Creating a business making money online takes patience and perseverance. Even though I am seeing daily progress in traffic to my blogs, articles, Squidoo lenses, and the like, the money is not rolling in and I'm getting anxious. But I keep plugging away because I AM seeing progress. Making money online is a numbers game, and as long as my numbers keep going up, I will keep going.
I've finished the first 30 days of the My Online Income System action plan and am in the Days 30-60 tasks. Whenever I feel like I'm getting bogged down, I go back to the plan and make sure I do AT LEAST everything listed on a particular day. The one thing that I have not yet been able to accomplish, no matter how hard I try, is to post as many comments on forums as is recommended. I don't know why I find that task particularly bothersome, but I do. I have to redouble my efforts in that area, I suppose.
But article writing is actually becoming quite fun. I'm finding it easier and easier to come up with topics using keyword phrases that I think can get high in the search engines results. For instance, the phrase I'm using today is " business making money online. " I found this phrase in my keyword research, it fits all the criteria I learned in My Online Income System and I found it's actually pretty easy to fit into text. So I've written two articles using this phrase, I'm using it here today, and I already have text for a new Squidoo lens that I hope to develop later this evening, all using that phrase. This is not a phrase I would typically type in a search engine, but more than 100 people a day type it into Google on average and not many sites use it as a keyword, so it may be a winner for me.
I spent about 2 hours doing nothing but keyword research the other day. From those two hours, I came up with 12 phrases that I feel meet the criteria for a good marketing keyword, including business making money online. So my goal is to write at least 3 to 4 articles using each phrase in the next week. I have to admit that some of these article directories are frustrating because it seems to take so long to get articles to go live. I still have 4 at Ezinearticles.com to be published, and I think I still have 2 at ArticleAlley.com that haven't gone live yet. Those are all using keywords from last week. I know I'm still new at this, but I'm curious to see if any of these efforts are paying off as far as search results go.
Oh, but I do know this blog is now listed in the directories on both Google and Yahoo, because I did a search yesterday and Ta-Da! I'm in all 10 of the top ten spots for the name of this blog! Some results are direct links to the blog, others are from ezinearticles.com, squidoo, and a couple of the forums I've posted in. Wow, it really does work to put your blog address in your signature block.
So maybe I'll figure out how to create business making money online after all. At least I know more now than I did thirty days ago, and for that I'm grateful to Kimberley Hoffman.
In other news, I know I mentioned the site Associated Content before. This site is terrific if you want to be a freelance writer online. They don't have an affiliate-type program, as far as I can tell, so I'm plugging them for free, but that's OK. So far, I've submitted 12 articles, 8 of which have already been published (re-writes of stuff I had done in my attorney-life, mostly) and have had $29.48 deposited in PayPal, plus I'll be receiving a $10 bonus because I submitted more than 10 articles in August (it was a contest). The other cool thing is that you get paid whenever your articles get viewed -- and I've accumulated another $1.50 or so in page views. Over time, this can only get better, so I'm looking at it like building a little residual income on the side. Sweet. Now, if you kind readers would help me out and click on the links over on the right in the box labeled Associated Content Articles and read my articles, that would be so awesome! You click, I get paid. Isn't this a wonderful world?
So I have to run and work on a new Squidoo lens. If you are seeing success in creating your own business making money online, please leave a comment. I would love to hear from you.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Online Income is Possible. Look at All the Ways.
I'm continuing to make progress. As suggested in My Online Income System, I need to create multiple blogs on multiple platforms in order to spread the word. So I spent most of Friday evening/Saturday morning creating a new blog on WordPress.com. It's not where I want it to be yet, but you can certainly check it out at Success Ideas for Everyday Women. The idea for that blog is to focus on women and try to encourage women to find their own path and create online income for themselves.
It will be different from this effort. Here, I'm really going to discuss all the things I try to generate online income. The other blog will be more inspirational, more lifestyle-oriented. At least that's the plan. WordPress apparently doesn't approve of blatantly commercial blogs, which is weird because it's supposed to be the biggest and best blogging platform out there, and everyone says create a blog to promote your business. But I'll try to play by their rules. We'll see. But I guess the idea is to create links back and forth, and to give yourself multiple blogs, each as a different avenues to market with.
But building the Wordpress blog was quite an undertaking. It took me at least 4 hours of watching video tutorials and searching different forums for solutions when I got stuck before I could actually get the basics of creating a blog in Wordpress the way I wanted. When I tried to do it on my own, it was a mess. Not intuitive in the least. My next blog will be on this Blogger.com platform, for sure. But other people who are successful use both platforms to create multiple blogs, so I will too. This journey is all about learning new things, so ...
So, after I finished working through WordPress, I spent some time writing 2 articles. I submitted one to Ezinearticles.com and one to GoArticles.com. That makes 6 submissions to Ezinearticles in the last 3 weeks, and 4 to GoArticles. I also went into two forums dedicated to helping people generate online income and tried to find threads to add comments to or start a new thread that made sense. I'm really struggling with the Forum marketing aspect of the program. Most of the time, I feel like I can't contribute to the conversation because I don't know enough. But I'm trying. I'm not participating to the level I'm supposed to be, but I'm making progress.
Also this weekend, I discovered a great website called Associated Content. This is actually a site that PAYS for your articles. WoHoo! Talk about a way to generate online income! I've always wanted to be a freelance writer, so ... I spent the afternoon re-writing many of the articles I have already submitted to other sites -- I took out some paragraphs, added more personal observations, etc. and submitted 5 articles for review. There are two ways you can get paid -- if your article qualifies, they will actually pay you upfront (apparently anywhere from $1 to $20 per article) when they approve your article. In addition, they put the article on their database and you get paid whenever other people view your articles. We'll see if any of my articles make the cut for upfront payment. But they give you a link as soon as they approve your article so you can promote the link (like, on a blog or on a squidoo page), increasing your pay. Very cool. I don't know enough of the ins and outs yet, but it's definitely a site worth checking out if you like to write and want to generate income.
Give it a try and let me know.
Here's to your success.
It will be different from this effort. Here, I'm really going to discuss all the things I try to generate online income. The other blog will be more inspirational, more lifestyle-oriented. At least that's the plan. WordPress apparently doesn't approve of blatantly commercial blogs, which is weird because it's supposed to be the biggest and best blogging platform out there, and everyone says create a blog to promote your business. But I'll try to play by their rules. We'll see. But I guess the idea is to create links back and forth, and to give yourself multiple blogs, each as a different avenues to market with.
But building the Wordpress blog was quite an undertaking. It took me at least 4 hours of watching video tutorials and searching different forums for solutions when I got stuck before I could actually get the basics of creating a blog in Wordpress the way I wanted. When I tried to do it on my own, it was a mess. Not intuitive in the least. My next blog will be on this Blogger.com platform, for sure. But other people who are successful use both platforms to create multiple blogs, so I will too. This journey is all about learning new things, so ...
So, after I finished working through WordPress, I spent some time writing 2 articles. I submitted one to Ezinearticles.com and one to GoArticles.com. That makes 6 submissions to Ezinearticles in the last 3 weeks, and 4 to GoArticles. I also went into two forums dedicated to helping people generate online income and tried to find threads to add comments to or start a new thread that made sense. I'm really struggling with the Forum marketing aspect of the program. Most of the time, I feel like I can't contribute to the conversation because I don't know enough. But I'm trying. I'm not participating to the level I'm supposed to be, but I'm making progress.
Also this weekend, I discovered a great website called Associated Content. This is actually a site that PAYS for your articles. WoHoo! Talk about a way to generate online income! I've always wanted to be a freelance writer, so ... I spent the afternoon re-writing many of the articles I have already submitted to other sites -- I took out some paragraphs, added more personal observations, etc. and submitted 5 articles for review. There are two ways you can get paid -- if your article qualifies, they will actually pay you upfront (apparently anywhere from $1 to $20 per article) when they approve your article. In addition, they put the article on their database and you get paid whenever other people view your articles. We'll see if any of my articles make the cut for upfront payment. But they give you a link as soon as they approve your article so you can promote the link (like, on a blog or on a squidoo page), increasing your pay. Very cool. I don't know enough of the ins and outs yet, but it's definitely a site worth checking out if you like to write and want to generate income.
Give it a try and let me know.
Here's to your success.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Organization Strategies for Online Success
It's now been about 20 actual days into this adventure, and I'm still working my way through My Online Income System.
Today's topic is how much I appreciate Kim's suggested organization strategies for online success(Day #19 of the MOIS Action Plan) and how I'm putting those ideas into action. I personally struggle with organization. My office is always a pigsty (and I truly apologize to all swine out there for the insult). I have stacks of paper, stacks of books, stacks of who knows whatall. There are slips of paper everywhere. I just can't seem to keep organized.
But for my online income business, I've taken the suggestions in the Action Plan to heart and expanded them a litle bit, creating 4 organization strategies of my own in formats I think I can keep up with:
1) a spreadsheet listing websites, email address used at sign-up, user names and passwords. It's in Excel, and I keep it open as I work, so I can update everytime I go to a new site. I'm also using this spreadsheet as my Activity Log, so I track my traffic and stats every day;
2) a spiral bound notebook which is my "Link" book where I'm tracking what content I write, what Title I gave it, where it is posted, and what keywords I used. I'm keeping it beside the computer and writing in it as necessary. I am also keeping track of what links I have put in my various profiles so I can go back and revise/update as this business grows;
3) A separate section of my spiral notebook is being devoted to creating a list of sites/strategies that I come across as I'm reading or surfing that I want to explore further, either by researching in forums (which I believe is an absolute MUST) or going to the sites themselves. This section is growing rapidly every day; and finally
4) I've started a separate spiral bound notebook for nothing but keyword research.
Even though these strategies may seem like common sense, My Online Income System is the first program I have ever encountered that actually devotes time to addressing this critical aspect of running an online income business and gives you suggestions on what to track and how to do it. It's one of the things that I think sets this program apart from others.
So I'm still determined to stick with it because I am seeing results. For instance:
This blog -- 84 views, 2 followers, $1.28 in adsense revenue
Squidoo lenses: I Love My Online Income System -- 52 views, $.07 in adsense revenue
4 Steps to Go From Newbie to Money-Making Pro -- 7 views
Work at Home Moms and My Online Income System -- 6 views
And the latest lens, 5 Mental Strategies for Online Income Success -- 3 views
Free Website -- My Free Website -- 51 visits
GoArticles.com -- 2 articles, 24 requests
ArticleShed.com -- 1 article, 30 views
Ezinearticles.com -- 3 live articles, 53 views -- (quick sidenote on Ezinearticles: I had to revise all 3 articles because of picky things from the editors, but 1 editing round was all -- it took about 15 days for the first article to get published, 10 days for the other 2 -- I still have 2 articles pending. They give you more in-depth statistics on who is looking at your articles and who clicked where. Pretty cool)
I'm on either Day #27 or Day #28 of the My Online Income System action plan, which means I have to create a second blog. So for the next day or so, I'm going to be tackling WordPress. I think WordPress seems more complicated than Blogger, but I guess I'm about to confirm or disprove that impression. The whole idea of doing multiple blogs seems crazy to me -- but that's why I need a system to follow and not rely on my own instincts. If left to my own devices, I would just continue to add to this one blog, but I guess the whole idea is to create multiple cross-links and create variations of contents because different search engines, or different people, for that matter, will gravitate to different words and ideas. Makes sense, but I don't think it's necessarily intuitive.
So I'm off to another blogosphere. I'm still struggling as to what the "theme" will be, but I'm leaning toward making it more motivational/inspirational -- not a "journey" like this one. We'll see, I guess.
In the meantime, if anyone has suggestions or comments, please let me know. But get out there, find a program that works for you and get started.
Here's to your success.
Today's topic is how much I appreciate Kim's suggested organization strategies for online success(Day #19 of the MOIS Action Plan) and how I'm putting those ideas into action. I personally struggle with organization. My office is always a pigsty (and I truly apologize to all swine out there for the insult). I have stacks of paper, stacks of books, stacks of who knows whatall. There are slips of paper everywhere. I just can't seem to keep organized.
But for my online income business, I've taken the suggestions in the Action Plan to heart and expanded them a litle bit, creating 4 organization strategies of my own in formats I think I can keep up with:
1) a spreadsheet listing websites, email address used at sign-up, user names and passwords. It's in Excel, and I keep it open as I work, so I can update everytime I go to a new site. I'm also using this spreadsheet as my Activity Log, so I track my traffic and stats every day;
2) a spiral bound notebook which is my "Link" book where I'm tracking what content I write, what Title I gave it, where it is posted, and what keywords I used. I'm keeping it beside the computer and writing in it as necessary. I am also keeping track of what links I have put in my various profiles so I can go back and revise/update as this business grows;
3) A separate section of my spiral notebook is being devoted to creating a list of sites/strategies that I come across as I'm reading or surfing that I want to explore further, either by researching in forums (which I believe is an absolute MUST) or going to the sites themselves. This section is growing rapidly every day; and finally
4) I've started a separate spiral bound notebook for nothing but keyword research.
Even though these strategies may seem like common sense, My Online Income System is the first program I have ever encountered that actually devotes time to addressing this critical aspect of running an online income business and gives you suggestions on what to track and how to do it. It's one of the things that I think sets this program apart from others.
So I'm still determined to stick with it because I am seeing results. For instance:
This blog -- 84 views, 2 followers, $1.28 in adsense revenue
Squidoo lenses: I Love My Online Income System -- 52 views, $.07 in adsense revenue
4 Steps to Go From Newbie to Money-Making Pro -- 7 views
Work at Home Moms and My Online Income System -- 6 views
And the latest lens, 5 Mental Strategies for Online Income Success -- 3 views
Free Website -- My Free Website -- 51 visits
GoArticles.com -- 2 articles, 24 requests
ArticleShed.com -- 1 article, 30 views
Ezinearticles.com -- 3 live articles, 53 views -- (quick sidenote on Ezinearticles: I had to revise all 3 articles because of picky things from the editors, but 1 editing round was all -- it took about 15 days for the first article to get published, 10 days for the other 2 -- I still have 2 articles pending. They give you more in-depth statistics on who is looking at your articles and who clicked where. Pretty cool)
I'm on either Day #27 or Day #28 of the My Online Income System action plan, which means I have to create a second blog. So for the next day or so, I'm going to be tackling WordPress. I think WordPress seems more complicated than Blogger, but I guess I'm about to confirm or disprove that impression. The whole idea of doing multiple blogs seems crazy to me -- but that's why I need a system to follow and not rely on my own instincts. If left to my own devices, I would just continue to add to this one blog, but I guess the whole idea is to create multiple cross-links and create variations of contents because different search engines, or different people, for that matter, will gravitate to different words and ideas. Makes sense, but I don't think it's necessarily intuitive.
So I'm off to another blogosphere. I'm still struggling as to what the "theme" will be, but I'm leaning toward making it more motivational/inspirational -- not a "journey" like this one. We'll see, I guess.
In the meantime, if anyone has suggestions or comments, please let me know. But get out there, find a program that works for you and get started.
Here's to your success.
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