we already have what we need to help us show our work. What do we need?

Here are some tips from Robert to do it.

Use a business card

Let’s say we are meeting someone on our way to work, maybe on train or bus. It would be hard to show them our work using tablet. We can only talk about it and if they are interested, we can give them our business card, with our website’s name on it. They could access them later.

We can’t expect them to remember our website name If we tell them, not to mention, the right spelling. We can write them down but probably someone can’t read our handwriting and it would be another piece of paper in their pocket.

Assuming our website can do great with keyword and ranking, how about telling people to search our website name on Google, not just giving them the right domain. We just have to make sure that with that keyword we can get on the first page. Use the advantage of having EMD.

Promote our website not the affiliate link because people have to type them. Usually affiliate link has some codes specific to every affiliated person. One missed character means losing a lot of money. Just make sure our website has easy navigation so they could surf the website on their own.

Use folding card so anyone can put it on table where they work. Another thing is that with folding card we have more space to provide information.

Don’t just hand it to anyone. Give them to those who can get help by using the information we provide. After all we still need to spend money to print those cards.

On our website, offer free information where they can read them on their own. To make it special, offer to coach them 1 on 1.

Take advantage of any job with intense human interaction for promoting WA or our website

Like using UBER, while we can make money with Uber, we can also make money by talking to passenger. Maybe they ask us about our side job. If they are interested, give them your business card.

Or anytime you can have conversation with anybody like while driving with friends. We can take that opportunity. if not WA, maybe our niche could help them with their problem.

Find how to formulate the conversation where we can steer it towards your niche or websites.

How to promote WA in person

• Tell them that it’s a training (don’t say business, because it will set people on guard)
• Using gadget, show them the training. Show them how to create a website (how fast, maybe show the video).
• Show them your website. Then explain how we can make money from this (that it could become a business)
• Show all the resources, keyword tool, training, tutorial, chat, community etc.
• Tell about how we can learn seo, keyword and why it is important for any website to get on Google page one. If those people already have a website but still don’t know about this, they will want to know more.
• Tell them that it’s free to start and can make 2 website
• Support the statement with our experience

We will never know when people will become premium. It’s a lifetime cookie, we will still get money, whenever our referral become premium. Within 7-10 days they will become premium if they are truly committed.

It could take several months or even years. Some will be sooner but left then return. We just need to keep going, keep promoting. First active member was the 10th and the first premium after dozen of referrals.

Set your initial auto message and the one three days later. Comment on their description if they did write one and answer a question they may have.

How to capitalize Black Friday WA deal

• Make a website, use siterubix that we can promote this, update or change them (the date and banner) every year.
• write a short blog post about the price or the benefit, WA promotion, and a page set it as static homepage.
• Link some Google page 1 contents as part of promotion and get more exposure.
• Use it on Google Plus and LinkedIn
• Use the banner as image on social media.
• Robert said he got like 8 referrals for 4 day deal

Once our website can make a full time income, we can try other things in real life that we find it fun and still make money or even get some sales like doing job with Uber by meeting and interacting with other people, promoting offline, especially if we have repeat riders.

Opportunity comes in all forms. Even bring your iPad or gadget while working to show our customers our website

Word of mouth is still a great way to get people to want to check out your website. It is true that not all will, but we will never get anyone to look if we don’t tell anyone about it.

With reply comment, he uses them as a chance to complete or add information about WA or anything to support. Don’t just say thanks. we can see that he can and like a hundred more words each comment. Emphasize on how important the knowledge from WA.

Another point to sell about WA

WA has been around since 2005, has stood the test of time. While other program won’t last pass 5 years, or they need to change the program, with more expensive upsell, or even create a new program, re-branding so they could scam more people.

It’s because they are selling the hype of getting rich quick, sometimes a shortcut to build a business or even just do the business. WA doesn’t make such promises or even claim the number of income.

WA never change their core program. instead they provide and improve with better tools and more user friendly interface.
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My Comments about Robert

This is my second writing about a successful Wealthy Affiliate member. The first one was Nathaniell, you might want to read about him here, a guy with no college degree for alternative and comparison. Maybe later I could come up with more members.

Clearly, Robert’s approach is different than Nathaniell’s. There are a few things you need to know about Robert to understand him.

He has settled down.

The first thing about Robert is that, being a 50 years old person makes him a more settled down person. He is no longer looking to try new things as he used to.

It was very interesting when he tried a lot of new things like being Uber driver and do offline promotion with his business card and iPad. When he talked about eBay and dropshipping or creating a website about natural health and free cancer cure for the sake of sharing information and not making money.

He is still willing to learn new things but not as open as he could. He just wants to do something he knows would work. In this case, just following Wealthy Affiliate method and nothing else.

While he wants to share only the thing that he’s tried and works, the problem is that the other thing that he hasn’t tried and heard that it didn’t work, he didn’t try to find out why or how to make it work.

Instead, he would just find justification not to try those. Somehow it feels like he is being stubborn.

Limited writing and monetizing options

One of the example is about using Google Adsense. I understand that there are some pros and cons about using them but the fact that it is part of the WA training.

“If it’s not important, why Kyle put that as part of the training?”, as he would often argue about using social media. So instead of trying to find out how to make it work, he keeps reminding people to avoid them.

Sure he doesn’t need to use them on his websites and no one arguing about making more money with affiliate link. The problem is that not every niche can have that privilege.

His natural health websites should be a perfect example about avoiding using affiliate links. Displaying advertising like Adsense could be the answer but there are also other monetizing options he could try but didn’t.

If only he keeps building his website, maybe he could eventually find a way to use other monetizing options. Most of his posts are just the promotion type post which he only need to use affiliate link. He even stops writing product review.

I admit that his promotional writing is very good, very engaging and personable but that’s not the only type of post we are going to add on our website.

No need to walk on other people’s path. Learn from them and be yourself.

I still think that Robert can still expand or develop his niche websites but once again, this is about a personal choice or maybe his condition won’t let him. Being in his 50s probably also the reason that he was okay with his achievement here in WA while I do believe he can achieve more, financially.

He isn’t like Nathaniell, who is still very young and willing to try a lot of things even by spending and losing thousands of dollars.

I agree with his statement that we don’t need to do exactly the same as other people especially about being successful or our financial income. We need to be ourselves, find a way that works for us. We have to find our own goal and be successful with that.

The key for success in this business is to keep going. Don’t walk on other’s path and eventually stop because we hate it. Find and do the things that we love and eventually we can find opportunity to improve ourselves.

Robert doesn’t have to be like Nathaniell and we don’t need to follow Robert. I’m not criticizing Robert’s choice but I just want to point out that there are different types of WA members. There are members like Nathaniell who will keep expanding his business and there are members like Robert who prefer settling down.

Hopefully any new member would be aware of this.

His goal is not to make money but to help other members.

Instead of keep building and developing either his niche websites or bootcamp website, he chose to help other people. While he is still adding new post on his bootcamp website but only like once or twice a month compared to Nathaniell who could publish one article per day at least and that’s just on his bootcamp site.

Yes, Robert often adds another post on WA blog but rarely new things. If we follow Robert’s blog posts, it’s like reading the same thing over and over again, most of them were basics from the official training. His intention was to help new members that might be missing previous posts.

While Nathaniell is using outsource for content creation for his own websites, Robert is giving his service to write or even build a website for other people. It’s like Robert become the outsource that Nathaniell could use.

Helping people, at least on Wealthy Affiliate, doesn’t mean he can’t make money from it. He could write blogs on WA and still get new member and use those blogs to share on social media. He could also write tutorials or trainings and get paid from members liking it. And for the sake of helping people, he keeps them updated.

So there are other ways to be successful in Wealthy Affiliate but we need to know how. For Robert to help other people, I think using social media is part of it.

How does he help people using social media?

Most people are afraid or reluctant to use social media for marketing. Yet, Robert is like the one always encouraging everybody to use them. Nathaniell even said that it’s not essential but Robert said that it’s important, reminding people if it wasn’t, why it was part of the WA training.

While Robert always emphasize about the sharing, how simple and easy it was, there is one important aspect of using social media for marketing that he forget to mention. Robert is there, ready to reply any incoming comment, not just sharing and leave them.

One thing that impress me is his dedication to reply almost 90% of the comments. While a lot of them just to say thank you but very often he can write a whole new blog from replying to one person. Sometimes we can learn more from him by reading his reply.

He could emphasize the important part by repeating some line on reply or he could add new information, completing his writing. This way, if we look at the end result after comments, every post could contain the same and complete information. Google is not going to see all of them as duplicated contents because the initial writing, the posts, are started from different angle.

Instead, Google will see this as the engagement aspect of the website. The website is considered as a place for discussion where people would come and talk about something.

This could help the post to maintain its rank and keep updated. What people had been missing, including Robert himself, is the fact that by replying this way, he is also building trust with visitors.

He is like a sales customer service, helping his customers. A very trustworthy one since he is also the owner of the website.

Sharing is the first step and being there for anybody interested is the next one. Sharing is a way to get more exposure but replying on comment, convincing any reader would be the one gaining reputation or authority.

This is not an easy task, especially if you have problem interacting with other people. Sharing on multiple social media platforms might only take about 30 minutes a day but replying to them can take a lot more.

Is it worth it to do social media marketing?

I don’t have any data to support but at least at one point he shared about his WA referrals conversion rate which was higher than the average 8% as stated by WA. About one third of his referrals came from using social media, previously around 45% from SEO and 55% from social media marketing.

If this number is right then I think we should consider looking for balance between creating more contents and do the marketing via social media. While creating content is like promotional bait, being there to explain is like cultivating any reader to become a loyal customer.

After all as he was, it could get bored and lonely doing this business from home for a long time. Sitting for hours, surfing the internet for research and writing.

Or, maybe we are on vacation or need to rest and we cannot write anything. We don’t need to do research but repeating what we already know about it.

Even though Nathaniell said that social media isn’t essential, but he admitted that in the right way it could generate a lot of traffic. He also suggests to try it if we cannot do well in search engine.

Robert also said that we need to have a number of contents first before trying social media. The most important thing is to be knowledgeable so we can answer any question from the comment section.

Nevertheless, both methods can work only if we are willing to do it.

The downside of Robert’s approach

Eventually at some point he got overwhelmed by doing so. Once in a while he would take a step back from community to focus working on fewer things.

Between social media marketing, replying every comments he got, helping WA members and maybe creating websites or writing contents for others, he no longer have any time and maybe energy to do other things. Not even to develop his websites.

While I respect his choice to help people instead of making more money and he is okay with his level of income, the fact is that not everybody including his referrals can accept that.

Our referral could be anybody, from a person desperately needs money right away even to those who still have a good job but want to make other income. They could be younger or older than us with different goal, interest, expectation and productivity.

Like other referral based program, the referral would have to rely on the referrer. Sure, that WA community offers to learn from other members but each one of them already have their own referrals to take care, not to mention their business. Most of them, even Robert would say that they will take care of their referrals first.

If Robert’s referral accepts his method and financial achievement, that would be great. But, if they don’t then Robert has find other members as references.

This is not about a member looking to get rich quick but more of a member trying to make more money. It’s about setting a reasonable goal and prepare to learn and working on it.

Can they do it with Robert’s suggestion like focusing on social media marketing or should they look into other monetizing option that Robert had been neglected like Adsense?

Some tips for following Robert’s method.

If we become his referral, learning from him or in some way has a same condition with him, there are a few tips that can help us succeed in Wealthy Affiliate.

Open to learn new things. Even if we don’t want to do it or don’t need it, we can still help our referrals. Like Robert, even though he is no longer want to do drop shipping, some referrals still can learn from it and make some money to pay WA membership fee. Learn from other people as well.

Set priority. If we have a lot of things to do, make a list of which task we should do first. Like Robert, he has to prioritize on making money, deliver his service before helping his referrals or even other people, probably non member on social media.

Keep references. In case that our referral might not be satisfied with our achievement or method, there are a lot of other members sharing their experience might be suitable with our referral’s need. Make a list of references as well as networking. At least we could tell our referrals to learn from them.

Be independent. Just because Robert is willing to help, doesn’t mean we should let him decide the direction of our business. We need to know for sure on our own whether we are succeeding or failing, where we are going. Everybody makes mistakes. While his intention is sincere, doesn’t mean he always right.

Final Words

Nevertheless, if we look back to how he was before starting at Wealthy Affiliate, he already made some improvement to his life. Back then he had to make sales from drop shipping, which sometimes required him to find and research a product to sell or even set his own packing and shipping.

Now, he has his own business, teaching and helping others to make a website or sell their products. He needed to make a lot of saving back then but now, all of his websites can make a lot more than the yearly WA membership fee for every month.

For me this is a proof that WA training is very simple that even a 50 year old person can do it, make money and have business from home. There are a lot of members like him, Robert is just one of them.

So, if you are in the same condition as Robert and interested to learn more about building an online business, don’t hesitate to try. You can start it for free here.

Remember that you don’t have to do this alone. You can collaborate with your friends, spouse or your children or even grand kid, making it as a family business. By working together for one same website you can speed things up.

I learned about a lot of things from Robert but maybe because I am still in my learning process and a starter member at WA. I do recommend those who are still a starter member or barely begin in WA to follow him. If you already a member you can search his username boomergp08.

You can also get in touch with him directly by accessing Robert’s website legitimatejobfromhome.com. This is his bootcamp website, as a result of WA training.

As he said that sometimes we can understand better if the same thing explained in a different way. So if you have trouble understanding the official WA training, maybe reading his posts or tutorials can help.

Don’t get stuck and give up. We can always ask him to help, after all that is his mission, to help other people.

There are also a lot of things that i disagree with Robert, especially about something outside WA official training unless it’s about ebay, social media, or drop shipping. But the good thing in WA is that we can still learn from a lot more people doing this business model.

Once again this is my second success story about successful WA member. Maybe I’ve already learned something from my first one and didn’t write again here so you might want to check the first one here. Maybe you can find a new things to learn there.

To be honest, this might not be my favorite member. Just like any other, I thought any WA Ambassador will be like Nathaniell with advanced knowledge, more than we can find on training. Regardless, his dedication to help other members gives him the right to be one.

Anyway, this is all I can find and learn so far about Robert. I could have missed something and if you have anything else to add or ask me, you can do it on the comment section below. I would love to learn more. Hope it helps.

 

 

Mark M.