My Game Plan

Since I plan on going this penniless, I'm starting with some landing pages on squidoo. I actually have 2 now and I will track to see which approach is working better. I am using an article marketing campaign to start off with to drive traffic to the landing page and have my affiliate links there.

I have mentioned I have been using EzineArticles and StreetArticles for the articles linking to the landing pages. I don't really have a reference to tell me what to expect starting out for traffic numbers other then what the sites report. But I do see a difference in CTR between the two.

With my Ezine account, I have 4 article with just over 100 visits . Not all articles were published for the whole month and with the addition of new articles, I expect it to go up. The click through ratio was at just over ten percent, which from a little reading, feel this is quite high, maybe got lucky, but don't expect it to sustain that figure. I have heard 1-3% is an acceptable level. If someone else knows otherwise, please correct me.

I am also using StreetArticles to continue the campaign and diversify a little. I want to add a third sight, but think it better to become more familiar with my writing style than mass produce a number of filler or regurgitated material. Anyway, with StreetArticles, I have five articles published and combined had almost 120 visits for the month. The big difference I see now is the CTR I am experiencing. At just below 1.5%, there is a dramatic difference between these and my Ezine articles. Or is this just a more realistic number that I should expect to see? I'm going to do some testing (well, figure out how to) to see if it simply has to do with how the links are presented

I have also mentioned my blog on Wordpress that is bringing in some minimal traffic right now. I had 35 visits to approximately 7 posts for the month of March. I still don't have a structure and am trying to figure it out and right now, it feels as if it's all over the place. Once I get this settled in, I feel confident there is going to show an improvement.

I have also sold some old stuff on Ebay in an attempt to build up my PayPal account. I guess I'm not technically going penniless, but my wife likes the idea of getting rid of the unnecessary and it will assist in getting my own web page and explore PPC campaigns.

I also am going to open accounts with social networking sights under my article publishing and keep it separate from my personal accounts. This will include comment posts. Not sure how well this will work, but it's a learning experience, right?

An Affiliate Marketer's Start

I first came across affiliate marketing in the beginning of 2009. I stumbled upon it when I was unemployed and I was going through a divorce. I was spending a lot of time on the computer and was looking for some work-at-home business to earn some extra money.
At the time, I tried a couple programs I came across but nothing actually did what it said. Over my life, I have spent quite a bit of money on programs that never fulfilled their promises, so I have remained skeptical. It took me some time to see "if it's too good to be true, then it is", but I did, and at that point, pursued a 9-5 job and have been here ever since.
Affiliate Marketing has stuck with me for quite some time. When I stumbled upon it in 2009, I gave it a very poor attempt and threw in the towel early. I think I may have wrote one article and it was in a niche I had no business or interest being in. I wasn't emotionally ready at the time to do the actual work required to move forward and succeed and didn't have the patience to learn more about it.
It's three years later and like I said, the concept has been with me for the duration of that time. I don't have any capital to invest so it's going to be a ground zero start-up, but I am ready for some change and am going to work around the lack of investment funds for now.

What I want to do is track my progress as I pursue a self-supporting lifestyle. I am working full time 7-3 and have a large family to spend time with, so the amount of time I spend on my new en devour will have to be reasonable. Both a business and family balance.

I technically began this project in January. I've been doing quite a bit of research and trial and error as I'm learning how this business works, so I have a bit to catch up on in this blog.
I should begin with my intentions and layout of my plan to achieve my goal. I simply want to be able to spend my time with my family. After going through a divorce, I have realized the important things to me and I want to enjoy them. So, to financially achieve this, I will have to bring in approximately $XXX a day after any business expenses. ( I had a figure in mind but always kept finances to myself, so feel free to fill in what you would want)
I don't want to and can't spend any money on this now, so I haven't and won't. A simple re-investment of any capital will sustain any growth until I am able to leave the current employment I have.

My first pursuit will be article marketing since it doesn't have to cost anything. I have written a few articles on ezine and streetarticles, a couple lenses on squidoo and have started a blog on wordpress. It took me quite some time to first develop a writing style I was comfortable with, so it took awhile before I released anything public. Now, between the middle of February and the month of March, I have 9 total articles and a blog plus this one.

I have chosen to focus on divorce and recovery, simply because I can relate to it so well. This is an opportunity to make all that misery pay a little bonus to the lessons  I learned about myself and others. I can already see issues of not concentrating and allowing  myself to "spread thin" across niches, so that is something I hope I can remain conscience of.

Right now it's focus for me. I need to focus on a game plan and stick to that game plan, follow through and give it an honest chance to get me and my family where we want to go.