It’s becoming more clear that in everything I’m going to decide to do, I need to find a specific topic/niche that I am interested in and would like to talk about. This is causing me trouble right now, since I’m not sure what specific subject I can/want to discuss on a fairly consistent basis.
Any ideas anybody?
This was a slow day, I missed one action. Had lots of things going on a Sunday and had to cut down on some time working. Managed to get some reading done though, and couple of great ideas. Oh, and I’ve managed to veer out of my plan for the week again 
Here’s a summary of what I did on day 5:
- Emailed D and A.
- Emailed Duncan Riley of Blogherald.com and Weblog Empire.
- Read more about affiliate marketing and networks.
Ideas that came into mind:
- Join blogging network to build traffic eg. Weblog Empire, but need good topic to write on.
- { I’ll keep this one a secret for awhile }
- Offer product from Indonesia to one of the affiliate marketing systems that sell products online (high consumer base).
Technorati tags: 2 weeks to a breakthrough
Day 4:
- Researched affiliates and ads, looked at sites making money from these.
- Found some more info about pay per click sites.
- Sent messages to various people on Sitepoint forums who’re earning a full time income from online businesses.
- Emailed R and D.
Some thoughts and ideas:
- Driving traffic by buying, targeted content.
- Separate sites for various methods: PPC, Affiliates (such as Amazon), ads, blog, SFI, GDI.
I got a response from 2 people yesterday, both very helpful advice on starting out on my own business, and both of them living a full time income from their online businesses.
These people are members of Sitepoint forums, and I’ll use their forum name here:
Nintendo:
1. Would you be able to share some of the lessons you have learned during your time in this business?
The biggest thing I learned was to shut up about something if you discover something that makes you nice earnings.
For example, you make something that has very little competition, ie Amazon AWS stores with mod_rewrite, two years ago. You soon rack in the cash BIG time, like $13, 000 in six months, just from letting Google Googlebomb you, causing a half a million URLs to be indexed. You also give the script away for free. *BIG NO NO.* Soon a lot of others are using it. There sites get indexed in Google, and BANG, your earnings CRASH, even with 1, 000, 000 AWS URLs indexed in Google now!!! Crash as in under $1, 000 for a quarter on a non-Holiday quarter. That’s what happened to me and the Amazon program! ‘Redistribute the wealth’ and you lose big time! Double the competition and you cut in half the number of visitors you get!
Think of Steve Jobs telling Bill Gates his Apple secrets, and then Microsoft takes over the world! That’s what happened to me with the Amazon program. Me being Steve Jobs, and the over 150 other webmasters being Microsoft!!
Don’t put your eggs in one basket.
For example, some people rely on 100% of there income from Googles AdSense. Yet, at the same time people report getting the invalid clicks E-Mail, where Google dumps them from the program. Try to make money from as many different affiliate programs as possible. Right now I get earnings from six affiliate programs. If I ever get dumped from Google, I’ll easily be able to replace the ads with something else. Amazon, ClickBank, Commission Junction, MaxBounty, and ShareASale are some great programs to look at, for leads and sales. I stay away from the CPM banner programs.
Sell your own products.
It’s just another way to make some money. Many people make and sell E-Books or articles. Some of those have reseller-rights where you can sell them over and over making money each time after making back what you paid to get them. Some people make $10, 000 a month by doing that and promoting there pages through PPC such as Google AdWords.
Content is king.
For content sites, using public domain content is an easy way to get content. You can for example, edit those books and resell them or put them up on your own site with out having to ask any one for permission.
2. How long did it take you to build up your business to the point of achieving pretty good income?
In 2003 I started making Affiliate program sites, and in January 2005 I started doing this full time.
3. Would you be able to recommend other people that I should also talk to, to get some more insight and knowledge about being successful online?
Aspen (Note: Co-incidentally, I also asked Aspen the same questions)
Aspen
1. Would you be able to share some of the lessons you have learned during your time in this business?
See: http://www.websitepublisher.net/successful_website/
2. How long did it take you to build up your business to the point of achieving pretty good income?
From the start of myself trying to make a for-profit website it was 2 years until making enough to live off of. 4 years for a 6 figure income. I’ve now been doing it for 6 years.
These responses are very helpful, and the sites they gave me contain lots of information that will definitely be useful in the beginning of my quest. I’m starting to get an idea of how long it will take before I can start earn a full time income from doing this.
With many thanks to Aspen and Nintendo at Sitepoint forums.
Technorati tags: Two weeks to a breakthrough
On day 3, here’s some of the things I did:
- Emailed Darren Rowse from ProBlogger.net. Update: Darren is going out of town for 1 month, follow up in July.
- Found some people to contact who’re making money through blogs.
- Emailed Steve Hall from Adrants.com.
- Emailed Darren Barefoot from Darrenbarefoot.com.
- Emailed H, A.
A couple of ideas surfaced after much thought yesterday:
- Run affiliate sites such as SFI , GDI.
- Run content/blog sites and put up ads , affiliate links such as Amazon.
- Run pay per click affiliates.
I think I’m going to test out a couple of strategies when I start my action week. Another key point is that I need to come up with my niche market. Still not sure what this will be, need to brainstorm (thanks Thomas for the suggestion).
Technorati tags: Two weeks to a breakthrough
This morning, while waiting for the train, I suddenly came to a realization as to why I tend to procrastinate a lot. This thought came up while I was thinking of some of the questions during our 2 week project.
The 2 main foundations of me procrastinating were:
- The tendency to have lots of ideas, and not enough action (stargazing), which in turn causes another problem:
- The habit build over the years to postpone things that has seems to take too much work.
I don’t know how long this habit has been built, but this morning while I was thinking of different ways of making income online, things to do at work, and actions to take, suddenly, by default I shut down all thinking and put it out of mind immediately because there’s just too much things to do. But because I’ve been asked where I am in the breakthrough model (Low F Low A, Low F High A, High F Low A, High F High A : F = focus, A = action), I came to realization that I needed to breakthrough this habit.
So my resolution from the realization is this:
- To not shut out automatically whenever there’s overwhelming amounts of info / tasks to do, but tackle them one at a time.
- To learn to focus on the most important things to do / prioritize, and take action to solve the problem at hand.
I’ve found that if I focus and take action on a seemingly large important problem (had a work-related project like this last week), I find more motivation to solve this as I go on and become stronger in determination.
Technorati tags: Procrastination
Hi everyone, yours truly reporting on day 2 progress (yesterday).
Tell 2 people: Emailed 2 of my buddies, W and P about participation in pilot, asking them to comment and see if I’ve made progress in 2 weeks.
Actions:
- Posted blog entry on day 1
- Research various ways of making income, found out that most are a combination of these: ads, affiliates, paid surveys/surfing and selling products through online stores.
- Unexpectedly went in depth looking at a few affiliates projects (SFI and GDI) instead of waiting for day 4 as was in my plan :).
Requests:
- Emailed Jeremy from Ensight my 3 questions.
- Emailed Rob from Team Y about possibility of sharing information, as we have very similar goals.
I’m a bit swamped with things to do right now, so I might catch up on another post later on to update if there’s any results that came in from my requests/actions.
Technorati tags: 2 weeks to a breakthrough
Ok, so yesterday was day 1 of the breakthrough pilot. My 2 actions for yesterday were:
- Create a plan for the research week
- Come up with 3 questions to ask successful people in the industry.
So, here’s the 3 questions that I’ve come up with:
1. Would you be able to share some of the lessons you have learnt during your time in this business?
2. How long did it take you to build up your business to the point of achieving pretty good income?
3. Would you be able to recommend other people that I should also talk to, to get some more insight and knowledge about being successful online?
and here’s the research week plan (names of people to tell are cut off to protect the innocent :), but those are real people that I’ve decided to contact on each day):
Day 1:
Action 1 = Build plan for first week (Research phase)
Action 2 = Prepare list of 3 questions to send to people I need to know
Day 2:
Action 1 = Find some initial names of people to contact
Action 2 = Research various ways of getting income online
Tell 1 = W
Tell 2 = P
Tell 3 = Blogging this
Request 1 = J
Request 2 = Result from action 1
Day 3:
Action 1 = Obtain names of people making money through blogging
Action 2 = Research some blogging platforms
Tell 1 = H
Tell 2 = A
Request: Results from action 1
Day 4:
Action 1 = Obtain names of people making money through affiliates
Action 2 = Research how affiliates work and requirements
Tell 1 = R
Tell 2 = D
Request: Results from action 1
Day 5:
Action 1 = Obtain names of people making money through portals / selling products online
Action 2 = Find out if there are other options of making money online and research them
Tell 1 = R
Tell 2 = A
Request: Referrals from previous requests
Day 7:
Action 1 = Decide on which method to go with
Action 2 = Decide on site name
Action 3 = Think of designers for site (A, P, B, designoutpost.com…)
Tell 1 = H
Tell 2 = T
Request (design cost + availability of designer)
1. A
2. P
3. B
Day 8:
Action 1 = Build plan for 2nd week (Action week)
There you go, please feel free to suggest on different things I should venture to research and people to contact. The plan is open to change, and ditto for the 3 questions.
Technorati tags: 2 weeks to a breakthrough
I’m currently participating in a pilot program called 2 weeks to a breakthrough. In the beginning I didn’t really want to participate since I thought I don’t even have 1 hour a day for myself between work and spending time with my wife and kid, but yet I ended up signing up, thinking that I would gladly sacrifice an hour a day of my sleep to actually do something instead of just having these ideas in my head and never actually do anything about it.
The overall goal that I’ve set for myself is this:
To have my own online/web based business/venture that allows me to work for myself, achieving financial freedom.
Why I want to do this?
So I can spend more time with my family and have a lifestyle that builds up a strong family.
Within the 2 weeks, I hope to start this journey, deciding on what form of business I’m going to do, register domain names, hosting companies and decide on products and target markets. To do this, I’ve decided to split the 2 weeks into research week and action week. The research week will be focused on researching available methods of making money online, thinking and deciding domain name and hosting companies, getting to know people who are successful in such ventures, and making connections. The action week would be where I’d start registering the domain names, signing up for hosting companies, setting up the sites etc. Of course, this plan is quite flexible and open to change, so the details will be posted in another post after this one.
So, throughout the next 2 weeks or so, I’ll be posting daily updates on what actions I’ve taken to get closer to my goal. Throughout the project, I might also post some reviews and advice that I receive from other people who’ve been successful in the business, depending on whether or not they consent to me posting their answers/advice.
If you have any suggestion/ideas on what I should or should not do, tips on marketing, business, technology etc, please feel free to post comments here and let me know. Anything that will keep me from being stagnant and idle is greatly welcome
Technorati tags: 2 weeks to a breakthrough
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