Thanks for the post Geketa, believe me it helps us all in some way. I totally agree with you on most everything you mentioned in your posting. It is essential for anyone to have there own domain name. That is not always the case depending on your product or products and your aim in marketing them down the road. I believe it's the best senario overall, but I do know some marketers who don't even own a website at all nor do they have a free one and they still make money somehow. The guys I know are selling for real stores and such in a small commission structure, usually around 8% or so. I believe the only reason it works is because the people don't have to worry about trusting them as a seller. The stores are already established and maintain a satisfied customer track record. There are many places to find sites who offer multiple affiliate sites. These types of affiliate marketing are for the most part used strickly for shopping purchase commissions. These are free to anyone and they are not a reseller program or matrix systems. Also owning a website is not required in order to participate in there affiliate. I agree that marketing yourself does come first and foremost and the product is secondary, but I believe the product is very important, the product is what decides your targeted leads. If your selling real estate you don't want to target car buyers. It just makes sense to apply your product to those wishing to see it. Your point is very true, it is very important to market yourself. I couldn't agree any more then I do and that is especially important if your sending your traffic to your own domain. I believe all contact information is relevent in succeeding as well. People like to know they have a recourse in contacting you. I have recently been working on my sites changing that information. Yes I was a promoter of a site with no info and it wasnt doing so well, when I changed that and added contact info I started getting alot more hits, so I'd say that is very true. Very good points you have made here and I thank you for the post, it keeps me on my toes. Thanks so much Geketa, I wish you the best in success. John

Hello John,

Thank you for this opportunity to post and to learn.

Sometimes it is what we don't respond to that is important.

I used to say yes to everything that looked good, genuine or just plain profitable, but, no more. I had to say no today to a great online friend who really thinks that he had something for me.

There are some online businesses that require significant time and investment but that return a good percentage in profits. To have too many of these means diluting your input to each and can stop you from gaining that all important point of critical mass in any one.

My failure til now has been not having a personal website where I can exchange banners etc. and I have found myself embarrassed by exchange offers that I was unable to supply, however, none of us should forget our Adland website which is under promoted.

Something else that I have learned was not to subscribe to sites that give no indication as to the nature of the business or cost until you have committed your name and email. It may be a fair exchange if the product is good but usually just laysyou open to spam.

If I am approached in the cloak and dagger way I inevitably get back to the marketer and ask them for their own experience and profitability.

Having said all of this I remain positive about online marketing, as, the future is getting bigger rather than smaller. The growth in business now coming from the developing world has remained largely underestimated, but, is this one area that I am experiencing and indeed expecting to make huge impact upon my numbers.

Honesty is, as you all agree, is paramount in building a reputation and is the single most powerful tool in the marketers long-term arsenal, however, this does takes time.

Lastly we underestimate the need in the marketplace. If we are looking for affiliates to join us or for folk to buy from us, we need to understand that many of those showing a high profile are completely pennyless, having spent enormous amounts on advertising, hard and software and even more effort on networking a product that is already saturated or too specialised.

I have learned of late that there really is a HUGE market for marketing tools and opportunities but that this must combine with a real chance to involve and market your existing product as well as new ones. In other words, I will teach you how and where to sell a good product or service.

We all, in one way or another, have had to serve an apprenticeship to reach a level of success and I make no secret of this to new marketers, but, now I do my best to help them avoid the common mistakes. If we can genuinely show the way, we reap the benefits.

Thanks again for the forum and for the great level of discussion from everyone.

Roger

Thanks for the excellent post Roger, all of these useful comments from everybody is exactly what I was hoping to achieve here. Brilliant marketers picking each others brains for answers or solutions to marketing methods was what I had hoped would come out of this forum. I think that is happening here and it's great. You have opened a whole new area that wasn't mentioned until now. I also jumped on everything that came my way and of course I thought the product was old or over sold and had no market left. The real truth of it wasn't that at all,I was spending money but not earning a dime at that point of my marketing efforts. The truth was, I didn't know what I was doing at all! My product may have made me some money if I had known what to do. I had no clue, I just thought it was automatic because of the hype I read about the product. I hadn't considered how I could sell it. Some people can sell an eskimo a snowball and when they market a product they can sell almost any product to you suger coated. I had to do the same thing, STOP!!! When I finally stopped myself from getting caught up in the next get rich quick hype, it was then I quit promoting everything. I didn't attempt to market anything for quite awhile, instead I decided to self educate myself through searchs and forums. I would pick 3 or 4 subjects a day and search them for hours. When I re-emerged I had a whole new outlook on things and quite a better understanding of what I had gotten myself into. You mentioned another great point which is an area I deal with almost daily. Too many businesses will dilute the amount of time you can devote to each one on an individual basis from day to day. Although that can be fixed if you spend money and hire on a company that will promote everything you have for you. That's a crap shoot! Some seo companys will guarantee you top ten search results. With that being said I myself have had plans to slim down my amount of businesses and focus on what I have that really works. I lean towards search engines as being the better of all promoting. Getting a top ten web ranking can happen with good keywords, the problem is maintaining that status consistently over time. Not that other methods don't work, I just have been reading alot on the subject and it does account for the large majority of webhits. You also touched on another good point, our adland sites, yes we all should be promoting outside of adland more. I do have it linked on my websites but I could and will do more in my individual efforts in the future.It's my new favorite home,it's the least I can do. Another point is you can do a exchange on your adland sites through comments and forums. I'm speaking in the respect that the other party is not a adland member yet you still have a link to there site posted somewhere with in adland. You can add it on your website page of adland using your member profile as the address. As long as you can show a reciprical link to your post and they can verify the link being there they will usually do the exchange. It may also help in getting a few new adlander members. If every member of adland did 1 link exchange and promoted only adland through that exchange, there would be alot of new members I bet. Adland is not a personal website where you own the domain, but placing links in exchange don't always require owning a domain. With regard to signing up to sites that don't disclose all information until they have your information first? I no longer sign up to anything that is not fully stated before my investment is made and I may ask about that persons success. The problem in asking is whether you can rely on the answers to be true and honest, alot will build it up so you go ahead and buy. I too remain positive about online marketing in the future. The numbers are climbing steadily and has been since day one. I thought at some point things would level off and what was left would be the playing field to work with. People are still entering the computer world everyday and thats never going to change. Underestimating the need in the marketplace is another area where some will make money and some will lose money. An example of this is safelists, while marketers are earning money selling safelists to you for your own marketing efforts your not making much if anything from using the actual safelist. The reason thats happening to alot of us comes down to your target audience. Most marketers who use safelists arent buying they are selling and alot of them never even see your ads because they have the emails sent to a free email account. They don't want to read the emails, they want you to read the emails and buy there product. I have a safelist myself that's a once a day blaster to 3,500,000 subscribed users. While you might get a few to read the email, I feel most don't because that was never there intention to begin with. Opt=in lists are alot the same way, but opt-in opportunities from a website I think works very well. Alot of people will give up an email address for information to be sent if they are interested in the product on the page. I help new marketers if I can for the same reasons as you do. Teaching others what you know is good business ediquite that can lead to lasting business relations for years to come. Thanks for your excellent post Roger. Keep them coming everyone.

Hi,

Great reply.

If I'm totally honest (which I have been advocating) there are areas that I struggle with.

I have paid for, won and used free advice to understand about keywords. I have been a member of Search Big Daddy almost since day one, but the point is, I just have not found time to really undertand what to do.

I joined a whole load of groups to generate interested folk but ended up with mailboxes full of rubbish and now don't remember how to exit those groups.

I have some important things to put in place in the next two weeks but then I shall be looking at really understanding HOW TO USE KEYWORDS EFFICIENTLY.

Help in that area could be VERY welcome soon.

Roger

Hi John,

I had to come back and make a comment on My dear friend Roger's last  post.

Hi Rodger,

I am also a member of Search Big Daddy. I believe they will be BIGGER in the near further than yahoo and Google. I know that sounds almost inflated, but I still believe in them that much.

We have a training room set up for anyone who needs to learn how to use the system or learn any of the items they offer. Anyone can visit and learn , there is a lady in there that can answer all your questions about keywords and their importance. If anyone wants to join us and learn more let me know either in private message here at Adland or by email at Todah2002@searchbigdaddy.com this conference room is not for promoting, but for learning. The room is set up in conference setting and has both text and voice chat.

John this is a great forum thanks again!

Have a great day everyone!

Geketa