Contest: Submit your plan to make $2000 in 30 days from scratch online with internet marketing

Alright guys and girls, the contest is now over and the response has been nothing short of amazing. In fact, it was very difficult for me to come up with the winners because so many people had really great ideas. I apologize if you didn’t get picked as the winner, and it doesn’t mean I think your idea sucks or anything like that, I just had to make  a tough call between all these awesome plans (so tough that I had to add an additional $50 gift card for a 3rd place prize)!

Let me tell you what I was looking for in the winning answers.

• Anything involving SEO is out – SEO is great, but the problem is it takes time. So $2000 profit in 30 days is unlikely to happen. Not impossible, but rare enough that it won’t happen for the average person.
• Anything involving instant traffic is in – article marketing (close to instant), forum marketing, direct response all good answers.
• Nothing related to JVs – JVing is great, but if you don’t have a list no one will JV with you. Since the criteria for the contest was that you didn’t have a list, using it to leverage a JV relationship is out. Sure, you might get lucky and find someone who will promote you anyway, but by the time you find one your month time frame will most likely be over. Not impossible to do by any means, but the average person won’t be able to accomplish this.
• Anything that required conversion testing – conversion testing takes time, so I decided to decline any ideas that relied heavily on having a high conversion rate were out. However, one could argue that with experience you would have an idea of how certain keywords and landing pages converted. So I looked at it as if an average user were able to do it, not a PPC expert.

I was surprised no one suggested this…

What really surprised me is that no one suggested good old fashioned freelancing. All you’d have to do is write 10-15 articles a day for someone and you’d make the $2000 profit cap. You could take on higher level projects as well like web design, programming, etc. assuming you have the experience.

Anyway, here’s what I thought were the best submissions:

First place – $100 Amazon Gift Card – Andrew Douglas

Andrew’s submission

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This is how I’ve been making $15,000 – $20,000 a month for the last 8 months.

It’s so simple even Dan could do it :p

Step 1 –
Think of the most embarrassing helth problems you can (herpes, genital warts, bad breath, rash on ____ ). Things people dont even want to go to the doctor for.
Do your keyword research and create a list of them.

Step 2 –
Find a related affiliate program for each ailment that has a good sales page and offers a solution to the problem. Sign up and get your affiliate link.
Match them up with your keywords.

Step 3 –
Check to make sure that people are talking about this problem in forums and blogs by doing a google search.

– “how do i get rid of herpes?”
– “how can i cure genital warts?”
etc….

Step 4 –
Spend the $500 on Outsourcers. Pay them to find forums and blogs where people are asking for cures to their problem.
Then have them make helpful posts with the appropriate affiliate link. (known as Forum Marketing)

Step 5 –
Once that niche or problem has been exausted, move on to the next.
Wash, Rinse and have your Outsourcers Repeat.

This is how YOU WILL make at least $2,000 per month with only a few hours of work.

I currently employ 8 Outsourcers to do this for me full time. The payoff is TENFOLD. I pay $2,000 a month and get back at least $15,000.
Each month my sales grow by about $1,500.
If I got off my lazy but and hired more outsourcers I would make even more.

Just chose your niches wisely.

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Great submission Andrew. I picked yours as the winner because you provided detail, the traffic source is instant, and you provided info on scaling up the process through the use of outsourcing. I will email you with the info for claiming the prize.

Second Place  – $50 Amazon Gift Card – Nancy M

Nancy’s plan:

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I would search the drop lists, auctions, and forums for a domain name bargain. i might not even need $500 startup money. I would buy the domain that I thought I could find an end user for. I’ve done this with domains I already own, and the profit margin is huge, if you can find the right end user. End user is someone using a similar domain for their website,or maybe even someone that is using a stupid domain for their website, and you’ve found one that more closely matches their product, idea, or service. You must be creative in finding that person that NEEDS that domain. It would probably take about a week to find the right domain (or maybe even 2 domains since there is such a generous startup, I usually start with an $8 domain;)) then the rest of the time is chasing a user and selling them on the domain. Google, twitter, facebook, every online source of search is fair game to find that end user. Think out of the box. 1/2 your work is done when you’re out there looking for the domain. You have a pretty good game plan in mind when you buy it. Time are tough, and some people are desperate and selling domains way too cheap. It’s the perfect time to pick up a bargain and put a little time into it and resell it!
It can and HAS been done, many times over!

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Nice job Nancy! I like the direct approach, and know that it works because I recently paid a guy $300 for a domain who approached me with this tactic. It works.

Third Place – $50 Amazon Gift Card – Danny Gardner

Danny’s post:

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I’m gonna opt for several pictures instead of a video, hope that’s alright.

Mr. Brock, you will probably regret asking for detail as this will be a crazy long comment. Also, fantastic idea for a blog post, sir. I really respect you for setting up this contest.

So, $2000 in 30 days, eh?

Option 1: market a high end poker cpa offer. I’ve seen them as high as about $225 per lead (you’d only need 9 leads!), but there are health related cpa offers for like $40 if anyone has an issue with gambling. Then you’ll need 50 leads. Though I hear the poker market is…rabid. But then again so is health so it’s up to you. Oh and keyword research has been weird for me with poker terms, so health is probably easier anyway. Just thought a $200 CPA offer was worth mentioning.

Option 2: Market a hot clickbank product. The strategy will be the mostly the same. The main difference is that our domain name would be based on the product name more so than search volume AND the product name. For example, deadbeatsuperaffiliatereview.com or deadbeatsuperaffiliateexposed.com. Also, option two may not require a lot of SEO since there may not be a lot of search traffic for the product name. Regardless, the general strategy is the same.

I’ll be using Option 1 as the example, but Option 2 is still very, very viable. Here we go…

First Expenses

I’d use about $20 of the start up capital for a domain name and hosting so I could build a wordpress blog around a low competition keyword. Here come the details…

Research

I’d get my product ideas from markethealth.com. Something with a coupon offer of about $40 dollars. As nasty as it is, I’m going to use toe nail fungus as my example. Claripro is the particular product I’ll be selling.

Picture: http://screencast.com/t/1aDOrdNYvOP

Use the Google Keyword Tool found at http://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal and search terms like toe fungus. Under advanced options, filter keywords for Global Monthly Searches greater than or equal to 2,500. After searching, be sure to switch from broad to phrase match on the left bar. This will make sure my results are more relevant to what I want in a keyword: good search volume.

Picture: http://screencast.com/t/KpwvubU60c

I really want an exact match domain name to go with my keyword. That means that my keyword and my domain name should be the exact same thing. So now I’ll check for domain name availability.

Check the box next to “Keyword”. This will highlight the entire page of keywords that meet the given criteria. After doing this, click on “View As Text” then “Selected”. Copy this list, we’ll use it in a minute.

Picture: http://screencast.com/t/G5IdH8taYPU

Go to cheapcheapdomainnames.com and look for “Bulk Registration.” It’s under “Domain Names” on the left. Now it’s time to copy and paste that list. Check .com .net and .org as the domain extensions to search.

Picture: http://www.screencast.com/t/DxMaAzex

I’ll need a domain name that represents a problem someone is having, and at the time of this comment it looks like getridoftoenailfungus.net is available. Not the perfect domain name, but I think it’ll be good enough for example’s sake.

Time to check for competition. I don’t want to see hundreds of thousands of competing pages (not that that’s necessarily an issue, I just haven’t yet tested my methods with that kind of figure), PR over 3, or hundreds and hundreds of backlinks.

Picture: http://www.screencast.com/t/rSYpc0zeAwoZ

You’ll see that none of the competition there is too bad at all. So at this point I would purchase the domain name.

Domain Registration, Hosting, and Installing WordPress

I use cheapcheapdomainnames.com as my primary domain registrar, and hostgator.com as my main hosting company. Don’t forget to change your nameservers after purchase the domain name. Nameservers look something like nsXXXX.hostgator.com.

To install WordPress I’d simply use Fantastico De Luxe. The blue smiley face towards the bottom of the cpanel. And I’d use the keyword as the site name and description (and possibly the Admin Nickname, I’m still testing that one).

Picture: http://www.screencast.com/t/yRkr423Na

Search Engine Optmization

Now it’s time to “Search Engine Optimize” the blog. First, delete the default “Hello World!” post. Then go to categories. We’re going to edit “Uncategorized”. Use the keyword in the name, slug, and description. Use dashes instead of spaces in the slug.

Picture: http://www.screencast.com/t/EVoDFFxQJA

Change the permalinks (found under the “Settings” tab) to /%postname%.html

Picture: http://www.screencast.com/t/ekszqkmQ

Next we need a theme. Magazine Basic is simple enough and good for SEO purposes. Here are all the changes I would make under Layout Options:

Header and Footer: http://screencast.com/t/fkpsXm1u

Front Page: http://www.screencast.com/t/6IUBkqPEiMg

Sidebars: http://www.screencast.com/t/jbqcjHz2

SEO: http://screencast.com/t/odz7JrN5ZhR3

Here are the plugins I recommend (not sure if all of these are free or not):

Broken Link Checker
cbnet Ping Optimizer
Easy Contact
Easy Privacy Policy
GD Press Tools
Google Analyticator
Google XML Sitemaps
PC Robots.txt
Platinum SEO Pack or All In One SEO
SEO Friendly Images
SEO Smart Links
SEO Super Comments
Smart 404
WP-SpamFree

For the Ping Optimizer, just copy and paste pingler.com’s list. Easy Contact gives simple instructions, just add a new page and type in [easy-contact] into the html and click publish. Easy Privacy Policy is straightforward, too. Just replace @blogname with your keyword and @email with your email. For Platinum SEO, both the Home Title and Home Description should be your main keyword, and for Home Keywords use the same list of related keywords we used for Magazine Basic’s SEO tab.

Adding the Recent Posts Widget: http://www.screencast.com/t/nBoyoBnAg4p

The above is exactly how I get on the first page of Google in as little as two days. Plain and simple. I’ve been on the first page before even posting any content or getting backlinks. Speaking of content…

Content Creation

This part is simple, but for me it was pretty scary at first. I’m not a writer, what on earth am I doing writing content?! Whoa, whoa, whoa. This isn’t how I roll man…but then I learned that it wasn’t that hard. Think of yourself as a reporter. With the keywords we’re targeting, when people come to your site, they’re already interested in a solution. We don’t have to sell them on it, in fact some of them may even have a credit card in hand. They just need a bit more info before they purchase. So that’s what I give them, they info they’re looking for. A simple fact sheet on the pros and cons of the product I’m offering. For research, just look up some reviews and find out what the general concensus is. It’s also a good idea to quote actual reviews. For example: “Definitely worth the price. My feet have never looked better thanks to (product name)” – real review from an Amazon.com user (just an example). You really don’t need anything fancy. Just be willing to step out of your comfort zone.

The review will probably be your money maker, but let’s add some more content that will make us even more search engine friendly. Just Google free plr articles on toe fungus and post about 3 of those on your wordpress site, and rewrite it a little bit to make it fit your related keywords+your main keyword a bit more. This is to get your site up and running, you’ll be adding more content soon.

Traffic Generation

The following traffic techniques almost all involve leaving my link in the bio box, description, etc. Just so I don’t have to repeat myself a lot. For more traffic to the site I would…

Write at least 3 articles every day. If you use Vista then you should have access to some dication software. This will make writing much faster. Do your best, put don’t spend hours a day on this and don’t edit yourself as you go. Write at least 350-400 word articles related to your keyword and submit them to the major article directories like ezine articles, go articles, and articles base. After writing your 3 articles for the day and submitting them, put them together (just one right after another, nothing complicated), add a short promo for your site and a link at the end, and convert it into a PDF. You can do this with Open Office. Congrats, you just created an ebook! Submit this ebook to free-ebooks.net and getfreeebooks.com. Now you need to submit your ebook to document sharing sites like scribd.com and docshare.com. Use Open Office Impress to convert each article into a powerpoint presentation. Submit this presentation to sites like slideshare.net and slideboom.com. Use Camstudio (free screen capture software) to record yourself reading each article. Submit the video to all the popular video sharing sites like youtube.com and metacafe.com. Extract the audio with Audacity (free recording software) and submit it to podcasting sites like podcastalley.com. Tweak the presentation and turn it into a step by step tutorial, then submit this tutorial to tutorial/how-to sites like instructables.com and good-tutorials.com.

You could also look for related questions on sites like Yahoo Answers and Aolanswers, then answer them with a link back to your site as the “source” of your answer.

Blog comment and forum post like crazy in order to get traffic to the site. At least two hours a day of focused comment/forum marketing. It wouldn’t be terribly difficult to get first page rankings with the wp blog assuming the keyword is well chosen, so that would definitely help. I’d also build high PR .edu and .gov backlinks 30 minutes per day to ensure high rankings. Use search strings like “powered by phpbb” site:.edu inurl:/forum to find good sites to build backlinks on.

Scaling

For scalability, outsource this exact system by hiring a virtual assitant or two at somewhere like odesk.com or outsourcesecrets.com. This is probably where you’ll spend the rest of your start up capital. Teach your assitants how to find good products and keywords, send them this “report”, and multiply your marketing efforts.

Good luck!

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A little bit reliant on SEO, but what the hell, you put a lot of effort into the plan so I nominated you for a 3rd place prize of $50 Amazon gift card.

Nice work contest winners! I will email you with the info to claim your prize!

I’d also like to give a shout out to the following people who put a lot of effort into your submissions. They were great ideas, just a bit out of the scope of what I was looking for:

Michael Craig <- great idea, but it will most likely take more than a month to test conversions enough to make the campaing profitable.
Kevin <- nice plan, too reliant on SEO though
Rojetta Skone
Ed
Tim
Kaete Mariaca
brandon hunter <- Brandon you were really close to winning one of the spots man, just a little lacking on info on the traffic gen.
Mukund Vijay Kolhatkar <- very out of the box thinking. Keep it up 🙂
Gary Brown <– good idea, but unlikely to get JV partnership without providing value first.
Todd <– great idea, and most likely would work. My only complaint with the idea is that it involves too much offline work.

And of course, a special THANK YOU TO EVERYONE who submitted their plans. You’ve done a great thing by helping develope this new community, and to help other people make money online. I’m so glad to have you as one of my subscribers, and hope I can provide you with a ton of value to come! Thanks, and keep commenting 🙂

Here are the rules for the contest

1) You must comment below with what you think is the best plan to make $2000 in profit in 30 days from scratch using some form of internet marketing.

• It has to be from scratch – you have no existing website, no mailing lists, no products, nothing. The only tool you start out with is your existing experience.
• You have $500 start up capital to invest, no more.
• Has to be done online without selling products that you own (as in your plan can’t be to simply put your car up for auction on ebay)
• Must be your own  idea <- no copy and pasting ideas!
• I will judge the plan from the prospective of speed of implementation, cost to implement, and feasibility. Bonus points for scalability.

2)  The more detail you go into (you can post videos too), the more likely you will win.

3) You must comment below and provide your first name and last initial (full last name recommended) and your email address (this is how I’m going to announce the winners/get the info from you on where to send the gift card)

4) Contest length is 7 days starting today Jan 18th

5) Winners and their comments will be acknowledged in the original blog post after the contest has ended.

What you win if your plan is picked as the winner

1) First Place –   $100 Amazon gift card

2) Second Place – $50 Amazon gift card

I also recommend you check back to this page frequently because this is going to be an awesome resource for those who need to make real cash online in a hurry.

That’s all! Good luck, and happy hunting!

Dan Brock

The Deadbeat Super Affiliate

P.S. Feel free to share this page with friends 🙂