Tag Archive

I have a new post, which can be found here.

The reason I have not posted in so long is that nothing has really changed much. I am not one to really post crap when I have nothing to say, nor do I like being pressured in to having to write every day (or week or..uhhh month)…

I have seen some really interesting resources, and I will continue to post them here. I have gone back on my list of resources and found that it is huge. I tend to just clip sites that seem interesting and put them all in an email that I then send to myself. I looked back on the emails and there were hundreds of links to review! Yes, some sites kept coming up with great info, but a lot of these were the sites I already had on my blog roll (although there are some new ones that I will add later).

The best advice I can think of is to do what I do and use sites that employ user recommendations to find subjects in which you are interested. Go to sites like Digg, Del.icio.us, or Stumbleupon, to search for topics like “Freelance” or “4HWW”, and you will find quality sites that have been vetted by others. This is the direction that online search engines taking - instead of blindly finding every site relating to a subject, good or bad.

While I have pretty much finished work on my rental property, I have not really made any effort to market it or get a tenant into it. I don’t know what is holding me back. Probably fear. I have heard horror stories of tenants from hell and I am afraid that when I do get someone in, the nightmares will begin. Still I faced my fears when I bought the house in the first place, and I still want to try being a landlord to see if it is right for me. I guess I just have to face this fear and ride out whatever adversity that comes my way.

As I mentioned in my last post, the Thirty Day Challenge is back, and I am going to participate in that as well. In July, it will be a year since I first started my effort to leave my current job and become a freelancer. I have learned a lot in that time, but it is a humbling experience, and it is a lot harder than I thought it would be. Life has a funny way of coming in and interfering with your plans. Still, I have not given up and I will continue to try different things until I find the solution that feel right for my goals.

As for my next post, you will get it when it is worthy of publishing… :o)

For those of you that want to learn about internet marketing, seo, writing effective copy, and more, no matter what your experience or level of knowledge is, then you need to go to The Thirty Day Challenge website, and sign up for the next challenge. It is free, it is a great learning experience (I went through the last one and learned a lot about using social networks to market products).

Pre-season training starts June 1st. Training consists of daily podcasts (audio and video), online live events, pdf handouts, tools, and exercises to get you to take action. You learn about finding a niche and developing it into a product that will generate revenue. When you sign up, you can also look at last years training to get a feel for what is involved. There is also a really active forum and you are encourages to form teams.

I was somewhat skeptical when started it last year (solo), but I ended up with some success; I didn’t make a sale, but my site was #10 on google search for a couple of days in my niche. This was done with minimal effort; I was more curious about the process. This year I am going to try it with a team and see if my results are better.

Ed Dale and Dan Raine run the Challenge and are affiliated with Stompernet and the Immediate Edge which are on the cutting edge of internet marketing and seo training. A lot of what they teach come directly from this association.

This is a great way to get started in internet marketing.

On Friday, October 12th, I looked at Google Trends and picked the second highest entry, Nicole Jaracz (Drew Carey’s fiance), and created a blog entry with her name in the header and body, along with tagging the entry with her name. (The first entry was a much loved college football player who died with his girlfriend in a car accident…no way I was going to use that with a clear conscience).

Here are the results:

Oct 12 - 5 Views to my blog, 1 of which was to the Nicole Jaracz entry.

Oct 13 - 13 Views to my Blog, 0 to that entry.

Oct 14 - 13 Views, 4 to the Nicole Jaracz entry

Here’s where it gets interesting…

Oct 15 - 126 Views, 116 specifically for Nicole

Oct 16 - 87 Views, 82 ” “

Oct 17 - 37 Views, 29 ” “

Oct 18 - 9 Views, 4 ” “

Oct 19 - 9 View, 6 ” “

This was for a period of one week.

Now, I totally understand that this is not a great method to draw in readers. I’m sure a lot of people took one look at my site and realized it had very little to do with Nicole Jaracz, so they left. I did not get much traffic to my other entries. I am also sure that most BAD internet marketers don’t care; they probably figure that, if you have a good enough hook, you may catch some of the readers. Any traffic is good traffic. Which is why the tag the heck out of their sites with everything in the world.

But as you see by the numbers, they drop off pretty quickly.

There is something to learn from all this… First, if you have really good content, and it does match something hot on Google Trends, putting the entry in your header, body, and tag can jump start your exposer. Something else pretty interesting, I still get, on average, anywhere from 3 to 5 readers still landing on that entry daily. Talk about Long Tail…

I am trying to figure out how to put this information to good use, but it was something fun to try.

Every quarter, publicly held companies are required to issue a report showing their progress for the past 3 months. This report is called a 10-Q.

Just over three months ago (last quarter), I finished reading The Four Hour Work Week, and I decided to work the principles into my life. The purpose was to create a virtual company, where I would subcontract the work to freelancers (or become a freelancer myself), with the eventual goal that I can run this company from pretty much anywhere in the world I choose to live.

Here now is my personal 10-Q…

The plan was to use multiple streams of income from the Internet, and possibly Real Estate investing (which sort of is counterintuitive because you need to be around to manage your properties, but I’ll get to that in a minute) to finance my endeavor.

Internet

I ramped up my education in Internet Marketing by taking the Thirty Day Challenge in August. My first attempt at applying the principles from the challenge ended with two outcomes; the first outcome - not desirable - was that I didn’t get any sales from my affiliate link on my blog. The second outcome - desirable - was that I placed on the first page of Google when searching for my keyword phrase. Yes it was at #10, and yes it was only for a couple of days before dropping off, but in my defense, I did not apply all the principles I learned and didn’t put a whole lot of effort into it. Seeing it on Google did boost my hopes that it was possible to make it happen, and motivated me to take more action. Like everything else in life, you get out of it what you put into it.

I got sidetracked a little with my “day job”, but I am on track to make another attempt at a successful Affiliate Marketing project. This time I’m all in.

The second Internet project I am working on is some sort of Information Product, like an eBook or Video. This is still in the early stages, but I have a couple of ideas I will explore, and document in later blog entries. I think this holds a lot of promise, because it doesn’t take a lot to produce, and if marketed right, it could produce a nice stream of income, with a minimum of maintenance.

Finally, something that I have not mentioned at all in this blog. Using an old PC I had lying around, I built an Ubuntu (Linux) server. Along with Linux, it had Apache - a web server, MySQL - a database application, and PHP5 which is used to create Web based applications (collectively called LAMP). I am getting up to speed on web page design and creation. This falls in line with my freelance aspirations. All you need is a laptop and an internet connection, and you can run a business.

Real Estate

As I mentioned in my last blog entry, I have a pending deal on the table. If the bank accepts my counteroffer, and there are no surprises in the inspection, I’ll have a nice house in a decent neighborhood. I originally intended to rehab and flip it, but in the current environment, I may either wholesale it to another investor, or change my strategy and rent or lease purchase it. Yes, if I rent it, in the short term, it will mean that I have to be around to manage it. Not something I can easily do from a beach in Nice…or the Italian Riviera…Still, in this market, I am thinking I can pick up one or two more houses, and if the numbers are good, I can hire a team to handle the property management. This, I can run remotely.

Plus there is no rule that I can’t do a little of everything, Internet Marketing, Web Design & Creation, and Real Estate investing.

The overall goal is to quit my day job to free up my time to do the things I want to do with it.

So…that’s the current state of Project Nomad, Inc. :o)

This first Quarter was primarily goal setting, education, exploration, and some action. The outlook for the second quarter is to take more action to move me closer to my goal of independence.

Nicole Jaracz is Drew Carey’s new fiancee…but more importantly, she’s #2 on Google Trends right now. I’m trying an experiment. I am going to see what happens after tagging her here. I don’t expect an immediate surge, but I want to see if I place anywhere in the coming days…

Here is where you can check out the latest Hot Trends.

By the way,  feel free to hit the home link above and check out my other entries, you might find some interesting stuff.

It had to happen sooner or later, but as of this writing, if you do a Google search on “Car Seat Ratings” (including the quotes), my Tumbler blog proof of concept is the last (10th) entry on the first page.

I don’t expect to make any money on this site, but I did want to see if what I learned in the 30 Day Challenge would get me placed.

I am now redoubling my effort to come up with a niche I am comfortable with and go whole-hog into developing. I am pretty psyched. Maybe the internet marketing route does have the potential to be a good Muse.