So often I get emails, facebook messages, and even tweets from people asking how to get started with affiliate marketing.
It comes with a good reason too; starting affiliate marketing can seem like such a daunting task! You have the landing pages, the advertisement creatives (banners and text ads), traffic sources, keywords, Ahh!
You know, the most common problem I hear is, “I am not a coder” and “I am not a designer” often followed by “I can’t afford to hire them!”
The funny thing is, while I “can” code and I can design, my coders and designers would agree that I suck at it. The other day I tried to modify a template my coder had done for me. He messages me shortly after… “Hey, do you mind if I… recode all of this…” Hahaha.
Anyway, I’m sure many of you know how it can feel when you don’t have this skillset. The honest truth however, is you really don’t need to have those skills to be able to make money online.
Sure, having those skills will help, there is no argument there.
Last year I made over $1,500,000 using a free template that I grabbed from one of the many free CSS templates. No joke. It didn’t matter that it was free or that I didn’t have to do anything except add my own filler text. All that matters is that that it converted and converted well.
So often we get into this mindset that if we don’t have the most beautiful page that we will not be able to succeed. Success really does not come from design. Success comes from your ability to optimize, test, retest, test some more, and focus on details. I truly believe that, and obviously have some proof. 
Starting as a marketer is certainly no easy task. It took me 3 years to really start to become successful (2004-2007) but as you continue to press on, you will continue to learn and grow in your ability to generate sales.
About the author...
jvolk – who has written 2 posts on ShoeMoney.com.
Jonathan Volk is a 20-something internet marketer who makes millions of dollars per year online. Check out his internet marketing blog where he provides tons of good tips to make money online.
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{ 71 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi,I read the post three times and didnt understand how did you make that money.You added filler tex into the template and made that money? How? Please,explain.
Thanks
i cant really see how you made money with the free css template. do you mind explaining that
Thanks for the post John – how about a link to that CSS template (or perhaps just one that converts amd converts well!
)
This post sounds alot like bragging and personal marketing at the moment. If you elaborate it would be a much better post.
lol I would brag too even if I only Net’ed $1 dollar.
You shouldn’t throw around these numbers if you dont tell what they mean.
$1.5 million revenue or profit or loss or turnover or donations.
That is what’s important.
Anybody can show off a few numbers.
It doesn’t have to be perfect to work.
To many people spend sooo much time on reading learning but never implement what they know because they want things to be “perfect”
Get it done and out to people, and tweek it as you need to.
Is this post complete ? The title really grabs you attention, but the post has almost 0 value.
Great title to the post but I must say it didn’t live up to the title (especially on the Shoe blog).
Jon made his money by sending job traffic to free EDU leads, and I guess he used a free web template.
Usually when he talks about numbers he talks about gross revenue as opposed to profit because it sounds better.
Jon
You are a joke. Everyone who matters knows this. When you post shit like this it just makes you look worse. For those who are interested, his profit margins were close to 5-10% and all his numbers are gross.
Notice how volk always speaks of his PAST numbers. This is because he currently makes close to zero and has been for many months now.
He is a person who got lucky with one method, did not once change or adapt his strategies, and as a result is now a complete loser and a total washout.
“rico”
I don’t think you know shit about jonathon. You are one of these weasels who hides in his shadows anonymously and takes shots.
BUT… Lets pretend for a second your right…
Does that diminish the value of this post and the point that you don’t need to be a graphics wizard or a hardcore dev to gross a shitton of cash?
I know so many people with ZERO technical ability who absolutely crush it.
At the same time I know a TON of people who are some of the most skilled programers and graphic designers in the world who can’t figure out how to make a dime.
So chill out a little bit don’t be such a jealous ass.
Shoe,
I don’t think people are really interested in taking shots at Jon, but I think if a person portrays himself in one way, and there is important info being left out, then that info needs to be shared. Obviously Jon is a good guy (He’s no Dennis Yu, thank God), but he hasn’t shut up about making all this money from job/edu leads for over a year and it’s getting old.
Beyond that – the post itself did not live up to the title. I think constructive criticism is fair, no?
Cheers
Ari
Sure did Jon do a bit of title bait… ok.. I will give that to you. Normally when I do title like that it contains a post it contains a step by step walk through on exactly what I did.
When I just talked to Jon 2 weeks ago he was showing me a lot of stuff he was working on and I never saw any Job/Edu leads.
But again… blah maybe I will do a post follow up.
In regards to showing you stuff he was working on:
http://www.shoemoney.com/2009/11/04/can-we-talk-for-a-minute/
Jeremy,
I know these things for a fact. So I am right. Ask him yourself and if he tells you otherwise he is lying. He made his money sending garbage job traffic to an EDU offer. I know his profit margins, his websites, and all the details of his campaigns. I have a feeling that you do too. It was all essentially done with one offer. He did not even come up with the idea himself, it was handed to him by his affiliate manager at Azoogle Ryan Sessler. He was making close to nothing before that.
I’m not sure if you are just trying to defend him or you really didn’t know and he gave you one hell of a snow job at some affiliate convention.
My point here is that I am not bashing the post (which as you pointed out is entirely true) but the man himself. He is a fraud and is not the “super affiliate” that he portrays himself to be. Many guys out there are the real deal and deserve more attention than this dude.
As for being jealous over his tiny profit margins, not a chance.
Yep! The post was about: u must not be designer or programmer to make money, just use what u have and start and test-analyse-test-analyse
looks like ppl hate Jon here.
Hey,
I don’t know why you feel such hatred towards me, but if I did something to you in the past, I apologize. Really, it seems uncalled for.
Either way, to be 100% honest, you’re misinformed. Nobody, except my employee and accountants, knows my profit margins and they certainly were not 5-10%.
To this day, I still make good money (6 figures/ month) although it’s not from this campaign. But, all campaigns are not meant to last forever right?
Thanks
Maybe your next post should be “How I used a keyboard to make millions” (oh yeah, and also a bunch of programmers, designers, ad testing software, affiliate offers, email lists, and a bunch of money on PPC/social media/SEO)
I think you actually make a good point
(btw I can tell who you are its not difficult mr anonymous).
While I know you are trying to be a asshole and take shots at jon I can’t tell you how every day I hear from people who are like well if I just knew how to program or if I just knew how photoshop worked.
You hit the nail really on the head. You only need a working computer and ambition.
Maybe you are a really talented programmer bitter because you still flip burgers at mcdonalds?
That wasn’t my point. The point is that the CSS template and the millions were kind of unrelated. It’s like giving credit to something else that’s completely arbitrary to your success. All for the sake of a good headline.
It would make a little more sense if the post was about how he designed a template, put his link in the bottom, the template became wildly popular, and it resulted in big business for his design business.
That is a great point. This is the kind of “content” you get from a guy like Jonathan Volk.
The reason he throws around the “millions” number all the time is that it’s really his only leg to stand on. He has no other accomplishments or achievements to speak of. (unlike Jeremy with auctionads, etc) The sad reality is that even the idea that made him that money was handed to him, so no accomplishment there even.
The only way he could get anyone to read his blog or have any level of credibility is to constantly flash those gross numbers. If anyone knew what the real profits were I doubt he would have much of a reader base. As his main campaigns are now defunct he is leveraging his blog by doing paid reviews, guests posts, etc.
Jeremy I know he is a friend of yours but everything I’ve said is true and readers should look past the BS and the fluff.
Agreed with Dave here. The CSS, the free design, etc are merely incidental and I believe noone who has been into IM for more than one month would blame these as the reasons why they are not making millions yet.
The title was misleading, the content was too much of a disappointment..
Probably the author presumes that everyone knows who he is and doesn’t need to elaborate..Sorry, I am hearing about you for the first time..
Why not Jon come here and answer all the comment himself,why is he hiding himself?
I am sure jon will come on. He sent this to me a bit a go and I posted it at 6am this morning… which I think is like 4am his time.
I dont really critisize Jon,but it would be better if he explains how he managed to make that money,otherwise it sounds very unrealistic,and it can hurt his reputation.
Just woke up
Thanks for your post John,,
I was amazed to see crazy comments in here
, i couldnt resist so had to leave mine! Jon, I know you for a while and I know that you make legit cash from affiliate marketing. But to be honest, you do need to elaborate on this.
PS: I just have a feeling that although this post might not make much sense to a lot, it will get tons of hits and comments! eh!
Wow there is a lot of negativity flowing through these comments! Maybe the problem is that the message that Jon was trying to convey was so simple that it didn’t need half the post to do it. Let me try…
TITLE: Stop With Laym Excuses!
BODY: “I’m not a coder” or “I’m not a designer” are not good enough to excuses as to why you’re not making money online.
~end
Wow…this post really pissed people off. You should all ask for your money back.
Although I agree it wasn’t a shoemoney post, the guy was making a point that I can get behind.
That point is to just get started, the biggest problem I’ve seen for most people in this business is the lack of motivation and focus (myself included at times) but once they get to work, they start making money. Imagine that.
RE: Everyone.
Ok, ok – the post was incomplete. I apologize. I guess the title was a bit too good for the incomplete content.
Either way, many of the claims of people who think they know what they are talking about are 100% false. People often think they know, but in reality have no idea because I would never share much of the information they are talking about. It’s probably all hear-say and thankfully isn’t true.
That being said, I apologize for not including a more complete guide. If you want a more complete guide, I did PPC / Affiliate marketing. Shoemoney has a great guide already about there that you can read for free as PPC / affiliate marketing is entirely too long to be able to explain in one post.
This post was for the thousands of people who feel like they can’t make any money and limit themselves due to not having a designer. The number figure was simply “social proof” of what is possible. Sure it’s not profit, but my margins (having never shared them before) – are actually much higher than what others have claimed.
So that being said, the title should probably be changed to “I made $1.5 mil using a free CSS template” not necessarily HOW.
Thanks for understanding.
Hi,if you used PPC/Affiliate to make that money,then why did you include this type of Title? Many of the affiliates use free templates to promote the products.So,your title is not relevant to your content,and secondly,if you wrote a post about how you made that money,at least,you had to include something in this post.
Thanks
I’m a marketer… Maybe you forgot you were too… And the fact of the matter is, my headline got a lot of attention, but I needed it to deliver a bit more. Lesson learned.
that’s ok man. you really did get our attention. i got what you are saying though. people get so caught up in trying to code and stuff when they can outsource.
Its just like cloaking simple article under catchy headline to get more readers.
It is good that,you admit that learned something,but you knew that your headline was too unrealistic for your post.Anyway,Good luck
Hey Jonathan,
I would be interested to know if it was just your personal website you’ve put in the post or several different websites that made you that much money.
It’s amazing you made that much money in just one year! Nice work
How much of that was profit I wonder? 
Hi Jon. I’ve been reading the replies to your post. Wow! Is this what I can expect from the “PPC/Affil” marketers out there?
I’m so new at all of this-I barely know how to spell half of the terms…truly.
That being said, your first title was a little misleading and yet I totally get your point about not needing the expertise. That is a relief and
yet I sit here staring at my computer, full of ambition, not knowing where to go from here.
I know, you and everyone else were there at one time. Can you tell me what your first steps were like? Really let me know the first 5-10 things you did to earn even your first dollar? Every time I come across an article and it starts out like they’re going to help me to understand the process- someone is asking me to buy SOMEONE ELSE’S software, E-book, Subscription, etc. CAN YOU HELP ME?
OK, so if the word “How” was removed from the title, would that satisfy most folks here?
Anyway, I’m guessing most people who have seen $1.5m in their bank account, whether it be gross or net, would find a way to market that effort.
I was hoping you had some great way to slightly modify a template, brand it, and put it out there on wordpess.org. I was dreaming about all the backlinks I would get.
I agree that the title should be different, however, its not a bad post.
Thats how I started back when I downloaded free wordpress theme that was related to the offer I ran. Makes sense, custom programming and design turn into worse sites than wordpress with free theme a lot of times too… 
I put off getting into affiliate marketing for about two years as I found it to be, as you said, a rather daunting prospect.
Every single web site and blog I have ever owned has had a free theme, even ones I’ve made a lot of money on.
I am going to try this too!
This post was pretty lame honestly. You don’t say one word about “How you made over $1,5000,000″ with a free template. I really hope no one actually clicks through to his site to figure this out b/c it’s more than likely total BS.
See I agree with you on this. Well this is the deal I am sure anyone can make money with a free CSS template some good content and great SEO.
But not much information here.
Damn before I read the comments I was missing the point of this post entirely. Here I was thinking Jon stole someone elses hard work, made a few edits and called it his own and mass marketed it. Wow was I way off.
I think we all know you don’t have to spend tons of cash on site design, I can’t call the kettle black here but there are tons of sites out there that make $$ that are pretty crappy design wise. That point is pretty pointless.
Basically what I get from this post is nothing but lip service, dang Shoe thought you’d set the bar a little higher on your guest posts.
I think it is great. If you pursue something long enough and with great passion, you will always succeed.
Great takeaway Jon! A lot of times people spend so much time and effort on the design of their sites, landing pages, squeeze pages, etc., that it really does takeaway from the aspects of what truly does matter.
I know I’ve been caught in the same predicament where I would be always changing things here and there with the design on my blog. Tons of hours were wasted when, in fact, I could of spent that time on developing content or working on something else that was more productive.
Even though things came out fantastic in the end, we shouldn’t necessarily look at design as a high priority task but one that we should work on once we have our key tasks completed.
Shoe, your readers need to understand the difference between revenue and profit. Jonathan admitted in the comments to his infamous “I make $300k/month” post on his site that he means revenue, not profit, and that his profit was much, much less than that. Anyone can make six figures a month in revenue – it’s profit that counts.
Well as of right now there is 43 comments about a guy that “sucks” at what he does. And yet there was traffic to Shoe’s site and I am sure people went to Jon’s site to check him out some more.
I just think the haters are fun.
Now 44 Comments!
Many people did missed the point. I think all Jon wanted to say was, design, or rather unique design, or self designed templates is not the most important aspect of a website.
Unless you sell design service, or unless it is a website that you wish to create into a known brand, which is also not really important unless you refuse to accept plentyoffish as a brand, or myspace. Even shoemoney.com lol
Talking about gross, I recently sold a site on sitepoint for $33K, and the site was still using the doshdosh blue adsense template. yeah that ugly template.
And guess what, the site has now increased in traffic by more than 250 % since he bought (sad me since I did the new optimizations also). And the new owner refuse to change the template since it works so well.. And it still makes a good sum..
Well… I have a few other assets running Free WP templates or revolution tenmplates… I also have a new site which is starting to surprise me… and it looks horrible… maybe I need to hire a designer lol
OK.. Not “sad me” lol..
My only fear was if the traffic tanked after I sold, so I did a lot of On Page tweaks during the warranty, and I am super happy it worked out so well for both parties.
Another blog gone to drain…
Your post title is “How I made” but the post is just some horn tooting and really offers nothing to the reader. Did you hack into Jeremy’s blog and post that? I have a hard time believing he would allow that crap on his blog.
this post is meaningless
Errr, so the title of this post is ‘How I Made Over $1,500,000 Using A Free CSS Template’.
Am I missing the bit that actually explains how?
incredible, you can overcome all existing problems, at the start and then enjoy the fruits of hard work, success for you
Shoe,
I don’t think people are really interested in taking shots at Jon, but I think if a person portrays himself in one way, and there is important info being left out, then that info needs to be shared. Obviously Jon is a good guy (He’s no Dennis Yu, thank God), but he hasn’t shut up about making all this money from job/edu leads for over a year and it’s getting old.
Beyond that – the post itself did not live up to the title. I think constructive criticism is fair, no?
Cheers
Jason
I think this was a really sad post what waste of time.
I guess I will copy the headline just to get traffic.
So what was the point of this post? Teach something or tease? The guy lures you with an attractive headline and then leaves you more confused… what a waste of time…
Shoe why would you even allow this kind of posts… sigh…
Great post, especially for me! I used to spend a lot of time “making stuff look nice” when really there is no point because its not the looking nice that makes the money – its what you are promoting (well most of them time – I promote professional coaching so in that instance you need to look nice! but for selling affiliate products not so necessary)
Promoting something no one wants will get you know where and promoting something people desperately want will make you a million and a half – even if the template is free!
I still need things to look nice – its my weakness. I do wish I had spent the time learning PPC instead of wasting time on the size of my graphic and whether the video should be on the left or right!
But once again I am reminded of an important lesson – focus on what people are desperate for, find a solution to their problem and give it to them. I think I might have finally come close to that myself…. now all I need to figure out is PPC
Jon your post is really only available for anyone ready to hear the message. For everyone else it will go over their head and send them into confusion and blame!!! You gotta love people
This basically is an article telling people that it takes hard work and content to be successful, it has nothing to do with “smoke and mirrors” The title is a bit catchy, sounds like a marketing guy wrote it. Haha, it was a marketing guy, geez…I clicked too.
I don’t know why you guys are giving this kid so much hell about this. Even Shoe doesn’t disclose his methods, and to be honest, if I could gross $1.5m I wouldn’t share it with anyone either (unless it was a completely dead for me).
Good post. Makes me wanna get off my a$$.
lmao
were people expecting a ‘hand holding’ post. from what i read, it seems like he was just saying.
you dont need a pretty page, that cost 500 bucks to make a sell. you can get a free template and your own sales text and make a few dollars.
I read the comments first, then read the post.
Jon is a really nice guy, who cares about his family and is open and warm to meet people.
When I actually read the post, it is just a cool lite post. Who cares if it was gross or net. 1.5 mil is a solid number for anyone.
Anything that gives hope and inspiration to others is worth writing down and posting.
hi,
good sharing
thanks for info
I can sense alot of readers sniffing out a get rich quick scheme and coming up with nothing =]
Makes U wanna get it together…Time is Money! $$$$$$$$
Hi,I read the post three times and didnt understand how did you make that money.You added filler tex into the template and made that money? How? Please,explain.
Certainly Jonathan’s post created a great deal of excitement. And he probably only gave brief thought to its title. And the title should have been why I made, not how I made 1.5 million. But, that wasn’t the point of the post, it wasn’t about education. His post was about giving inspiration and saying, “Its OK not to have your sales campaign totally perfect! He is only trying to help affiliate marketers, new or established to realize that you need “to get into the game” and in this post he makes his point by telling everyone that campaigns and their designs don’t need to be perfection and they should not be putting off getting started for lack of money or creative talent. Jonathan is saying, “just do it, get into the game the best you can and move forward.” His point is that marketers and the campaigns they run just need to be out there getting clicks, it you want a design prize enter a contest. This is the point of his post. But what has turned out to be more instructive, is that Titles need to pop. In this post the title popped and look how it created activity and brought in all of the comments. Just because some people who read his post seem to want their hand held and the way forward illuminated for them with a tell all, design by the numbers list of instructions about how to make money. Jonathan doesn’t provide this because that is not his point here. But many of the commenter’s write how they feel slighted and seem to have gotten their panties in a bunch. So they respond by leaving messages that showed the post left them hot and bothered? I see these complaining comments coming from Monday Morning quarterbacks whose inner child (probably a little girl in a pretty pink dress) is a bit jealous of Jonathan’s success. This seems especially apparent in the comments that blast him about “bragging.” These commenter’s dissection of his monetary results, being gross or net or Jonathan being a “One Hit Wonder” that had his product “Handed to him on a Silver Platter,” are most likely the rants of individuals that haven’t made $100.00 (net) in all their attempts to be a online marketer. So maybe people should understand what they read and think before they speak while keeping their gossip and unfounded attacks to themselves and thank Jonathan for taking the time to share his thoughts with them. It would be more effective to congratulate and encourage Jonathan so he will continue to share with others who have never experienced his level of success.