Steve Pavlina and other On-Line Offers

[Hoopsah]

Hi

since I started wondering about how to start off with trying to make money on-line I have came across a lot of Affiliate sites that promise the world but all I ever seem to get is constant e-mails from them.

I found the Steve Pavlina site and his Site Build It option.

Trying to research this option is almost impossible as every link is sponsered and hails the values of trying this method.

Simple question - has any other user tried it and if so how did it work out for them?

I am probably like a lot of new users that although prepared to put in the work to get something going would still welcome some shortcuts, however, I am not for throwing money at something that is simply a scam.

If anyone has any advice or storis I would be glad to hear them

Cheers

Hoopsah

[Clinton]

Trying to research this option is almost impossible as every link is sponsered and hails the values of trying this method.

In the MMO industry (make money online), shills and stooges are a dime a dozen. It's a very incestuous little world of the most despicable and exploitative forms of internet marketing. I haven't tried Steve Pavlina's program, but I've been looking at several similar programs over the last few weeks and have commissioned people to study them in more detail and report findings back to me. I may publish this material at some point to demonstrate the sleazy tactics used by the low lives to separate desperate people from money they can't afford to lose.

My advice: If it's stuck full of sponsored links and all the "independent" reviews are marketers in the same field who have an affiliate code in their link - avoid like the plague ... and move on. It's not worth the time and trouble trying to unravel the seedy and tangled web to identify if a particular program is an exception to the rule. If it fits a certain model, drop it and save yourself some time!

[Slowdive]

Well I googled Steve Pavlina site and his Site Build It and found a blog post advertising the system. I will say its more transparent about what its offering than most courses, seemingly its a plan to action for creating an average ad-words site. May also have some advice on finding affiliates and even basic lead generation. At least the advertiser had the guts to put a site up apparently built by one of the users (judging by the quality it probably is by one of the users).

If it has any merit at all would depend on the quality of the information handed out. However even at best you are still paying $25 a month for information you could easily find here and access to a very basic site builder. Credit where credit is due the builder does not appear to pump out great looking webspace but its at least more or less symantic code and definitely spider friendly (more than most web builders). Still at base you are paying for information you could find here, a basic site builder, and some potentially useful information of SEO.
I will never know how great or bad the program is unless I read it, but I certainly would think long and hard about forking over money when so much can be found out online. Yeah, though not the worse MMO I have ever seen at a glance. Still not vouching for it mind

[Kay]

Well, I'm not a great expert on the MMO industry, but FWIW, my "advice" would be to hold your fire on buying anything and spend your time reading all the resources on EP first. By which time, with any luck, Clinton will have published the research he's commissioned. I for one can't wait to see that!

Many of these MMO things do offer a refund if you're not happy, so you probably don't have to risk your money. For me the downside would be:

It's not worth the time and trouble trying to unravel the seedy and tangled web to identify if a particular program is an exception to the rule.

And my guess is that you could spend a lot of your time doing that with nothing to show for it at the end.

[ClaytonL]

I've never tried the system. I do like Steve's personal blog, but I don't think that in anyway relates to this Site Build It program he was being payed to promote. Seriously, that blog was a trip when I was subscribed to it. It was more like a super candid journal as he experimented with different ways of living his live. He did an all veggie/fruit diet, he had an "open" marriage with his then wife, he did an experiment where he tried constantly thinking he was living in a dream world and seeing how that changed his life. He did this stuff for months at a time, never trying to sell anything except maybe his public speaking tour. It was a pretty crazy read.

ANYWAY, what is it that you know and what are you trying to learn? Have you read Clinton's 101 Ways of Making Money On the Internet?

[Rodica]

I have not used his system either but I was in your shoes 7 months ago when trying to figure out what to do online and what courses might help me obtain the info faster.

I did end up buying a course on how to buy sites, clean them up and either keep for revenue or turn around and sell them. That course did cost me a pretty penny but since I felt overwhelmed by all the info on Google on that particular topic, I felt that the course would give me value because they had the material organized step-by-step. This was before i found this wonderful forum where the info is very well-presented/not random and extremely useful.

Looking back, I do have small regrets but I guess it's part of the leaning curve. I sure come back to this forum much more often then to that course I bought (they periodically have calls on various topics but i find the opinions in this forum much more useful and the experts are more knowledgeable - you can definitely tell apart a person who has more theoretical than practical knowledge)

Good luck in taking a decision that works best for you!

[crabfoot]

There are some very basic rules in Affiliate Marketing - one is that a successful site only presents the reader with ways to buy the product and positive reviews of the product. If the visitor can't find anything else they like, they buy the product.

You're just seeing that rule in action - it works if you're selling a site builder or a skin treatment or a car wash system.

The real hassle is that there is no complete free system for learning how to build and monetize a site quickly. You can learn how to build sites from first principles at W3schools, and there are lots and lots of helpful videos on YouTube giving tutorials in everything from Wordpress to Joomla, with everything in-between, but there is no free package for "banging a site up" that will also give you hints on what to do next.

Think about it - make things too easy and the interweb world will be even more cluttered with semi-useless sites on top of the ones that already exist.

The whole business is rather like learning to play Monopoly - whichever places you buy will return rent money, but some are better placed to give a good return than others are, and sometimes you have to buy an undesirable property to make up a set.

[Kay]

I'm very curious about this.

What is it about a product that makes you think it might be worth buying? The reviews it gets, its reputation, or what?

Do you like these long sales pages with the red tick boxes, yellow highlighting, testimonials from satisfied customers? Is it the recipe for success? The step by step method to riches?

What is it that might make you consider buying the product?

It doesn't grab me, but obviously some people like the look of these things or they wouldn't be so successful at what they do.

If you're tempted to buy, then please share why you thought it might be worth it.

[Saul]

My advice: If it's stuck full of sponsored links and all the "independent" reviews are marketers in the same field who have an affiliate code in their link - avoid like the plague ... and move on.

Well, that rules out literally every single paid MMO product. But there are a few that might be worth a look, or not...

It depends on your knowledge, what you do, what you need. If you're completely new, finding a worthwhile product is just pure luck. So I'd suggest reading up first, then you'll see all of them in completely different light. Normally you can see if a product is worthwhile by asking yourself, what I'm gonna use it for? If the sales page has a reasonable answer, you get it, if not, you move on.

When you're new (and this is what most IM cons target), the only answer is, you'll make money. How? Oh, you'll make a bunch of these magical websites (very easy to do, by the way, your dog can do it while juggling cats simultaneously) and make money while you sleep. The funny thing is that if you spend some time reading up on how websites are made, how they're monetized, the basics, you'll recognize how ridiculous statements like that are.

[TheodoreK]

Kay, I was preparing a totally different (long) answer, trying to answer your question, but it's late over here and I am sick and dizzy so excuse me for taking a more poetic approach:


Meet Bob, my imaginary friend and aspiring "Digital Entrepreneur"

Bob wants to learn everything there is when it comes to making money online. He keeps an open mind and a cautious approach because the net is full of scams and dishonest people trying to grab your money.

Bob receives tons of spammy promotional emails, he signs up to numerous MMO newsletters and he probably frequents WF and other such places where he goes through several ebooks and WSO sales pages on a daily basis. He knows that most are junk and he thinks he knows how to spot them bad ones a mile away because he's got a sixth sense for spotting B.S. and a seventh sense for spotting an opportunity! (A free ebook taught him that)

Bob reads some of these long sales pages and watches the associated videos with a sense of superiority granted to him by his (supposedly) superior understanding. He has probably made a habit of sneering in front of his screen at the stupid people who fall for that kind of stuff.

Bob thinks he is "too smart to fall for such things" because he is observant and responsible (he does have a sixth and seventh sense after all!) He knows that "some" super-affiliates or gurus are making millions so it must be true that they found a get-rich-quick method that works!
So it's a matter of time and patience until Bob finds an insta-rich method for himself and what better place to look for such hidden jewel than the minds of those gurus themselves and their holy e-scriptures?
Sure most will be misleading but some "must" be legit!
Maybe one in ten... even if it's one in 100 Bob is determined to find that one rags-to-riches method that works!
When he finds that method all his hard work reading ebooks will be rewarded with untold riches.
Some people did became rich from reading ebooks after all -look at the Villas and the cars in the video dammit!

So as he trawls through numerous sales pages he will eventually stumble on some tiny detail that catches his keen attention. His extra-sensory perception for online moneymaking will start to tingle, maybe he's on to something those other plebs couldn't possibly spot!

This incredible finding can be some "hidden" meaning, spotting the "trick" behind the "trick" or generally anything that feeds his ego and gets him thinking that other people who went through the same video or sales page were again too stupid to think how Bob himself thought...
...the sales page seems to be talking to him directly -yes to Bob himself!- and he might start thinking that maybe, just maybe, the sales page isn't complete garbage after all!
After all we know that every 100 or so worthless MMO products there's one that's a real "ATM machine", right?
So maybe that's it!

He will continue on, intrigued to find if his intuition, (his seventh sense) is correct and whether he can grab this "golden" opportunity if it's indeed what he was looking for... After all its only $247 *holy cr*p" it's ONLY $97 for a limited time only!!

Bob is tired from all that searching but he feels he is now rewarded for his hard work as he has (probably) finally found the Holy Grail of online moneymaking, and in discounted price too!

From that point onwards its a downward spiral for Bob fueled by his own ego, greed and a good dose of confirmation bias.

It's a lot easier for Bob to believe he is right and found that one quick road to riches he was looking for at last than it is to admit he was wrong once again.
So Bob will eventually cave in and shell out those $97, after all he's got a 60-day total-satisfaction-or-your-money-back guarantee and all these "bonuses" must count for something, no?


Sad thing is that Bob will probably never admit he was wrong and that the only person to blame for falling for another MMO product AGAIN is Bob himself.

He will blame the gurus, the big players, the SERPs, the whole internet but not himself...

... so he will try again and again, having learned nothing.