Nickycakes Interview

Hello and welcome to our first of many interviews you will see on this blog. Over the coming weeks you will see many interviews with influential players in the industry. Our first interview is with Nickycakes. Nickycakes is a regular blogger at Nickycakes.com. On the Blog he gives many tips and his strong opinions make me a frequent visitor. I had the opportunity to interview NickyCakes and he didn't disappoint.

Larby: Hi Nicky, could you provide us with a quick re-cap of what you've done, and who you are over in the affiliate marketing world?

Nicky: Well, I've been working with computers and programming since I was a little kid, and just recently started using this knowledge to try and make myself some cash instead of playing video games all day. I've only been in the game for about half a year, in which time I've learned a lot, made some mistakes, had some success, and continue to find new areas to make a little cash online. I've not come close to perfecting my game when it comes to internet marketing, and I hope I never do, because as soon as that happens, I know I'll get bored and move on to something else, and so far I love what I'm doing.

Larby: What was the most unexpecting roadblock you faced as a beginner?

Nicky: The biggest unexpected roadblock that myself, and I know many others, have faced is me. I constantly got in my own way. I spent probably my first month and a half doing nothing but reading forums, researching a bunch of crap, etc, etc. I realize now that 99% of the idiots on online moneymaking forums and blogs aren't sharing anything useful, and if I would have just dove in and started trying to make something happen on my own (which is what I ended up doing eventually anyway) I would have started seeing results much more quickly.

Larby: Your blog has really taken off, what are your long term goals for your blog?

Nicky: The blog is where I try to give back to a community lacking in real information. The majority of "make money online" blogs out there NEVER share anything useful or help anyone make money. Right now, the blog really doesn't pull in any significant income, maybe enough to pay the hosting and domain reg fees, but that's about it. Would I like to monetize it and make a ton of cash blogging or whatever? Yeah, sure. But the real goal is to help introduce people to an industry that I think is really fun and share some of my ideas along the way. That's been the goal from the start, and hopefully it will stay the goal in the long term.

Larby: What do you think separates super affiliates from the rest of the crowd?

Nicky: Super-affiliate is a stupid buzzword. One of my AM's once told me that they were going to upgrade me to "super affiliate" status soon. I asked what that meant, and they basically said, nothing. The thing that separates "super affiliates" from the rest of the crowd is that they are stupid enough to give themselves this label and forever brand themselves with the mushroom stamp of idiocy.

Larby: What would you tell people that are hesitant to get involved with affiliate marketing?

Nicky: I would tell them don't. If you don't think you can make money with affiliate marketing, then don't bother. Never before have I seen an industry that's so easy to get started in. Imagine you could go to your local mall and give the property owner $20 and he let you use one of his store spaces to set up your own store for a day to see if it made a profit and if it didn't work you could just walk away from that one and try a different one the next day. That's what affiliate marketing is like. If you don't see the nearly risk-free nature of the business, then you may as well go get an even lower risk office job where the boss tells you what to do.

Larby: What would be two PPC tips you would tell those struggling with affiliate marketing?

Nicky: Pay less per click than you're earning per click, and find a good way to easily monitor which keywords are converting and which ones aren't.

Larby: What do you hope to accomplish in the future as an affiliate marketer or entrepreneur in general?

Nicky: It was pretty obvious from the beginning that the people who really make the good money are the merchants and the networks. There are a ton of networks out there, and starting up one of those is expensive, both in time and money, so I won't be doing that in the foreseeable future, but there is always room for more merchants. I've been thinking about working the merchant side of affiliate marketing for a while and hopefully can come up with something good to sell.

I'd like to thank Nicky for taking the time to do this interview. You can check out Nickycake's blog at NickyCakes.com his posts have been very helpful to many Affiliate Marketers so I highly reccomend you all check it out.