This week I met some cool Seattle-area internet marketers like Chris Guthrie who runs Make Money on the Internet and Caliban Darklock (the guy with the long hair and the “Here’s Johnny!” smile on the Warrior Forum) among other cool guys (and one gal).

I had to walk around the block a few times to work up the courage to go into the coffee shop the meeting was at.  I will admit that meeting “big players” in internet marketing (ie. people actually making a healthy living income) is a bit intimidating for me.  I guess on some level I feel like I’m just some dweeb doing some online shenanigans for a few bucks and that the “real” marketers are doing something dramatically different or won’t take me seriously or something.

Anyway, this week has been more of the same.  Submitting articles, adding messages to my newsletters, working hard…

I also wasted a lot of time trying to determine a good digital camera to get for my trip to Thailand.  One thing that’s cool about working for yourself is that you can waste massive amounts of time doing things like this without having to answer to a draconian boss.

Did you guys (and gals) see Glen’s SEO strategy on Viper Chill this week?  What do you think about this?  To me it seems way too simple and easy to be true.  But if it’s effective, I’ll give it a shot.  It sure sounds better than spending months writing and spinning articles for article marketing.

I think after I finish my 1-year experiment next month, I’m going to do an experiment with different traffic generation strategies.  Maybe have 3 or 4 different websites and use different methods to promote each one to determine the most effective way (i.e. easiest way) to promote a website.  Does this seem like something you would be interested in?  And if so, do you have any promotional strategies you’d like to see me try?  I’m considering giving Viper Chill’s Cloud Living a test drive.  I’ve got a few other ideas too, but their not really packaged up neatly into a shiny e-book.

PS: OMG!  Next week is the AffiloJetpack launch and if you’re chomping at the bit to get a butt-load of cool awesome content for niches like weight loss, men’s dating tips, relationship advice, self-help, among others, consider checking out my AffiloJetpack bonus package.

If you’re thinking of entering these niches, you need to understand them well.  Do you know what a PUA is (or why one would neg an SHB)?  Do you know why drinking water is important to weight loss?  Do you know what the “no contact” rule is and why it’s so powerful?  Do you know what it means to align your vibrational frequency with your intentions?  Well I do.  I can rewrite some of the content articles you get with AffiloJetpack (so that they count as unique content) in a way that will earn your visitors’ trust and not just make you look like some half-baked marketing tool that pretends to be an expert.

Plus, I’m offering free beer.  Can it get any better?

This week has been a little off.  I took a short camping trip last weekend to Mt. Rainier with my girlfriend and went hiking through the forest.  My girlfriend took some vacation time this week too so I’ve been working part-time on IM to spend more time with her.  Plus I got this stupid rash on my right hand from camping (I think) and it makes typing more difficult…

Anyway, I’ve shifted focus to website #4 for link building.  This really excites me since this is one of my “big earners.”

I sent James Pruitt my keywords and URL for him to give me my cool prize for his blogging contest.  I’m eager to see the results from his social bookmarking.  I want to branch out from SEO to get traffic from other means.  Heck, this blog is actually a big experiment in non-SEO traffic!  I do absolutely zero SEO work on this blog and I get about 1500 visitors / month just from forum posting and blog commenting.  Not too shabby.

I’m still ridiculously stressed at the moment trying to keep up with my worker.  I wish there was some kind of easy push-button way to build backlinks without so much work.  I just want to send someone a couple hundred bucks and say “here build links to every one of the pages on my site,” without having to go into some lengthy, in-depth discussion of exactly what I want them to do.  I guess I can just keep dreaming

But things are pretty consistent.  If I make a sale tomorrow and Sunday, then I’ll finally put a sale on every day of my Clickbank report.  I’ve got my fingers crossed…

PS: Who else likes free beer? They say you can’t buy friendship, but I beg to differ!  If you buy AffiloJetpack through my affiliate link, not only will you get my awesome AffiloJetpack bonuses, but I will also be your IM BFF and buy you beer.

We can talk about internet marketing, travel, self-employment , or I can just be your wingman and help you work up the courage to talk to that hot girl (or guy) that’s been eying you from across the bar all night.

My AffiloJetpack bonus package is the only bonus package that offers free beer.  Your search is over!

Okay.  I’m starting to feel anxious here.  I’m getting dangerously close to 52 weeks here and I’m not a freakin’ millionaire yet!  In fact, my current monthly earnings only put me at about $15,600 / year gross income.  This is probably about 1/3 of what I would like to be making.  Granted, my friend tells me that everything is 1/3 cheaper in Buenos Aires, so I know I can get by somewhere on what I make now.  Still I have dreams of visiting more expensive places like Europe, Japan, Austrailia, and New Zealand (I have to find some way of personally thanking Mark Ling for turning my life around).  But I’ve still got just under 2 months to ramp this up.

The only problem is I’m grappling with burn-out and exhaustion.  Fortunately, one of the skills I learned in my 6 years of college is self-inflicted suffering, so I’m not going to give up.  Not by a long shot.

Anyway, I’m still slugging away.  More directory submissions.  More web 2.0 sites.  More wasting time reading news stories when I know I should be working.

Someone in Florida likes me (and no, I’m not talking about that girl I used to date that went to UF)!  This week I won James Pruitt’s blog commenting contest.  I want to return the favor, so I will be keeping you all updated on how effective James Pruitt’s social bookmarking efforts are on my sites.  I’ve been thinking of branching out into other means of getting traffic besides SEO, and this is a great opportunity.

I don’t know if you know this, but in addition to Affilorama, I’ve also been really interested in Niche Profit Classroom.  The legendary Jem008 at Affilorama (you know, he’s the guy that was making over $1000 per week in the success stories forum) says he combined AffiloBlueprint with NPC to get his explosive results.  Anyway, last night Adam Short, the guy that run NPC, held a webinar where he gave out a free 1-month membership to NPC.  So I got in on that.  I’m snooping around to steal as many cool ideas as I can to hopefully copy Jem008’s success.

This weekend I’m going on a short camping trip to Mt. Rainier.  I wanted to go to Victoria, Canada, but the costs of ferry tickets plus hotels kind of added up.  I’m too poor to really afford a proper vacation, but my girlfriend got some time off work and I think I could use some time “unplugged” from the internet.  This should be fun!

Things have been going well this week, sales-wise.  I’m excited to dive back in though and make that final push to get up to a living wage.

PS: Hey if you haven’t heard yet, I’m taking part in the AffiloJetpack launch.  So if you’re thinking of buying AffiloJetpack check out my cool AffiloJetpack bonuses.

Well, June is over and that means I need to do another monthly update.  In June I made $1338.82.  When I break it down to each website’s performance it looks like this:

Website #1 – $204.86  ($86.58 from PPC)
Website #2 – $94.04
Website #3 – $148.44
Website #4 – $665.40
Website #5 – $0  (on hold)
Website #6 – $205.14
Website #7 – $0
Other Shenanigans – $20.94

My income was just a little lower than last month.  But I’m not complaining.  Most of it was completely passive.  All the work I’m doing these days hasn’t kicked in yet, so I’m really excited to see the results next month!

It seems like all I can do is just barely stay ahead of my worker.  Between proof-reading spun articles, making web 2.0 sites, and submitting to a handful of directories, I’m spread pretty thin.  This is just growing pains though, and it should only last until I can finish my mad dash to my August 26th deadline or until I can find some sort of clever way to download all my scattered thoughts to my worker.

I am currently weighing outsourcing all of my link building efforts.  Has anyone ever used Offshore Ally or any other backlinking service?  I probably won’t get around to this for a few months, but I want to start shopping around.

Also, is anyone out there considering getting AffiloJetpack?  I’m putting together a bonus package and I’m wondering if there’s anything you guys would like to see to sweeten the deal?  Currently, I’m thinking I could do some keyword research and header design for you.  What do you think?

Well, I made it through the awkward gear-shifting phase from writing/spinning articles to article marketing.  Surprisingly this is a lot more difficult than it sounds when you’re juggling 7 websites and trying to keep your writer busy.

I’m now doing some heavy backlinking together with my worker on websites #3 and #7.  This is probably what I’ll be doing for the rest of the summer.

On Wednesday the internet decided that it was going to be huge pain in the ass for me.  Hubpages stopped working and I couldn’t make a hub.  Same with Tumblr.  And Tripod became almost useless by making all the text I gave it invisible and inserting random symbols everywhere in my blog posts.

Anyway, I’ve got way too much to do these days.  If you see me skulking around leaving comments on your blog or posting too much on Affilorama, smack me and tell me to stop slacking off and get back to work

Also, I think I’m going to put together a bonus package for the AffiloJetpack launch.  I have an idea that might just be stupid enough to work.  If nothing else you’ll get a good laugh out of it.  If you’re interested in AffiloJetpack, I will totally be your IM BFF if you buy through my affiliate link   Stay tuned…

This month has been a little slower than last month despite slowly increasing traffic.  I think it’s because I added a lot of unmonetized pages on my sites that were “leaking” visitors.  I patched up the problem this week with more monetizing.  Hopefully this will help boost sales.  So far I’ve already made two sales from the website after I monetized the extra pages.

Overall, things have been more consistent though.  No dry spells, no hot streaks.  I’m making about one or two sales per day, which is pretty nice for someone like me that craves consistency.

Wow!  Week 42.  That means I only have 10 weeks before it’s been a whole year.  I’ve got to step up my game!

I’m done writing articles for now and I got articles spun for my girlfriend’s website (others will be completed soon).  Now it’s time for some intensive backlinking!  Personally, I enjoy this more than writing or spinning articles because I don’t have to think very hard (I told you I’m lazy, right?).  Just copy and paste articles while listening to an audiobook or a podcast in the background.  Actually it’s quite enjoyable

I decided to not worry about blog networks for now.  I’m doing something right, so I’m not going to ask any questions.  Once I get caught up with article marketing, then I can take a look at how effective AMA and all those other networks are, and correct course if necessary.

Anyway, I got back spun articles for my girlfriend’s website.  I’m helping with the link building for her site.  All of our sites are part of the same company, she’s just the “project manager” (or whatever) for this site and she has her own Clickbank account.  So, you won’t see any results for her site on this blog.  But it gives me something to do while I’m waiting to get spun articles back for my own sites.

This week was pretty good.  Looks like I’m on track to making somewhere between $1000 – $1500 this month.

I keep steamrolling ahead with these sites.  I’m getting articles spun while I finish up writing the last few sets of original articles.  I finished the additional articles for website #2 bringing it up to 50 content articles.  I’m feeling really optimistic about my keywords and the potential for my websites.  I can’t wait to start building backlinks

Now I just need to focus on website #1 and then its time for some fierce backlink building!

I’ve been reading some posts on forums here and there about how blog networks like AMA and such are pretty much worthless due to the fact that the majority of the sites that get content from these services suck (no visitors, no PR, some don’t even change from the default WP theme).  I’m curious if this is true?  Are there any alternatives?

Sales-wise, this week wasn’t particularly remarkable.  I’m still feeling pretty optimistic though.  All the vital stats for my sites are consistent, so no harm done.  Summer is going to start any day now in Seattle (keeping my fingers crossed), and I’m nearly ready for this second wave of intense article marketing hopefully in time to play in the sun a little bit.

Well, it looks like I’ve got just under 3 months to hit my $2500 / month mark by my August 26th deadline.

In May I made $1360.53.  Seeing as how I may be interested in selling some sites down the road, I thought it might be a good idea to start documenting their individual monthly earnings:

Website #1 – $349.50 ($142.74 from PPC)
Website #2 – $61.53
Website #3 – $151.03 ($22.72 from PPC)
Website #4 – $373.21
Website #5 – $0 (website on hold)
Website #6 – $334.02
Website #7 – $0
Other Shenanigans – $91.24

This week I shifted focus to Website #2 for generating more content articles.  I am sticking with my productivity trick from last week to pump out heaps of articles.

One of my good friends recently graduated from college and moved back to Seattle.  She’s considering leaving her profession as well, so I gave her a copy of the 4 Hour Work Week.  This got me thinking that I’ve, in many ways, drifted away from the 4HWW lifestyle.  I guess I’ve just been busting my ass trying to get my “muse” up on it’s feet.

I’m thinking of revisiting the 4HWW and all of the exercises in the book in order to get on track for my trip this autumn (whether it be Thailand, Argentina, or elsewhere).

Anyway, this week my dry spell ended and I made some good money.  I’m feeling really good about the next few months.

My productivity has dipped over the past few weeks.  I’m trying to get back on track, especially if I’m going to hit my $2500 / month goal in 3 months.  This week I’ve been keeping myself productive by logging what I do all day in 15 minute increments.  At first, this was just an experiment to see where I’m wasting all of my time, but it has taken on an unexpected productivity-boosting effect.  I guess I don’t want to look back on 8 hours worth of data only to see that I’ve wasted 4 hours of it playing Bejeweled online.  Well, whatever works…

I’m thinking of selling my car.  I barely ever use it anymore, plus apparently it is against the law to park your car anywhere for over 72 hours within the Seattle city limits (rarely enforced, except in my neighborhood).  If anyone lives in the Seattle-metro area and is interested in a 2005 Toyota Corolla in good condition, please contact me.  I’ve had this car for 4 years and it has literally never broken down on me or had any problems.

Anyway, I’m pumping out heaps of articles these days thanks to my productivity trick.  I wrote 23 articles in just 3 days.  This was enough to get website #3 up to 50 content articles and give me time to tweak the site and have it looking extra-sexy.  Meanwhile my worker is cranking out more articles for websites #4 and #6.  I’m well on my path to world domination.

I went through another dry spell this week.  Whenever a dry spell hits, it usually starts to get to me after a few days.  I’m so close to actually earning more than I spend each month, so each and every sale is very important to me.  This week was pretty tough on me.

Clickbank Mystery: This morning I made a sale of $4.15 for a product that I have never promoted.  I have never made an affiliate link for the product, so I have no clue how this happened?  Any guesses?

Every now and again, I get hop clicks for products I promoted over a year ago in my direct-linking PPC days.  I never really thought much of it, but this new development is just bizarre…

Well, as expected, my “hot streak” is over (for now).  It was nice making $450 in one week, but I sort of knew I couldn’t keep it up without more traffic.  I’ll eventually make $450 weeks the norm, but it will take some time.

This week was pretty cool, though.  I sold this product that costs over $400 and I get a 50% commission on it.  The person that bought it did a monthly installment plan, so I get about $50 a month for the next 3 months.  Pretty sweet!  This makes me want to promote that product more.  And just think… I was starting to lose faith in non-clickbank affiliate programs

I also cleaned up some websites this week and made them a bit nicer-looking.  Hopefully this will help conversions.

Over the past few weeks I’ve been trying to slowly add content to all of my sites.  For some reason, this made me feel overwhelmed.  So instead I’m going to focus on one site at a time.  This seems to be a lesson that I have to learn over and over again: don’t spread yourself too thin.

Question: Has anyone that reads this blog ever sold a website?  I really want to know how to do that.  More importantly though, how do you determine how much a website is worth?  Mark Ling says it would be realistic to sell an AB-type site for 18-48 months of earnings.  What would make a website worth 18 months vs. 48 months of earnings?  I’m not interested in selling anything just yet, but I might be a few months from now depending on how much my sites are worth…