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.

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 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.

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.