Business Minder asks:
If your website suffer extensive targeted attacks from hackers and half of your database is totally destroyed and unrecoverable, what would you do?
ShoeMoney: Restore from backups
Who to hire? asks:
I run an online tuxedo store and have the financial resources to hire 2.5 employees.
What roles should I fill and in what order?
ShoeMoney: 1) since you evidently cant do it… you should hire someone who can look at your goals and determine what your missing and hire the person to accomplish those goals.
Matt Carter asks:
When marketing products have you ever found yourself with an ethical dilemma? Is it ok to market a product that you know is a poor quality product or scam?
ShoeMoney: Kind of a 2 part question there.
1) Have I ever had an ethical dilemma with any of my promotions of affiliate marketing products? No. But I am not like most affiliate marketers. I have built well established trusted sites and am not interested in making a quick buck. I am more focused on the long term goal.
2) Have I ever promoted a product I know is a scam? Nope but again I am in a very fortunate position where affiliate marketing is not my main thing. If I was out of work and had mouths to feed and it was not illegal then bet your ass I would.
Christian asks:
2 part question regarding PPC marketing:
1. What do you look for when selecting an affiliate product to promote via a PPC campaign?
2. Once you’ve found said product, what’s your first step to getting your PPC campaign and running (& profitable)?
ShoeMoney: 1) Do I see a angle on how to promote it that current users are not. 2) use ShoeMoney Tools.
WeFlySpitfires asks:
Do you have any stats which correlate visits to ad revenue?
I know it’s not as simple as all that but I was curious about it. I mean, is there a point where you can say ‘X number of visits may net you Y revenue and Z number of visits may net you… etc’?
Sorry, I’m not a SEO guy – just enjoy your blog 
Free Directory Submission asks:
Would you build a big site around a good affiliate offer? For instance, say you make good $ on some mp3 selling offer via a landing page. Would you invest in a 3-4 months project and spend lower $XX,XXX to build a really great site that is built around that offer that would have a ton of usefull features, but wouldn’t really make money if an affiliate program wouldn’t be there? Why or why not? What’s your thoughts behind it?
Another question: what do you think about cj? I never saw you talking about them, even though they do have the same offers as azoogle with different commissions.
ShoeMoney: So your asking would I spend 2 months and tens of thousands of dollars on a website which only source of revenue I do not feel very comfortable with. Probably not… unless I had nothing else going on. As far as CJ goes… no I am not a fan.
Chris Guthrie asks:
How come you haven’t been posting about MMA lately? You used to offer your picks and discuss the matches.
ShoeMoney: Just been busy man. Between ShoeMoney Tools and this new free training program I have been working on I have had little time for hobbies as of late. I am looking forward to Machida kicking Evans ass though!
Jeremy asks:
I recently wrote an article on Amazon’s new way to make money for bloggers by selling subscriptions to the blogs via the Kindle Store. I would love to know your opinion on the subject. Do you think this is a good idea for a new stream of revenue for bloggers?
Jeremy
Read the article here about Amazon Kindle Publishing for Blogs: http://www.abiztechnews.com/?p=371
ShoeMoney: Sounds interesting havent had time to check it out.
Adam asks:
Is the book officially canceled? Somebody said when they signed up for your 12 week training that it says it is replacing the book or something like that.
ShoeMoney: Yup… After 3 years I walked away from the deal.
LOLer Apps asks:
What do you believe is the best way to promote a new iPhone application?
Obviously, with 40,000+ apps in the app store, it’s going to take some kind of breaking point to get noticed.
ShoeMoney: I honestly have no idea. I dont even own a iPhone.
Giancarlo Massaro, AnyLuckyDay.com asks:
How would you best monetize http://anyluckyday.com. I get companies to donate products that they make and I provide them with an alternate source of advertising via social networks and blogs. Right now I’ve started using amazon affiliates, but what other ways would you monetize it? Eventually when it gets large enough I can charge companies to sponsor, but other than that?
ShoeMoney: I would promote it with real life case studies. Do guest blog posts on sites and talk about how you took company x from this to that and go step by step. Social proof and education is the best way to sell.
Zac Johnson asks:
What’s a big personal goal (not financial/biz related) that you HAVEN’T obtained yet?
ShoeMoney: I have a few things on my life to do list. I really want to goto the playboy mansion and thanks to azoogleads I can check that off my list. I would like to skydive but not sure my wife would be down for that. I would like to live long enough to be a grandparent.
Dan Schawbel asks:
How do you manage all of your social network profiles, in addition to your blog, your businesses, speaking, etc? What kind of back end support do you have to pull this all off?
ShoeMoney: I speak maybe once a month.. I write daily but try not to let it take up more then a hour a day… Business take up a lot of time but for the most part as long as you manage time well and not let yourself get sucked into time wasting shit (I often start the discussion but rarely look back once its started). Social network wise I check facebook and myspace daily for msgs but thats about it.
plunge asks:
Ketchup or mustard?
ShoeMoney: Ketchup
Sean asks:
what is the best way to pitch an idea?
power point to email with phone follow up
elevator pitch at event with follow up phone call
or ?
ShoeMoney: For me in person at a conference in the expo hall.
Chance Stevens asks:
Have you ever considered putting your biggest lessons on tape or dvd and selling those as an info product?
With all the people familiar with you and your success, it seems like you could turn on a camera..or recorder – talk and make money.
You don’t seem shy, and people definitely need the info, insight, and encourage – so what’s holding you back?
ShoeMoney: Wow nice timing on that one. Had some people approach us about this last week. Biggest thing holding us back is we cant find any reliable video production people.
TweetFind asks:
What would be the best way other than PPC to get traffic to a site like mine?
Thanks for your input.
R
ShoeMoney: Get traffic word of mouth
Staska asks:
I’m friggin stuck with CPA on my mobile news site.
I have tons of traffic (about 500K uniques a month), about 50% coming from google search for a specific phone.
I do pretty well with CPC (adsense) and CPM adverts. But when it comes to CPA… sh…
I’m lucky if I sell a phone/plan a month.
I tried everything – links to the phones below content, geotargeted CPA deal ads, Amazon and other widgets…
I’ve even got booted from Shopzilla CPC program because my links did not give them a single conversion in 3 months…
Ringtones do not work as well, I tried.
Any ideas how to get that frigin CPA work on this kind of site?
ShoeMoney: Thats kind of the danger when your focused on SEO traffic… lots of times it just does not convert =(. I mean you have so much adsense on your site I dunno how you ever expect to get any sort of traction other then 1 click and gone from users.
Sue asks:
What question do you wish, just once, someone would ask?
ShoeMoney: wow good question… I honestly dunno =P
Video Game Fonts asks:
Why Lincoln Nebraska? Seriously.
ShoeMoney: Its just where destiny has lead me. Not sure how long we will stay here. Been looking at moving to denver lately.
Matt Carter asks:
What did you think of LOST season 5? and last nights finale?
ShoeMoney: I thought the season was incredible. Really enjoyed the finale and will post on it soon.
Mike asks:
I’m looking to hire a developer to finish one of the sites that i’m working on. How do you go about finding the right guy. I am a professional software engineer myself, but am struggling with this question. Having worked with both US and Indian overseas developers at work… I find the Indian guys need to be held by the hand and only do what u tell them, and don’t think for themselves. If u tell them 1 through 9 and 10 is obvious, they won’t do it or even try to figure it out. Not to mention the time zone and communication problems.
ShoeMoney: Still trying to solve this myself.
Matt asks:
If you had a product or script that ensured or helped social marketing success and had the results to prove it how would you market and sell it?
Would you create a monthly membership that people subscribed to or sell it through affiliates as a one time purchase?
Thanks!
ShoeMoney: membership > one time sales
WeFlySpitfires asks:
Sorry, Shoe, another question. Do you think a site can be too niche to market and monetize from ad revenue? Does the subject material need to have a certain amount of Internet traffic before it’s viable? Thanks
ShoeMoney: Just varies on the subject. I thought I was dumb for only going after Nextel Ringtones years ago… that small niche turned out pretty well.
Find Affiliate Offers asks:
Your show on webmaster radio occurs at a time when I can’t listen or participate live so I usually listen to the podcast afterwards. What’s the best way to submit a question for your show?
ShoeMoney: just use the contact us at the top of the blog.
Justin Lucas asks:
When testing a PPC campaign what number of visitors would you consider to be the minimum to obtain accurate numbers. For example, would you trust the stats on a campaign with 10 visitors/ day, 50, 100, etc.?
Thanks.
ShoeMoney: Depends on what all your testing… there is no magic answer for this. Time of day and other factors can play a huge role.
Tran Harry asks:
Money or Women?
ShoeMoney: Women duh
Netflix asks:
Would you start another content site like Fighters ever again? What would you do differently? Is it possible to create a very profitable sports content site?
ShoeMoney: Sure and yes
Andy asks:
How many servers do you guys have
ShoeMoney: around 20 right now
About the author...
Jeremy Schoemaker – who has written 2415 posts on ShoeMoney.com.
Hi I am Jeremy Schoemaker and ShoeMoney.com is my blog. 99% of the post here are done by me but you will see others occasionally make guest posts. This blog is fun to write but for my day job I run several online companies.
Images provided by ShutterStock
Mark recommends you read these posts also:
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How To Profit From Invading Your Users Privacy
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How to Sell Your Website
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The Gestalt Protocal
{ 36 comments… read them below or add one }
i need to go back and rewatch lost or at least refresh my my memory on some of the past events. the whole jacob/john lock thing was confusing to me.
Thanks for the feedback! Very interesting!
Shoemeister…I missed this damn Q&A this time…
I just read the first question and would like a follow up.
How could you tell your site has been hacked? or set with bugs? Possibly stealing your commissions?
Oh yea, and who do you think will win the NBA championship?
We use a variety of intrusion detection systems. (tripwire and the like)
You have to remember I was the lead security engineer for 6 years for one of hte largest banks in the world so I its kind of my bread and butter.
But yea any sort of anomaly should be investigated I NEVER let anything go unsolved and it drives some of my staff crazy. I have to know what caused anything.
This post comes through as HTML in the rss feed. Not sure why but something went a little weird.
yea its cause I have a script htat generates the html for me and answers then when I pasted it in I did so in the visual mode not html FAILURE
It’s amazing how you really don’t write that much about affiliate marketing. You even say that affiliate marketing isn’t your big thing. But if you notice, 90% of the questions are realted to this topic. Crazy huh?
indeed
There are really nice questions people posted this time around.
Money or Women? Well, in this world you first need money… and women will come by themselves
@Staska try using ebay contextual ads with ZinText:
http://www.zintext.com
Thanks for doing this! Looks like I missed out though…any chance there won’t be 5 months before the next one?
Thank you for answering my question Jeremy! (Wasn’t sure if I’d make the cut for a minute)
I don’t think it’s all about affiliate marketing as much as it is building trust with an audience and being candid enough about the content on the site.
There’s also an implied amount of passion, dedication and creativity to bring this all together which is rare.
I hope that you and Andrew Warner are able to take all the great thing you and get them onto CD. Most CDs out there are 15 tracks or garbage that won’t make me any better.
If I could get 15 life and business lessons from you guys, my drives around town would be much different. I probably wouldn’t need my radio for anything except to play the CDs.
Enjoy your day, and your weekend.
Nice, you should do this more often. I couldn’t get in on the QandA it was locked.
I used to do it weekly… just been totally swamped with new projects lately
Hey Shoe if you need someone to write posts on fighters.com i would be happy to help. I wouldnt even ask for anything in return, I love mma been following it for a while now. I’m pulling for machida too. Can’t wait.
-Vini
Denver, eh? I’ve lived in the Denver area my entire life. Denver itself is alright, but the surroundings are awesome. I live 10 minutes west of Denver, and it is not busy at all. I can drive 10 minutes west and be in the mountains, or 10 minutes east and be in Denver. It is great. Are you going to make it to the affiliate conference in June in Denver?
Very good answer, I agree women indeed!
i want to know the time of next q&a.
I missed out on this one. Damn, I read shoemoney through email updates and got both the updates together.
That’s really interesting article Shoe
Hey Shoe,
I noticed you didn’t link to some of the people that asked questions (like me) any reason why?
I’m not too worried about, but just wondering why.
its not a choice thing… I have script that generates everything from the wp database. I just answer
your wife is not ok with skydiving but the playboy mansion she is cool with. funny.
I am surprised MTV hasn’t approached you about doing a reality tv thing. You would definitely blow up then. hey if the guy who helps dorks meet women has a show, you would be star showing averagos how to enjoy a good think i.e., marketing.
Very Useful Q and A for jeremy fans
Thank you for not taking the high horse on this answer:
2) Have I ever promoted a product I know is a scam? Nope but again I am in a very fortunate position where affiliate marketing is not my main thing. If I was out of work and had mouths to feed and it was not illegal then bet your ass I would.
I really was shocked when you answered it so honestly. I’m one of the people out there pushing nonsense offers that give big payouts for trials.
I only have one mouth to feed but I’m out there hustling every single day. I don’t have the capital to do the things on your level just yet. I’m just happy you didn’t rip people like me apart.
I’m out of work. Because I have too many felonies to get a real job and I just wanted to thank you again for being a real person. Not some clown with a fat bank account.
Yours truly,
Everyday Hustler
cool QnA! Learned a few things. Hope to ask a question the next time around!
Shoe Thanks a ton for sharing such a vital information & i appreciate it totally. I have learned many new things today after reading this post and now i am going to implement same on my blogs and websites to see the hike in traffic and earnings.
You Rock Chief ..!!
Some interesting answers (how could you not make fun of someone mentioning hiring 2.5 staff!). I might offer up a question next time if I think of a good one.
Such Q&A posts are very informative and answers quite a few questions that we have. Many of the questions were indeed questions that even I had, so I got the answers without even asking any questions. Thanks for such a post.
When the teacher asked the classroom who would we most like to emulate I said The Shoe.
The rest off my 8 year old class said Who?
Heres my question
Can you work a little harder on this demographic please
Thanks again for these Q&A sessions. These are great.
One point: please mention about these in your newsletter. I’d like to get notified when you are “taking questions” and when the QA sessions go live.
(Emails that mention just this, nothing else. Please and thanks.)
Ok now its my turn. Everyone interview me.
decent answers in my opinion