Searching For What It Takes To Make Money Online

I was recently reading through my last post and started to kind of chuckle to myself. I re-read all the resolutions that I’d promised but never followed through on. All I could do was think to myself “how do you expect to make money online if you don’t do anything?” And now it’s almost a year since I’ve really done anything with my business.

Why?

To be completely honest, I lost the drive. I was going strong up until the summer of 2013, but soon dropped off the marketing scene. Every now and then I would make an attempt to come back (last one was in March, I think), but it was very inconsistent.

At first, I blamed it on the weather and seasons and I recall thinking it was too nice out to be inside writing. I’ll pick this up when the weather turns and I’m inside again.

Winter came and I started a new job in construction. Now my excuse was being too tired. I was going to bed at 8pm and waking with the baby every other morning at 4am before going off to work at 7.

Now, here I am, still thinking about a possibility of success in online marketing. I’ve come the closest to giving up than I ever have before, yet I haven’t. I’ve neglected to put the time into building my business, but all the while, I couldn’t give up the possibilities it offered.

Beyond having invested all this time so far, why wouldn’t I just give up?

Well, as I went in every day beating my body up from working construction, I’d dream about working at my desk and not worrying if I’m going to hurt myself. I’m 40 years old with a blended family of seven, so being out of work would be disastrous.

Then I start then I started thinking about retirement. I have no retirement so far and there’s no way I could continue doing what I’m doing for as long as I’ll need to work. With online marketing, I don’t think I would be concerned about a retirement age.

Becoming successful in online marketing would be a great skill to teach my children. If I could show them the proper steps, they could possibly live the life I dream of, just sooner.

And the biggest reason I want to succeed? It’s a big one, one I haven’t shared with my wife.

In ten years, I want to pull my youngest son out of middle school and home school him. Only this home school will be done in a RV, traveling cross country with a hands on approach concerning all subjects. The older 4 will be out of the house (fingers crossed), so it would just be my wife, youngest son and myself. Maybe for a year and we’ll see what happens from there.

Now, what makes this post any different than my declarations to retry from the past? Nothing really. I’m just going to try to be more honest with myself and remember why I’m doing what I’m doing. To make money online in order to do all the things I want to do.

2014 Is My Year To Make Money In Affiliate Marketing

It’s been just over a year since I began a subscription to Wealthy Affiliate, marking the point when I felt I could make money in affiliate marketing and wanted to pursue it very seriously.

My first six months were very productive. I started a couple sites and wrote articles linking to them. I updated my blogs and kept pretty well on top of things, keeping a log of publishings and posts so I could see my progress at a glance.

My second six months, not so much. Warm weather came in and I put off sitting at the computer for colder days. I just never realized how difficult it would be to get back into the swing of things.

But with a New Year comes new opportunities, so I’m going to hold on to my internet marketing dreams for a little bit longer. I’m carrying on into 2014 with the same desire to succeed, but looking back at 2013 to see what I can learn.

Here are my 8 “resolutions” I plan to implement and remember throughout the upcoming year, in no particular order.

1.Try not to take on too much. When I first started out, I never took into account there was going to be a learning curve. I may not have picked up as quickly as others, so my progress may be less. But not only was I trying to learn the business, I was trying to create content for two websites, maintain a blog for each website and submit articles two separate article directories for each site. All in all, I set myself up to have to create 8 posts and pages a week, never mind the learning I still had ahead of me. Slow and steady can win the race.

2. Focus on a niche. My first site, “Learn Meditation” was much too broad and I found myself going in way too many different directions. I plan on narrowing my next site to  a smaller niche, letting me focus a little better on the site instead of how many different variations of the site I can come up with.

3. Work on it every day. Even if it’s only 30 minutes a day, that time adds up. After a week, you could have more than 6 hours invested towards learning and creating, whereas if you waited until you had a block of time to work on it, you may never get to it.

4. Create a reasonable schedule. I have five children running around the house at any given time. I found it reasonable and necessary to take an hour a day away from the chaos and work on my writing, in private. I’ve tried to just “do it when I can”, but as you can see, I haven’t written anything in 6 months, so I’m hoping this schedule will help keep me on task.

5. Remember I’m responsible. There’s no one else creating and contributing content, no one else to push me when I don’t feel like writing and no one to hold me accountable for anything but myself. It can be difficult to self motivate sometimes, but there’s no way around it in order to be successful.

6. Have reasonable expectations. When I first started this endeavor, my hopes were to make enough money from affiliate marketing the first month to pay for any subscriptions or programs I was going to invest in. The fact is, I knew nothing when I started out and never took it into consideration. It takes time to learn and build a respectable presence online.

7. Make mistakes. At first, I was so afraid to publish something, re-reading it and constantly revising it. I would spend way too much time second guessing my work. This year I’m going to try to remember that I won’t learn unless I make mistakes.

8. Stick with Wealthy Affiliate. Even though I haven’t been working on my websites over the last few months, I maintained my subscription to WA for the day I knew I was going to start working on it again. So, here I am!

I’m looking forward to see what the new year will bring. These little notes may not seem much, but are easy to forget and frustrating when you let them get to you. And I do that way too often.

Have any ideas or advice to improve productivity? Please share below! I can use all the help out there!

Thanks for reading!

Why Use Wealthy Affiliate?

Wealthy Affiliate University

I’ve recently been thinking about my online endeavors and where I am in my pursuit. Am I chasing a dream that is that, and only that? A dream?

Since my start in 2012, I’ve practiced a lot of trial and error concerning internet marketing. I spent about a year finding information on my own, trying to learn as much as I could without spending money.

I soon found this to be a very frustrating and tedious way to learn the business. My biggest concern was I didn’t know where the info was coming from. On top of that, was I spending my time on suggestions that didn't even work, or worse, hurt my marketing reputation?

That’s about the time I joined Wealthy Affiliate.

But now I’ve been a member of Wealthy Affiliate for almost six months. Why use Wealthy Affiliate if I haven’t seen a return yet?

It really come down to what I’m getting out of it.

I know there’s huge potential for internet marketing. There’s just so many ways to approach this business, I can’t help to see the potential in it. So, I still pay for my subscription because:

Training- I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again, I’ve learned more in a month after joining Wealthy Affiliate than I did on my own the year prior to joining. The website builder alone makes it so easy to build a site, I just follow it step by step and I have site ready for content in minutes.

Tools- I’ve wasted full Sundays doing keyword research for my articles, making it a long, tedious and sometimes a task I used to avoid (unacceptable when it comes to keywords). The keyword tool alone has saved me countless hours of cross-referencing and, to tell the truth, really don’t know what I would do without it

Support- Having a network of successful online entrepreneurs to ask questions and get feedback from is priceless. The community is full of support, not only from members, but the owners, as well. So no more worries about where the information is coming from!

So, yeah, I’m not making any money yet, but that’s not going to deter me from continuing my membership at Wealthy Affiliate. If anything, it will make me work harder, smarter and enjoy the accomplishment more when I do make a sale.

I neglected to mention an inspiration to all this. Dominic Wells recently posted some earnings and I was extremely motivated. I think he joined a few months before I did and is already showing excellent returns. Thanks, Dom!

Are you new to internet marketing? How long would you continue without making a profit?

Please share your thoughts below and thanks for reading!

Scott

My Online Business That I’m Still Working On

My Online Business

I was just reading back to the last post and wow, I haven’t written on here in quite some time. A lot has happened over the last few months, influencing my online business that hasn’t taken off like I had hoped for.

I still haven’t made any anything from my websites. It’s a little disheartening because I see associates making sales and they may have been marketing for a month or two before me.

I joined Wealthy Affiliate at the end of January and have been working on my online business off and on ever since. I suppose that could attribute to the fact that's why some are getting a response from their efforts. Just working off and on.

Looking at how I have approached this endeavor, I see the two major impedances I've put on myself.

One of the biggest things that has affected my progress in consistency. I have to be completely honest and say I haven’t been consistent with my work. Look at how long ago it was since I last posted here.

There are times when I can’t get enough writing done, sometimes posting an article or page twice a day. But then there are weeks that will go by and I don’t write anything.

Two different mindset go into play. I start writing because I feel a strong potential. An ability to work from home by creating a recurring monthly income. Perhaps one of the more popular mindsets.

But then, things change. I may feel I’m not getting a good enough response for the efforts I put forth.

Back and forth, back and forth I go, excited and full of potential one minute to feeling I may be wasting my time the next.

And that’s where persistence comes into play. I realized during those weeks I felt down and unmotivated, I need to remember the promise I’ve made to myself about persistence and working through it.

I really believe if I stay consistency, coupled with persistence, I’ll get my online business that is in the red (not much red, other than my subscription to Wealthy Affiliate) into the black.

photo credit: SEOPlanter via photopin cc

Still Trying To Make Money With My Computer

I've been working on this affiliate marketing venture for some time now, just about over a year. And to be honest, I'm still trying to make money with my computer.

When I started this campaign, I fully intended to pursue this with no out of pocket expense. But, the greatest asset you expend when trying to cut cost is time. I have been saving expenses for some time now, but I have spent an enormous amount of time researching and learning through trial and mistakes.

My first article was published Feb 17th, 2012. It linked to a Squidoo lens I had started developing in December of 2011 but didn't post until mid January of 2012.
It's funny thinking back to how long it took to write a 400 word article.

When I first started writing, it would easily take me three days to complete the process and finally publish something. Whether it was a post on a blog, page for a lens or writing an article, I took way too much time to write something that should have been a lot better if it took that long in the first place.

Normally, I would have given up, but I kept going. I have finally got my page posts and article writing down to a manageable hour or two, depending on research. It's taken awhile, but it did get easier the more it was practiced.

And using simple recommendations from the article sites themselves were useful. Offering template ideas and form suggestions, they have helped break down some of the overwhelming issues into manageable pieces when writing.

I started a website, but began to think about the domain and realized it was inappropriate for the niche I was pursuing. Something I should have reconciled before starting a fan page on Facebook, but no sense crying over spilled milk. Besides, I think I can use it for a different angle.

Right now, I'm in a transitional phase, figuring out how I'm going to approach another campaign while continuing the one I'm currently managing. I've got the steps and just need to apply what I learned from the first one to avoid time consuming mistakes that have hindered my progress in the past.

I could have continued a fee free endeavored, but the downside I have discovered is you won't own any of your sites.

So, I'm considering setting myself up with a budget now to help purchase necessary things such as domain names and help.

Make Money Online, No Money Invested?

When I started this blog, I wanted to see if I could start a career in affiliate marketing without spending anything. Earn as I learn, I phrased it. I wanted to see if I could make money online, no money out of pocket and start something from scratch?".

I started this blog, trying to get traffic to a site I had no idea how to put together. I paid for a domain and hosting every month. It wasn't much, but it wasn't free, either. For the duration of 2012, I blindly posted on blogs and wrote articles, trying to build traffic without much luck.

Then I started thinking about an affiliate program called Wealthy Affiliate I joined back in 2009. I was a member for only about a month but was happy with what I was getting. Thing is, I wasn't mature enough to do the actual work necessary. Ever since then, I haven't been able to forget about their program and wanted back in.

So at the end of January, I joined again and wish I had done it much sooner. At least looked into it. I could have saved myself a lot of time, aggravation and money.


Some of the tools I took advantage of seem invaluable now that I've used them.

The keyword tool is worth the paying subscription alone. I have had tremendous turnaround in my article views and have a much better understanding of how keywords work since using this tool.

The education I've been getting is also very valuable. I joined in the end of January and took part in one of their training modules. I have learned more with better results in the last month than I have in all of 2012 trying to do it on my own!

The sign up process was simple and I didn't need to pay anything to access some of the best tools I've come across, for free!

You can actually set up a website, have it hosted and market it without paying anything. What I found was if you wanted to learn about the business, paying the subscription fee is well worth it. As you can see on my profile, it's the best education I've paid for (or my parents).

Using Wealthy Affiliate, I found it is possible to make money online, no money out of pocket and potentially build an online business out of nothing. It will just take lots of time, patience and consistency.

Market Niche Overlooked? Not Good For Affiliate Marketing

It's been just over a year since my re-introduction to affiliate marketing and many lessons and mistakes have been made along the way.

Originally, I wanted to create an income out of nothing, but I abandoned that when I became too impatient and wanted to have my own website. It made it much easier to become an affiliate for particular products and to market, so over the last few months I've spent some money for my domain and hosting.

Getting back to my marketing endeavors...

Seems I need to learn things the hard way (ie. my own way) sometimes, so I'm looking at the last year as being very productive in education. Optimistically, I see the last year as opportunity for knowledge.

I haven't earned anything yet, which is why I'm going to weigh heavily on the educational aspect of this experience. Education has a value in and of its own, so I guess it's just a matter of how much I value my time.

Since beginning myaffiliate marketing aspirations, I've come to see many important aspects that need to come together to optimize the efforts put into my site. Market research, SEO, proper keyword research and applications along with working with all the social networks and email marketing all play a large role in promoting a website.

But the one big marketing technique I never implemented was finding my market niche.

When I first started my affiliate marketing campaign and began writing articles, I had all sorts of ideas of what I wanted to offer on my website.

As I was developing my website, I would come across something I would feel complimented my site.

So I added it. So on and so on, I began adding offers from different products, expanding my site by adding pages to it.

I first thought this was good, developing my offerings and hopefully reaching a potentially larger audience.

I found myself overwhelmed. I had read the advice to begin with a focus on a small, reasonable market, but I didn't heed it.

As I was developing my website, I created more work than I was ready to handle. It was a mistake to take on so much when trying to learn the basics at the same time.

Thinking if I used a broad area such as personal development, it would leave me room to go in many different directions.

Sometimes there can be too many directions to go in when it comes to affiliate marketing.

I've found out that if you don't have a specific direction, you can get lost in the vast universe that is the internet. There are to many big guns to compete with so you may never be seen. Very few search beyond the first page of results, so getting pushed back in page rankings from more established companies is very likely.

The plan now?

I have the basics of the site in place. I want to optimize my site by finding a good market niche to implement, but it will have to be one page at a time. See what I mean about creating too much work? But breaking down page by page at least makes it seem more manageable and still gives me a broad area to work in, accommodating my short attention span.

Still not sure what page I want to start with my site, but it's going to use a market niche technique to narrow in on stronger buyers.

I'd at least like to work on the one particular page long enough to measure a result. Then I'll know I'm going in a positive direction.

Affiliate Marketing-A New Year

It's just been just over a year now since I first realistically threw my hat in the affiliate marketing ring. It's been a long year of a lot of reading and research looking for the path of success with affiliate marketing.

You see, when I began this endeavor, I had all intentions of doing it for nothing, primarily as an experiment. I didn't want to spend a dime and test to see how viable it would be to build a lucrative presence on the web without an initial investment.

I started a free lens on Squidoo and began writing articles trying to drive traffic to it. After a few months, I wasn't getting much traffic at all, so I started my own website.

After a few weeks of trying to figure out in what direction I wanted to go in, I established my website in a way I could expand on it. I figured the more I could build on it, the more potential traffic, and in turn, more sales.

This has come with a double edged sword.

I still love the idea of being able to offer help in many different areas, but at the same time, it can be overwhelming.

I still consider myself very new to affiliate marketing, and that is what has given me issues in growing my site to the potential I had hoped for.

Trying to put together a multiple page website while still learning the ins and outs of affiliate marketing hasn't been a smooth process.

It seems the more I learn, the more potential I see, and with that, more to learn. It's very easy to become flooded with possibilities that can easily distract you from your original goal. You see or hear of success in some area, so I would look further into that.

This has kept me from becoming affluent in any particular area, keeping me almost distracted from completing my education from the task at hand. A lot has to do with my personality, but it can also be due to the hundreds of different avenues you can go down when pursuing an affiliate marketing endeavour.

Over the last year, I have learned a lot. I still only incur the one website maintenance expense and still plan on pursuing all the free marketing available.

But if I'm going to truly learn one thing, it's to try to remain focused on the task at hand.

My website has 7 pages right now. I think my best option is to concentrate on one of those pages and work on it. Treat it as my only page for a month or two and then move on to another. Continue writing articles, social networking and any other free networking out there for it. After going through all seven, I'll begin to look at expanding and adding new pages again.

It's hard to stay focused when everything so new and novel, especially with the potential you hear about. So this year, I'm designating focus as my "mantra" to carry me through and continue.

Using Google Adwords Keyword Tool For Article Marketing

It's hard to believe it's been so long since last updating this blog. I've been doing a lot of research and gathering information the last month, working on SEO for my website for the search engines.

I added a few pages to my site (was trying to beef up the content) and really didn't get much response from the changes. These pages broke down the sites categories into a smaller niche oriented page that offers other products to help round out the main pages theme-a balance of mind body and soul.

But I did it...blindly I guess you can say. I really didn't have a strong understanding of doing the proper keyword research knowledge, so the content was out there, but not being picked up by the search engines.

That's when I decided to buckle down and try to get a better understanding of keyword research and effectively implement it in my website and affiliate article marketing campaign. I've got a good bit of material out there and if I can maximize its effectiveness, the payback could be beneficial.

I think I have a much better understanding how to use Google Adwords keyword tool and have been having some good responses on the recent articles I've published. Many times I would only get a few views a month when I wrote an article without doing the keyword research. The last few article I wrote and took the time to work on keywords have turned those few views I used to get a month into getting them a day.

I was able to dig up some phrases for my articles that were extremely low in competition but felt they still had enough searches to warrant an article. Goolge Adwords keyword tool reported some keyword searches in the range of around 90-120. When I did a search for competition, I only had a couple sites to compete with.

I've also worked on SEO for my website. I used Google Adwords keyword tool to find some phrases related to my page that had a higher search, but also higher competition, thinking my website would have a better chance with these more aggressive keywords.

The keywords used for my website were much more ambitious, resulting around 30-40 thousand competitors, but also had a relative increase in searches to justify it. I'm going for a broader audience with my website because I don't want to put all my resources into only 90 searches a month for that page.

I'm going to use these keywords for my site at let them run for about a month, then see what I should do from there. I've seen an increase in traffic since using these new keywords, but there's always going to room for improvement. I figured a month could give me a pretty consistent idea for now.

Press Release For Affiliate Marketing- It Seemed To Help

It's been quite some time since I have posted anything to update this blog, attributing a great deal of my absenteeism to the fact I have a difficult time with something not to a certain standard, especially when my names attached to it. Not that I'm 100% done (there's still a lot of work and changes ahead), but it's a start.

Well, I worked on my website for a while, trying to get it just right. Added content, changed my mind concerning the direction I wanted to go in and wavered with the simple layout for longer than I needed to. Getting it just right can be nearly impossible if you really aren't sure what you are doing in the first place.

This went on for about a month when I finally decided I was never going to get it perfect and I just needed to publish it without the need for perfection. Not that I got to the point where I figured I would just publish garbage. I just have to remember; I can edit it any time I want to.

This being my first website and a beginner with affiliate marketing  I got lost in the learning curve, trying to figure out things without even beginning to try them out. I was afraid of making a mistake before I even started, breaking down my chances to learn simply from the mistakes I wasn't making make. Make sense?

It was time for me to commit and just decide. It may not be the best decision, but who knows what experience I could come across.

So I finally put it out there and made www.lordxatl.com public.

Since doing so, my hits started off very low. I could only find it using Google and when I tried Yahoo, it came up with no results.

I waited a few weeks to see if anything changed and it hadn't. So I did a little research and looked into press release. I came across some sights that would handle my press release for at least 89 dollars to start, but that just seemed unnecessary.

I looked a little deeper and found Freewebsubmission.com and discovered a decent response almost immediately after.

Now this is my first site, so I have no idea what to expect from my one attempt at developing a web site. I started with an average of 11 hits a day, but after submitting my site to the other search engines, I started getting mid to upper 30's. This has been going on for about two weeks, so I'm exited to see what else I will come across to improve my presence.

Not that I have seen a lot of feedback from writing articles, but I'm going to continue anyway.

Working On My Web Site

I finally finished a web site and published it in the beginning of this month, so lordxatl.com is up and running. Why just “a” web site? Because I know that this first web site of mine will be added to, modified and changed many times over. And that's the very reason why it took so long to publish.

After first purchasing the domain, it has taken me well over a month to finally make it public. I found myself trying to become an expert in everything involved in developing a web site and it was simply impossible. There are so many different areas of development that you can get yourself lost in. Picture and video management, template organization and even just learning how your particular hosting software works all can take considerable time to learn.

So I found myself trying to over do what I knew and was comfortable with and come up with the final web site I, in reality, should be building up to. I have an idea in my head of what I want eventually, but thinking more realistic, I'm trying to bite off more than I can chew. I spent quite a bit of time overdoing what I knew and that can become frustrating. And when you get frustrated, you tend to avoid the one thing that is making you frustrated.

So now I spent about a month suffering from information overload and only frustrating myself. The site I finally published recently is quite simple, no where near what I wanted it to be, but I figured I wanted to have my site active so I could at least experiment with driving traffic to it. You need a vast amount of knowledge in many different areas of Internet marketing and development to do what I dreamed of, but it just doesn't make sense to wait for the perfect site while not using it to sell at least one item and put the articles I have already written to good use.

I originally envisioned my site offering a few more items, but one in particular needs to see more site traffic before I can become an affiliate. What I may do is offer a similar item with a vendor who may be a little more forgiving for now and build more traffic, opening the door to the other vendors with the products I originally wanted. There are so many different directions I can go with this web site, it can seem intimidating. I really don't know how to operate the templates on my hosting account, so that alone is going to keep me busy for some time. While how much time it involves to properly and effectively translate my vision to the computer is still unknown, but I anticipate it to be substantial. Once I get a handle on it, I'm very optimistic of the potential of this site.

Starting A Site

Now, I began my affiliate marketing using the article marketing technique because I didn't want to invest any money, proving to myself that it was possible. I still believe it is, I just don't seem to have the patience for it.

I'm still looking for that good, consistent time to devote to my affiliate marketing endeavor that will keep me on track of my goals. Even an hour a day can pay off in the long run, so it doesn't need to be a substantial amount of my time. When your writing, it's not that bad to sit down for maybe twenty minutes and then take a break. It can almost be more productive using that approach rather than forcing content out of a four hour work block. And it can be surprising how quickly your output can increase and accumulate over time, so doing it now is of the utmost importance.

I have sold some items on Ebay, creating a positive balance in my PayPal account. Once I discovered I could purchase the domain and hosting using funds from that account, it didn't take much of an investment to obtain a website.

So a lot of my time is being spent behind the scenes, playing around with the templates and learning what to do. Being completely new to this, it can be overwhelming with all the options that are available to you. Sometimes you can over think it, causing more frustration than progress. It's hard not to think I have to get it perfect before I make it public. But thinking about it more, I think I may loose out on an accidental opportunity or even learning from mistakes, teaching me more than if I didn't do anything.

I have the option of launching an instant page, so I plan on spending available time to get that up and running this weekend. It shouldn't take to much time, but I'd like to have it up to decent standards before I publish it. But not be concerned with perfection. This page is available until I have the actual site running. That alone should give me enough flexibility to help learn.

Total cost for the website and hosting was just under ten dollars, making it surprisingly reasonable. But at that price, it gives me customization and a lot of research will accompany that. It already has.

The biggest obstacle I've encountered is myself. Trying to take too much in on all the aspects of developing a website. I want to be creative, but that desire slows me down, causing me to waiver between two or more ideas with an inability to make a choice.

I know I'll get a great sense of accomplishment when I actually have my web site up and running. I just need to stop over thinking and just produce.

Working Towards Consistency

The first thing I need to work on is consistency. Consistency in my article writing and blog submissions, consistency in when I do my work and can write effectively, a general consistency in how I approach self management and stick to something that works. I feel like everything is discombobulated and out of whack.

Since my son has been home, I no longer have the early mornings to concentrate on my article marketing and writing. I used to get up at 3 AM and spend a couple hours writing before my regular job would start and nobody was awake yet. Since then, I get ever chance of sleep I get. I spend my early mornings with our new son now, trying to give mom a couple hours rest before I go into work. I enjoy every second, but that was the only time I truly had for my affiliate marketing campaigns.

Prior to beginning work, I had some time I could slip away and work, but it was never anything consistent.

It can get frustrating, too. When you're working on something, moving along and then, all of a sudden, something interrupts your thoughts and you can never remember the original content. Nothing you can come up with seems to replace it sufficiently, so you're left thinking aimlessly. At least that's what seems to happen for me.

I can't even listen to a radio in my car while I attempt to write articles on my break at work. That, too, didn't work. Even without the music, you can only get so much done on a 10 minute break. 6 minutes if you want to get back to your station on time. It just seems impossible to keep track of the short thoughts you can come up with in that short amount of time available.

After looking at how my schedule is now, I think I have come up with a plan and simply need to have the support of my wife (not a problem) and self motivation (working on it) to implement it.

During the week, I'm allocating 2 hours a night instead of morning to work on my article marketing. 8 PM to 10 PM is now the only time available for me to get anything done without being away from home. My wife and newborn go to bed at 8, which would give me plenty of time if it wasn't for needing to get up early in the morning, so 8-10 have to will do.

My Article Marketing Landing Page

Obviously it's been a while since I have updated anything, but have been busy “behind the scenes”. The last couple of weeks have been extremely reveling to what I really want out of life and I have been lucky enough to enjoy it.

I have not been to my 7-3:30 job since 5/15, a Tuesday. My beautiful son was born at 8 PM on 3/14, and I took a 2 week leave of absence to spend time with the family. It has extended another week due to complications, but everything appears to have settled down for now. I thought I could get some affiliate work done while I was on my leave, but medical issue and paternal duties have occupied a majority of my time. So I haven't got much done, but that's ok. Like I had said before; It's given me an opportunity to experience what I really want and why I am pursuing the chance to work from home.

After all the scares settled down and I no longer spent my days at the hospital, I got an opportunity to get back to work again. I began a lens introducing people to the fantastic world of article marketing. The way I see it, I am going to come across all sorts of things that I can learn and share my knowledge on, so why not make a page that can help others achieve a self-sufficient lifestyle?

The more and more I participate in article marketing, the more I come to appreciate it and benefit from it. I've said it before and I will say it again; article marketing can be great therapy. Working with the recently separated/divorced niche can be exhausting, but every day I learn more about myself.

I had written quite a few articles earlier this month and have seen an increase traffic in bit. The biggest thing that surprised me were the click throughs I received from my articles on EzineArticles were up substantially and I haven't really figured out why. A majority of the articles were there for a couple months prior to now but never received this much attention. I'm not complaining, just surprised I received the attention I got this month considering I lost half a month. But overall, my numbers pleased me. My total visits to articles on Ezine totalled 182, while URL clicks were at 19, which gave me just over 10% click rate

I only had three submissions for StreetArticles this month and have reached an author rank of 506. I did break 400, but I have fallen back the last couple weeks, assuming because of the lack of submissions.
 I have changed my approach just a touch and designating StreetArticles for my affiliate marketing campaign and EzineArticles for my niche Getting Over Divorce For Men. It just seems to simplify it for myself.

Keeping The Momentum

That little push forward did sustain for a little while when, again, life intervenes. It felt good to have the motivation at the tail end of April/ beginning of May. I wrote a few articles and updated my blogs fairly well. Now, the challenge is going to create a routine and be able to stick to the routine on a regular basis.
What I have encountered issue that occur through the whole routine off track. And once you're off track, it is even more difficult to obtain that level of consistency again. It is so much easier to maintain a level of performance than to contribute in spurts, falling in a valley of performance, struggling to get to the mountain top again.
I have seen that with my own personal performance over the last few months. I have had a couple weeks that I am writing consistently and fluidly. The routine will be disturbed some way and I falter. My attention focuses on the issue at hand while my performance in article marketing suffers. I re-adjust after getting control of the interruption, and begin playing a game of catch-up with article writing.
My latest issue that hindered my article writing was the death (or so I thought death) of our cat. After that incident was resolved, I proceeded my article writing campaign full force. Again I have been faced with a obstacle at home that has consumed more time than I had thought it would.
It just so happens this particular events this week relates to my niche of marketing. Having custody issues of a child whom you care about deeply isn't easy. But I have noticed a benefit from the experience I have been obtaining through my article marketing.
Writing articles has given me excellent practice in writing and conveying information to the reader. Now, writing a court document didn't seem so bad. In light of taking a day and a half to sit down and write (not including research time), all the article writing I have done over the last few months have proven useful. I am happy with what I have to submit.
Now that I have addressed that issue at home, perhaps I can continue this forward push.
 I haven't increased the click through on StreetArticles, but had one article hit 24 visits in a day! That has given me something to investigate, learn, improve and attempt to replicate.
I submitted enough articles with EzineArticles on May 1st to reach Platinum Author. After writing 10 articles I have achieved that level, making the approval process for an article much quicker than before. Basic author's articles are approved after a 7 day evaluation, whereas, platinum are approved in 48 hours. The click throughs with these articles have reached 11%, hire than ever before. Keeping in mind the faster approval rate from the site and not even being half way through the month gives me great optimism for this month.
On another exciting note, I have someone following my blog on Wordpress now. They have liked a couple of posts and just recently started to follow it. Just a little gratification for all the work that gets put in.
We'll see what this week holds in store for me.

Keeping The Momentum

It seems that the little fire that got me going again has burned a little longer than I thought it would. It has been a very productive couple of days, despite work schedules and issues that arise while home. I think I have a better understand of how productivity works and can be optimized, but there was always a part of me that would go strong for some time, eventually running out of steam and dwindling away.

I recently wrote an article discussing characteristics of an affiliate marketer and I believe something in that opened up a different thought process for me. In it, I speak of having a passion and enjoying what you are doing. A lot of my articles talk about divorce, learning how to cope with the loss of a loved one and relationships while I continually plan to have them cover many other related topics. But as I have written more and more articles about the subject, the more and more it has seemed to help me handle the difficult situations I still face today. It has become a therapy for me, opening up an understanding of the events that happen in every day situations.

That being said, there is still fuel to continue this notable submission of articles I have been begun. I had submitted 4 articles for the month of April with EzineArticles, generally spread out through the month, week by week. I only submitted only 1 article with StreetArticles at the beginning of the month, so over all, my views would be expected to suffer.

In the month of May, I have already submitted 3 articles with EzineArticles and one with StreetArticles. The views have already gone up substantially and I am seeing some click throughs again.

Both my Wordpress and Blogger blogs had suffered from updates for the month of April. I believe I only had a couple updates for each on. I am anticipating on changing that to a couple of updates per week.

I have begun to witness and can appreciate the amount of work that can go into affiliate marketing and writing articles itself. In order to get results, you need to constantly adding unique and original material on a consistent basis. I have not invested any money, so I still have a long and difficult journey to profit. Even if the results I see are minimal, they are a move in the right direction.

A Push Forward

I have actually had a pretty exciting couple of days for me. Something got up somewhere and lit a fire under me,creating a very productive couple of days.

It began Sunday when I wrote a post for both of my blogs and submitted an article to EzineArticles. At that point, I was at my eighth submission and you can move up a level when you reach ten articles. I wrote and submitted an article on Monday and then one more Monday morning. I came home after work, checked my email and got a notification that I had achieved Platinum Level! Never realized I was so easy to please. With this achievement I am permitted unlimited article submissions (which seems silly. You are only allowed ten article submissions as basic author, but if you write ten, they upgrade you to unlimited? Maybe has something to do with accepted article submissions) and faster approval. This will definitely be nice, considering under basic, you generally have to wait seven days before your article goes live.

All in all, my article submissions were down for the month of April. I had 1 new articles with StreetArticles as opposed to 5 In March. Total views of all articles at this time were 367. This is a running total, not broken down for the month. I still only had the 2 clickthroughs that carried over from March, so I had a big fat 0 visits through StreetArticles to my landing page.

Now my Ezine account surprised me in performance. As of 2 days ago, I was far behind any progression from the previous month. I was surprised to see the payoff with the work I had done in the tail end of the month. My article visits were a total of 127 for the month, up over 5%. My clickthroughs were down almost 50%, but these all came in the last 2 days. This just shows me you won't get results without effort.

I realize these numbers may seem small, but that doesn't concern me right now. I see a reaction to the effort I am putting in right now and hope that carries through for a while. Besides, I haven't spent a penny yet. But the first expense will definitely be a web site.

Feeling Run Down

I recently wrote about the importance of persistence and perhaps I should re-read and better implement it myself. I feel like I have allowed procrastination to take over to some point. I have found myself tired and saying “I can get to it tomorrow”. What happens when you find yourself with too many things to possibly do tomorrow?

I haven't been consistent with my article writing campaign for almost 3 weeks and have seen the views of my articles drop substantially. Some of that can be attributed to the lower amount of articles I have actually submitted. I have added 4 to my EzineArticles but only one to StreetArticles. I have updated my other blog with a creepy situation that was surprisingly exhausting for the week.

The following week after the cat incident, I had gotten very ill. I think it came from feeling run down from a non traditional schedule I try to maintain for my article marketing. I work a full time job from 7-4 Monday through Friday and have 5 (soon to be six) members of the family that deserve my time.

The only time I can consistently count on to have to myself is early in the morning. With all the children and my wife, the one computer we have is a hot commodity. I've circumvented this obstacle by changing my sleeping schedule.

Since my wife is pregnant now, she tends to go to bed quite early. So I have been going to bed with her, around 8-9 pm during the work week.

I start my morning, usually at about 3 am. It has seemed to be the only time I was able to feel like I was getting something done in peace. It gives me about 1.5-2 hours in the morning to work on my article marketing and blogs. When I get home in the evenings, I might get a half hour here and there. Sometimes it's enough to finish what I had started in the morning.

After doing this for about three months now, I think it finally caught up with me physically. I started staying up a little later (the kids had spring break) and started getting the flu. My morning routine was shot because I still had to go to my 7-4 job.

I feel better now and have the old routine available again. As I look at the numbers on my article marketing, I realize that these drops are due in large part my the lack of new content. More article submissions mean more views, which in turn transpires to more clickthroughs.

My landing page is due for an update, but see an increase in ranking by the links I'm giving it now. Again, being persistent is important, but it makes me think about the importance of consistency, too.

Persistance In Affiliate Marketing

It's been about two weeks since my last update/post about my progress with affiliate marketing. If it's been that long since my last post, there hasn't been anything to update about. I never realized how quickly life can over run everything.

My son had spring break (he's still in grade school) so he was home. While he was here, some crazy events took place that needed my direct attention at the time. With what had happened and the time I spent with him and my full time job, the week quickly got away from me.

I usually work on affiliate marketing early in the morning. I work 7-4 Monday trough Friday every week and spend family time together until at least 6-7 in the evening. Sometimes I can sneak an hour in here and there in the evening, but because I'm ready for bed at 8, it's not always that productive.

I go to bed so early because I get up quite early. 3 am seems to be the magic number, giving me enough uninterrupted time in the morning to make progress. It can get frustrating when I have some ideas but can only work on it intermittently. Waking up at 3 gives me two and a half hours of alone time on the computer, which is unheard of with four children in the house.

After my son spent the week, the flu hit and took me out of commission for four days.

I can already see a dramatic difference in the performance and decrease viewer ship to my articles with taking that short amount of time off. Without adding fresh articles, my views are generally down around 60% and have had zero click-through.

If anything, I will need to walk away from these two weeks with a learning experience.

I do believe article marketing can be profitable, but only through persistence.

I have decided I need to develop a schedule for myself, laying out what I need to do. Something that breaks  my time down into manageable blocks with some room to diversify into other form of marketing I may not have even begun to explore.

Affiliate Marketing - In The Begining

Well, I started this project in January with no expectations of immediate success and told myself I wanted to see where six months of legitimate effort would get me. But when I began, I spent a lot of time researching and studying how affiliate marketing works. All in all, I didn't publish my first article until the middle of February, spending a substantial amount of time trying to figure out my writing style.

I have only published 11 articles as of now, far below the number I had anticipated, but I attribute it to working on my own style. I originally wanted to publish 3-5 a week, right out of the gate, but I didn't want to publish something just to publish it. Working full time and a family of 6 makes for a difficult task to find time, but I am. Things are taking me longer than I thought they would, but it's a learning curve.

So, January I developed my landing page. In February, I published one article, continued to develop, and published 8 more in March. April, I am attempting to meet my original demands on production and have 3-5 articles a week starting now. I have 2 this week so far and have an ultimate goal of 15 articles for the month of April.

I've been concentrating harder on keywords and how to utilize them best. The viewer-ship of my articles in March were low, so I am going to be looking deeper at my keywords. My articles are averaging 1-2 views a day which I find disheartening.

But, ultimately, my click-throughs are non existent, meaning nobody is going to my landing page. And if no one is hitting my landing page, there are no sales. So that leaves me another facet of article marketing to learn more and work on.

I've tried pinging my blogs and articles using Pingoat,Blog Ping and Ping-o-matic. but haven't noticed a difference in views since I've done it a few days ago. I hear conflicting stories on the subject, so I'll just keep doing it anyway for now.

Well, I have a few more things I wanted to get into this weekend, so I should have plenty to share next week. I need to begin using social media and leave some forum and blog comments to get some exposure. I also intend to do some editing/updating on top of some new article submissions to try and keep the content fresh. Also need to add some pictures to some of my articles when I am able to take advantage of it.