The Full Internet Marketing Interview Michelle of Passive Income Online Blog

Without much ado, here is part two of the interview with Michelle of Passive Income Online blog.

1. Michelle, I visit your blog not as often as I’d like to – but it’s definitely one packed with targeted information on making money online. I appreciate your methodical approach, and wanted to know about how long have you been making money as an internet marketer, and how did you get “sucked into the vortex?” (Was it a particular ebook, a friend or blog, etc.?)

I got “sucked into the vortex” a little over a year ago. I started building my first AdSense/Blogger sites in May, 2009 (at that time, I hadn’t even heard of WordPress!). I had recently separated from my husband, and my son was a little over a year old and I wanted to find a way to support my son and myself without having to go back to work full time.

I knew I had decent writing skills, so when I first started working online I did mostly freelance writing gigs but the pay was quite terrible and the pressure of meeting deadlines was very difficult (sound familiar?) – especially when I was also looking after a toddler full time. Also, I wanted to know how people were using my articles and profiting from them. I started searching for the articles I had written to see where they were published, and this quickly led me into the world of AdSense and later, affiliate marketing.

I’ve never taken any course or read any book about internet marketing strategies. Pretty much everything I have learned about this business has been from visiting people’s blogs and reading posts on forums such as the Warrior Forum and some of the Digital Points forums. I’m still learning, of course, but I started my Passive Income Online blog as a way to both motivate myself and help others in a similar situation. I also get a lot of helpful advice and support from my readers, which is great!

2. Roughly how many sites do you have, and how do you like to monetize them?

Right now I’m nearing fifty sites, and my goal is to have a hundred by the end of the year. About 20 are monetized with AdSense, another 20 promote ClickBank products and the rest are Amazon product sites. Right now I’m on an Amazon site building frenzy, and I’m hoping to get at least another 20 built in the next month or so in time for the holidays.

I seem to go back and forth between periods of new site building and periods of backlinking my sites. During my first year (from May 2009 to May 2010) I built thirty sites. Actually, most of those sites were built by February, 2010, and then between February and May all I did was backlink my existing sites. I imagine after I get the hundred sites built, I’ll probably only do backlink building for at least the next six to twelve months.

3. Of all the methods you use for monetization, which are your favorite to use, and why?

I’m becoming more and more of a fan of ClickBank simply because it is where the bulk of my earnings are coming from right now. However, in my experience it can take a while to get your ClickBank sites ranking, and for those new to internet marketing I think it can be hard to wait weeks or even months to get your first ClickBank sale.

One of the advantages of starting using a network like AdSense, for example, is that you can see some money coming in right away – within a couple of weeks often. It might only be ten or twenty cents a day, of course, but when you are first starting out that is quite exciting!

4. Do you feel like lemonade? I know this killer recipe…

Ha, ha. I know one too, and you can read all about it at my Master Cleanse Journal. Jokes aside, creating the journal was a fun experiment.

I think it’s always great when you can combine personal interests with your internet marketing interests. In my opinion, it is much easier and fun to write about topics you are already interested in personally.

5. How long did it take you to get your first bit of income online, assuming you built a website and from there had to wait for the site to rank, get sales, etc.?

My first few sites were Blogger blogs which I monetized using AdSense from day one (I didn’t learn how to use it until May of 2009). I set up those blogs in late April of 2009, and I got my first AdSense click on May 6, 2009 – so it took about two weeks. I think my first click was for about ten cents, and during the first month I earned $7.44.

Just this past month I finally broke the $1000 a month barrier in terms of my monthly earnings. From what I can tell, it takes most IM’ers about a year before they are earning a reasonable income for their efforts, and this is something that people who are new to the business should keep in mind. If you are looking to “get rich quick,” I don’t think internet marketing is a good path to go down.

6. If you don’t mind sharing this, what is your process for finding a niche you want to get involved in – do you have a set “way” to discover profitable niches? (I’ll share mine in a future post.)

It really varies. For ClickBank products, I often do a search and select products according to gravity and personal interest. You can read more about my selection process on my blog here. However, for AdSense monetized websites, I often do more concrete research. For example, I was recently in a pet store and just walked up and down the aisles writing down the names of products and items – many that I have never heard of before – that looked interesting and which I will likely use as the basis of some future AdSense sites.

I know some people get merchandise catalogs in the mail and do the same thing. For Amazon products, I’m focusing on topics that are likely to be in demand for the Christmas/holiday season. I’m looking for keyword variations of hot selling items that don’t have a lot of competition, since I don’t have a lot of time to get those sites ranking well.

7. Do you have a set process, like Mike Iser does and others, of launching a website? (I’m still experimenting here with mine, personally.) What I mean is: what do you do to get a site indexed? Then ranking – what do you like to do for backlinks? Any favorite tools or services?

Since I use WordPress, I don’t usually have a problem getting the sites indexed since they will get pinged every time I add new content. However, if after a week or so it isn’t showing up in the index, I’ll submit an article to EzineArticles and that almost always does the trick.

If that doesn’t work, I have a couple of personal blogs as well that I can use to index a site – blogs that get crawled regularly by Google. If I put a link on them they will usually be indexed within a few hours. However, I don’t usually have any problems getting my sites indexed as long as they have a reasonable amount of unique content on them (five or more pages).

For backlinks, I tend to go slowly during the first month (using EzineArticles and The Link Juicer) and then becoming more aggressive after a couple of months. Right now I would say that my two favorite services are Sick Submitter – to build profile links (it’s cheap and fully automated!) – and Blog Blueprint (high PR links that give a nice boost).

Those are the services I’m seeing the best results from at the moment in terms of my backlinking efforts, but I’m also always trying out new programs and services as I can afford them.

8. In all your long decades of doing this online – work with me here – do you have any mistakes you wish you didn’t do, and that others didn’t do?

Well, I wish I had learned about affiliate marketing sooner. For the first six months I focused purely on AdSense which had both its benefits and drawbacks. A benefit was that I was very focused, which I think is important especially for those new to the business.

But a drawback was that I think it is relatively difficult to make a good living off of AdSense alone. Once I started building my ClickBank sites and getting them ranked, my income really started to grow, so I wished I started with that sooner.

I also wish I had started outsourcing work sooner as well. Since I’ve hired a full time worker in the Philippines, my earnings have increased dramatically and now well exceed what I’m paying each month to my employee. I only have a few hours to work each evening, so outsourcing tasks has been the key to my business growth in recent months.

One mistake I often see people doing who are new to the business is being distracted by all the new ebooks, programs and such that are being promoted by the IM gurus. This often leads to inaction and being overwhelmed, and is also quite expensive as well. I think you can find most of the information you need to succeed in internet marketing for free online.

9. Any pet peeves about IM? I’ll start with mine: the temptation to join every affiliate program on the planet, with no time to dedicate to any one of them…but that’s a personal thing.

I also dislike the manipulation tactics: false scarcity, false urgency, false promises that cannot be reached or delivered…then realizing I am in this trade for life. I love/hate it.

I have to agree that I really dislike a lot of the manipulation tactics. A lot of internet marketing borders on (or is downright) “sleezy” and although I try hard to avoid these tactics, it is very hard to write sales copy that doesn’t feel a bit manipulative at times. I certainly have a love/hate relationship with the business as well.

10. Let’s talk success…I’ve started out with how I was impressed with your business acumen, and it is impressive – you’re a balla, shot calla – holla! – what is your business background? Do you have an MBA from Cornell, is that it?

Aren’t you a Harvard Grad, or Oxford perhaps? I guess what I’m really getting at is: where did you learn business from? Who influenced you, helped you think clearly on your successful practices, turned your crank so you churn out dollars and AdSense?

Well, my academic training was all in the social sciences and I generally avoided anything to do with business in college, so that certainly didn’t influence what I’m doing now. However, my sister and I ran a small soap making business for a few years after college, and I learned a lot from that experience (the business ultimately failed, and I learned a lot from that experience as well).

I think a lot of my success (if you can call it that yet!) comes from certain personality qualities I have: I’ve always been the type of person who creates lists of tasks/chores to do, and I think I’m fairly systematic in my thinking.

I love learning new things, so when I decided to learn about internet marketing I threw myself into it enthusiastically, and I also like challenging myself – which you might have noticed.

I think that as long as someone is hard working, enthusiastic, systematic, and has reasonable expectations (so they don’t get discouraged too quickly) they can probably do well in this business. It isn’t rocket science, really, but it does take a while to learn the methods and strategies.

11. In going forward, where do you think you will put more emphasis in your business, what profit centers?

Well, my plans for next year are going to focus on developing my own products. I would like to write at least one or two ebooks to promote on ClickBank or elsewhere. Moving from being an affiliate to a vendor will be a huge learning process.

I’m hoping I have a stable income of at least $3000 a month before I venture into this – but I’m very excited about it!

[Editor's Note: Um...Yeah - She's one to watch! I'm on the J.V. list. I hope.]

12. If you would be so kind, leave the readers with a word of advice in how to succeed online.

Don’t be afraid of making mistakes – you will learn from them.

Those are sage words from our guest, and adds a nice polish to the interview that I’d have to give a full Huzzah! to (we just watched A Knight’s Tale recently…well…the family had it on while I was typing).

Mistakes are the free ebook, the free education, that have taught me the best lessons – stay tuned, as tomorrow I have another post, this time getting a bit into copywriting, a look at keywords, and certain factors that have been profitable for my own ventures.