Am I the only one?
Hi guys,
I have a confession to make. It's very hard to admit but I'm stuck. I'm trying hard not to get discouraged. I've been with WA since late August. I've only just finished the 8-week training. I really good at giving advice. Not so good at implementing it myself. The last line of my last blog post was "Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway." So what have I done? Aside from the mountains of reading and reseaching I've done, I find that when I sit down to write an article, I don't know where to start. What's stopping me? Fear! I've been reading about people ripping off other people's articles so I think to myself, "why should I spend time writing an article if someone else will use it? So I can't bring myself to write articles. Ok, that's not the only reason why. I don't know what niches to promote. There are soooooooo many out there, I just can't chose! I've looked at Clickbank and other affiliate programs. I've signed up for affiliate programs but haven't actually put together articles about them yet. I get confused about things like "gravity" on Clickbank. What the heck does that mean, anyway?
Here's the real bottom line. I am classic at starting lots of things and never finishing them and I fear that this is yet one more thing I have started that I won't finish. I have no sales yet. I've only written two articles for WA. I had around 30 clicks but no sales. I'm not surprised really because I should have written more articles. I know that. I have all this knowledge now and yet I still don't know what to do with it or where to point my attention. I have a website up now. It's indexed with Google but I only have a few pages so far. One of the pages, of course, promotes WA!! :) When I look at my site and compare it to others, mine looks quite amateurish. I want to put out a weekly newsletter but I fear that I actually won't have anything to say on that newsletter! So I haven't put an opt-in on my site yet. I really want my site to look more professional. I look at Squidoo lenses and WP sites and they all look fantastic. I'm trying to keep my site simple but I think that simple is translating to boring.
I know that this will take time and it's a labor of love, believe me. I have no problem spending hours on the computer doing research. It's my fear of success that's holding me back. That's why I haven't taken action. Then I can beat myself up and say, "ok, that's one more thing you didn't finish so it was a waste of my time and money." But my gut is telling me something quite different. Deep down inside, I believe that this system works. I'm actually afraid to leave WA because I've gained so much just by being a member here.
See, on the one hand, I think I should focus on promoting my niche through my site. Even tho I've chosen a pretty difficult niche to promote. But on the other hand, I'm dying for a sale so I get sidetracked into looking at things to market on Clickbank and Amazon, etc. Then I think that maybe I should chose another niche that's perhaps easier to promote and start another website? Or maybe I should forget the sites altogether and try Squidoo or WP promoting or even an online store through Popups? Does anyone else feel like this? Surely, I can't be the only one. Usually when I have a braindump like this I come to a healthy conclusion by the end of my rant but I'm no better off now than when I first started typing this post.
I'd love to hear how the other newbies or seasoned players here have handled this type of situation. Afterall, I can't be the only one feeling this way. I think that perhaps I'm afraid to fail. That's the best I can come up with.
It's now 12:10pm in my world. I just had an idea. Something that might help me. I don't know. I'll try it to see if it works. Ok, here goes. Perhaps this is so elementary it went right by me.
My goal is to make $100 per day. So it just occurred to me that in order to make $100 per day, I have to promote something that will generate enough sales to get there. For instance, if I promote a cookbook that will give me $20 per sale, then I have to sell 5 to get $100. In order to get that I should probably promote it several times in several different places in order to generate enough traffic to get those sales? Am I on the right track? Maybe with all the talk about niche markets and keywords, I missed this part.
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Hi there, I just joined on 4 october and i have achieved so much already in just over 1 month, i have my wp blog set up, i have written and submitted over 10 articles, i have 7 pages and 6 blog posts on my site. I have done loads of backlinking, got adsense and achieved many more small goals.....I am not trying to boast, I am trying to tell you that if I can do it then so can you!!!
With regards to choosing a niche, stick to something that you are truly passionate about and something that you already know alot about. This way you won't get stuck when you want to write an article. When i feel stuck like that, i just start writing anything that comes to mind, don't worry about intro, body and conclusion, just write and edeit it afterwards.
I have not made a sale yet and my first goal is to make that first sale, thereafter i would like to make 50 dollars a day. Concentrate on getting just 1 sale for now and don't lose focus. I think you have been reading too much and too little action.
Also another thing that might help you is writing down your goals and the things that motivate you, stick it on your desk where you work and read it everyday to remind yourself of your goals and take ACTION!! even if you write only 1 article a day.
Create a schedule or a roster that you can follow on a daily basis!!
Nothing is goingto stop me from achieving my goals. Remember quitters never win and winner never quit. Failure is not an option, success is inevitable!!!
Krafty, you hit a nerve for me. "Don't second guess what you are doing." That's EXACTLY what I am doing!! I'll set some goals for article writing and put them into ACTION!! Thanks for that!!
The trick is to put stuff out there non-stop. For instance, instead of having a goal of writing an article a day...do the following :
1) in the morning of each day, determine how much time you can work on IM
2) make a to-do list of what you could accomplish without second guessing what you are doing
3) do all of the items
If you have 4 hours in a particular day, you could easily write 8 articles. If you had 5 hours, you could set-up a small site, add a post to it and write 8 articles that point it...See, it is that easy. You have all of the tools here at WA, now is the time to take that action.
I have the same problem when I try to write an article, but I have a trick that helps me. Maybe it will help you too.
Break up your article into chunks like this. Use this as your template for your outline.
Intro
Lead into body
Point 1
Point 2
Point 3
Conclusion
Then decide what you want to talk about in each point. Write that down next to each point. So now you know what the meat of your article will be about.
Then write out each point one at a time. Just focus on that one point and write maybe 4 sentences or so for each point. After you've done that for each point, bam, there's the body of your article!
Now that you have the body of your article, go back and write your intro, lead into the body and conclusion. It will be much easier to write those parts now because you are just writing what makes sense based on the body of the article.
Next thing you know, your article is written!
Once you have that first draft done, you can tweak as needed for grammar/spelling, readability, keyword density, ETC. The cleanup kinda stuff.
This has helped me with both the ease and speed at which I can write.
Hope this helps!
Thanks everyone for all your sound advice. Yes, I suspect that I am pulling myself in many directions--too many directions! I think I heard it said here once, perhaps by Jay, Kyle or Carson, that you can't be a "master of all trades" in this game. You have to master one thing! So for now that's what I'm going to do. Stick to getting my website the way I want it. I knew I couldn't be the only one who felt like this. But hey, we are all in this together right? Thanks again.
I guess it all depends on how much time you have to devote to it. The best thing to do is find a niche/product to promote that you are knowledgeable about. There are thousands out there with affiliate programs. When you find one, do some research on it and take some notes so when you start to make your website you will have knowledge you can work with to add to the content. A knowledge of what may work be in the domain name you choose for the site. Then build a site that you feel is attractive, and eye catcher. Make sure the headline stands out because it is the first thing they will see. You don't have to rush through it. If you don't feel comfortable with all that yet. Build a website on hubpages. It's a free site that has many things that will make it a little simpler to build a site. Add text here, and image there with a few click of the mouse and some material. That is what I did the first time around. Built some lenses, a couple of hubpages and created a couple one webs.com These are all free website builders. The more websites you build the better you will get at it. They don't have to be fancy or bring in any big sales for you. The trick is to getting the feel of how to do it. It really is easier than you might think. Do that over the next week. Build a website and one of the sites I mentioned about anything you are close to. Don't worry about traffic, keywords or any of that stuff. Just create something. Like the picture Labman has below would be great to use on a website. There are so many affiliate programs out there for pet supplies. I will give you a link to a lens I remember. Obviously this person spent MANY hours putting it together. It was something they were passionate about and they found a way to put product through the course/length of the lens itself. It is truly a piece of art. http://www.squidoo.com/a-home-for-hummingbirds
Hey guess what, I could have written this post yesterday. You of course said it much better than I ever could. As for stealing articles(re yesterdays post) the fellow I e-mailed said his posting was automated and took it down. :( I wanted the link love. Ah well. I bet some of what you are experiencing is caused ( yes I said caused) by the people on here. There is so much talent and so many people with lots of experience in the outside world ( even some of the youngsters) that those of us that are slow learners or have to internalize all this stuff before we can act, get down that we aren't zooming ahead with stuff. I plod along every day trying to get something done. I stuck the BUM marketing stuff up there and I'm promoting it but I've been working on a new Blog for weeks and it still isn't ready to let the spiders in. My advice is focus on one thing for a bit. If you want to do some Squidoo lenses go for it. If you want to do a landing page. Hey do that. Set small goals and tic off little successes then you can say hey, I'm getting things done. Your paypal account may just suprise you one of these days.
I have been here since end of May. I don't have tons of time to devote to this business. So, what I did was take 1 angle at it for now. I am doing Article Marketing and getting my articles out there. That way I know that I have accomplished something toward my goals. I am still going through the Action Plan! My strong point is definately not building a website. So, I am slowly working on that. I think that maybe you are pulling yourself in too many directions. Somewhere here in WA I heard that it is best to master one thing at a time. For me that is Article Marketing and all that goes with it from research to keywords to just doing it. Some kind of action which you seem to be doing. Also, go to Pot Pie Girls blog and download The DAM Way. It is very good. Also Ezinewriter has an Article Marketing plan also. These are free here at WA. We are all afraid to fail. But, the ones who fail are the ones who don't try at all. If you have gained any knowledge from here how can that be failure? Okay? PM me if you want because it looks like I am writing an article on your blog! lol Hope this helps. Best Wishes To You!
You are definitely not alone. I have been feeling these same things off and on since I joined WA in May. The advice I have been giving myself:
Regarding the articles, the more the merrier. Try to look at it as something fun instead of a chore, that way the enthusiasm comes through in what you write and you won't hesitate to post at least one article a day.
Regarding the rest, I am interested to hear the advice from others, as I am in the same boat. In the mean time, hang in there! I feel the same way you do about knowing this will work!
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I would take the sales out of the equation and focus on traffic. If you want $100/day, you need x amount of traffic to the sales page. Article writing is information marketing and referring your readers for further information. Plenty of articles will get thousands of reads, hundreds of click-throughs to the merchant and at that stage it is out of your hands. It is up to the merchant to deal with sales. Especially on Clickbank. I have only made one sale over there and it was a soap making product. So you can sell anything and the niches don't need to be top notch. Keep at it, and as angelle says below the articles are easier to write when you structure it first.Keep at it.