Part 1. March 2004 (all links open in a new window).

In one day recently I sold Clickbank ebooks on beating asthma, on making money, and advice on getting married, plus books on dieting and healthy eating (see proof below). I also sold one paperback book at Amazon but the size of the commission wouldn't buy me a coffee. The same day someone gained me a healthy commission by buying a $1700 engagement ring from an affiliate link on one of my sites (seems a bit unromantic to me, and I predict the marriage - if it happens - won't last), and I also sold two pairs of shoes from another site by getting people to visit the shoedini.com site via my affiliate link, plus a bonsai tree from another of my mini sites.

But that's not all.

I also made three $17 commissions from a mortgage company, and a whole pile of $1 commissions when people requested info on shopping coupons. Someone in the USA signed up for a cell phone plan, and two unfortunate people followed my link to a site selling hemorrhoid relief cream and made a much needed purchase.

Plus I made money from people clicking on Searchfeed links, and more money still from running Google Adsense adverts.

I admit that this was a good day - even exceptional - but every day, including weekends, I make hundreds and hundreds of dollars online.

Now it might sound like I'm boasting, but I'm not telling you all this to show off.

Instead, what I'm hoping to do, is inspire you and show you ways of achieving the same kind of success.

In fact I'm writing it for 3 purposes.

1. as an explanation as to why I'm no longer as active in the internet marketing forums, or publishing my newsletter as frequently... I'm too busy building profit making sites, plus taking more long vacations.

2. to gather together some of the articles and reviews I've written about niche marketing in the hope that I inspire you to follow my lead and start promoting products other than how to make money ebooks and software. (because I've pulled a lot of this together from things I've written previously there's going to be some repetition, but I hope you find it all interesting).

3. somewhat ironically I also hope to use these pages to convince you of the need to purchase some marketing books and software so that you can join me in making big dollars.

Ok, let me get started.

I'm an affiliate marketer and I like making affiliate commissions.

So I'll fly in the face of accepted wisdom (which deems that you should never tell people you're trying to sell to them) and I'll be up front about the fact that I'm hoping to make a few affiliate commissions from you reading this page. You know it and I know it. So why hide it?

You wouldn't be reading this page if you didn't want to make money on the Internet, and you know as well as I do that you're not going to make money without spending some as well.

But I promise you that I'm not going to over-hype things and say that you'll make tons of money if you buy the software and books I'm writing about. Some people will succeed and others won't. It's a fact of life. And it's also a fact (I think) that the people who take time to educate themselves, and who work really hard, make more money than lazy know-it-alls who think that the world owes them a living.

So straight up here's a list of some of the products mentioned here:

Ebooks:

Strike it Niche

Minisite Profits

Tools:

Wordtracker

Adwords Analyzer

I use them all, and recommend them all.

Ok, so how do I make all this money?

Well it's not, as many people assume, because of my long running newsletter, or my high traffic ozemedia.com site. There can't possibly be any connection, because I keep quiet about my money making web sites. Why? Because I've found that people tend to copy the ones I mention.

So the income the sites make isn't anything at all to do with my reputation as an affiliate marketer. And in fact that "reputation" counts for nothing in the wider scheme of things. Remember, I'm only known in this one small niche.

So it the money comes in because of four things:

Education - I've spent years learning all the techniques and tricks of the trade. Some things I've pioneered, but mostly I've learned by reading everything written about affiliate marketing from Allan Gardyne's long running Associate Programs newsletter to Rosalind Gardner's The Super Affiliate Handbook. My favorite affiliate marketing books include Michael Campbell's Clickin' It Rich, James Martell's Affiliate Marketers Handbook, Ken Evoy's Affiliate Masters Course, and Chuck McCulloughs Affiliate Mistakes.

Research - although I started out building sites around subjects that interested me, I now mainly follow the money. To quote the legendary Marlon Sanders "Find out where the money is and throw yourself in its path" In other words I find out what people are searching for - and buying - online, and I build sites to cash in on that market. Intensive keyword research is a must. These days I mainly use Ad Word Analyzer which is an extremely useful piece of software, and Wordtracker where I have an annual account.

Hard Work - there's no getting away from the fact that you won't succeed without hard work. No one in business does (but you've also got to work smart). It's essential to treat working on the internet, even part time, as a "proper" business. Pretend you've paid a $100,000 for the business and you'll go broke if you don't dedicate time to running it. Take time to learn how to run a business. Study courses and read books on business. Especially Internet business. And whether you're a full timer or a part timer, effective time management is a must. One book that's really helped me is The Lazy Man's Guide to Online Business by Jim and Dallas Edwards.

Clever site building - a lot of it is down to the writing. Whether you're selling directly from a site, or preselling a product you're an affiliate of, you need to be able to string a few words together. I've found it best (like many of the big magazines) to combine entertainment and information. After all, no one wants to read anything that's boring.
And here's where many people go wrong... they spend a long time making a site look great. In fact it consumes most of their time and they take ages making a site look attractive rather than making it sell. Forget fancy flash and juicy java, just get some persuasive words down on the screen and use a template or a site building tool to look after the look/style of the page. It's also very important to write for the search engines as well as your visitors.

Finding a niche.

Since getting inspired by the book Strike it Niche and by using Adwords Analyzer to drive extra traffic to my many mini sites I've dramatically boosted my income in the past 6 months.

Why?

Because Strike it Niche helped clear my foggy thinking and opened up my mind to vast new areas of the internet for me. For much of the recent past I'd been bogged down in the tiny "marketing" niche, and now I'm active in numerous niches.

Today the bulk of my income comes from outside the affiliate program - work from home - internet marketing area.

It's why I don't appear to be as active anymore.

But the truth is I'm busier than ever, and hard at work promoting products in other niches.

Lots of niches.

Take a look at this recent screen shot from Clickbank showing the sales I made in just one day with just one of my Clickbank accounts. As you can see the majority of sales are of ebooks from niches outside marketing.