Ok, so if you’ve read some of my previous posts than you know I’ve tried many online money making ventures. Let me rewind the clock a few years and tell you about my FIRST introduction to SBI…

I had been dabbling with creating web sites for a bit – nothing terribly special and earning virtually nothing for my efforts.  The only way I was earning money online was through selling things on eBay.  Sure, at that point I had read a number of e-books about HOW to make money online, I just wasn’t necessarily applying all that I had learned.  So, I stumbled upon SBI as it was mentioned on a site I visited often by a blogger I trusted.

So I checked out this whole “SBI” thing and I was quite entrigued.  There were regular every-day people building quality, content rich sites which were, over time, bringing in a solid income.  And the neatest part was that I didn’t have to know HOW to do everything to build a truly successful site – SBI made building a HIGH QUALITY site quite easy.  Pages chock full of advice and directions, video instructions, awesome forums and much more!

SBI’s BIG thing is that you DO NOT just slap up a site quickly with a bunch of adsense on it and assume visitors will find you.  First you thoroughly research your proposed niche/subject to see if it could really be successful.  If I remember correctly, this preliminary step takes up the first 5 days of the 10 days of training.  Only AFTER you’ve thoroughly researched do you choose a domain name and start to build the site.  SBI makes it VERY easy to put up a good looking site – you DON’T have to know HTML, no coding, no PHP stuff !!  Just fill in the boxes as directed and click on “Build It!”.

So I had done my research and put up my site – I was thrilled with it.  I had my whole site layout done – which keywords were going to be used where…etc.  And the big thing with SBI is consistent action – keep at it, add a little each week or each day – but staying steady and FOCUSED is the key.  I went full steam ahead for I don’t know how many weeks……..then life got in the way, I got distracted, stepped away from the site and eventually followed the next “make thousands in a day with little effort” shiney object that bounced along.

Needless to say, I never got to see my SBI site prosper.  Yes, I built it up and had at least 60 pages of GREAT quality, UNIQUE content!  But then I flaked.  I never got to the part where I would start to monetize it.  I did, however, get some great positive feedback from visitors to the site.  And I remember checking the site’s stats often – that’s also integrated into the whole SBI thing.  Traffic to the site was growing….it truly is a shame that I didn’t stick with it. I flaked and a few months later my 1 year subscription ran out as did my domain name registration for the site

I did end up resurrecting the site and re-doing it on a WordPress platform – virtually the exact same site – same keywords, very similar lay-out, very similar internal linking structure…etc.  And you know what?  I’ve been VERY disappointed!  It’s the SAME site – but the traffic has not come even though I’ve made some effort to drive traffic.  The hits stink, not making any money on it – WHA!

I’m to the point now where I am done with online money making ideas that are full of baloney.  I KNOW that SBI is the real deal for real people who want to add good quality sites to the Web.  I’m in the process of reviewing all the SBI materials I had printed out the first time and in a few weeks I will again be purchasing SBI, following their steps  & directions to the letter and STAYING FOCUSED!

CLICK HERE to Watch a GREAT video about SBI!

I’ll be blogging about my progress….

I have recently taken some time to slow down a bit, step back and look at my big IM picture. Just what am I doing? Is it working?  and MOST importantly – do I enjoy doing it?

I am focusing on using my time the best way I can – work smarter, not harder.  I want to put my time and energy into internet ventures that I truly enjoy doing. I’m still working on staying focused on one project at a time and slowly getting better.

As you know, there is definitely no shortage of ways to make money online.  From selling stuff on eBay to doing various affiliate marketing ventures (articles, mini sites, videos…etc.). For myself I’ve come to realize that not everything is “one size fits all”.  Sure, there are plenty of opportunities in the IM world – but that doesn’t mean that I need to work all of them!  So I’ve sat down and really taken stock of my goals and values and how that relates to my Internet Marketing venures.  Right away, that knocked out a few projects that just don’t align well with me.

I have been successful in NOT following the latest “shiny object” for a few weeks now.  Any e-mails that come in with a title that hints at a new “launch” get deleted right away.  I’m sick of launches and the “buy it here to get my fabulous bonus” things.  I have also unsubscribed from numerous mailing lists that didn’t bring me any true value.

I am done with mini-sites that don’t provide much true value to visitors.  Yes, I still have a few random ones up and they are either going to totally go or I will re-vamp them into better quality sites.  Most of them are making me a little bit of money so I’ll probably keep the highest earners and beef them up more and get rid of the not-so-hot ones.

I’m still mulling ideas around in the back of my head and in my journal.  I’ve been pondering about which project is the best one for me to be working on now.  At this moment I *should* be hauling but to get my Christmas site up and in full swing – but I’ve been slacking a bit.  Life has gotten in the way somewhat but things are getting back on track.  So, for now it will be to crank out the Christmas site till around Thanksgiving and then I’ll move on to my next project – not sure which one that will be though.

So, my point with this post is to say to you – know yourself.  What are you into?  what do you enjoy doing? What would you NOT want to do to make money online?  Just because some IM Guru is sending out e-mails about the latest fabulous product launch doesn’t mean you have to jump on it.  Sure, many of those programs are good and folks have made a lot of money doing them – BUT – if it really doesn’t jive with you and it’s not something that you’ll committ to doing for the long haul, then it isn’t going to work for you.

There are a myriad of options to choose from.  You don’t have to put up a site that is totally geared towards selling people something of your own or someone elses stuff.  You could put up a site that is filled with good, valuable content and some google adsense to produce some income.

Find what works for you and committ to work on it consistently for a few months at least and you’ll be pleasantly surprised at your progress.

Whether you are brand spanking new to the world of Internet Marketing or you’ve been around for a while, these tips will help save you time, energy and money on your path to Internet Marketing Success.

1.) Watch Your Wallet

Especially in the beginning, this part is crucial.  If you are like most aspiring Internet Marketrs, you are starting out with more time than money – especially if you’re working on this while “in between jobs” aka “laid off”.  Don’t spend more mony than you can honestly afford to.  There are thousands of free resources on the web and hundreds of them are just as good, if not better, than anything you could pay for. Granted, finding your favorite, honest and trustworthy guru(s) will be majorly beneficial to your IM success.  If the “guru” is smart – he/she will freely shar much of their best ideas and suggestions for free.

That being said, be selective in just who you listen to.  Sign up for mailing lists, try it out – if you’re not getting true value from what is being sent to you then unsubscribe.  You may have a lot of time on your hands, but reading every newsletter/ezine, sales pitch and product push that arrives in your mailbox will hinder your progress.

There is one IM guru I follow who sends out e-mails promoting products quite reguarly.  He runs many different mailing lists and I’m probably on 3 or 4 of them.  While I find the constant sales pitches rather annoying, I have become almost impervious to them.  I stay subscribed to his list for 2 reasons: 1) When he does share information it is good quality, useful stuff and 2) I take a look at his sales pitches as examples of good sales copy – if he is sending out so many sales pitch e-mails, they must be working for him.  I, personally, would not choose to send out that many, but I can still learn from his.

2.) Get the Most Out of Membership Sites

If you are subscribed to a membership site – especially one with a forum – use it to your full advantage.  Stop being just a lurker and start adking questions.  You are probably not the only one wondering about X,Y or Z and others who usually keep silent will thank you for bringing up the topic.  You are paying to have access to the site and those running it – pick their brains, ask for guidance and get your money’s worth!

In my opinion, one of the best IM membership sites is My Silent Team.  It has been an invaluable resource for me and was especially helpful when I was first getting my feet wet in the Internet Marketing world.  And there’s also the Warrior Forum which I believe is the best free forum around.

3.) Clean Out Your Virtual Closets (aka Hard Drive)

You know you have several hundred dollars worth of e-books, guides, reports and how-to’s just sitting there collecting virtual dust on your hard drive – most unread.  Now is the time to go through them, sort out the baloney and only keep the true gems.  If it makes you nervous to delete some, just move the potential junk to a new folder.  Should it actually prove to be usefull in the future, you can still get to it.

You also may have several e-books/guides printed out.  When I finally sat down to go through my IM junk collction I had 4 copy paper sized boxes stuffed with printed out e-books, guides, reports and how-to’s !!  4 boxes!!  Over the course of several days I went through ALL of them.  All that remains is approximately 10 of them that I put in binders, labeled and put on an easily accessible shelf.  They are worthy of taking up space in my office.  All the others, well, I now crumple them up and use them as packing material for items I sell on eBay!  They were useful after all…lol.  Besides those 10 lucky winners, I do also have some sitting on my hard drive.  But the ones I actually printed out – those 10 – are the ones I use the most often.

These tips I have given you will seriously save you a lot of wasted time.  All together, I probably wasted years of time reading IM junk.  Follow my suggestions and you’ll move along the road to Ineternet Marketing Success much quicker than I did.

To be successful with QCP you need to change your perceptions a bit.  I can’t stress this enough – it is NO LONGER about just sending traffic to Ebay.  The more drilled-down and targeted your site is, the higher earnings you can expect.  In the past, I used to be concerned with putting up niche sites that only targeted very high ticket items so I would earn more per sale.  I do have a few sites that focus on small-ticket items that sell for $20 and less. And I honestly was thinking of scrapping them.  With this new QCP model, I see that they are now earning much more – it doesn’t make a difference anymore that the items are inexpensive.  The selling price of an item is only now one piece of how Ebay determines your earnings.

As I posted previously, I am absolutely thrilled by the new QCP model on Ebay.  Based on the preliminary sample QCP reports, I should see a 200-300% increase in my earnings when QCP kicks in for me in October. So, how so I have such high increases in earnings while others are complaining of dramatic decreases?  Well, I’ll share with you what has worked for me…

Building tiny, targeted, niche sites.  And I won’t even say “filled with quality content” – because, honestly, only a handful of my niche sites truly have good quality content on them at this point.  I’m in the process of re-vamping several of them and adding that good quality content because I don’t like being the owner of wimpy sites.

Starting out with a bare bones niche site is one way to test the waters and truly see if you can get those all important visitors who will click through to Ebay.  Still, you should have some decent content on your site when you launch it – but don’t spend hours upon hours on it until you know it’s a good niche.  And now, with the new QCP, you need to send very high quality, targeted visitors to Ebay if you want to be successful.  That is why the owners of tiny niche sites will reap the most benefits from Quality Click Pricing on Ebay.  Once you have found a niche that has potential, then go back and beef up the site some more – add more content, publish articles, use social bookmarking sites and create videos.

This can open up a whole new world of niche sites to create.   Doing a total 180 degree change on how you approach making money with the Ebay Partner Network will truly benefit you under the new QCP model.

Stay tuned for future posts about finding good tiny niches…

As you may know, Ebay decided to do a total re-vamp of their commission structure this fall.  They are now rewarding affiliates via a pay-per-click pricing model based on the quality of the traffic you send to Ebay.  If you are new to EPN then this new model started for you in September, existing affiliates will start in October.

Basically, it boils down to this…you have to send good, quality, targeted traffic to Ebay.  You will get higher pay-outs if your site visitors purchase the item you recommended right away (or put a bid in on it).  The old model that many affiliates followed of just sending any and all random traffic to Ebay will no longer fly.

On your EPN affiliate site you can see samples of what your commissions would look like for August and September of this year.  This is especially helpful in choosing which current campaigns to beef up.  I must say that I am ABSOLUETLY THRILLED at what my earnings will be under the new model.  For the month of August, my sample QCP column shows a 228% increase in earnings as compared with the old model !!  And August was actually one of my lower months for clicks/earnings – I chalk that up to August just being one of the slower sales months in general – many Ebay sellers even take all/part of the month off because they know it is one of the slowest sales months.  For September so far, I have a 318% increase in earnings!

That is one heck of a raise!  Sure beats the 3% “cost of living” raise that most folks don’t even get in their j-o-b paycheck.

Anyways, I wish that I didn’t have to wait until October for the changes to take effect.  They’re keeping the same timeline for pay outs, so that first affiliate check/deposit for the new amount will not arrive until the end of November!  That’s a long time to wait…but I am SOOO looking forward to it.

I know there are a lot of Ebay affiliates out there that aren’t thrilled with the QCP model.  I’ve read things like “google adsense will pay me 50 cents a click, so why in the world would I stick with EPN”.  That makes me wonder what kind of sites do they have up?  My average EPC in the QCP sample report for August was 60 cents and I had several days of EPC’s over $1.00 !  To me that is pretty darn cool.

And the even coolest part is that the overwhelming majority of my EPN sites are just basic, bare bones, haven’t done a whole heck of a lot with ‘em – sites.  And several of the sites don’t even promote high ticket items.  But what they ARE doing is bringing Ebay quality, targeted traffic.  My focus for the next several weeks is to beef up all of those sites – add more and better content, write articles to drive traffic…etc.  and keep shooting for those $1.00+ clicks!

I remember “back-in-the-day” (early 2000′s LOL) when people where making money hand-over-fist by buying and selling domain names.  I’ve always been REALLY bummed that I didn’t get in on that – I missed the boat.  I even knew of a friend of a friend who started a small internet company, sold it within a few years and went on to purchase several acres and build his dream home and happily “retire” and he was just BARELY out of college! With this new Quality Click Pricing model at Ebay I finally feel as though I’m positioned in the right spot to truly benefit from it tremendously.

How do you feel about the new QCP at Ebay?