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4 Hour WorkWeek And My Own Changing Plans

Hey guys,

As you will know from my previous posts, I’ve been meaning to get back into product creation again (in January I decided to go into front-end list building) so I decided to bite the bullet and drop everything else for at least a couple of weeks to get the ball rolling (from my personal experience, getting momentum is the hardest part).

Coincidentally, I have picked up a copy of Tim Ferris’ 4 Hour Work Week. Man, I can’t tell you what a revelation this is!

This guy does whatever he wants, when he wants, and for work a.k.a. income generation, he barely has to contribute a few hours per week total. Most of the time he can do what he wants!

I have heard people say that they would prefer to be kept busy (??) but I think they miss the point. He is kept busy, by doing what he wants to do. Sure, marketing is fun and beats a 9-5 job, but I still regard making money as a job, albeit probably the best. But imagine if you could free your time to do other things like Tim has done - become a motorcycle racer, participate in a national tango contest in Argentina, win a kickboxing tournament even though weeks earlier you knew jack about this martial art.

OK, I’m going to shut up now - why? Because, I need to focus on dedicating my precious time towards the most important tasks that will allow me to realise my goals. Some of my projects I will abandon, others I will put in as little time as possible, but I must focus on what I believe is best for me and will allow me to realise my goals - and right now that is product creation.

Of course, I will still be keeping in contact with my readers here, fear not ;)

But think about it yourself, as Tim says in his book, if you were struck down ill tomorrow and had only 2 hours per day to do any work towards your goals, what would you do? The best thing is to simply do those most important things and abandon or outsource the rest.

Have any of you guys read the book, I’d be interested to hear your thoughts?

TTFN

Chris

Posted 16 April 2008 † Chris § Uncategorized ‡ Comments (0) °

End Of Term Report: 30 Day Challenge - 50 Bucks Per Day By End Of March

Let me start by saying that unfortunately I did not meet my target. I would sure be interested in any advice that any “richer” readers of this blog have, based on my descriptions of activities in previous posts.

So the final verdict?

Total made in March = $263.98
Average per day = $8.50 per day

Obviously, this is far short of the 50 bucks per day that I was looking for. I could probably have reached it if I had done nothing but bum marketing but I have been working at long term income.

The good news is that there was a significant increase compared to previous months. I used to wait for a single sale every two weeks on my Clickbank stats but now I see a sale approximately every 3 or 4 days.

Where have they come from?

A mixture:

  • some from old bum marketing campaigns
  • one from a Youtube video
  • the vast majority from my niche lists

So What Now?

Well, those niches where I did make conversions from my lists have averaged around 5 articles per conversion or so.

That’s not bad but I wonder how I would have done had I just done a simple bum marketing style direct to sales page strategy.

Anyway, I think I should continue with these lists although I’m not sure about how to drive traffic - article marketing is very time consuming and also expensive to outsource, in my opinion.

I am slowly coming back to the point of view that after taking time to write content, it is better used on your own sites to get SEO traffic than for the temporary spike you get from the article directories.

This month, I am looking to do a few things:

  • create a new product - this time in a converting niche unlike my last forays
  • PPC - I have recently joined Wealthy Affiliate (more on that later) and am currently conducting a PPC experiment (again, more on my progress shortly).
  • continue adding content to a few niche sites that I have recently created for monetisation by Adsense or affiliate products
  • a new secret list project
  • a high ticket bum marketing experiment

So What Do You Think?

I’ve had to reassess what I’ve done and what I should change to meet my future targets. If I get it right, PPC could really help with this but otherwise we are talking slow burning long term assets.

That’s a mantra I’ve been repeating to myself a lot lately - whatever I do, is it adding long term value to my business?

This is partly why I want to return again to niche site content and SEO. My recent forays have given me some subscribers but how much scope do I have for more sales out of these lists? SEO content is good for life!

I would love to hear from you? Please add your comments, questions and much appreciated advice, and please tell me how you have been doing yourself.

Posted 06 April 2008 † Chris § Uncategorized ‡ Comments (0) °

Free Internet Marketing Teleseminars

Just a quick word to let you know of a cool Google search query I figured out the other day to get free teleseminars.

Just type into Google (copy and paste the below):

site:instantteleseminar.com inurl:eventid

and hey presto…I make it 916 free teleseminars!

Not all of them are internet marketing related but probably most of them are.

Good for listening on the way to work or in your lunch break or whatever - basically when you can’t write, might as well use that time for something useful.

Posted 29 March 2008 † Chris § Uncategorized ‡ Comments (0) °

The Limited Value Of Article Marketing

Here’s a post I just made over at Warrior Forum based on my own experience. What do you think - do you agree or disagree?

Article marketing is great. The traffic is highly targetted. Within a couple of days of posting on a high PR directory such as Ezinearticles, you can get a portion of the highly targetted SEO traffic filtering through to your own site.

However, in my opinion, this strategy is limited because the traffic drops off severely. Because the article hits the sandbox within a few days, the search engine traffic dries up.

And because your article quickly gets buried on the directory, hardly anyone will find it, let along click through.

In my experience, the traffic drops to less than 5% of the peak.

But what about the SEO value of the high PR backlinks, I hear you say?

Come on, do you seriously think that Google looks at 30, 50 or more backlinks all coming from the same 1-4 directories and places anywhere near the same value as even a handful of natural links from many different websites?

In my opinion, you should capture the article traffic in the form of an opt-in page with nowhere else to navigate.

And just put a few articles per site on the directories, maybe 30 tops. Put the rest of them as content on your own site. As long as you are aiming for the long tail then you will get way more traffic in the long term compared to fighting for the crumbs that the directories will give you.

Just my tuppence.

PS maybe I should have posted this on my blog instead ;)

Posted 24 March 2008 † Chris § Uncategorized ‡ Comments (2) °

What Has Happened To Wordtracker?

Well my personal targets are still there. Remember that I made a target to make 50 bucks a day by the end of the month - half-time report here - well that is still applying and more on that later.

But in terms of my longer term 3 month targets which I will also reveal soon, I have decided to go back into niche sites and get traffic via SEO. It’s a bit ridiculous because I was doing this several years ago however I have learned from my mistakes.

It was not a case of “no action” but rather the “wrong action” previously. I used to get my keywords from Wordtracker which I feel is still a much underrated tool. Unfortunately, there was no single day or single week option anymore but I have made a commitment and decided to opt for the annual subscription - I think it is cheaper now too but I cannot be sure. I managed to find a great discount for it which gives 14 months for the price of 12 which is 16% free or 15% off depending on which way you look at it. You can also get that same offer here: Wordtracker Offer.

By the way, I was inspired to get back into this type of SEO driven niche marketing after I was perusing The Best Warrior Threads List and saw a couple of great posts by chris_surfrider:

Affiliate Success - It Ain’t Rocket Science…
The Four MOST-Profitable Activities in IM…

I highly recommend that you check those 2 threads out, they are great!

Posted 22 March 2008 † Chris § Uncategorized ‡ Comments (2) °

Get Your Free Marketing Books & Tools From Easter JV Giveaway 2008

Hey,

I just wanted to let you guys know about the soon up and coming JV giveaway event, “Easter JV Giveaway 2008“.

So for those who don’t know - what is a giveaway then?

It serves 2 purposes:

  1. Free ebooks, tools and software just for the price of your opt-in (see bold below).
  2. Give away something you have the rights to give away and in return build a quick list.

If you’re doing no.2, the only downside is that your list is not as responsive as, say, a list you make from article traffic.

Now whilst your conversion ratio is low, if you can get a ton of leads this way then you’ll make the same number of sales as from a smaller but higher converting list.

So it’s still worth it.

And even if you don’t list build, you can find some cool books, software and tools.

Choose carefully though, about 20% of the products are good but 80% are cr@p!!

If in doubt, just use a throwaway email address so that your main inbox doesn’t get full of emails every day! (Sssh! other marketers don’t want me to tell you what I just did but I don’t care, I’d rather give you good advice than bad advice!)

Click here to check out the Easter Giveaway.

Posted 18 March 2008 † Chris § Uncategorized ‡ Comments (0) °

Half Time Report: 30 Day Challenge - 50 Bucks Per Day By End Of March

Hey guys,

It’s been a long time since I posted. It’s one of those things where an idea for the blog will hit me, but then I get back behind the PC and I will forget it! And yes, I do carry around a notebook!

Anyway, we’re pretty much at the halfway point now so I thought I would share my progress with you.

When you think about it, making money on the internet is essentially a simple equation:

CREATE A PITCH + DRIVE TRAFFIC = MAKE MONEY

Of course there is a littmore more to it than that, especially on the subjects of conversions, but the simple equation still fits the bill.

Now there is a simple way of making 50 bucks a day starting today - you can do bum marketing like John did (I forget his Warrior Forum name). See his blog here: Blood and Guts Marketing

He drove article traffic to a presell page and sold mainly Clickbank products. By writing 50-100 articles per day, he was soon raking it in and easily beating $50 a day. The problem is that you leave no spare time for anything else so your earnings are limited. I don’t especially need the short term funds that this could be good for so I’m not going to go crazy and write that many articles per day (I don’t even think I could!). I also know someone who outsources their articles for a dollar a day and gets good quality ones. I’ll have to look into that because the last time I did it I paid 5 bucks a day and the articles were mediocre from all 3 outsourcers I tried (never trust the ratings on rentacoder).

So I am sacrificing some early income, and using my time to build now for the future. Having said that, I still want to meet this target of 50 bucks per day average by the end of March!!

So here’s my progress compared to my last post:

  • My leads are now at 568. So comparing to my “zero” of 475, that means that I have gained nearly 100 leads in 2 weeks. Not amazing but also not bad considering I have been slacking on the article marketing front and hardly submitted anything.
  • I have finally today completed all my review sites. We are talking here something like 8 review sites. The best thing about Ross’s script is that my autoresponder is also visible on every page. So I am going to go nuts shortly in the run up to the end of the month and drive traffic like mad. Much of it should sign up for my autoresponders (backend sales will take weeks to come through) but I’m really hoping that a good effort here will also help me big to reach the $50 per day mark thanks to surfers checking out my reviews and then buying. Certainly, I think that the pages should be good pre-sells and hopefully convert well.
  • My poker portal is now complete. Although there is a gambling theme derived from Revolution, it is a bit of a rip off (expensive) and I chose to customise Revolution myself instead (I have bought the Developer pack, such is my faith in these themes). Need to drive traffic like nuts to this one, it is mostly set up for recurring commissions but there are also a few CPA offers.
  • Casino portal - as much as I really wanted to have this site, I asked myself whether this would be a wise decision? In the past, I have created a lot of rubbish blogs. Now quality is not my concern anymore with this casino site, but no doubt I would be spreading myself incredibly thinly with a new site like this. Let’s see how the poker one goes before I use the synergies and jump into the casino world.
  • I have decide to also have a portal. I will be using the Revolution Theme and hoping for good long term SEO. Basically there is a broad genre that I know a lot about. I would not call it a great passion but I can write so easily about it because I know so much. Combining Google’s love for Wordpress, my easy article writing plus Revolution’s great functionality, oh and also some nice ebook and product reviews mixed in, I think that this site could be a nice slow burner.
  • I am also going to experiment with one of Moreniche’s feeder sites. I have bought a domain for this purpose to redirect to one of their feeder sites that they claim has a good conversion rate. I don’t know whether to be dubious of these claims but the least I can do is test them before either continuing or abandoning this concept. The redirected site is called Weight Loss Research. What do you think?

So, what is left on the horizon in the last couple of weeks?

  • First of all, I will be driving traffic like nuts. Check out this recommended download - Nick’s Traffic Tricks. It is excellent and will be the basis for my traffic building. I have created pretty much everything that I need for this initial $50 hurdle so it’s now all about traffic, traffic and traffic!
  • Secondly, I have decided to sign up to Wealthy Affiliate. Remember that poker affiliate money, nearly 2 grand, that I didn’t know what to do with? Well, after seeing even more favourable testimonials from non gurus, many complete beginners, I have decided that it is a safe bet to join WA and learn how to do PPC to make and not lose money! I also have the budget to get to grips with it.
  • Lastly, I will also be going back to creating products. My first two products were a total underestimation of the market and I have learned well from that. I am ready to dive into my next product but really feel that I must wait for this traffic driving period to be over with first. I’d love to start now but I know that my emotions are trying to defy my logic here. The question is, do I start the serious PPC efforts with WA before the product creation, or the other way around? I am still undecided on this. April will be very telling….what do you think?

So I’d love to hear your thoughts and also please tell me your own progress if you are joining me on this challenge. And if you haven’t joined already, then why not? Without goals you can never achieve them!

Posted 13 March 2008 † Chris § Uncategorized ‡ Comments (3) °

30 Day Challenge - 50 Bucks Per Day By End Of March

How about a challenge?

Maybe you have seen on other websites a “30 day challenge”. These are quite popular and I did one a long time ago for Bum Marketing.

The objective of this challenge is to make an average of 50 bucks per day by the end of March.

I actually set this objective initially for myself but I would love for you guys to join me too.

Please feel free to leave comments here of how you plan to make this 50 per month and your progress.

Here are my plans:

Drive traffic like crazy by posting articles on Ezinearticles. Do this during the week (Monday to Friday I have a day job so this is evening work) to the tune of ten articles per day. I am driving traffic to a number of different sites which I will develop mainly at the weekend.

These sites are and will be:

  • a number of squeeze pages (these are already set up and I have about 400 leads total already but I’ll reset the counter to zero from today - for my own reference the current “zero” level is 475).
  • review sites for the squeeze page niches. I haven’t made that many sales from my mailing lists so far. This is probably because although I have 400-odd leads, I’ve only started pushing products recently in the mail campaigns so not many people have seen these pitches yet. So that kinda makes sense and 400 leads is not really that many when you think about how many have seen the pitches and the conversion ratios. With a review site in my signature, I figure I can boost my sales with this extremely soft sell. I need to build these but I’m using the review script from here: Ross Dalangin’s Review Script WSO
  • poker portal website with articles and the all important poker site reviews and bonus codes. With my recent success with a poker campaign I started over three years ago (!) I really am attracted to the lifetime recurring commissions that this niche offers. It’s like running a membership site but with zero obligation after they sign up!
  • casino portal website. Like poker but slightly different genre.
  • other niche site based on real world deliverables (not ebooks). Good example is products from Moreniche. Undecided whether to do a broad niche or a specific sub-niche, a portal or a static sales page type site.

The key to all the above is driving the traffic. I feel this is really important and you cannot get higher quality instant targeted and converting traffic better than from posting on Ezinearticles.

So what do you think of my strategy? I would love to hear from you and hope you can join the challenge!

Posted 26 February 2008 † Chris § Uncategorized ‡ Comments (3) ° Tagged: , , , , , ,

What Should I Do With 1500 Bucks, New Targets And Staying Away From Forums

Hey everyone,

So I made a declaration the other day on Warrior Forum, that I’m going to stay away from there for a month.

Why?

It’s all about not wasting time and forums are such a timewaster. Sure, I have learned a lot from them but when you consider that I have surfed that forum a lot for the past three years, then I know a lot about internet marketing already.

I might miss a few new up and coming things but it’s time for me to accelerate my efforts and put what I know to good use.

Over the next month, as well as my multiple list maintenance in various niches, I am going to do a new project. The monthly product creation is getting sidelined for one cycle while I look into this.

I am going to create a poker site and apart from maintenance, I will work on nothing else for one month from today.

You see, I recently checked some stats on a poker program I was promoting and I had made 1500 bucks in lifetime commissions that I didn’t even know about! And this huge amount of money I made with almost no effort and just in the past year!

This got me thinking again. What niches are:

  • high ticket (big money)
  • will always have a high demand
  • compulsive behaviour (not necessarilly addictive)
  • lifetime commissions

Well the poker and casino industry have always done well - so I’m going to revisit them.

This next month will be nothing but a poker site.

And in a month’s time, I will evaluate. Should I:

  • stay in gambling and make a casino site ? OR
  • make another product (ebook) ?

Stay tuned for my progress.

btw what do you think I should spend this 1500 bucks on? I know, I feel lucky, but I’m not sure what to spend it on. I sure want to spend it wisely.

Posted 14 February 2008 † Chris § Uncategorized ‡ Comments (0) °

Free Book - IDN On Steroids - A Guide To Internationalized Domain Names

Do you know what IDNs are?

IDNs are “Internationalized Domain Names”. All domain names are spelled in English but to us speakers of the English language (many of us native and our only language), it never occurs to us that the rest of the world is essentially typing their domains in a language different to the one that they prefer to speak and write in.

Well IDNs are a recent invention (last few years) that allow the surfer to type a domain in whatever language they want.

Here’s an example which I’m showing as an image instead of text (in case your browser does not have the appropriate language packs installed which overseas users would already have):

example idn

So where are IDNs today in 2008?

Surfers around the world are using them more and more. More people overseas know what they are and large companies such as Nissan are now openly advertising their sites in IDN form.

Because of this, already IDN domain speculators are making huge returns on investment, able to sell them sometimes for one thousand times the price that they paid for them, or even more.

IDN On Steroids

But what about the free guide? IDN On Steroids is a 49 page guide that tells you all about IDNs and is aimed at the complete beginner who wants to get into IDNs. Whether you already know a little about traditional domains or don’t know anything at all then this guide is for you.

I’ve also created a 50 minute video where I’ll give you some good hints on how to find your own IDNs.

This is a free book and you can send it to your friends, offer it on your website, give it away as a free bonus for a paid product and a lot more. The full rights are listed at the beginning of the book itself.

The only thing I ask you for are your kind comments so please leave your comments on this blog as I would really appreciate it and love to hear from you.

Download Links:

IDN On Steroids Ebook Download Link

Video Link on DailyMotion
Bonus Video Main Download Link
Bonus Video Alternative Download Link

Thanks
Chris

Posted 02 February 2008 † Chris § Uncategorized ‡ Comments (3) ° Tagged: ,