Revisiting my Goals for 2007

5 People Speaking Their Mind - Put In Your Two Cents!

Posted on September 9, 2007 in CPA Affiliate Announcements, Working Online  

Ok so back in December for 2006 i set some goals for myself  for 2007 and I figured it was time to revisit them.

1. Improve my health as a web entrepreneur, we have atendacy to sit on our rears a lot. I have a gym membership but have been maybe 10 times. (I do play basketball every other tuesday though)

Unfortunately I have done very little towards this goal EXCEPT i am pumped their is a LA fitness opening up near me that will have Racquetball courts and i used to love playing so when they open up i will be playing like CRAZY! And i cancelled my 24hr fitness membership due to this.

2. Increase Company profit by 40%.

Done! I actually made more by the end of July than i did in 2006 :).  

3. Do even more Networking by attending conferences. 

Done Went to Affiliate Summit East and I will be making a trip to visit PepperJam Search and Kris Jones this week.

4. Do more experiments with PPC (including 3rd tier)

I have done so and my first tier experiments are going great but once again proving that most 3rd tier are garbage… but I am still testing…

5. Hire a Web Designer and Programmer. (Ties a little bit to #2) 

Done and Done… while not full time I have them a guaranteed amount of work each month.

6. Finish 3 sites that I have been working on since March 2006.

2 of the sites are done and up and running the 3rd is close to completition. (had some CPA offers I had to tackle and get rocking thus held off on pushing the 3rd to completion.)

7. Get my 2nd Business off the ground that I am partnering with my Dad on.

This one is basically on hold partly due to #2 and #4 ;).

8. Get CPA Affiliates shirts made and give some away!

I had the T-shirts made and have given some of them away. I guess i should hold a contest on my blog to give them away and not just at conferences and other people that have hit me up for one.

9. Revamp one of my first sites Based on Investing - http://www.investingpub.com. As in 2006 it basically got neglected.

Still being neglected…. but maybe at some point i will get to it… as other projects have become priority.

So there you have it. Not to bad if you ask me. and the year is just a little more than half over! Where do you stand with your 2007 goals? If you didn’t ahve any set them NOW it’s never to late.

A Revolution Coming to Wordpress

3 People Speaking Their Mind - Put In Your Two Cents!

Posted on August 23, 2007 in Working Online  

A Revolution Theme has come to Word Press. Many of us out there love to utilize wordpress for our blogs but even our sites. Well this theme is kicking it when it comes to making your blog style and design look a “website”. While the theme isn’t free it is cheap $59.95 and you gain access to all the future updates of the design. Plus the design is taking requests for what people would like the theme to be, able to do and look like. Straight from the developers site:

Why You Should Use the Revolution Theme

Revolution is user friendly, customizable theme that is an ideal solution for online magazines, online newspapers, and other websites that wish to use WordPress as a content management system. Custom themes can easily cost you more than $1000, so the $59.95 is a steal!

So If you utilize wordpress then I suggest you check out the Revolution Theme. I will be putting it to use on a few future projects :).

Leaving Your Day Job to Work Online

15 People Speaking Their Mind - Put In Your Two Cents!

Posted on August 20, 2007 in Affiliate Tips, Working Online  

Many people know that in October of 2006 I left my day job (Electrical Engineer) to work online full time, and i get asked all the time how i did it. Well today i am going to go over some things i did to prepare for that day but also how i came to the conclusion that it was worth the risk. ***

First thing I suggest to anyone is that if you are currently doing it as a hobby don’t use the extra money to just have fun, use it to pay off debt. When i turned in my resignation at my day job the only debt i had was my mortgage, no car notes, no credit card bills. I was able to do this because i planned ahead and used the extra money i was making online to pay off those debts. I would highly suggest this to anyone that is considering leaving, that is if you have debt at all.  (If you don’t already have one, build up a nest egg that you culd support your family for atleast 6 months, i recomend a year but 6 months will do.)

Second can i handle working from home or do i need an office. This is a tough call for many but was easy for me. I don’t have kids yet only my wife, so i know the distractions would be minimal. I chose to work at home and so far it has been great. If i had kids i would probably have to rent out an office or build a seperate building or something so that they would know Dad is going away to work.

Thirdly and most important can you handle the ups and downs that come with working online. Talk to any person making money online and they will tell you about the ups and downs. Server crashes, boots from google, hackers, Clients not paying, a fad dies off, the list goes on. With that you want to diversify your revenue streams and make plans of how you handle server outtages etc.. (if 100% critical there are companies that guarantee 100% up time but you will pay for it. ) Depending on how you plan to make your living online will vary your ups and downs greatly. For me i mainly do affiliate marketing, IF an offer gets pulled or cancelled that could mean hundreds or thousands of profit i won’t be getting anymore. Do i panic…. well maybe a little but then i gain composer and move on to the next thing. But with that i also have a baseline of normal websites earning revenue for me thru various revenue streams. so even when i “panic” my earnings online will still more than cover my bills its more of man that sucks that i am not making that anymore.

How did i decide it was worth the risk??? Well it came down to a conversation with my wife as i was basically working two jobs and i enjoyed both of them. One working as electrical engineer from 8 to 5, and from 6 to 10 as webprenuer. As you can see doesn’t leave a whole lot of time for family. So after much thought and discussion. I concluded i didn’t want to look back on my like 5 or 10 years from now still working as an engineer saying i wonder what would have happened had i gone full time working online. That is what sold it for me as i never want to live life with regrets… plus what was the worst case… my wife would have to find a job and i would have to find a job. Not so bad of a failing outcome as most families both husband and wife work 8 to 5 jobs.  So from there i took the plunge into full time online work.

I do have one regret after doing this for over 9 months, I wish I had done it SOONER!

*** Please note that these are my thoughts an opinions and I am not a financial advisor. You have to make your own decision on how you want to live your life and what you want to do with your money.

10 ways to make Money without Money Online

17 People Speaking Their Mind - Put In Your Two Cents!

Posted on August 15, 2007 in Working Online  

10 ways to make money without money online was inspired by friends and family asking how they could make money online without money. Of course I tell them you can make more even if you have just a little money like 100 bucks but most said they wanted to go the free route. So here they are 10 ways to make money online without money.

1. & 2. Write on a topic using blogspot or wordpress blog and then to monetize it use adsense or cpa offers to make money off the people that visit your site.  Blogspot and wordpress naturally rank well in search engines so it won’t take long before you get some traffic.

3. Find forums to post on that allow links in your signature and put cpa offer link in footer that would appeal to the visitors of the site. Then just get to posting, make sure your posts are good and on topic otherwise you will end up getting banned.

4. Get paid to post in forums. Many people are looking to give their forums a bump in users or to help kick it off so they will pay people to sign up and make posts anywhere from a few pennies to 30 cents a post. Again quality gets the higher pay.

5. Get paid to write articles, press releases, or blog posts. Many people are looking to outsource and will pay people to write their content for them. If you are a decent writer you can make some good money doing this (some people make a living at it)

6. Get paid to submit sites for directory listings. This one will not make you a ton of money and will take more time but you can make money doing this. If you decide to do this make sure you tout that you are HAND submitting to the directories, and make sure the first few people you do submissions for are 100% correct categories titles etc..

7. Build myspace friends list then sell account. People will actual buy your myspace account from you especially if you built it up yourself and don’t have bots auto inviting thousands (even if you do people will still buy but pay less)

8.Take surveys online and get paid (pinecone research is best). Never pay to join a survey club or site as most of those are scams. All the legit ones are free to join. You can get paid anywhere from .25 up to 100.00 dollars to take surveys and even test out products (I did this right after college just for fun and got some cool stuff to test out)

9. Build up post count on popular forums then rent out forum signature or avatar for a monthly fee.

10.  Get paid to build links for sites or manage link exchanges for sites. Basically you will track and solicit sites for new links for your client. This may mean you are doing just exchanges or maybe your client has money to spend on links so you can offer payment to these sites in return for a link. If you are good at using google for finding sites on topics this could be a good one for you.

So there you have it 10 ways to make Money without Money Online. All it takes is some determination and time. Now you can get started earning some money without money.

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