Jonathan Volk - Super Affiliate

This interview is with Jonathan Volk of www.jonathanvolk.com a 20-something Internet marketer who mostly focuses on affiliate marketing.

Ok Thank you Jonathan for agreeing to this interview. I have to say I am very impressed with your Blogging Style. Your $3000 Dollar Day Post in particular ;-) WELL DONE.

Background: I live in the Bay Area, about 30 minutes away from San Francisco, California and I am 20 years old (21 on the 31st of January). Right now what motivates me is both the desire for financial freedom and also because I want to affect many lives with the money I am obtaining. I've posted before on my blog about how important it is for me that I don't just get things here on earth but I desire to invest into things that I believe are eternal, which is people.
 
I note that the theme of your blog is "The life of a young Internet Marketer" and "Ready, Set, Super Affiliate". Can you explain what your ambitions are for your Blog?

The theme of my blog has mostly been affiliate marketing. When I first started the website, www.jonathanvolk.com, I had the tagline of "the life of a young internet marketer." My only ambitions for the blog at that time was just to let a few people about some of the stuff I was doing and learning.

Fast-forward a couple months and the blogs theme and tagline has changed to a more appropriate, "Ready, Set, Super Affiliate." My ambitions now are to teach thousands of both new and experienced affiliates great tricks for getting the most out of their marketing campaigns. As I continue to expand my coverage in the affiliate marketing industry, I enjoy showing others how they can do the same. I find that teaching others helps me learn what I am doing even better.
 
Also how old were you when you got online? What was your first website?
 
I've been going online since I was very young. I remember the first time my dad dialed up to America Online. It was when I was 11 I began to teach myself programming both in C and C++ and also web based languages such as HTML. I created my first full website when I was roughly 13 years old for my church youth group. It was pretty horrible looking but it got the job done. That was really was the major event that sparked my interest in website design and promotion.

 
What advice would you give someone who wants to make money as an Affiliate? Are there any particular Niches that you favor? Recommended companies?
 
My advice would be to research all the steps needed for an affiliate campaign. You'll need to research pay per click marketing, landing page design, and tracking techniques. Find what most successful people are doing and imitate them. Do not be afraid to test new campaigns and ideas out. Set your daily budget low and monitor your traffic closely.
 
Some of the best niches to start in are those which people are desperate for a solution. A couple suggestions might be: dating, refinance, spyware, antivirus, viagra (why do you think it's so popular? desperation), etc. The theory behind this is that the people who are desperate are much more likely to purchase something. These are the type of visitors you want to send through your affiliate links! As a side note, I have not tried all of the above niches so feel free to do some testing
I list my favorite affiliate networks right on my about me page located here: http://www.jonathanvolk.com/about

 
You appear very experienced with PPC - can you share perhaps two of your Top Tips for using Google Adwords

I recently made a couple of posts about my best tips for Google Adwords. I guest posted it on JohnChow.com which you can find here:

I believe the tips at the bottom are very good tips that not a lot of people use. Other than those tips, I recommend buying an adwords voucher for the biggest amount you can possibly find on a place such as digitalpoint.com.

If you could go back in a time machine to the time when you were just getting started. What business related advice would you give yourself?
 
Get into affiliate marketing sooner. I've been promoting websites since before there was a quality score. Back then if I had only known to use affiliate programs instead of adsense I would have been much farther ahead financially speaking.

Do you think that entrepreneurialism is something that is in your blood? Or is it something that can be learned?
 
I believe entrepreneurialism is in your blood but can also be cultivated. What I mean by that is there are certain people who have a natural talent for it. Still, others need to grow this ability by learning from those who have the natural talent.
 
I believe it's in your blood because of my childhood. As a child growing up, I was always the one to start up the random businesses selling stuff to friends. In my middle school years, I started buying candy in bulk from Sam's club and selling it to my friends at school. Soon, everyone knew that I was the guy to go to for cheap candy. While the machines would cost $0.65 cents per package, I would only charge $0.50 so that people could buy two. I ended up making a couple hundred dollars in profit from this business before I was shut down by "the man" (aka the school principal).

 
 
Is there anyone that you look up to and model yourself on?
 
My Dad and of course the big guys such as Paul from Uberaffiliate.com, Jeremy from Shoemoney.com, and even John from Johnchow.com.
 
My dad is the marketing genius. He gives me many, many great ideas. He was also very crucial in getting me started with affiliate marketing. He is also the one who taught me how to do SEO. He has paid for me many times to go to conferences and stuff when I could not afford them. He even tried to start a web business with me back in 2004 but it failed. He helped me to learn why we failed and what could be done better.

 
What is the best advice you have ever been given?
 
If you're going to do something, do it with excellence.

 
What advice would you give to a Young Entrepreneur setting up their first business?
 
Going off of the question above, if you're going to do something, do it with excellence. Don't do something half-heartedly. I think this applies for more than just business, but everything in life.

If the Internet had not existed - what do you think you would be doing?
 
If the Internet had not existed, I probably would have started some business dealing with programming or some type of selling. Perhaps I would have even got into retail businesses.
 

What do you like best about the Internet?
 
It holds no barriers. Anyone can literally make a business online over night with a minimal investment. There are very few things that I would be able to make what I make even when I take a day off.
 
What do you like least about the Internet?
 
I think mostly the anonymity. People never have to take responsibility for anything.

 
What are your plans for the future?
 
My immediate goals are to continue growing this business while expanding into more non-affiliate related websites. I have plans on launching one of my first drop-shipping websites very soon and I also am launching ( in the first quarter of 2008) a complete affiliate tracking and training system, called www.affiliateunleashed.com.
 
I'd also love to start getting into real estate investments. The housing market is just getting cheaper and cheaper so I'd love to be able to buy a couple houses or condo units before the market starts to go back up.
 
My long-term goals include starting a charity organization, which helps to start churches both nationally and internationally and also to move into more brick and mortar type businesses

 

Thank you Jonathan - Great Interview - we look forward to following your progress in future.