Siah

How did you get into Internet Marketing? Can you explain your journey into Internet Marketing in detail?
I first came upon the term Internet Marketing when I was 16. I was looking for ways to earn more pocket money. Being an Internet junkie, I naturally looked there. I came across Allan Gardyne’s “Affiliate Masters Course” ebook and absorbed everything in it – how to set up an affiliate business, how to brainstorm/optimize your site for keywords, SEO, selling to your customers. It’s all in that book. From there, every other ebook/manual I come across are just reiterations of that Allan’s ebook, so I can safely say you can go far with that book alone.
What are the various Web sites that are making you money?
My business is mainly on selling graphic services, so I’m not really making money through my Web site except it pulls in a few customers once in a while. My main streams of customers come from word-of-mouth or friend recommendations. Besides that, I have a site on www.photoshop-indepth.com to showcase what I can do with Photoshop. I also used to sell an ebook called “One Hour Templates” on my now defunct Web site www.ps-indepth.com, and that ebook alone brought me my first $700 dollar earnings.
How did you get started with photoshop-indepth.com?
As weird as it may seem, my Web site www.photoshop-indepth.com was born from pure interest in web and graphic design; I just wanted to have a place to showcase what I can do with my graphic/web design skills. The monetization options dawned in much later after I read Allan’s ebook, Affiliate Masters Course.
How do you promote your Web site?
My Web site first came into the public view when I posted it for critiques on a Photoshop forum. People loved my Photoshop articles and kept asking for more, so it took flight from there. I don’t use any paid promotion methods. My main source of traffic comes from “portal” sites like www.goodtutorials.com. Sites like these have a lot of hits everyday, so when I submit a tutorial that I write to that site, I am getting good exposure. In fact, I average 400 visitors daily with my current promotion methods.
Any tips for newbies in Internet Marketing?
To succeed in Internet Marketing, it’s not about having the best strategy or mentor to guide you. It’s about getting a good strategy that is proven to work and to work that strategy tirelessly. Too many people have very good mentors or very advanced marketing
strategies that will definitely work great but halfway through they give up just because they aren’t seeing results yet.
Internet Marketing is not an easy way to make money; it’s just another way to make money. You still have to work hard, but the difference is you’re working for yourself and not your boss if you were working for a company. Therefore, plain hard work is essential. Keep yourself motivated at all times to work on your business and before long, it will flourish.
Very good advice for beginners is to treat your customers as you would like to be treated. Treat them well and you shall reap the rewards. Think about it – how would you feel if your local ISP told you they were upgrading your connection just because you paid the bills promptly for 1 year? I’m sure you’ll stick with them! The same logic applies to any business!
Also, I would like to reiterate my advice of not giving up. Let me give you an example. Once, a businessman loaned hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy some machines to extract gold ore from a land that he knew would yield bountiful ores. He started digging and sure enough, gold was rich in that area. However, luck didn’t last long and before long he couldn’t dig up any more gold. The gold he dug up was just enough to pay off his loans. Then, he sold his machine and land at a very cheap price, being terribly discouraged.
An enterprising farmer saw the chance and did some research. He discovered that the piece of land was indeed overflowing with gold ore and bought the machine and land from the businessman. He dug and dug tirelessly and even though his efforts yielded no results, he persevered. Then, finally, he hit the rich gold ore underground – just a few feet deeper than where the businessman stopped.
The moral of the story is to
1) Do your homework properly; look before you jump and
2) Don’t give up too easily. Identify a goal that you know will work, and work on it till you see results. Don’t change plans easily or you will never succeed.
What is the biggest mistake (or some of the mistakes) you have learnt in the past few years as an Internet Marketer?
The biggest ever mistake I have ever made in Internet Marketing is guesswork. I guess too much and that just doesn’t work. When I first started on my business, I earned a considerable amount of money on my first ebook and it was pure luck. Thinking that Internet Marketing was easy, I proceeded tirelessly to write a second ebook and marketed it to the public. The conversion rate was terrible and that was because I didn’t do any homework at all. I didn’t bother to find out whether there was a market for the book, and in the end all I got was wasted hours. I could have used that time to easily finish a few jobs for clients and earn more than what I did with that ebook.
What are your plans in future?
I would like to gradually stop or reduce the amount of work I do for clients. When I design graphics for clients, as much as I enjoy it, I am selling my time and everyone has only 24 hours in a day. Even if I worked non-stop round the clock, I would still have a limited source of revenue.
I would like to start something residual, like membership clubs. I love teaching people what I know, so I can teach people how to do their own graphics or Web sites for a recurring membership fee. That way, I can keep gaining members and earn more money by doing roughly the same amount of work every month (in preparing the instructional materials).
Some people don’t believe in the “work smart, not work hard” adage. I do. When you are doing “fine” at your business, it is not enough. Always strive to improve what you are achieving and don’t let yourself feel comfortable at a certain level and stop.
If you are just starting out and have limited funds, I would be glad to teach you how to make your own graphics for your Web site/business. Just join my forum at www.photoshop-indepth.com/forums or email me at siah@ps-indepth.com and I’ll respond ASAP.