Where Have I Been Lately?

I wanted to make a quick post just to let my readers know that I am still here, and still updating my site (although I am extremely far behind). I will be posting soon what my 2012 plans are, and how my sites have been doing post-Panda.

I have been building sites a little different from what I have  done in the past as I continue to try and “please” the big “G”.  I will also be posting to let you know what I have changed.

I would love to hear from some of you and get an update on what is going on in your internet marketing world.

I will be posting soon…

Melissa

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October 2011 Niche Site Earnings and Flippa Report

What on earth did I do to deserve a Panda attack?  I was hit by Google’s Panda update, and it affected quite a few of my sites.  On exactly September 29, 2011, I noticed that many of my sites had tanked!  At first I panicked, and then realized that if it weren’t for challenges, it wouldn’t be internet marketing.  It is just another obstacle we have to deal with when trying to earn a living online.  11 of my sites dropped more than 3 places in Google, and I cannot figure out why those sites were affected, but no others.  There is really no rhyme or reason, at least not that I can tell as of now.

The good news for October is that I finally listed some of my sites on Flippa to see what would happen.  I listed them with no reserve, which scared me a little. I would have hated to see a bid for $50 win the auction, but it was a chance I had to take.

I listed 6 of my sites together as one auction. The total Adsense revenue for all sites was $200.00 per month. I set the auction to last 5 days, and there were bids almost immediately, although they were low bids, it was a good thing because the more bids you have, the higher your listing goes when people are searching Flippa.

At any rate, my sites sold for $2,000 to a very honest buyer.  It was a scary process for me, but I am so glad I jumped out of my comfort zone and finally went for it.  Now I know what my sites are worth, and that is exactly what I wanted to find out.

October 2011 Earnings

Adsense: $1,230.05

Amazon: $45.96

CPA Network: $266.64

CJ: $39.73

Linkshare: $22.41 (new addition to my affiliate programs – I am currently promoting one website with this network, and the results have been looking pretty good)

Flippa Sale: $2,000

Total October 2011 Earnings = $3,604.78

My original plan for October was to build a site a day, but I failed miserably.  I have been focusing on getting my sites back up in the rankings, and hopefully when I report for November, I will be able to give you more details.

I only launched 5 sites in October, and I swear I will do better next month.

Keep on building your sites, and don’t let things like Panda discourage you.  If you are seeing results, then you are doing something right!  Now just keep doing it.

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My Internet Marketing Milestone…

Well, I wanted to write about something today that is not related to internet marketing, yet has everything to do with it. What did I just say?

Well, first I want to thank all of my regular readers who come here to honestly try and learn how to be successful rather then just spamming my blog (those don’t get published).  I appreciate you, and I hope that you are taking action on whatever it is that you are set out to do.  Whether it be Clickbank, physical products, Adsense, or creating your own product, the truth of the matter is it will never happen for you if you don’t start right now, and make it happen.

The reality is, it’s work (don’t let anyone tell you it’s not), takes a lot of time when you first get started, and can be extremely frustrating at times, making you feel discouraged, and like giving up. Why does that happen?  Because it is work that’s why.  But the real problem comes in when there are so many people telling you what to do that you feel like your brain is going to explode with information that you have no idea what to do with.Is the information even accurate? Are they just trying to get you to click their affiliate link or buy their product?

If you look around on my site, you will see that I have not recommended a paid product related to internet marketing (other than the CTR Theme) since I purchased 3 products back in February and March of 2011.  If you go to my Affiliate Product Reviews category, you will see that there is no affiliate link in any of the 3 reviews I made in February and March of 2011, and there never has been.  Why?  Because they were junk, and I would never recommend a product if I did not feel it would help my readers.

With that said, I want to share a personal milestone that has been a long time coming.

Although I now make more online than I make working at my full time job, I am not quitting my job just yet.  What I am doing is going down to part time.  Instead of working 5 days/wk, 8 hours/day, I have reduced my week down to 3 days at my job.  I know that this may seem silly to many of you, but to me the reality has not really sunk in just yet, and I want to be very comfortable with my monthly earnings before I actually “Fire my Boss”.

With the 2 extra days per week, while my husband is at work and the kids are at school, what do you think I am going to be doing?

  1. Watching soap operas
  2. Buying more junk affiliate products
  3. Playing on Facebook
  4. Spending the day at the mall
  5. Building niche websites

You got it!  I am going to be building more websites, and increasing my monthly earnings so that I can quit my job for good, and know that I will be ok, even on a bad month.

My question for you is, what are you going to do after you read this post?

  1. Go out with your friends
  2. Play on Facebook
  3. Read emails
  4. Buy more junk affiliate marketing products
  5. Do keyword research, buy a domain name, write some articles, and build a niche website

It’s your future, so you decide, but I would love nothing more than for all of you to answer #5.  That is where it’s at guys.  You don’t have to build sites forever, build them for a few months, get a steady amount of income coming in from Adsense, then venture off into something else that you feel comfortable doing.

If you need a reminder of how quickly you can make money with Adsense, read this post!

If you do take me up, and start #5, please leave me a comment. I would love to root you on!

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Residual Income at it’s Best

For those of you who are regular readers of my site, you may remember when I posted my July earnings in early August that I had mentioned I had not worked at all in July.  Well, I did not work at all in August either.  I had planned to, but the month got ahead of me, had to do school shopping, daughter started soccer, and on and on…

With all of that said, it was really nice to see that deposit this morning from Adsense for $1,650.31.  I have done little to no work for 2 months, and I still made a nice little sum in July.

I do plan to wrap up the results from my 30 site challenge.  I wanted to wait until all of my sites were up and running, and would you believe it will be 3 months since I completed my challenge come the beginning of September.

I know that many of you are probably curious to see how my sites did from the challenge, and I do plan on giving you results for each one individually (without the site name of course :) )

I also plan to share with you my new challenge that I will be beginning in  September.  You won’t want to miss this one!

Until then,

Melissa

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