How Much?

[JBird85]

Sorry it's me again. As a ballpark (I am really trying to plan this out as much as possible before jumping in), how much would you say you had to invest to start up?
I know basic things like web hosting and web hosting, but what would you think is a realistic amount of money to set aside. I just don't want to start getting somewhere run out of money and lose whatever ground I am gaining.
So sorry for all the questions of late, I am trying to read through here
JBird85

[MikeF0421]

How much do you know about setting up your own site or sites? Will you be doing this or hiring someone?

If you are doing everything yourself, pretty much all the money you need to spend will be on website hosting and a domain. That will be about $75 for the year.

There are some tools you may or may not want to spend money on to help. Things like an article submitter. That will allow you to submit articles to hundreds of different directories and gain backlinks to your site. It is a huge time saver.

You can find some of these programs fairly cheap. Incansoft (I'm not an affiliate, just a big fan) has some fantastic software for very reasonable prices. They are having a sale sometime the end of January. Most of their software will be on sale for $12 or less.

Their ArticleBot, SocialBot, and RSSBot are invaluable tools to me.

Just my opinion though. Lots of people do very well without using stuff like this. For the time they save me, I wouldn't live without them.

And I would be careful about spending too much money before you have a good grasp on what you're doing. As money starts coming in, reinvest it into your business. Find tools like I mentioned above that will let you scale up what you are doing without spending more time.

[dusty_rosegirl]

That was a great question, and glad it was asked! I was wondering the same thing. Thank you, Mike for your answer - I found it very informational and I will make sure to check out the resources you mentioned when I get a little more familiar with affiliate marketing!

[JBird85]

Thank you for the response Mike I am looking at trying to build the site myself, probably with Wordpress (not the free one). I have been trying to educate myself as much as possible (whenever I am not working or taking care of my baby and/or husband) I know that a lot of times these things come down to educating yourself, there is plenty that can be learned for free on the internet.
I'll have to take a look at Incansoft, although I probably won't be able to get too many tools to begin with because of my limited budget.
If any of you had to chose what would be a worthy tool to invest some money in as a beginner, what would it be? I have been drooling over Market Samurai for some time now, that one seems to be one of the best tools out there for affiliates.
JBird85

[alwayshome]

When I started I only paid for hosting and domain name $15. I did advertising, I just did free online marketing and started out make over $200 a month. Google adsense is a quick way to make money too.

[MikeF0421]

There are many people who swear by Market Samurai. It's a little on the pricier side. I think it helps to have a bit of a grasp on what you are doing before buying it.

There are a lot of tools out there, but they're just tools. I've seen many get into the mindset that if I buy this or that, I'll make money online. There is no magic bullet. You have to develop a plan first. You have to have some idea of what you are doing and what you are trying to accomplish.

Programs like Market Saurai and the ones I mentioned at Incansoft are fantastic. There are also programs like SE Nuke and BruteForce SEO that will automate a lot of your SEO work.

Really though they are just time savers. I think it is best not to spend too much money until you know what you are doing. Plus, if you are doing all your work yourself, it makes you appreciate what these programs do for you and just how much time they are saving you.

[Yuliya Mironova]

Another smaller point worth remembering about Market Samurai is that it has "server-side implementation": when their website is down (as it was the other day, for some hours, I hear), you can't use it.

[lookingat]

JBird85, all experiences in getting started with internet marketing (IM) are definitely unique to each individual. Please do not take this as bragging because I really have nothing to brag about but I would like to share with you what I experienced so that maybe you can get an inside view of someone who got started just a little while ago and where I am now and the cost to run your business... I just started my internet marketing at the end of Spring 2009. I did a ton of research online on ways to build websites and ways to monetize it before starting. I settled in on one course that cost me under $50 that taught me how to market with Squidoo. It was a great course to get my feet wet.

Through various links that I found while doing my first "lens" (Squidoo-speak for posting a page to their site), I found an internet marketing course for under $100. The best $100 that I ever spent. I just followed the course and started to build my sites and still build them the same today. So, I spent $148 plus Hostgator hosting that is $10.00/month. I have purchased domain names so you will need to figure that into your outlay of cost. If you buy a lot of domains, most places where you purchase domains will give you cheaper bulk pricing at some point so look for those companies. That has been the extent of what I have had to pay.

HOWEVER, during my research, I found some people that had spent more or less than I did to get their marketing off the ground. Some were very satisfied with what they spent some were not. As I said, everyone will have a different story.

The most money I made so far was doing affiliate marketing (CJ.com) during the Holidays in the past 3 months. Adsense on my sites is consistently climbing ($50+ last month) and I am pleased thus far where my marketing is but like anyone else, I am consistently building more sites in various niches. I have a movie niche (the least work I put into a site) that has done really great so you never know what will do well when you create it. I also have a cell phone niche that is doing terrible. Again, you never know what is going to be successful but I have been fortunate that it has cost me very little to find out!

MikeF0421 made a good point about buying tools. There are free tools that can be used to do your keyword (KW) research so when you are first starting out, use the free tools rather than putting money into these expensive tools. When I first started out, I used some of the following in my KW research....

Seo Book Keyword Suggestion Tool
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
Free Search Term Suggestion Tool by KeywordDiscovery.com
Google Trends: Jan 19, 2010
Google Insights for Search
and the Wonder Wheel on Google

I literally knew nothing about IM when I started but I was able to build my first site ( a niche halloween costume site) that had very high competition for the KW phrase (rookie mistake! and yet I got very lucky and ranked in the top ten within 2 weeks. I used the course... I used the domain I purchased... I installed WordPress on my hosted site and it still is sitting at #5 today. So you can have success using very little money and using free tools.

When I first started out learning online marketing, I felt that I was "drinking water through a firehose"...my brain was fried at the end of most days. Slowly but surely everything started to come together and now, much of what I do on a daily basis is second nature. I encourage you to do something....anything....each day to learn IM. I truly am having a blast building sites and watching my little (VERY little IM empire grow but I know that it is mine. I can sell it, will it, or continue to build it and it is all up to me.

I have to add this as full disclosure....Now that I am working many more hours through the day building and maintaining my sites, I used some of the money that I earned in IM and purchased a few tools/services that have helped me with some of the tedious tasks. Total cost of these tools/services were under $500. My continuing cost is for hosting ($10/month) and whatever domain names I buy. I look at tools like this....when I first started out in construction, I had a shovel that I dug a ditch with. As my business got more profitable, I bought a bigger tool (a backhoe) and got the job done faster so I could do other things I wanted to do. Did I need the bigger and more efficient tool? No...but for convenience and for the size of the workload, it was best I tool I could have bought since I could afford it.

Good luck!

[MikeF0421]

Good stuff.

Out of curiousity, what was the course you mentioned for just under $100?

I'm always looking for new stuff to promote.

[workfromhomepop]

IMHO, Affiliate Marketing is the only way to make money on the Internet reliably. Network Marketing has never worked for me and I gotta tell you it is WORK. However, it's cheap to start up, and as you make money you can speed up the process by paying to get some things done. ClickBank is the best place to start, again IMHO, as it allows you to easily find a niche that you are comfortable with and it's products are all Digital. I love ClickBank and Commission Junction for physical products.