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.