Hey Beau,

Here are the answers to your questions:

1. This depends on many key indicators like your competition, keyword research, target audience, Algorithms, and having a dialed in understanding of your ideal customer avatar. Sometimes that can be as little as 5-10 posts, at times it can be 50+, there is no exact number. No matter what, I wouldn't wait around, the more content you can put out, the better. I like to shoot for 50 articles at least, but I can get sales before then.

2. Either one. It's more important to ask yourself "what aligns with my goals, and what does my audience want more of?"

I like to promote both types because my audience has a need for them both and I can mix them up. You just have to understand what your audience wants and give it to them in a way they couldn't get it elsewhere. Yes, there are commission percentage differences at times like one time payments vs recurring commissions but you have to look at retention rate. Is it better to sell a $37 product than a $200 recurring income product? It just depends on your marketing too.

3. You can use Elementor basic or pro, beaver builder, Thrive Themes. I started with Elementor to create simple landing pages with an optin to basic thank you confirmation page and later expanded to bridge pages, downloads and so much more. Thrive themes is the one I use at now at the moment(a bit of elementor too) and I can create fast funnels. Just keep in mind that audience building and engagement on your posts/content is key to getting people into your funnels.

Your frontend or as it's known "the pre-frame" is key to understanding how your traffic will react once they go inside your funnel.

4. Absolutely. It doesn't just have to be for digital products. The one thing to keep in mind though is the commission percentage and price of the product your promoting and asking yourself if it's worth the time to setup a bridge page to "pre-sell" someone on that product?

I usually don't create optin to bridge page to product page for lower commissions unless I know there is a great backend where the company helps upsell for me, or I can control the cart and they are my products. Rather think about using a coupon for smaller percentage product cuts, and leave the more expensive products for a bridge page.

You can also sell your affiliate product at the end if you have your own products. First go through an optin to your own product, to a course, to a webinar, affiliate product. Something like that, but I don't want to go deep into that now.

5. Not really. How are you pre-framing your audience? Even if you're on social media like Facebook, you still have to communicate with your audience and build a relationship. The funnel comes after. And your content does the same. So it's better to have a niche website with content as well things like YouTube and so on.

6. I'd promote my products through a blog like I am, Pinterest works well, YouTube is the future(in my opinion), social media, forums, etc. You have to know where your "red ocean" is currently consuming their information and use your new "blue ocean strategy" to pull them to you. That's what makes you unique and gives you a competitive advantage in a competitive marketplace. So, it comes down to knowing where your ideal dream customer is congregating and pulling them towards you.

Hope that helps,
Michael

Overall comment: It's when you set up your website correctly with connections to the right plugins, social media and SEO's content becomes the main issue and the niche and keywords. they all play into the success of your endeavor. So it has no exact rules. There are those who made it fast. Others in due time both became successful because both are consistent and spewing great content both words and graphics!