New Years Resolution Time!!

Well, it has been a quiet week here in Green Affiliate Land. Time for reflection.
Last November I made a grand total of $13.92 - all in adsense.

This November I made about $1400.00 with adsense, advertising and affiliate sales.

December has also been a good month, but it will be interesting to see what January brings ...if money will backslide.

I'm trying to figure out my next move. I'm tempted by Stompernet. I'm tempted by the System Seminar. I want to go to the next level.

However, one of the battles I keep having in my heart is that I don't want to pollute the internet with more dreck. Does the world really need one more acne site? Even if I can squeeze out $100.00 a month on it?? (bad pun sorry)

However to not produce dreck is very very time consuming to produce the content. I'll keep you posted.

MUST SHARE: - earlier this week I was getting in that place where blogging is somewhat of a drag there's no spark, no pizazz...I wanted to quit.....know what I mean? I was thinking of how much money I could possibly sell my blogs for on DigitalPoint on and on. Then as I was looking through my stats I noticed I was getting traffic from the NEW YORK TIMES!!!

I got a link from the New York Times!! I was very jazzed. I didn't get a lot of traffic from the link (it was the day after xmas and it was in the "Times Select" which is content you have to pay for) ..but I plan to exploit the coup to my advertisers and I'm sure it will give me a bit of google-love.

Most importantly is that I am taking it as a sign to keep on keeping on!!

Happy New Year all my online money making friends!!!

Give yourself a Christmas Present!

I added a new adsense banner (the 728 x 90) and I am being generously rewarded!! I've always stayed away from that size since it seemed to scream "I'm an Advertisement!!" ...and it didn't really fit in my designs but I relented this weekend and I have had very nice returns every since. So, go ahead!! don't be scared ... go change stuff!! I dare you!!

Traffic update

ggg July avg = 760 goal 800 Nov avg 1337
ggs July avg = 63 goal 100 Nov avg 128
ggb July avg = 135 goal 140 Nov avg 268
ggga July avg = 37 goal 50 Nov avg 119
ggp July avg = 34 goal 50 Nov avg 107
ggw July avg = 37 goal 75 Nov avg 90

Christmas Music

This CD is awesome!!! If the holidays are stressing you out, go buy this CD!! I got it at Starbucks ...and while you're there, grab a peppermint mocha. YUM!

Wordpress plugins

I'm doing a bit of maintenance today and am installing some plugins to my wordpress blogs. New ones are Permalink Redirect, Populariy Contest (I modified this one so that the info doesn't display on the blog, but I can get the data), Subscribe to Comments(I need this on a day-job blog, so I figured I'd test it out and get ahead of the game a bit), and Ultimate Tag Warrior.

I already have installed: Wordpress Database Backup, Text Link Ads, and Spam Karma 2. Am I missing anything?

updates and such

Just in case you want the microsoft $200.00 free adwords credit that I mentioned in my last post--here is the link:
For new advertisers only:
http://www.startadcenter.com/200unoffdm/

Other than that, cyber monday was a bit of a bust here in green affiliate land. My adsense numbers are up but I haven't made any sales this week so far. My "gift ideas" page is getting a lot of traffic but no one seems to be buying. Oh well, I think I'll tweak my gift ideas page a tiny bit more over the weekend.

In other news, I got a request for a review from reviewme.com for another site of mine. Very wierd however. If you have a product out there -- listen up!!

I was asked to review a cleaning product that couldn't have cost more than $10.00 -- the sad part is that my blog doesn't get THAT much traffic, and I'm generally a nice person and I'm always looking for content on my blog. If the person contacted me and offered to send me the product, I would have reviewed it for free!! And I would have had the added avantage of actually USING the product. Instead they chose to pay reviewme $60.00 and I wrote some superficial crud and made $30.00.

Oh well....would you have done it differently?

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. I have lots to be thankful for!!

I received a request for another review on reviewme.com. The product was appropriate for the site so I did it and I am now waiting to see if it is accepted.

I've been working some on my new site meditationdesigns.com. But part of me thinks I'm crazy to start up another blog centered site since to get good content on them and have people actually READ the site, it is very time consuming!! Oh well, we'll see how it goes.

In other news, I saw an offer on one of the membership sites I belong to for a $200.00 coupon for MSN version of adwords (forget what it is called) I needed to put $5.00 down to get $200.00 credit (need to spend it in 90 days) ...so that will be something fun to try and a built in procrastination buster!! How fun! I'll post my success or failures with that program here.

I created the "gift ideas" page on my most popular site. I loaded it with small commentaries on online shops in my niche and then used affiliate links on the ones that had them. I've gotton a fair amount of traffic...so could be a good thing! Affiliate sales are up for me --this is really the first time that I've really worked the affiliate thing...boy, it would be great if it could keep going after the holidays.

happy holiday!

Interesting Observation

I use MyBlogLog.com for stats on all my blogs and have noticed that a certain TextLinkAd is gettting lots of hits on my site. The "text" of the TextLinkAd is "Gift Ideas" ...makes me think I should make a page on my site called "Gift Ideas"!!

Trying out ReviewMe

Disclaimer: I am getting paid to post this review.

I got an email today encouraging me to sign up for "reviewme" a new service offered from the folks over at TextLinkAds. I like TextLinkAds and the guy that runs it, so I thought I would give ReviewMe a shot. I don't KNOW Patrick Gavin, but I read his blog and I've heard him on a podcast or two and I get the impression that he is a nice guy and a straight shooter. It was easy as pie to sign up and you are allowed to enter in six blogs per your account. So, if you are like me and own MORE than six you need to think about your strategy a bit. Depending on traffic and topic you get paid between $20.00 and $200.00 per post. I submitted 3 blogs -- 2 got $20.00 and 1 got $30.00. None of these blogs are runaway huge traffic mongers, but they do get about 50 - 200 uniques a day and they are all about a year old. Is that good? I never know. Anyway, seems easy so far. Posts must be 200 words and the thing I like about it is that you MUST label your post that it is a paid post. Is that how the rest of the Pay per Posts companies work? I am still a newbie in this PayPerPost space...and don't plan to do it too much cause it seems kind of creepy in a dishonest sneaky kind of way. But the fact that the ReviewMe site requires that you lay it all out there and own the fact that your are selling your blog's soul seems to make it okay in my book.
More later.

site update

Found a 3 column wordpress theme which is what I wanted. Racked my head cause I couldn't get my silly "about me" page working. Finally I switched the way the files are named in the options panel and it finally showed the file. Jeez...sometimes it is the littlest stupidest things.
Anyway, I posted one product and got an image for my header. I will hope to work on it a bunch this coming weekend. Meantime, I'll try to post on it this week so it will "launch" with some content.

In the meantime.....

I am going to make an affiliate site similar to some of my other sites so folks can see how I work it and they can offer suggetions. I don't go at it the easiest way in the world...but then again, even though I desperately want to make money....I do NOT want to throw up total crap all the time. But, as we all know the definition of crap sites is very subjective and my view on it shifts all the time as well.

So, here is my new site: www.meditationdesigns.com
Brand new domain name. All that I have done so far is install wordpress.

Check back later for progress updates.

Half way through October!!!

Goodness, time is going so quickly. I am soooo serious about building my income online, that I am going to start posting on Green Affiliate a bit more often and try to tell you what I am doing around here.

I am still trying to increase my posting frequency on my six established blogs (this number DOES NOT included GreenAffiliate) and one website (which also has a blog). Blogging is great, it has some awesome income opportunities, but it also is time consuming for me every day.

I'm not into throwing up splog crap....I research and post products and original commentary.

I am very intrigued by what is going on over at Keyword Avalanche. (if I was smart I would post an aff link) I want to start writing articles and making a site that way and then writing more articles to promote the site....following the steps of Tim Gorman.

I have a couple good niche ideas.

More later!! Feel free to ask questions in the comments, if you have them.

long weekend

So happy to be having a long weekend this weekend. Tomorrow, I have a side business client meeting and then I'm free !!!

Can't wait to spend some time building up my sites. I am working on getting more people to sign up for my newsletters on my blogs (not that I actually WRITE the darn newsletters...but if I did!! ...I'm getting the list!!)

I'm giving a way a free copy of a three different books to somelucky winners, if they sign up before October 15th. I got these books as advance copies from a publisher for me to read and review on my blog (which I did!) and now I figure I'll give them away. It gives the publisher a bit more additional exposure as I advertise this contest and it gives me email addresses!!

Other than that....on my agenda is to make a yoga site. I kind of like yoga and I see a bunch of affiliate products and I hope it will be easy for me to write up some content.
My goal is to start and FINISH this weekend.

Too many half finished projects hanging around here in GreenAffiliate land!!

In other unrelated news, but some you may find interesting, today is my birthday and I am 47 years old!! My hubby just took me out for a bunch of sushi and some ice cream. Life is good!

Not BUYING

I feel like buying every darn internet marketing product being released on the internet some days. I need to concentrate on what is in front of me.

MESSAGE TO SELF: DO NOT BUY IT!!!

Earnings update

I got to stop buying stuff so I make some profit around here!!

Anyway not too bad:

September
Adsense 268.35
Affiliate sales 0.00 from CJ* 8.32 from Linkshare
TextAds 247.91
BlogAds 245.42
*I made some money from CJ but I'm only counting this when I actually receive a check.

August
Adsense 208.00
Affiliate sales 89.00 from CJ 11.00 from Linkshare
TextAds 127.10
BlogAds 163.67

July
Adsense 108.35
Affiliate sales 0.00
TextAds 88.07
BlogAds 115.66

Washington Post launches a blog network

I saw this post on Steve Rubel's blog and signed up one of my blogs.

It is a network similar to blogads and looks pretty good for another way to monetize my blogs. I was contacted this week by Jeff the manager of the program. (I was so honored!) He hopes to get it running in the next month or so as soon as they nail down all the legal stuff.

If you have a blog, scoot on over there and submit it. (he said about 800 blogs were submitted so far)

In related news-- blogads has updated it's system and I have completely fallen off the radar. All summer I was selling ads effortlessly...and routinely had 5 or 6 showing on my blog at one time. Now, I have zip.

BUT>>>...in an effort to make something good out of it, I am taking offering free 2 week ads to some of the friends I've made in the blogosphere. That way my blog doesn't look like a empty ad wasteland and I build up some nice karma.

I'm sure it will all work out in the end. ...and I have been selling Text Link Ads like crazy. If you aren't putting these on your site, you are missing an opportunity!! Very little work for a good amount of cash!! You can also sign up to Buy Links ..where you purchase $25.00 of ads and they give you $100.00 of ads free.

Anyway, short update. Hope you are all well and making piles of money.

Plan for September

When I started on this journey, I didn't know what I was doing, so I jumped in with blogs. Now, over a year later, I somewhat regret it since they are a lot of work to keep up.

However, during the month of June, I actively tried to post as much as possible. I liked the results, my traffic increased and things seems to be moving in the right direction. During the months of July and August, I've slacked a bit. I post a lot to my main money maker site....but the others was catch as catch can. Starting today, I am beginning another posting blitz on all blogs and will combine it with a commenting blitz to blogs in my niche as well.

Wish me luck!!

Traffic Update

ggg May's avg = 541 June avg = 633 July avg = 760 Aug avg = 840 goal 800 (hit massively by stumbleupon)
ggs May's avg = 60 June avg = 80 July avg = 63 Aug avg = 65 goal 100
ggb May's avg = 96 June avg = 121 July avg = 135 Aug avg = 135 goal 140
ggga May's avg = 8 June avg = 18 July avg = 37 Aug avg = 139 goal 50 (hit massively by stumbleupon)
ggp May's avg = 19 June avg = 38 July avg = 34 Aug avg = 28 goal 50 WENT DOWN!!
ggw May's avg = 31 June avg = 52 July avg = 37 Aug avg 53 goal 75

Earnings update

August
Adsense 208.00
Affiliate sales 89.00 from CJ 11.00 from Linkshare
TextAds 127.10
BlogAds 163.67

July
Adsense 108.35
Affiliate sales 0.00
TextAds 88.07
BlogAds 115.66

June
Adsense 86.61
Affiliate sales 0.00
TextAds 31.62
BlogAds 222.37

Weekend Plans

I've got lots planned for the weekend to get a bunch done on my sites.

First up, I need to do some work for my day job. What?? you say? On the weekend?? I know it is pathetic, but this is a really busy time and I hate feeling stressed and behind the 8 ball ...so I'd rather do a bit of work on the weekend and feel more relaxed during the week. I'm wierd, I know.

Second up, I need to write a proposal for a big freelance project that I am starting. I have mixed feelings about taking this on, but I really want the ca$h!! I want to move out of my current condo and buy a house. and I live in one of the most expensive housing markets in the country. enough said. I will make more money on this freelance web project than I do with my online marketing projects ...so until this balance switches, I'm going to continue to do this work and continue to raise my prices.

Third up, I get to work on my sites. Wahooey!! First, I need to respond to a bunch of emailand post a bunch to my blogs. I've had a friend working on one of my sites which I believe has huge $$$$ potential for making money. She has not been keeping it active ...it pisses me off... so I'm going to start posting and getting links for the site. (advertisers love this site ...it just needs traffic)

Fouth up, I'm going to launch my new blog, datafeed site. I thought it would be fun to try to get some new low maintenance sites up. Not sure if it will go anywhere. But, in anticipation of Xmas, this is my first shot.

Fifth...I want to exercise and get out with my camera.
wish me luck!

I don't know what I'm doing. I feel like taking 3 weeks off from my day job and just working on my sites. I feel like I going in a million different directions.

I've got 6 blogs and 1 website that has a blog and a forum.

One website does a decent job with traffic ...as you can see below many of the other SUCK!!

Three blogs get 37 visitors a freaking day...who makes money with that??!!

Ick -- I'm going to bed.

Liz

greenaffiliate

Traffic update

ggg May's avg = 541 June avg = 633 July avg = 760 goal 800
ggs May's avg = 60 June avg = 80 July avg = 63 goal 100
ggb May's avg = 96 June avg = 121 July avg = 135 goal 140
ggga May's avg = 8 June avg = 18 July avg = 37 goal 50
ggp May's avg = 19 June avg = 38 July avg = 34 goal 50
ggw May's avg = 31 June avg = 52 July avg = 37 goal 75

as you can see -- after my big posting push in june ...some of my traffic eased off as my posting eased off in July. Not sure what my plan will be with this. Maybe drop the lowest traffic site and proceed? Posting alot to blogs is a must for them to be successful and make money. But it is a lot of work and it is time consuming. Argh!

Tons to update

Well, as you may have guessed, I dropped out of the 30 day challenge. Finding a good niche to work kept tripping me up. Then I fell behind and let myself give up.

I have lots going on at the moment and am glad for what I learned in the challenge and someday may go back to it. But want to focus on what is in front of me at the moment.

I had my one year anniversary july 31 of putting up my first blog. Pretty exciting!! I've come a long way! I sometimes want to get down on myself for it not happening faster ...but it is what it is.
This month I finally hit the $100.00 goal in google. I made about $85.00 in text ads and $260 in blogads and $160.00 in affiliate sales. I'm pretty happy. I now have seven sites.

The month of June I focused on posting more to my blogs and increasing traffic. I fell off that a bit this month and traffic on some of my blogs suffered. Posting more works! It is time consuming though!!

I'll post more of an update on the weekend...but this is a busy time for me at my day job and I have a ton of freelance web work...so hopefully I'll have some time to dig in and work on my sites.

Caution ...the software on one of my wordpress blogs at my day job was not up to date and we got this wierd hacked/virus wierdness that had to be removed. (javascript gets written on the php pages) anyway ...update wordpress if you haven't already!
there is a plugin that will back up your database and the whole process is pretty easy. I should know, ive done 10 upgrades already

greenaffiliate

Saw a great online seminar earlier this week featuring Jennifer Laycock of Search Engine Watch. You can see a recorded version of the seminar (including the PowerPoint slides) here. ...it installs webex on your computer ...but I still recommend it.

Also the free Clicktracks program is pretty sweet if your host provides log files. I haven't tried their paid stuff.

I'm loosing steam on the 30 day challenge....I'm going to try to suck up as much information as possible. But it is a time sucker!

30 day challenge continues.

30 day challenge is freaking hard!! it is a lot of work but I am committed ...why not? I am a few days behind at the moment but figure I can catch up this weekend. But, i've got my product topic picked out and I am moving forward!!

I am still posting pretty heavy on my regular sites, too, so I'm managing to keep up my pace more or less...okay a little less ..but not too bad.

Adsense income has taken a big jump lately and just keeps going up. (we're not talking big numbers or anything but I am happy with the direction!!) I've also sold a few ads so money continues to trickle in.

Finally moving over the DNS for a big side website project this weekend which means the darn thing is done and I get to invoice it. Woo hoo!!

Also met a new client today for lunch who seems to have a lot of work to throw my way. All good!

At my day job, I am setting up a blog for a VIP...I thought I may like to get in to creating a consulting practice around blogs... so this will be a practice run on that. not sure if this is something I want to pursue passionately or not.

more later....

I'm going to do it!

I'm going to go for it with the 30 day challenge.

This is a hard decision since I also need to keep my posting up on my 6 websites/blogs. I want to continue to grow these properties since traffic and adsense income is climbing on all of them. The six websites/blogs also provide the occasional affiliate sale along with advertising income from blogads and text links ads.

Anyway, I just finished a big side client job and with the exception of my day job, I've got free time. I am holding a vision of myself working from home and for myself. I see my internet marketing empire very successfull and easily making $300.00 a day.
I'm off to jump in to the fire!! and will only allow a completely positive attitude for the duration of this project!

Traffic Building Month update

ggg May's avg = 541 a day June goal 800 a day Hit 633
ggs May's avg = 60 a day June goal 100 a day Hit 80
ggb May's avg = 96 a day June goal 140 a day Hit 121
ggga May's avg = 8 a day June goal 50 a day Hit 18
ggp May's avg = 19 a day June goal 50 a day Hit 38
ggw May's avg = 31 a day June goal 75 a day Hit 52


So I didn't hit any of my goals but traffic did go up on all of my sites. I still have a good long ways to go. Adsense earnings was up ($86.00). I sold a few more TextLink Ads ($30.00), sold some Blogads (not sure how much) Affiliate sales aprox. ($30.00). I didn't post *every* day on all the blogs but did much better overall. I'm happy with my progress and will continue.

Now, I need to decide where else to spend my time. There is the 30 day challenge with Ed Dale, I just impulsively purchased (bad me!!) a script to use wordpress with datafeeds, and I still belong to a membership site which is full of promise, if I buckle down and figure out what they are doing and how they are making their money.

And then there is the day job and the client work. We'll see....I check back and let you know what kind of trouble I am getting myself into!

Posting like a madwoman

I've been posting like crazy. Tonight I am taking the night off, however. I am tired. I'll take inventory this weekend since I am a little more than half way through the month and I started being *very* focused on June 4. Traffic is going up up up. Not hugely or anything.

However, I am stymied by one of my blogs: I thought I would check if it had been indexed so I went to google and did: site:www.myblogname.com and I got back 133 results but all the results are full of spam and NOT the content on my blog. Does anyone know what is at play? I asked in a couple of forums but no one has gotton back to me yet.

Carry ON!!!

BTW, I got my first actual payout from blogads and it was 222.00 yippeeee!

Traffic update

I checked my traffic stats tonight on all of my sites and numbers are steadily going up. I'm emailing and searching to find good places to exchange links as well. Pushing out all the stops ...nothing is going to stop me for this month of June. Weekend coming up and outside client work is very minimal so I will be able to spend a good chunk of time getting posts ready in advance to make next week a litle easier. (Weather is supposed to suck as well ..which makes it easy to sit in front of the computer all day.) I sold another blogad ad as well. Woo hoo!
FYI, the owner of Text Link Ads was interviewed on Shoemoney's show over at webmaster radio if you want to hear more about the program.
I'm off to read more of Aaron Wall's SEO book. Everyone recommends it. http://www.seobook.com/ (not an affiliate link)

I'm still posting

My chant is "effortlessly" "effortlessly" as I fill out these blog posts in my six shopping blogs. (this blog doesn't count but it is number seven) I am not taking the time always to put in the affiliate links every single time--it bogs down the process at this point. I figure now is the time to try to get traffic!!! Traffic posting!! posting!! traffic!!

I decided NOT to make fake comments on my blogs and then comment back as myself in a schizo way. I'm going to let it happen naturally. However, I did go to two other people's blogs and comment on them. So, maybe that will have some kind of effect if I keep at it. I'll try to comment on a couple more before I call it quits for the night.

I signed up with Text Link Ads last weekend and made two sales today!! One of the sales is on a site in the travel industry that gets virtually NO TRAFFIC (like it is my worst performer ...maybe 5 visitors a day) and I sold an ad for $20.00 a month. Try to get THAT with adsense!!

If you want to sign up for Text Link Ads, I highly recommend it ...very easy and they do all the work for you. You just put a little code on your page. The link above is my affiliate link ...feel free to use it or not. I am running it on four sites and am now going to try to get it on the other two. Not a lot to loose.
Good luck everyone!

traffic increasing day 2

I've posted to all 6 blogs. I've got a few posts in the can for a couple of blogs. (it is very time consuming!!)
I signed up for Yaro's traffic course. He suggests that I comment on every comment that comes through. I don't get many comments. Should I assume a different personality and comment on my own blog and then comment back as myself?
Seems like it could fool "some" of the people "some" of the time. Maybe I'll try experimenting doing that on one blog. Leave the rest alone. I feel like it is important to put yourself out honestly and it comes back 10 fold.

Focus

This month I am going to focus on increasing traffic to my sites. I will do this by posting more, requesting links from folks I blog about, and trying to engage other bloggers in my niches to link to me.

Below are the details on how many visitors I got for the month of May and my goal for visitors for the month of June.

This month is all about increasing traffic by focusing on increasing content by posting, posting and MORE posting. Combined with linking linking linking.

TRAFFIC:
ggg May's avg = 541 a day June goal 800 a day
ggs May's avg = 60 a day June goal 100 a day
ggb May's avg = 96 a day June goal 140 a day
ggga May's avg = 8 a day June goal 50 a day
ggp May's avg = 19 a day June goal 50 a day
ggw May's avg = 31 a day June goal 75 a day

I've got work to do!! Note, I've barely been updating the sites ggga and ggp and ggw. Keeping 6 blogs/sites updated with content everyday will be challenging. Let's see if I can increase my income!

update

Time to update. Hard to believe a month has passed!
May:
Google Adwords: 66.76
Blogads: 182.42

Hey everybody I'm a 3 figure blogger!!


Here's my posting update for May:
ggb 30
ggp 0
ggg 54
ggs 19
ggga 1

I think a big barrier to making money for me with my blogs is that I need to post more. I want to start new sites (and I just bought 3 on godaddy 5 minutes ago!) but I really need to focus on the ones I've got.

It is very obvious that if I have the traffic, I can certainly sell the advertising ...witness blogads $$$
above. And I am doing nothing to get the ads ...it is all just coming to me with no reach out or prodding on my part.
I must stay focused and get these sites more traffic!!

Hard though, Jenn and BJ look like they are having so much fun!!

Tale of two links

How powerful are links? Let me count the ways!
My day job, I am web developer at a graduate school at a private univ. Last thurs I was in a meeting where someone wanted to buy clicks (through google of course) to our site using the keywords "graduate school of bla bla" ...For this important key word combination we came up on the fourth page of results as #34.

I thought I'd see what I could do to improve the rankings organically.

On Friday, I renamed a page on the site "Graduate School of Bla Bla - The RealName of School" On that page the header is "Graduate School of Bla Bla" and I changed the first sentence of the first paragraph to read. The RealName of School is a leading graduate school of bla bla. Paragraph goes on to blab about the curriculum.

On Saturday, I linked to this page using the text "graduate school of bla bla" from a blog I had running on the same domain but different host. I went to delicio.us and created a brand new account and linked the words again "graduate school of bla bla" to the same page.

My results on sunday morning were - top of second page #11, and #12.

sunday evening: first page #6
Monday morning: first page #10
Monday evening: first page #6

I'm not going to touch it for a while now. But, I was surprised at how quick and how little I did. The domain is an .edu but I am competing with a bunch of other .edu sites for this phrase.

From 34 to 6 in 3 days pretty rockin!!

Check from Google

Got my first ever check from google for $109.00 - way cool. I started this road in August with one site. Brought 4 more sites online around January. Then another site in Feb and another site in April. For a total of seven sites so far. So it took 8 months for me to make my first $100.00. BTW, For the month of april money earned from google so far is $55.00...so things seem to be on the upward trend!
I'm a little early but here is my posting updates for april:

ggb - 27
ggp - 0
ggg - 44
ggs - 10
ggga - 0

You can see last months posting trend in the archives some where if you are intersted.

I'm going to go out and take some photos of spring and take a break from the computer.

301 redirects

Went through all my sites and added 301 redirects so that only one version of the site exists. It had been in the back of my mind for some time so I am glad it is out of the way. While I was doing this work, I thought I'd go back and purchase the plural of the name of one of my sites to avoid confusion for my site users. Unfortunately, someone bought the domain name two days ago. Bummer.

Anyway, I uses the instructions for the 301 redirect here:
and here.

adsense channels cleanup

So, I just went through all my site and cleaned up the adsense ads. I tweaked the colors a little bit on the ones that needed it and then I made many channels so basically now I am tracking each ad on each blog. Previously it was a tad haphhazard. It should make things a bit more interesting. I really have the info to do some good testing.

I know this is basic stuff and I should have been doing it since day one but originally I was overwhelmed with all the options and I am slowly able to get down to the details of things.

My new site --I saw a post on a forum from a woman who was writing an article on the niche and she was looking to talk to folks. I *hesitated* for a few hours (bad!!) and then emailed her but she never called. It would have been a nice piece of offline PR. Shucks.

All for now....

new site launched

Finally launched my new site. I was listening to a podcast from Joe Vitale...he was talking about abundance. Anyway, I forget the exact context but he mentioned that the universe gives you ideas ..and you have to act on them FAST!!
I should have been faster with the launch of this website. However, if I had my way entirely, I would have worked on it another month before I launched. So, it was a compromise and I am glad it is LIVE!! Perfectionism is sometimes fear with another name on it. The new site is certainly not perfect ...but it is live.

Anyway, my other sites are doing well. I've made so far this month in adsense, what I made in the entirety of last month. I think that is good since there is still a good week left of april. (I'm talking about $29.00 which is my all time high with adsense) I'm making affiliate sales with several products. Not huge numbers but I'm making them!

Since I'm let go of Martel and Keyword Avalanche I treated myself to a couple of educational incentives!

I bought an ebook which came recommended in Alan Gardayne's newsletter (name escapes me) ...haven't started reading it but I will give a review when I do.

I also bought Alice Seba's Sweetie something or other (it consists of a few audio files and some pdfs). I've listened to the audio files and it is a bit basic for me but I did get some good advice regarding keeping things organized and whatnot. It seems worth the $27.00. and she really is a sweetie!!

I've also been listening again to the "six figure blogging" course that I took over the winter. That class pisses me off for some reason ...I didn't feel like I learned enough for the money. It makes me so mad that I listen to the series over and over so that I can glean every little last crumb!! And I must grudgingly admit that I did get a good tip out of what I was listening to in traffic this week. Darren mentioned linking to other blogs in your same niche. Sometimes I get scared to blog about my competitors ..even though I am happy when they blog about me. So that is something I will try to do more. Because you DO develop relationships out here in cyberland and they are fun and they come in handy.

Just for the record, PubCon was here in Boston this week and I LIVE IN BOSTON and was not able to go. I kind of blew my budget at my day job going to SearchEngine Strategies and didn't feel like I could take the time off. Very very silly. I should have signed up the minute I heard about it and not given it another thought!!

Oh well, I am going to work really hard and study very diligently and be working for myself soon with plenty of money to go to any darn seminar I want!! so there!

Onward!

Cleaning out

So, I, too, gave up my subscription to the James Martell Buzz this weekend. Following a few wise souls....

I never really listened to it much anyway...so it was truly a waste of money...besides all the other complaints.

I'm also letting go of my subscription to KeyWordAvalanche ...I was lured in by the promise of putting up sites and raking in piles of money. But basically it is a bunch of sploggers and I don't really want to spend my energy and time on crap. Call me wierd ...but I'd like to put up sites that have some value to someone somewhere...even if that value is entertainment by shopping or even poker or porn (I don't do poker or porn at this time) ...but just a bunch of scrapper spam is useless...

New Advertiser!!

Wow! That was cool. I got a new advertiser...just popped in my email box like magic. I like it when it is easy!! $50.00 a month. Way cool. Starts on May 2... a good advertiser for my site as well.

I'm going to start putting blogads on a second site this weekend and invite a couple of folks to try it out for free. ...then take it from there.

I'm stoked!

stumbleupon mania continues

Still getting hit by loads of traffic from Stumbleupon. Goods news is that it is bumping up my traffic so I look better to advertisers at blogads and I even qualify to put up clickmedia ads.

I need to approach more people to see if they want to advertise on my site. Is that how it is done? or do I wait to folks approach me?

Posting Update

Post update for month of March ...I must POST MORE
ggb - 16 posts
ggp - 7 posts
ggg - 35 posts
ggs - 6 posts
ggga - 1 posts

Stumbleupon

My main blog is getting hit from visitors at stumbleupon like wildfire! Wow! I hope I get some folks who come back once in a while. I forget if I submitted my site to Stumbleupon(I must have) or they just found me. It is way fun.

Feeling Crazed!!

So just to update my last post ..performancing kinda sucks. it is nice and easy to go from blog to blog to blog ...but it doesn't seem to be capturing traffic or referrals very well. I like to watch the referrals.

About referrals, it was awesome that I was watching them in real time (via mybloglog) and noticed all the traffic coming in from the SFGate article last week. Since I saw all that traffic coming in, it moved me to put in a couple of posts since the current one on the top was not exactly stellar! so that is an argument into having real time stats...and checking them!! The stats I get from my hosting company only update once a day.

So, anyway, I am using the free version of mybloglog on a couple of my blogs ...but the free version info is a day old and limited....probably okay for me for now since most of my other sites are not too high traffic yet...but my main blog that gets majority of traffic, attention and $$$ has the full version.

I had a BIG month for me adsense wise ...almost $30.00 up from $11.00 last month. I also sold 2 ads last month. One for $40.00 for 3 months and one for $50.00 for one month.

I'm still trying to get a new site up. I was working furiously just to get the darn thing up when my husband saw it and he brought reality to my head. He made me realize that the site really needs to look classy and professional. So, it is back to the drawing board on that one. But, I want to get it up so bad I am almost hyperventilating!! Can anyone relate? I feel like it is a great niche with not a lot of competition....and the time is now!!

Oh well, this weekend will be devoted to this new site along with a bit of web grunt work for one of my side biz clients. Not complaining about the grunt work...I'll crank some podcasts and be in heaven.

Leave any stats package recommendation (that are cheap!!) in my comments.

Back Home

Happy to be home. Vacation was nice but home is better. I do dread going back to the day job on Monday, however. I would love to hang working on my sites.

News in my world....last week there was an article in the SFGate about "green blogs" (this is my niche) and my main site was mentioned!! It was such a kick ...I was just thrilled and tickled pink. ...and I got some good traffic out of it, too!!!

I just signed up yesterday with performancing. It seems like a cool product for blogs and it is free!! I was using mybloglog.com ...but it costs $25.00 a year per blog....seeing as I have seven or so blogs going now...it gets a bit pricey. So I think performancing will be great because you can see all the blogs from one interface (don't have to keep logging in and out). I really need to bump up the traffic on my new blogs, however...they are severely behind and I tend to push my main blog the most.
Oh well....

I am still working on my new site that is based on the pregnancy site ...I wish I were a better designer!! it is frustrating ...but I did alot of the writing over vacation and I just want to get the dang site UP!!!
This new site will be a bit different format for me as it will have a lot of static content and then a blog as one of the 8 or so pages ...this will cut on the pressure (I HOPE!!) of feeling like I have to constantly be updating these crazy sites.

Anyway ...more later ...let me know how you are all doing!!

On Vacation

Here I am - on vacation in not so sunny California. Feels great to be away from the daily grind of the 9 to 5 day job. (not that the job is bad or anything...but nice to get out of the fray).

I've got a couple of things going on. One of my blogs is getting posts "borrowed" on a somewhat regular basis. About 50% of the time they give me credit but it annoys me when they don't!! (so today I sent a friendly email and said "hi you forgot to give me credit on this post -- thanks for fixing it" ...we'll see what happens. I've tried to let it go and just not go visit this particular site ...but that is just not happening!! not today anyway!!

I got a new advertiser on one of my blogs which is cool. So I have 2 advertisers now! go me!! I seem to be getting a bit more email for some of my blogs as well giving me suggestions on what to post about (always appreciated).
more later!

weekend - woohoo

I'm totally psyched it is the weekend and I can work on my sites. I have to fix up one blog so that my ads show on more pages and also there is something freaky in that the category pages throw up an error page....so I need to dig in and do some coding.

But I have a great idea for a new site and I'm going to try to get it up this weekend. I'm going to try to take what I can learn from that pregnancy site and churn out a new site in a completely different niche of course.

I leave for vacation on wednesday for 10 days so I know it will be tuff to keep up with content while I am away and I'm dreaming if I think I can do any development. But I will bring a laptop and I will have internet access so one never knows.

Nice thing is that my web design side business has slowed down a bit so that is one less distraction.

Onward!!

I've been absent

This affiliate marketing life is truly a rollercoaster. So full of hope and promise for a few days and then sunk in doom and gloom that it will never work. Guess where I have been lately?

I just have to keep plugging!! It can and will work if I am persistent. What caught my eye today is a site that was sold on sitepoint for the price of $5000.00. Site was: http://www.pregnancyetc.com/index.htm . This site only has about 12 pages of content!! not much at all ...but affiliate links and contextual ads are strategically placed and it brings in $500.00 a month. (the site was less than 2 years old but had a page rank of 4 and good back linking ) ...anyway, I think it is truly amazing.

Anyway, enough dreaming the good news is that the traffic on my main site has consistently grown month over month since I started in august and this month the daily numbers have almost every day been over 300 ...where as last month I only had a few days over 300.

Message for today is keep on keeping on!

Search Engine Strategies

In other news, my day job is sending me to the Search Engine Strategies Conference in New York for 4 whole days of fun and search!!
I am PSYCHED!!! to say the least. I absolutely love, love, love new york city.

long weekend --yeah!!

I've been slow to update here...must post more often!(for all three of you out there!! teehee)

Anyway, what have I been up to? Weeeellll....I'm very very very close to finishing a big side job (a web site) I've been working on it since september ... awesome!
This week I tried really really hard to post to all my blogs every day. it is hard!! I think what I need to do is get a bunch of posts done over the weekend ...and then i don't get as pressured to post to all 5 blogs in one night....especially when I am doing stupid client web work as well.
post inventory this month so far: (since today is the 17th ...less than 17 is unacceptable!!)

ggb - 9 posts
ggp - 7 posts
ggg - 20 posts
ggs - 9 posts
ggga - 2 posts

So, starting this weekend, I will post in advance!! ..the more posts the better!!

Tomorrow, I am stopping by a local shop that opened up in my town that is focused on one of my niches! should be interesting. as least I will find some products to post on. I thought it would also be cool to feature the woman who owns the shop and maybe arrange to do a bit of a podcast to try something new on one of my sites!! we'll see how brave I get. I'm shy even to go and meet her even though she emailed me and complimented my site and such.

MUST BE BRAVE!!

Other news was that I got into blogads!! yea!! I just asked a guy in my niche how he liked using them and he offered me an invitation!! wooo wee! I feel like I am in the big leagues. now to see if anyone wants to advertise on my site.... The rates begin at $20.00 a month (that is more than I am making on adsense these days!) so it could prove lucrative.
I need to redesign the site that I want these ads to go on and ask a few folks if they'd like to advertise on my site for free. (so my site looks like people are falling all over themselves to get a spot on my sidebar) ..anyway, I am psyched. I'll post more later

Google Site Maps

I added google site maps to all four of my blogs tonight. Very easy with a word press plugin. If anyone is interested in how to do it Andre Chaperon has an very clear camtasia tutorial on how to do it.
http://www.andrechaperon.com/2005/07/google-sitemaps-tutorial/
Apparently it gets google to index your site pretty quickly. 3 of my blogs are relatively new (a month or six weeks or so) even thougth I loaded them with about 50 posts each before I launched them ...they still don't get much traffic compared to my other blog which has been around longer and has been successful in getting backwards links.

just checking in

I checked in on a bunch blogs of fellow travellers on the affiliate path today. They were all posting earnings much higher than mine!! I made almost $10.00 in adsense this month after about $20.00 last month. My affiliate sales have been piddly.

I will not let myself get depressed on this. Tonight while I was doing some web updating work (which I am getting paid $50.00 an hour) I listened again to some of the content from the "Six Figure Blogging" class that I took with Andy Wibbels and Darren Rowse. I learned a few things I missed the first time around and I KNOW that if I listen to them over and over I will learn even more. Each hour is so packed full with info. It is a great resource ..that I paid alot of hard earned money for and I should utilize them and get all I can out of them....I'm mentioning this because my way is to run around the internet looking for something NEW to buy that will fix my piddling earnings right up and find the magic pill and spend the money and look for the fix and run around and phew!!
Lesson for myself today: just sit, don't get negative, you have a great life, and keep on keeping on with what you've got right in front of you ...well right after the last bowl of ice cream.

Onward!

greenaffiliate

SEO Tip :: MSN Search by IP Number

Got this from Supper aff who got it from stepforth. Cool tool.

hello again

Things are good here in internet land! But of course too busy to do everything I want.

I am reading over my last post and I still haven't gotton to tagging. Why do I have such a block on that? This weekend all blogs get tagged for sure!!

My side web development business just got really busy again and I will need to devote many hours this weekend to that. It pays pretty well ...but it is not learning/creating in affiliate marketing world ..which is where I really want to be!!

Deep breath. Life is good.

saturday

so what I want to do this weekend is start tagging my posts. I installed a wordpress plugin to make it easier...so I just have to start doing it. maybe I'll go back and tag all the posts from the month of January in my four blogs. The other thing I though I'd do was install the little graphic thingys that allows one to just click and subscribe to your rss feed. I just want to figure out how those things work (and I could use it at my day job as well).

One of my big web site design jobs got turned back on so I will need to work on that this weekend as well...it is totally boring (the site is brochureware for medical supplies) but I don't have to think much, I can crank some podcasts and just code the pages...it is pretty mindless work. I kind of like doing that...as opposed to blogging which requires me to "write" ...or more like "re-write" and I try to be clever and witty >....which requires brainwork on my part.

Last night hubby and I went to Barnes and Noble...I bought many magazines....and was pumped about blogging again. I want to start two new blogs this weekend. We'll see.

Last but not least ...a new store opened in my town in one of my niche categorys. I thought I'd stop by and introduce myself and see if I can get ideas of stuff I can blog about. ...and tell her about my site.

I can walk down there and get myself some exercise...that is my NewYear's Resolution ...to not sit in front of the computer all day every day. (well right now I am lying on the couch with my laptop...) you get the picture. MORE EXERCISE!!!==GOOD THING!!!!

Again keeping up with it all

I'm trudging along keeping 4 blogs updated ...I am not doing nearly as well as when I had only one. I need a system!! Maybe get all my posts ready over the weekend or something and then let them roll out over the week.

I'm now off for four big whole days ...I'll see what kind of trouble I can get myself into ...or what new sites I can build!!

I am thinking that I should get into writing content of some sort ...I can write and I work in a library for my day job so the access to material is mind boggling. Hmmmmmmm...... any ideas?

Keeping up with it all....

Well now I am supporting 4 blogs / affiliate sites...which is a big step up from just 1. It is taking me a lot of time to add to each of them every day. I just got through doing a few posts in advance on 2 of the blogs, 1 I already have a few posts in the can and I am just up to date on the last.

I did a bit of submitting to directories this weekend (just dmoz and a couple others...that takes a bunch of time as well).

My adsense money is down ...no sales and I am feeling like this is all a waste of time and I should get off this dang computer and start living my life. But, then I think of going back to work tomorrow and I am SO WANTING TO GET THE HECK OUT of there!!!!

Deep breathe...actually my job is great ...but I have moved on in my head ...and eventually the rest of me will move on to a new situation as well. (please make it be working from home!!) But for now...I need to stay and rake in the money since it certainly ain't coming in on this affiliate/blog side of things.

I think the other thing getting to me is as I go around and read people's blogs it seems like folks are just churning out soulless crap scrapper web sites and they are making money and I don't want to go that route!! ..but I am oh so tempted!!

I'll be back later when I am not so down and negative.

Niche Creator

I'm curious about this piece of software:
NicheCreator Affiliate link
NicheCreator Non-Affiliate link

Has anyone out there tried it or have any opinions? I've found a few people using it and having success in creating sites and making money. I have to dig deeper and figure out how it works but thought I'd ask here first...

I'll report back.

End of 2005 - Hello 2006!!

Greetings!!
With a little time off over the new years ...I have launched two new blogs and started a third. The problem I see is that now I will have 3 soon 4 blogs to update daily. AGh!!! where am I going to find the time for that? Not sure ..but I have to plunge forward somewhere somehow.

I need to create sites that don't need so much maintenance and updating. That is where I need to shift my thinking. I've been reading a couple of blogs here and here and trying to find a new way with them.

But, I feel good that I've got this much completed and working and possibly making me money.

more later