Welcome to my blog!

I'm very excited to be starting this blog. My goal is simple - to find out if the average person can make it in affiliate marketing. That is a broad statement so let me clarify my background a little bit. In September 2007 I started my first online website. I only had an idea for the site - I had no training, no special skills, no experience at all. I was starting out a COMPLETE newbie. That didn't bother me though - I figured I would learn as I went along. I'm a relatively bright guy and I figured I might as well give it a try. At the very least I would learn a little bit about web design if I ever did actually come up with a good idea :) Starting out I basically I knew fonts and colors...I'm totally serious! I signed up for a Yahoo account, bought a domain name and went to work. Well, of course it wasn't easy. I started off with a very basic web design program which didn't give me any tools that I wanted to use. After a few weeks I realized I needed SiteBuilder. So I started using that to build my site. I taught myself through trial & error (mostly error!). After a lot of work I finally had published my first site. I never intended to make any money off of it. I just HOPED that maybe I could make some, someday. Well after a few months I realized I wasn't getting much traffic. I was basically spamming the yahoo fantasy boards for visitors. I didn't spend any money on advertising - Only word of mouth. Everyone that had seen the site said they really liked it and that it was very original. I was getting about 60-80 hits/day. Not terrible, but I really did want to share my site with a larger audience. About a month and 1/2 ago I found some stuff on Search Engine Optimization. I had looked into SEO and keywords and site submission services but this stuff was PRICEY. Each service would range from $50-$800 each! My goal was to do as much as I could, when I could. One day I found what I thought was a great solution. I found GoDaddy.com's "TrafficBlazer" for $30. It was great - It had SEO, keyword analysis, site submission services, site analysis. Basically it had 4 services all in 1, for $30! I bought it and went to work. I put title tags in, got some unique keywords and "tried" to optimize my site. If you type in "unique sportsbetting strategy" I show up #3 in Google (it also ranks my site high for "unique sportsbetting advice"). So I was pretty happy. I got listed in a bunch of search engines, but couldn't get listed on MSN or Ask.com. I did some research and found that in order to get listed in these search engines, I had to be linked to other sites. So I went looking for other places to "link" my site to. What I found was traffic exchanges. This was a brand new concept to me. I got to list my link for FREE and if I would go "surf" for about 20 min's/day they would rank my site higher. Well I signed up right away! Free advertising after all. So I linked my site and started perusing around 2 primary sites. Link Referral & TrafficSwarm. While visiting these free traffic exchanges I found something called Affiliate Marketing programs. There are ALL KINDS of these to be found. A lot of them are completely free. So I started signing up for a few of these. Once I signed up I promoted them in the same place I had found them. Link Referral & TrafficSwarm. I started doing this about 2 weeks ago. Right now I have signed up for 3 programs - NetSuccess Partners, SFI Marketing & AffiliateJunktion.com. I have been promoting these sites like my other site and just came up with a GREAT idea today. See I want to make money as much as the next guy/gal does. I have a good job and a great family - What I don't have is a TON of time to surf for credits every night. From information I've read there are MILLIONS of Americans who would like to start their own business and/or work from home. So what stops us? Lack of time? Yeah - Too many scams? YES! Too many "get rich quick" schemes? Absolutely.

So what is MY blog about? Well, i'm going to focus on Affiliate Marketing and see if there is a way we can make money online. I don't have much free time. I don't have lots of resources. I do have desire though. I also feel like I'm pretty creative. So what I'm going to do is "test run" affiliate marketing and give you the results. I'm going to show you what programs I'm using. I'm going to tell you what is working for me and what I feel is hogwash. I'm not going to sell a bunch of crap. My goal (short term) is to find an Affiliate Marketing program that I can make a reasonable online income from. I have no delusions of getting rich overnight. From my own, albeit limited, research, I already know it takes patience and time and effort. If you want to tune in and read 3 min's of ads and have $50k deposited into your bank tomorrow, there are plenty of scam ads you can sign up for. I'm looking for realistic programs where I can generate a reasonable income over time. Can it be done? I believe it can. Can I do it? I don't know - Can WE do it? We are going to find out!