Quick Update

Bad days generally.

Bad day at work. My heart races and my chest doesn't feel right (not tight like a heart attack), I'm in my late 20s. I'm fed up of this place and am going to do some contract work and cream that f**king money.

Not particularly great news for my niche blog incl. squeeze page either. Its early days and basically I'm really only on Day 3 of my corrected and new challenge. I've got about 50 page views of my articles but barely 1 or 2 bio follow ups. This is getting ridiculous now.

I'm going to look at forums now for getting people to my squeeze page but they are few and far between for this niche - and also I feel as if I've nearly cornered the market in high volume keywords. Nevertheless, 3 more articles today - 2 for ezine and 1 for the blog. It is relatively early days though.

I have a couple of secret promotions I'm doing. We'll see how they go and maybe I can reveal them later.

I'm also tempted to try an Adwords experiment and spend a few bucks.......

Sunday Update - Site Setup Complete incl. Autoresponder!

So, today was a good day.

I started around 10.30 and spent about 3 hours finishing the autoresponder series, creating an opt-in page and a couple of thank you pages.

You really can't rush this and I really didn't because I wanted it to be really good and personal so that my conversions are good. It really helps if you have a passion for the topic, which I do because there is a personal connection.

I'm quite proud of what I produced although it took around six hours which is the same amount of time it takes to pump out maybe 5 or 6 articles.

Anyway, for this bum marketing and the product creation, I've now done all the preparation so that just writing and not building or other tasks are left. And I've done it before the end of the weekend which is great because I never get that stuff done during the week.

In fact, apart from a couple of articles, I might take the rest of the day off - frankly I deserve it.

Later

Article! 4th Update Saturday

Another 4 articles pumped out, so overall progress for today is:

• 4 articles to my niche blog
• 4 articles to ezinearticles point to the niche blog
• product creation outline finished
• 5 day e-course for niche blog outline finished

I'm also going to change where my bio box links to. So far, I've been linking direct to the main blog page. But what I'm going to do after designing the e-course and opt-in form is to link to a single page containing the opt-in and a simple, "no thanks, let me see the main page" link at the bottom in small letters. I can create several of these and compare the hits on the main page from the opt-in page to the ezinearticles count for outgoing clicks to get a rough conversion rate. I could even split test if I want to.

I don't think I'll change the bio links on my existing posted articles at ezinearticles for now, I'll just leave them as they are.

Also, I noticed that my site is already indexed! Google came visiting yesterday! I'm sure this is because ezinearticles is pointing this way.

So, you can see how the original bum marketing method which relied solely on the article site pages ranking high and providing inbound traffic, can change into a sort of affiliate site with seo. This is Stuart's method and the one I want to replicate.

Product Creation Progress! 3rd Update Saturday

OK have done some product creation. I know have my outline sorted.

Basically the title of each section in my book. It strikes me that you could now actually outsource the rest of the project i.e. the writing. Though, if it something that you have a great passion for, it would be quicker to write it yourself!

I have calculated that, at five minutes per section, this is going to take me 7 hours to complete. By the way, if you are intrigued to learn more about the product creation technique that I am using, then check out the 24 Hour E-Book Writing System that I am using.

So, 7 hours to go, not including tidying up. I wonder if I can get this written this weekend. It will be interesting to see. I still aim to complete a 5 day email course for my niche blog, and hopefully some new articles.

We will see. I want more of a rest day tomorrow so today could be the huge effort. Its only 3.30pm so I have plenty of time left. Time to get some munch and refuel my body and mind.

2nd Update Saturday

ok 2 more articles.

So 2 articles for ezines and 2 articles for my blog, posted today.

Before I add an autoresponder or Clickbank ad, I needed to do a bit of both to start the wheels rolling on traffic and indexing.

Next, I'm going to create a 5 day Ezine course. I aim to have this finished by end of today. I need to think what I will put in it though.........I will do some product creation in the meantime.

New Blog Created!

I decided to create the blog tonight instead of waiting till the weekend. Let's just get it installed!

This way, as well as my product creation (in a different niche by the way), I can create and post 2 articles a day - one on the blog and one with an outbound link on ezinearticles.

I used Wordpress as I know this is very SEO friendly. So far I haven't put on any Adsense - I've installed a theme but I may change it as it looks good but there could be something a lot better available.

Also installed alinks, which automatically creates links out of post keywords that you specify. So I configured it so that four common keywords will link to Clickbank products. I have another blog which has brought in a little cash using this technique so I am hopeful it will help for this blog as well.

The aweber opt-in form is yet to come.

Also installed Spam Karma 2. In my experience, without this you either have to sift through all the spam, or let it through. This kind of plugin is essential.

Also installed a statcounter plugin and Ultimate Tag Warrior. UTW is pretty cool but the Yahoo tag search feature is temperamental. Its supposed to suggest tags for you based on your post which is great, but yo have to trick Yahoo by changing your id on each post to get it to give you suggested tags. Dunno if I can be bothered to do this on every single post but we'll see.

Got delayed today due to more flat viewings so only got an hour left in the day until bedtime......should I burn the midnight oil tonight? I guess there's only one day left until the weekend so we'll see if I get any product creation done tonight.

Quick Bum Marketing Idea - Your Help Needed!

OK, I have an idea for a new direction in my bum marketing. I have already mentioned here my increasing emphasis on product creation and my lack of success with my articles so far (direct to clickbank and also direct to own site including opt-in).

With the latter, I have only used my special methods which were intended to be a regular system and use more "automation" - I won't go into more detail than that at this stage.

But I have not yet created my "passion blog" but created at least 5 articles for this niche.

So maybe I should just concentrate all my bum marketing/article marketing on this single niche. I don't like not diversifying but I think it would be a good idea to concentrate on a single passionate subject rather than many subjects to which I may feel indifferent.

Yes, this is the direction I will go in.

I just need your help guys - can you recommend any good Wordpress templates that are good for affiliate marketing? I mean the type that include digg symbols and stuff but do not look too "money generating". Oh, by the way, unfortunately there won't be any Adsense on this new blog because it is on one of many topics which are not allowed under the Adsense T&Cs (no its not illegal!).

Readers, I await your wisdom ;-)

Day 9 Bum Marketing Challenge

Update, no more articles done yesterday but today I have done four already, all on different niches. These niches I like a lot actually. These are direct to clickbank links.

Gonna watch the Monaco GP now (come on Massa and Ferrari!) and then write more articles for direct hoplinks and also my 2 niche content sites.

I think I can even do some of these during the GP!

btw still no sales, at least I'll be ecstatic when I get some!

I might also start my product creation tonight.

Day 3 Bum Marketing Challenge Continued - Quick Update

ok just a quick update, I've got some cleaning to do! Chores don't stop unfortunately!

I reached my target for today. So:

* 2 x articles on two different topics with links to affiliate pages
* 2 x articles to content site containing CB ads and opt-in boxes (this is a secret how I do this, currently an experiment that will be revealed later, I'll call this SECRET METHOD in future)
* 1 x article on new niche page

The only thing about the last article, is that I haven't yet created a blog. Any advice for a blog? I have a lot of experience with Wordpress blogs but I find that they look kind of crappy. To be honest, I don't like reading Wordpress blogs personally, they are flippin everywhere!

PS my Wordtracker subscription runs out in a few days. Tomorrow need to do some KW research!

Day 2 - Bum Marketing Challenge - My Strategy Defined

Well Day 2 is going pretty well. Day 1 was rather strange.

As you know, I write articles going to and from work. This is an amazing tip and I'll tell you why.

On public transport, I normally fall asleep, I can't help it. But by writing on my small notebook, it is surprisingly enjoyable. I do this with my tunes in my ear. I get some funny stares but I don't care! The only thing I need before I head out are a couple of keyword phrases for the 2 articles I will write.

I normally type up my written articles that night but on Friday, well a tough week at work - my job is very stressful - so I typed up on Saturday.

Then I screwed about for a bit and was quite angry at myself for doing this :-( Luckily I saved the day and did some good work in the evening which actually gave me ideas for my strategy.

- I am going to abandon my own product creation until after 30 days. I need to concentrate on this challenge
- I will continue to write 2 articles a day going to/from work. These will link to clickbank products and not include email capturing from an opt-in form
- I will write 2 articles per day that will link to a content site with clickbank ad and opt-in form. This is an experiment to me. I will be using some interesting techniques that I have never heard of before but hope to be successful
- Lastly, I will soon start a passion niche site. No, this has nothing to do with porn or s3x ;-) I have noticed that Steve, Stuart and Trevor have started by having only one site from fresh, but something that they are very passionate about. I am quite knowledgable so enjoy writing about many things but I really need a no.1 passion that also has a product on Clickbank, then start to write about it. Stuart showed that from a single niche alone, one can fulfil this challenge. That is my objective.

Maybe sounds like too much but remember:

- no more product creation
- 5 articles. 2 of which written on the train, 2 of which I will use an interesting technique to write very quickly. 1 of which will be about something I love. I think this is achievable.

All this and I will be moving out of my apartment in one month. Yikes, these things always come in twos!!