My reason for this is simple.  I am currently targeting three campaigns.  I’m putting all my effort into those three.  In order for me to determine which campaign is the best one to focus on, the spreadsheet gives me the exact information I need.

My three campaigns are these:

1.  Relationships
2.  Weight loss
3.  A membership site

It is not surprising that the first two are my best choices to work in.  People may not have the money to join a membership site, but there are always concerned about their love life and how they look in the mirror.  By targeting certain keyword phrases, and keeping track of those in the spreadsheet, I know which ones are working the best for me.

While updating the spreadsheet today, I was very surprised to see that one of my keyword phrases in the weight-loss niche had 110 clicks in a matter of only a few days.  I knew the weight-loss niche would be a profitable one.  With 63% of the people in the United States being overweight, I had little doubt that this niche would work for me.

I have always been a firm believer in tracking and testing.  Without knowing the results of your efforts, you have no way of knowing whether you are being effective or not.  The spreadsheet was easy to set up.  Basically, right now I am tracking publish date, title, views, and clicks.  A real whiz with Excel could probably set the spreadsheet up to automatically update.  That would be great.  However, I am satisfied with the result that I am seeing.  Not only can I see how well my articles are doing, but I can also see what to focus on.  You can bet your booties that it will be the weight-loss niche.

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It’s amazing what you can learn if you have the right resources.  I often struggle with the learning curve.  I like to think that I am fairly intelligent - however, when getting into the intricacies of affiliate marketing and marketing in general I find that perhaps I don’t know so much after all.

Here is an example.  I really like Squidoo.  It is one of the best resources for in affiliate marketer that there is.  The lenses are easy to set up, easy to maintain, and if you put a little effort into them you can do well not only on Squidoo but with Google as well.

Since joining Wealthy Affiliate, I have learned a great deal more about Squidoo then I formerly knew.  I picked up stuff from Tiffany Dow, and PotPieGirl and it has been a big help.  Both of these fine ladies have made a business out of Squidoo.  They know their stuff and have taught me a great deal.

This evening, I got an email from Squidoo saying that I had a comment on one of my older lenses.  I went to the lens to check out the comment.  If nothing else, I got a good laugh at the condition of the lens.

The lens was not optimized as it should be for Squidoo.  There were no photos, some of the modules were empty, and the RSS feed had no URL.  It isn’t any wonder that this lens has not been successful for me.

This is why I stress so often that you can’t spread yourself out to thnin when attempting to become successful in affiliate marketing.  If I had made full use of all the resources that are available concerning Squidoo, this lens would probably be bringing in some money.  I spent about an hour going through the lens making appropriate changes, and publishing it.  Let’s hope that it does better.

This is the part where I stress that education is the most important key to marketing on the Internet.  Without it, we are dead in the water.  Hopefully, I have learned something from this little lesson.  At least I know that my lens is in good shape!

I would have to live two lifetimes to be able to learn everything there is to know about affiliate marketing.  However, as a member of Wealthy Affiliate, I’ve made more progress in the month that I’ve been with them than I have made in the entire 10 years that I have been marketing online trying to learn by myself.  The reason I can make that claim is because I have everything in one place.  Sure, you can learn it by digging through the thousands of blogs and sites online.  Me?  I am 65, and I just don’t have the time.  I don’t think anybody can get a better testimonial for a resource than that.  And it is good for my soul to know that I’m probably not as smart as I think I am…

Peace,

Charlie~

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As many of you know, I have recently joined  Wealthy Affiliate.  It is probably one of the best decisions I have ever made.  I think the thing I like most about Wealthy Affiliate is the fact that forum there is filled with people with all levels of experience.  I’ve been online marketing for 10 years now, and learned very quickly that if you want decent information, all you need to do is go to the forums.

A couple of years ago, I won a contest put on by David Schwartz.  My prize with a copy of Dragon Naturally Speaking Preferred 9 and a USB headset.  I have tried speech recognition software before, but have never had good luck with it.  I plugged in Dragon Naturally Speaking and immediately began setting it up it was a bit of a hassle getting it to recognize my voice and getting it to be 99% correct.  Because I was very busy at the time, I did not really get into the application.

One of the things I decided when I got into affiliate marketing was to apply the process with little or no capital outlay.  Because I am a freelance writer, I knew I could drive the lot of traffic using article marketing.  So began a lot of late-night hours hammering away on this old keyboard and producing articles to submit to the directories.

One of the features on Wealthy Affiliate that I particularly like is a component called Share.  This component features tutorials by many of the more experienced affiliate marketers, and the level of advice and information is awesome.  While browsing the Share section the other day, I came across a tutorial by an experienced affiliate marketer that taught writing articles by using Dragon Naturally Speaking. I remembered that I had Dragon NaturallySpeaking put away in the closet, and had forgotten about for a long time.  I dug everything out, put the app on my computer, and set it up to test run.

I’m very glad that I did.  Dragon NaturallySpeaking is an awesome application.  It is one of the most accurate ones on the market.  Because the average person speaks at 156 words per minute, it effectively boosted my typing speed to that level.  One of the tricks that I use, and have good success with, is through the use of PLR articles.  Basically, what I do is this.  I open up the PLR article in Word.  I create a lot of white space between paragraphs.  Then, I go in and do a complete rewrite.  This works very well for me.  Not only do I have unique content, I also have an article that is produced in my own unique voice.

Dragon Naturally Speaking improves this process by 1000%.  I sat down last night, opened up an article, and rewrote it in under five minutes.  I was amazed at the word count when I finished.  It was considerably higher than the original article, and nothing like the original.  It amazed me to no end.

I will continue with this process.  It works so well that it has increased my productivity by 100%.  Dragon Naturally Speaking is slowly beginning to recognize my speech patterns, it is consistently cutting back on the number of errors, and for me is a much more relaxing process.  I can lean back in my chair, gather my thoughts, and then began speaking.  Dragon Naturally Speaking does the rest of the work for me.  I can format text, cut and paste, and do a lot of other things.  I’ve always been big on technology.  Anything that makes my life easier is top dog in my book.  So I will continue to use Dragon Naturally Speaking, get it to be more accurate by using it over a period of time, and increase productivity.  It doesn’t get any better than that.

Peace,

Charlie~

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I am certain that the information provided is good.  I am also certain that many savvy “goo-roos” leave out snippets of information that means success or failure.  They call it upsell, and you see it every day.  Some of it is outright blatant, like an offer I saw today on affiliate marketing.  Man, this guy must think people are really stupid!  The bad part of doing business in this fashion is this- it is gonna come back and bite you in the butt sooner or later.  Online, the only thing we have is our reputation.  If we burn enough people, the word gets around, and you are the laughingstock of the internet marketing world.  I am betting that everyone can name a few.

Another thing that bothers me is the testimonials people use on sites to add credibility.  We have no idea of who a lot of these people are, and if we do, why is their name plastered all over every new launch.  This reason alone is why I no longer do business with Joe Vitale.  He endorsed everything, and I had to believe that either he has a tremendous ego and likes to see his picture all over the place, or he is getting some kind of kickback for adding his testimonial to a product.  Sorry Joe, it doesn’t wash with me any longer.  BTW, always read a testimonial.  Tell me how many times a person giving the testimony actually says that the made X amount of dollars using the exact method taught by the seller of the product.  You may be surprised.  Sally may make an extra $1,000 a month, but does it specifically say by using Master Product X?  Or did she really just get a second job?

I made up my mind when I begin working with Wealthy Affiliate that I would never fall into these traps again.  I did a lot of due diligence before I signed up with Carson & Kyle.  I asked around a lot, read every review I could find, and even set a Google alert to gather information.  I am very glad I made this move, and even happier I made the effort to research them.  I am learning so much about affiliate marketing now that I am almost assured success if I stick to it.  I surely won’t fail with them because of lack of resources and tools.  I have been on information overload for the first three weeks, but that is a good thing.  I have a plan, I am following it, and I will see results soon.  Stay tuned…

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I have a minimalist approach to organization - probably because it is such a PITA. I don’t use a Palm Pilot, although I had one and found that all the synching and necessary upkeep was also disturbing to me. Instead I carry a Hipster around with me - a handful of 3X5 index cards bound with a binding clip. It works for me. When Google came out with Notebooks, I was ecstatic because I could keep track of things I wished to, and had less fuss and bother.

So I took to the web to find an alternative. I found it no closer than Twitter, where I learned about Evernote. I checked it out and took some time this AM to do the download thing and get it set up. It is a bit more complicated than I like, but I am really just blasting the learning curve here. It works, and works well. The thing I like the most is the ability to capture images and save to my notebooks. That was one thing about Google Notebooks that fell a bit short, IMHO. I have already collected a lot of images for a campaign I am launching that is image intensive.

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Being a freelance writer means you don’t get a lot of time to yourself. I got a new guitar and amplifier for Christmas, and have had it out of the case exactly twice since then. That’s not good, no matter how you look at it. I also have a new granddaughter, and she tugs at an old man’s heartstrings to visit and hold. At a month old, she has stolen my heart. But here I sit, pounding away, and researching how residual income is made.

Residual income is of course the income you receive after doing a lot of hard work to get traffic. Your efforts, if they pay off, mean that you have articles and SEO optimization working for you. That is what the “goo-roos” meaning by making money while you sleep. They neglect to tell you that, to get there, you had better be prepared to do a ton of work.

There are two schools of thought here. In one, you write article after article and submit to the directories. The other is building a pay per click campaign and paying for traffic to your site. Which do you think is the best?

The answer may surprise you. Pay per click, although driving instant traffic, does not guarantee sales. If your adgroup isn’t set up right, and you are targeting the wrong keywords, you end up a loser. Even if you are getting clicks, they can be sporadic, and you will be constantly tweaking the campaign and agonizing over every comma and period. Personally, I have enough to worry about. My one and only experience with pay per click cost me $200.00 on a limited campaign. I made $17.97 from that campaign. After that, I set out to find a better way. Note that I did not say “easier.” Pay per click is the “easier” part of the equation.

As a professional writer, I find that it best suits me to write articles and post to directories. I make good use of social bookmarking and networking, and I make every effort to see that my landing page is fully optimized. I know that when my articles hit the top spot in Google, as they inevitably do, that they will remain in place for a long time. I have articles in the top position for competitive keywords that were published in 2005. At Ezinearticles.com I have had 28,613 views on my articles. If they had converted at 5-6%, I would be a millionaire now.

So why am I not? Before, I was driving traffic to my writing and hobby sites. Now that I am serious about affiliate marketing, I expect the same results. I begin writing articles for affiliate marketing the first of this year. I am seeing 100 and better article views a day. In 22 days that isn’t bad. I am also submitting 2-4 articles a day. I am building an empire, and one that will sustain me in income without hammering this keyboard. I go through one keyboard per year writing. I want the next one to last for 10…

Peace,

Charlie~

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I have been marketing online since 1998.  I did the eBay thing, have done a bit of affiliate marketing, but mostly have relied on freelance work to make my living.  It has been very goods these past few years, with sometimes more work than I can handle.

My income is derived from ad revenues.  If people aren’t advertising like they did before the bottom fell out, then my work gets cut back.  Pretty simple, really.  I have been tied up in the birth of a new granddaughter, and have my own share of issues, both physical and mental.  So I have been cruising this past year, taking work as it come, finishing and meeting deadlines, and getting on with life.  Last July, the bottom DID fall out, and I have seen a real reduction in earnings.

Not being one to just sit on my scrawny old ass and take it on the chin, I decided it was time to get serious about affiliate marketing.  It makes the most sense - I have professional writing skills, know how to build websites, and I know a bit about SEO and social networking.  I decided to dive in.

I begin the whole process by going to Twitter and asking what the best affiliate marketing website was.  I was told that undoubtedly the best online is Wealthy Affiliate.  I joined Wealthy Affiliate and begin the whole process of learning what there is to know.  Believe me when I say that Kyle & Carson, owners of WA, leave no stone unturned.  If anything, it is a bit overwhelming at first.  But I think that I have hit the best thing since sliced bread.  There are tons of tools, resources, tutorials and a great forum.  The amount of information there is the best I have seen, and believe me when I say I have been on a lot of subscription sites over the 10 years I have been marketing.  My only dissatisfaction is the fact I didn’t get to them sooner.  I would be sitting on the beach in the Maldives instead of freezing my butt off here in mid-Michigan!  You couldn’t ask for anything better than this if you are serious about affiliate marketing.

I am also in the process of changing the looks of the site, as you can see.  New direction calls for changes, and the old theme was getting a bit tired.  Gonna make this puppy Web 2.0 compliant or die trying.

I am going to focus the blog more on affiliate marketing now that this is my new direction.  Hope you find my posts interesting and helpful…

Peace,

Charlie~

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I downloaded Content Kahuna today from Jason Potash of PortalFeeder fame. I have always liked his soft. I use Article Announcer and Orwell constantly, because the whole idea behind software, Bub, is to save ya time. These apps do it for me.

Basically it is a crawler that allows you to input keywords, set a profile and search for blogs that are relative to your keyword phrase. You comment, not spamming the blog BTW, and you can then save the results. It is a great way to get backlinks to your own blog, and if ya do it right, gives you some real link juice. I just installed a couple of days ago, and the darn thing wouldn’t let me save my profile. The creators must have seen this right off the bat, because an update went out almost immediately.

I tried it out tonight after finishing my latest assignment. I am curious to see if it works as it says it will. time will tell. I will check my AWStats and keep an eye on Google Analytics to see what happens. but the price, which happens to be free, is great for an app that lets you post comments to blogs of your own niche. And it will be a real time saver in the process.

If you do any marketing at all, I am sure you have been flooded with emails about it. Check it out. It is a nice little program.

Did I say it was free?

Peace,

Charlie~

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Surprise!  Did I ever make an error here!  I let the automatic updater do its thing, which took all of Sunday afternoon.  Upon attempting to use the OS, I ran into a ton of troubles.  I couldn’t connect to the internet, and no matter how much Google time I spent, couldn’t find the right answer.  So, finally on Monday I decided to try to reverse the process, and get Feisty Fawn back.  With a lot of screwing around I was able to do so.

Gutsy Gibbon was only released a couple of weeks ago, and it is fer shure that they don’t have the bugs out.  If you are running Feisty Fawn successfully, then wait until the bugs are worked out of the new release before attempting to install. You’ll thank me later (unless your a masochist!)

Peace,

Charlie~

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I have always wanted to use Linux. I had it once before and it was great. I used it on a dual boot machine w/ Win95, and it was bullet proof. When that old box died, I never returned to the experience.

Today I decided what the hell, and decided to give Ubuntu a try. I did a Google search, and found Wubi, which is an installer for a Windows machine that does away with the hassle of downloading an iso image and going to all the bother. I was hesitant on giving it a try, but Windows XP is getting funky again, and I figured I had nothing to lose.

I download the Wubi file, which is an exe file. I loaded it up, and it begin the process of downloading and installing Ubuntu. I walked away for a while because the download is about 639 MB. when I come back, Wubi had done its thing and I proceeded to the install.

It took a few minutes, but it worked flawlessly. It configured all my internet connections and it was an instant go. I can use Firefox, Thunderbird, and it came w/ Open Office. I am impressed.

There are of course disadvantages. I don’t have my tunes because iTunes isn’t on this install, and I don’t think it’ll work w/ Ubuntu. But I have everything a freelancer needs. The Notepad is great, and I have a full blown word processor and spreadsheet setup. The great thing about Ubuntu? Everything is open source and therefore free. it don’t get any better than that. Give Ubuntu a try. You might just get hooked on this fast open source OS.

Peace,

Charlie~

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