Need to make some changes and regroup

I have to evaluate my business and make some changes. Blogads, which traditionally has made me a good amount of money has slacked off lately. Not only for me but for most of the publishers in my niche. I'm not sure if it will pick up in the fall, but I feel like I have to be nimble. I've had $900.00 months with them ...with an average of about $500.00. In my early days I made way more with them than I did with adsense. Anyway, since it is slow, I am using it to offer a couple of free ads with folks I've been developing relationships with online. Filling up the "karma bank" so to speak.

Anyway, I have been pushing more affiliate links, and my work has paid off with more sales there. I've also made a few direct sales of links. I'm also trying an ad network called adify and have been asked to join a couple other networks. One I am interested in, but it means redesigning my blog a bit to allow for the ad size. ...so that's just laziness and fear keeping me back there. I've got to try to deal with that this week.

However, I am still trying to figure out 'what I want to do when I grow up'. I am working part time remotely for my employer back in Boston. I would love to do internet marketing full time and am trying to get it to happen! For the moment, my online endeavors do not equal my full time salary, so I am looking into ways to scale it up.

One thing that is helpful for me is to think about "REAL NUMBERS". Like exactly how much do I need to make to pay taxes, insurance and all that stuff that my job pays for? How much do I need to earn to cover the expenses? How much do I need to earn to save at the level I want to? If I get a $500,000.00 mortgage, what is the monthly payment? If I get a $600,000.00 mortgage, what is the monthy payment? In a future post, I am going to describe how I would love my online career to develop. I find that really helpful.

In other news, I've had a woman contact me with an offer of 100 domain names that are very similar to my domain names. Her offer was $2000.00, then $1000.00 and then $500.00. for all 100 of them. It was *extremely* tempting to buy these domains ...but the reality was I really don't have the time to develop them. And I feel like she was being really sneaky and wierd to have done this in the first place!! Again, it was really hard to leave them on the table ..especially if someone does buy them and develops them they can be confused with me....but I felt manipulated and it was operating on my fears ...rather than operating on the direction that I want to move to.

I'm not sure I made the right decision there! Let me know if you think I should have taken them ...they are probably still available.

This is my new mantra.....

You want to succeed in Business and in Life?

Two Years Online!!

I just recently realized that my first money making blog (isn't the first always special?) is two years old at the end of July. I have come a long way! I started at $0 of course, and now make over $2K each month from about 10 websites. It could be better, of course, but I'm pretty happy especially since I have had a full time job through the entire project and my husband just started helping me this past January.

I often try to connect with that early energy I had. It was really a case of having a zen "Beginners Mind". I had no idea what I was doing, so I was willing to try anything! I also got lucky in a few places. and did I mention I worked really hard at it even when I didn't want to? I had so many times that the "voices in my head" told me what I was doing was stupid ...or that I was really tired....or that I should watch TV with my husband...or whatever excuse I could come up with!! ....and I reminded myself that they were just "voices in my head" and I kept going.

With moving, my momentum has really taken a dive and boy has my attention on my sites suffered!! Thankfully income is still climbing, but I've got to get back in the groove!

Is anybody doing the thirty day challenge? There's some good content over there...