Join Me for the 2008 Thirty Day Challenge!

Posted on May 16, 2008
Filed Under Affiliate Marketing, Inspiration, Internet Marketing, Thirty Day Challenge | Leave a Comment

I’m very excited - the 2008 Thirty Day Challenge is starting soon. I am finishing up 2007 and have learned so much, I’m eager for another updated round. Ed Dale is a successful online entrepreneur and shares with us how to become successful too.

The fun part is that he is always at the cutting edge. Even better - it’s free. To execute last year’s challenge, I didn’t have to spend a dime. And, he doesn’t pitch any of his products or services during it. Last year I kept looking for a catch - a “what’s in it for him” and I couldn’t find anything.

I would love it if you joined me. :) I’ll be talking a lot about my progress and would love it if you guys could chime in. Leave a comment and tell me if you guys decided to sign up or have already signed up. I’m kohuether in the forums and I’ll be posting there throughout the Challenge.

Using Google Notebook Instead of Little Scraps of Paper

Posted on May 15, 2008
Filed Under Lessons Learned, Organizing | 10 Comments

Seriously, why didn’t I think of this before? My method of writing notes on pieces of scrap paper needed work. The paper creates clutter. I lose them, and then find them again several months later when the note isn’t important anymore.

As a by-product of working through the Thirty Day Challenge, I’ve realized that Google Notebook is incredible. All I need to do is click “Open Notebook” and type my note. And it’s always there. It doesn’t get lost. I can add and subtract information as I need.

And in one of the videos, Ed Dale demonstrated that you can be on a website and if you find an interesting tidbit to save somewhere, you can highlight it, right click, and select the option that has it automatically go to the bookmark. Awesome.

Now, I just need to go through all the leftover scraps and transfer my notes and start throwing things away.

Overwhelmed By The Sheer Number of Social Sites Out There

Posted on May 13, 2008
Filed Under Promotion, Social Bookmarking, Social Networking | 10 Comments

I am doing the Thirty Day Challenge from 2007 right now. In order to do this, they advocate going to www.socialposter.com in order to submit a site quickly. That’s fine - but it’s overwhelming. In order to make these social sites really work, it seems like I’d need to spend time nurturing them - logging in, adding friends, submitting and recommending things that have nothing to do with my websites and blogs.

I’m a bit overwhelmed by it all. In fact, I am going through the list of sites that Social Poster has and I think I may have signed up for all of them - and then forgotten. I’ve done nothing with the accounts. The only social site I really pay attention to at the moment is twitter.

While I believe social sites to be a good thing, it seems that if I focus on one or two sites that I am comfortable with and nurture, I will get a lot more out of it than if I posted to twenty different sites but didn’t pay attention to the accounts.

So for now, I am going through and finding all the log in information for my accounts - then I’ll start spending time nurturing my presence on them. I think it can be really powerful if I start from scratch and pay attention to the sites the right way.

Easy Promotion - Create an Email Signature

Posted on May 9, 2008
Filed Under Lessons Learned, Promotion | 2 Comments

I can’t believe I didn’t do this before.

I’ve written articles on how to promote yourself online, build traffic to your blogs and websites, get sign ups for your list, etc. In each of these I inevitably write “Put the URL in your email signature”.

It’s really good advice, and one that I apparently didn’t take seriously until today. After hitting send on at least my thirtieth email of the day today, It hit me - why am I not taking my own advice?

So I did it. Finally. And even if only one person per day clicks on that link, every little bit helps.

Switching Gears to Focus on Learning

Posted on May 9, 2008
Filed Under Affiliate Marketing, Bum Marketing, Internet Marketing, Thirty Day Challenge | Leave a Comment

So, I have thirty bum marketing style keywords. But for the next few days, I’ve decided to switch gears to get some training. There are certain tools I need to learn. And, I’ve realized that making sure I learn them will help make me a better internet marketer.

My Bum articles will have to wait.

I’m currently on Day 14 of the 2007 Thirty Day Challenge and the clock is ticking… I need to finish the training as soon as I can. I’ve gone through the program once before - and didn’t internalize as much as I am this time around.

And thanks to Clickbank’s tracking feature, I can tell whether or not the money is coming in because of the Challenge or because I’m a Bum. Or both. Hopefully both. :)

Choosing Bum Marketing Keywords - It Took a While!

Posted on May 8, 2008
Filed Under Affiliate Marketing, Bum Marketing, Internet Marketing | 6 Comments

I am not sure I’ll make my Friday goal, but there’s a very good chance I’ll have fifty articles by the end of the weekend. It took me a while to get started - my original plan was too elaborate and had me feeling confused and a little overwhelmed.

The plan I just outlined is much simpler.

Yesterday, my big accomplishment was selecting a few products to promote. I chose five - I plan to do the routine for each product. Before bed last night, I spent about an hour coming up with twenty Bum keywords. It took a while - I used google’s keyword tool and my own brain. I finished up last night.

It seems like finding keywords shouldn’t have taken me that long. My guess is that it will get easier as time goes on.

My Method for Choosing Bum Marketing Keywords

  1. Choose a keyword that makes sense based on the product.
  2. Plug the keyword into your keyword tool. I use Google’s.
  3. Plug the keywords that come up into google, surrounded by quotes.
  4. See what kinds of results you get. For Bum Marketing you want keywords that return 1000-5000 results.
  5. Tweak the keywords until you get the results you want. For example, if I plug in “freelance writing” that’s too broad. But “Get Freelance Writing Jobs” may come closer to returning the results you need.
  6. Repeat the process until you have thirty per affiliate product. Always choose the products before looking for the keywords.

For me, this process was painstaking. I learned not to do this when I’m tired. Since a big part of the method requires my brain, I need to be as mentally sharp as possible - a mistake I made last night as my lids were lowering. It probably took twice as long.

Today, I’ll begin writing the articles based on the keywords I’ve found.

How Will I Reach my Bum Marketing Goal?

Posted on May 7, 2008
Filed Under Affiliate Marketing, Bum Marketing, Lessons Learned | 4 Comments

I mentioned a few posts ago that my goal is to write fifty bum marketing articles this week. So, I spent some time coming up with a plan. And that plan must have been too complicated because I didn’t do anything! I spent some time simplifying today and came up with the following:

  1. Find a product to promote. Make sure it’s popular, high quality, and the sales letter converts well.
  2. Thirty Keywords. Come up with thirty bum marketing keywords - 1000-5000 unique results in google.
  3. Write the article. The faster, the better. But don’t compromise quality because of the speed. Plan to do all thirty in one swoop.
  4. Landing page. I’m putting my landing page on a blog at Blogger. This will be preselling - some good information plus links to other articles, and maybe a signup box for a list. Write just one per product.
  5. Squidoo Lens. Create the lens to include a link to the landing page - or better yet, the RSS if there are multiple articles. Preselling also. Write one per keyword and direct back to the landing page.
  6. Submit to ezinearticles. Ideally, I should wait until I hear from Associated Content before I submit them here. If I can’t wait, I’ll at least wait a few days before I submit the articles here. I don’t plan to rewrite the article.
  7. Create a hub. Create it first without putting any links in it. Once a few days passes, put one link to the blog landing page that I created.
  8. Were there sales? If the answer is yes, go through and submit them to other article directories. I haven’t decided if I will rewrite the article or not.
  9. Submit article to Associated Content. I plan to leverage my articles for all they’re worth. And that means I will submit each article I write for up front payment at Associated Content, non exclusive rights. I’ll need to do this first because if AC sees the articles are already online, they will decline it. For resources, I’ll put my Squidoo lens link and the blog landing page link. In fact, I also plan on submitting them to Constant Content.

I’m just now working on this little routine. When I make progress other than choosing some products (that’s where I’m at now), I’ll let you know.

Keeping Track of all those Business Ideas

Posted on May 6, 2008
Filed Under Inspiration, Lessons Learned, Motivation, Organizing | 6 Comments

It’s almost embarrassing how many ideas I have scribbled in random places. I have this notebook which is largely empty except for a few pages with ideas. I wrote this list almost a year ago, and I haven’t even really done any of these. I also have ideas scrawled on scrap paper, on my calendar, and probably several places I don’t even remember.

Since I’m not doing anything about it, it’s really just paper clutter. Besides, I need that notebook for something else.

But some of these ideas are good - or at least worth considering. So I clearly need a better way to keep track of them.

So, I started a file which I am leaving on the desktop for “ideas”. I have three categories on it so far: squidoo lenses, ebooks, and blogs. When I feel like I need to get inspired, or I’m just ready for my next project, I can visit that list knowing that something will be waiting for me.

There’s something about an ignored idea that’s a little unsettling…

Bum Marketing - Setting Up My First Income Stream

Posted on May 3, 2008
Filed Under Affiliate Marketing, Bum Marketing, Goal Setting, Internet Marketing | 3 Comments

While I had some downtime on my trip, I came up with a business plan with five different income streams to put in place in May.

As I was browsing the Warrior Forum, I read through a few discussions about Article Marketing. One in particular caught my eye. The poster called into question “Bum Marketing” - a spin on article marketing.

I’ve known about it for a while, but haven’t done anything with it. So, I decided to revisit it. I’m taking notes right now and plan to write my first article before the night is over. Or I may have to do it tomorrow - my mind is mush from the jet lag.

Aside from my writing, the writing newsletter, and this blog, I’ll focus on Bum Marketing exclusively. Here’s why I decided to take this approach:

  1. The other income streams will take a while to set up, and Bum Marketing seems more immediate
  2. It doesn’t require any money to get started.
  3. A good way to learn the basics of internet marketing and article marketing.
  4. Writing is a strength so why not capitalize on that?

So, I am making a public statement of my goals right here, right now. The goal is simple - to write 50 articles per week.

Bum Marketing Goal - Write 50 articles by May 9.

It sounds like a lot, but that’s a pretty doable amount. I’ll give you a tally of my progress once I start making headway into my goal.

Getting Back on Schedule After a Glorious Trip…

Posted on May 3, 2008
Filed Under Uncategorized | 2 Comments

I just got back from a trip to Europe. It was wonderful. We hit four countries this time - Germany, Austria, Italy, and Slovenia. The whole point was to run the Vienna Marathon. I ran six miles of it - not even halfway - and decided not to anymore.

Yes, the trip was great. But now, I need to find some sort of routine again. All of my luggage is still unpacked. I need to do laundry. I need a shower. I have a ton of email go get through… AND I’m jet lagged. Usually, it takes me several days to get back on schedule. I hope that isn’t the case this time.

So bear with me as I try to keep myself afloat. My blog posts, comment responses, etc may be a little slow as I’m trying to get my life back in order. But aaah… it was so worth the trip! :)

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