In my recent post, Now I can get going!, I mentioned as my next step is to create an affiliate marketing site. The first question that comes to mind is, “How do I do that?” I have subscribed to a newsletter from Dr. Andy Williams called ezSEO. I always liked Dr. Andy’s detailed and methodical approach to doing things and remembered that he had a course for creating fat affiliate sites in WordPress.  Since I build all my sites using WordPress, I thought I would check out Andy’s course to see if it could teach me how to create profitable affiliate sites.

His course is called WordPress for Affiliate Sites.  It is a subscription course that costs $47 per month and runs for about five months.  It does have an option to purchase the entire course at once, but there are a couple reasons to subscribe monthly.

• Course modules are presented on a schedule of about one a week.  This is the right pace if you are doing this course on a part-time basis.
• There is a 14-day money back guarantee offered with the monthly option.  This is not available if you purchase the whole course.

On the flip side, if you are able to focus and do this full time, then purchasing the whole course might be right for you.

Each lesson comes with a PDF guide, video, and action plan.  Some lessons also come with a mind map. I just finished the first lesson. The PDF is 18 pages long, so it was easy to read in a short setting. The video is just short of 37 minutes long.  You can complete the first step on the action plan in about an hour. I did this today, Saturday, and then planned the remaining activities for the rest of the week.  Following this approach, I can make progress toward my goal every week!

I also want to mention that the quality of the materials is very good. You can definitely tell the skill, knowledge, and experience that Andy applied in making this course.  If you are wanting to setup quality affiliate sites, I definitely recommend that you give WordPress for Affiliate Sites a try for the 14 day guarantee period.  I am going to see it through to completion.

Back in April, I posted that I would follow three internet marketing experts. Now I have decided to follow one more expert that I found on Twitter! Her name is Lynn Terry and she has a blog called ClickNewz. What I like about Lynn is her writing voice and the real help she gives to people just starting out. When you read what Lynn says, you really believe that you can do it. It gives me hope too that I can go it on my own and truly be a Daddy that works at home!

Lynn also has a forum called Self Starters Weekly Tips, which I joined. So far I am only lurking, but that won’t last for long. I like to participate and learn through forums. She also has a weekly webinar and email newsletter that are free! Follow the links I included and look around. Tell me what you think. I think that Lynn has a lot of good advice to share that will definitely be of benefit to you.

It has probably been a week since John Reese’s Traffic Secrets 2.0 arrived via UPS. I ordered it through Stompernet (with some free bonuses!) after watching John’s first video promotion. I feel that it was an extremely good value for all the physical product. However, this morning I was on the forums for TS2 and was pleasantly surprised to find an active community already there!

So far, everything I have examined is high quality. The best part is that John is looking to continually improve this offering. (For example, he is going to put the lessons in mp3 format so that you can listen to the content away from your computer.) I completed the first disk and have started on the second. The whole course is built in an interactive manner so you can easily pick up where you left off, come back to review a lesson at a later time, or move straight to a topic when you need to.

There is a lot of material in this course. It will take some time to digest it and, most importantly, apply it. Now more than ever it is important that I put blinders on so I can concentrate and focus. As I wrote before, there are so many internet marketing experts out there. To accomplish anything, I need to apply myself to what I have purchased and not become distracted by other offers.

I will continue to post on what I learn and how it helps my business.

I just watched John Reese’s free video for Traffic Secrets 2.0. This is John’s introduction to his Traffic Secrets 2.0 course. It gives a great overview of a technique John calls Results Detection. In it he gives 10 examples on how to analyze sites and techniques to generate traffic.

Here is a quick rundown of those techniques:

1. Top sites for keywords on Google.
2. Research software popularity at Download.com.
3. How to study Digg and learn to submit content to rank on the first page.
4. Getting friends on social networking sites like Facebook.
5. Increase your clickthru rate on Google Adwords.
6. Use eBay to research what items are selling well for a niche or market.
7. Learn how to get your press release picked up by thousands of media outlets.
8. Get tons of links to your blog using Technorati as a research tool.
9. Find out who gets the most traffic and where it comes from at compete.
10. Research what kind of ads you should use by researching what is working for others on Commision Junction.

John’s introductory video is about 14 minutes long. It is well worth the time. In it, you get several free ideas. I know I learned a lot. When you are done, sign up for the Traffic Secrets 2.0 Notification & News list where you will get access to another free video.

I’m not one of John’s affiliates (yet!), but John is one of the three internet marketers I always listen to. I am a friend of John’s on Facebook and follow him on Twitter. I know that John is part of my formula for future success.

I have been busy creating a new website. It has been a lot of fun and things are coming along well. with that, I have also been working to learn how to make money on the internet. I have been reading various emails, blogs, websites, and other materials from “internet marketing gurus.” The amount of stuff out there is truly overwhelming!

Truth be told, the “internet marketing guru” portion is not going so well. There is so much advice out there and it is often hard to tell who is a real “internet marketing guru.” Many people are buying and selling content, but I am interested in people who are generating useful content that I can apply to my projects. I could list the folks that I have decided to ignore for now, but perhaps it is more constructive to list who I am going to pay attention to.

In no particular order, those are:

1) Jonathan Leger
2) John Reese
3) Joel Comm

Why did I pick these three? For one, they all give valuable advice for free! Each of their websites offer many things you can do to help your business and it is given in the spirit of giving back. Also, for the most part, there is very little hype for these three. They tend to recommend things they have already tried themselves and they do this with straight talk, including the down-side of product or technique they are recommending. In other words, they are real pros.

Click over to their websites and give them a try. Also, share your recommendations in my comments section.