I don't get too much into exact dollar amounts or time frames, although I guess I should if we're talking GOALS here. But I just want to get this business started and turned into something that produces steady income of some sort. Then expand it into something more substantial as I go. Most preferrably, without having to risk investing much to do so.

My motivations: Spending more time with my family, and having enough income to do so without having to scrimp and save on everything we need. My wife has reached her "dream" of being a stay-at-home mom since we had our son 3 years ago, although by necessity more than choice. And to be honest, it's not easy financially...more like a juggling act, in fact. I don't like the paycheck to paycheck way of life, so anything I can come up with in this internet marketing area will come in handy. And as I see around here, it's certainly possible to accomplish much more than just earning a few extra dollars, so this seems to be a much more worthwhile thing to do than just go out and get a second job and end up hardly having ANY time to spend with my family.

By the way, our daughter is 6 and in our local church's school, and my 3 year old son will be on his way to pre-school there next year. So I have until next June before the new payment for TWO paying members in that school begins. That's got to rank pretty high on the old motivation list!

John

I know this sounds strange, but just yesterday I wrote a kind of promo/article that said the exact same thing about second jobs. It's true. I've known so many people that work overtime (if they can) or have second jobs to make ends meet and to support their families. But what happens is that they end up hardly every seeing their families. It's not a good way of life. I am glad that we have this alternative available to us. Good luck to you and your family!

ali

Well talking about goals, I just don't know what to say. I'd really love to be financially free,but am just not getting the bang of it.
I have m=not made a dime since I read Holly's book. Am begining to wonder if this stuff is really for me? Any Idea where I should really start?

Hi! Please don't get discouraged too quickly. That's where a lot of people make a mistake. You put in a lot of work and nothing happens and just about the time you think...forget it, sales start showing up.

How long has it been since you began? I bought the book 10/6 and I haven't made any money yet, but others here have and I have to say that I was very slow getting anything resembling a web site up because I had to learn everything. So I don't really think it's been that long - although, like everyone else I am feeling the financial pinch. I have owned non- internet businesses before, and there is no way that you would expect to be up and running in one of those in two months - and I do think of this as a business. So don't get down on yourself. Go back and reread parts and see where you can improve and keep the faith. Also, if you run into a block or something - put it up here. We all want to help each other succeed.

Happy Holidays and a Prosperous New Year!

ali

Hi slim49z,
It seems like a big chunk of info to take in when it's all new to you, but stay with it and it will all start to come together in your mind. I haven't made much yet either, but I have made a couple of sales and got some Google Adsense earnings started in the last couple of months. Just enough to prove to myself that this really does work. So far I have the encouragement that I've accomplished what I have with hardly any effort, so I feel like when I put some REAL effort in I should really do well. Sooner or later though, I have to do just that...but for now, I'm pretty excited anyway.

I feel like for a change I already know WHAT to do, rather than just starting the year wondering what to do to earn some extra money in some sort of business. So I can't help but feel like it's going to be a great new year!

Good luck with your efforts, and keep us all posted!

John

Hi Slim49z,

To echo what has already been said, don't be discouraged by lack of results. As long as you are taking massive and consistent action the results will come.

Unfortunately, the majority of people who buy internet marketing ebooks never get past the point of getting ready to get started. You have to just live with the fact that you don't have all of the answers yet. But you don't need all the answers to make money or to get started.

Start with what you know you can do, and keep doing it. There are tons of simple things you can do to get going and learn along the way. Start a blog, it's free and fool-proof at blogger.com. Write some content ... every day at first. Put Adsense or affiliate links on your blog.

Get traffic to your blog. Create a signature in your profile for this forum with a link to your blog in it. Sign up for trafficswarm.com and get free traffic. Submit your blog link to the search engines and directories.

If you are still struggling to find a niche to begin targeting, go to Wordtracker.com and sign up for their weekly Top 300 Keywords email. It's free. The latest one arrived in my inbox half an hour ago.

#2 on the list is "Game cheats for PS2" with 4760 searches in the last 48 hours. "PS2 game cheats" is at #10.

#4 is "music lyrics". 4394 searches in 48 hours. And "Lyrics" appears in keyphrases at #28 and #71 too.

There's bound to be a niche in there somewhere, or at least some inspiration.

There are loads of musician, bands and celebrity names in the list too. Why not start a fan site for one of your favourites?

It's too easy to fall into the trap of believing that you have to promote other internet marketing products or schemes to make money on the internet. The competition in that sector is massive, maybe too much if you're just starting out. Find a less competitive niche to start on, there are plenty out there.

Another thing to try is to pick a site that you know is making money and use it as a model to follow. I did this just recently by using one of Holly's sites as my model. I built mine around a completely different niche, but followed Holly's example. It's a really simple 10 page site.

My site is just two months old but is already listed in Google (all the site's pages), MSN, Yahoo, Netscape, Ask Jeeves, Alexa and several directories too. It is getting natural traffic from the search engines for over 60 relevant keyphrases and is already ranking as high as #4 in Google for my main keyphrase, against half a million other sites. I even outrank the affiliate program I am promoting for that keyphrase! It is also making adsense income daily. There are several more lucrative keyphrases I am looking to rank better for so I am still writing content for the site.

For now, take a hard look at what you are doing on a daily basis that is helping to move you forward. Get out of the "learn, learn, learn" cycle and into a "work, work, analyze, amend" pattern. Keep doing something positive every day and keep coming back here for help and inspiration. That way, by the time the gaps in your knowledge fill in you'll already be making good money.

-Mark.