Apologies in advance – this one’s a bit of a rambler!

I’m pleased to say I found a new place and am moving in 4 weeks. Of course there’s going to be a lot to do, and I’m not sure how long it’ll take my broadband to switch over but I’m really hoping I won’t need to be disconnected for too long when I move! I’ve got to wait for the reference checks to go through before the flat is officially ours, when they do I’ll arrange the broadband ASAP.

IF I do need to wait for the broadband, my plan is just to use it as a blessing that helps me focus. I’ll probably write as much content as I can for my own sites in that time. I’ll have to plan it so I don’t have too much client work, so I’ll be doing more client work before I move.

I’m really trying to work out a plan of action for summer. It’s so hard (a) because my passive efforts aren’t making enough money for me to justify outsourcing much to move forward quicker and (b) because my passive efforts aren’t making enough for me to focus solely on passive income – I spend most of my time doing client work. If I could spend all my time on passive income I’m sure I’d get somewhere faster, but I just can’t risk that right now, I need to keep the cash coming in.

It’s really hard for me to divide time properly between client work and my own sites. So I’m trying to work out a plan that’ll mean I dedicate time to both. It really isn’t easy to keep switching between the two though, seems my brain can’t motivate itself when it’s doing so much!

Today and yesterday I did take some steps forward: I wrote another two very long reviews (1,000 words+). These reviews are full of long tail keywords and are very detailed, so I’m hoping they’ll do well. I just have to work on promoting them a little to try and get the traffic trickling in, but once I does I’m hoping it’ll end up getting lots of long tail traffic.

Everyday I’m basically spending hours either phoning agents, looking at property listings or going on viewings. Although that in itself doesn’t take too long if I do it daily, the thinking and stressing time is really having a huge impact on my work. I just hope I find a flat soon.

On top of that, I’ve been trying to earn some extra cash for agent fees and possibly a higher monthly rent. My passive income efforts really are suffering, I have to put them to the end of my to do list each day, and although I’m trying to work extra hours I’m finding it hard to stay energetic.

On a positive note, I did spend two hours yesterday writing a really good Amazon product review. In the past writing content was all about how much I can write in how little a space of time, but I’ve really changed my mind on that. My review ended up being 1,400 words (but lots of subheadings and bullet points) and I truly think it’ll be really useful. I’m going to write a few more and want to put them online ASAP.

This post doesn’t really have a main point, but first I wanted to celebrate getting my highest Adsense day on Wednesday:

This is in British Pounds and works out at around $14 USD (I cut out all the clickthrough rate info etc from that image). I know it’s not huge, but it’s the highest I’ve had to date. Earlier in the month I’d also reached a new high which was £8.81. It’s always good to know things are going upwards, though my Adsense does fluctate a lot. Still a few days out of every month I fail to even reach £1.00.

My Clickbank has also picked up a little, making around one sale a week. Here’s what it looks like right now:

Again, not fantastic but better than a couple of months ago. I have decided I don’t really want to focus on Clickbank though (I’m already very picky about the products I promote there – some look like complete junk to me), so my next sites (whenever I get round to them), will probably be based on Amazon.

Trying to Put Together the Perfect Amazon Reviews

Although I haven’t started any new batches of sites (I don’t want to leave things unfinished as I always seem to!) I do have this hot product site that I keep talking about. I am adding blog posts to it etc but I want to have one real main review on it to which I will build links.

I want to create a review as in depth as possible. I’m kind of fed up of the whole mindset of building crap to get people to click on Adsense ads because they’re desperate to get away from your site (like I’ve said before). Instead, I want to do a lot of research, write a review that beats all others in there, and leave the visitor clicking on my Amazon link to buy.

So I’m using the Amazon information, the Amazon reviews, and the manufacturer’s website to write about the main features of the product. But I’ll also look into it in a bit more detail, finding out what people are looking for in this type of product, and how the specific product I’m reviewing matches up with expectations and so on. I know it’s going to be time consuming, but it’ll be a very long review and hopefully very trustworthy. I’m also hoping it’ll help with traffic from long-tail keywords.

So writing that review is my plan for now! And I’m also going to check out the Info Product Killer updates (by the way, the price of IPK is going up from $37 to $77 later today, so if you want it, get it now).

As you can see from my earnings page, I’m still in the beginning stages of making my niche blogs work well for me. Up until May I only had a few blogs that I created last April/ May without really properly thinking about what I was doing. So I jumped in when May hit and made about 15 new blogs .

I’m starting to question the way I’ve done these blogs. They are helpful and useful to visitors which I feel is absolutely essential, but the affiliate products don’t always provide the clear next step for what my visitors will do when they leave the site. They’re an option out of many, if you see what I mean, and won’t be the logical next step for many of my visitors. E.g. Writing a blog post about learning to speak Spanish and then recommending an online course for it in the last sentence. Although the online course could be very useful, many people don’t look to the internet as the primary way to learn, and many will just be casual readers to begin with.

Compare this to an Amazon niche site. People are searching for “review of X”, “X specifications”, “where to buy X” or “X compared to Y” and you give it to them, in detail, everything they’ve been looking to know in one place. You give them what Amazon would have told them and more from your research. I feel that it’s much more logical then that the buyer would click your link (though nothing’s guaranteed).

So this is why I’m questioning a few of my sites (though I know they still need time and I’m not giving up). The good news is the new sites I talked about in my last few blog posts are more around the second line of thinking, so I’ll put my theory to the test.

Basically I want to have a few good standard pages when I have product sites – specifications, prices/ release dates if necessary, and an overview of what the product does. In some cases it may also be relevant to have a page comparing it to other models/ makes of that product.

I bought Info Product Killer last year and decided last week that I’d use this method for my Amazon sites. It won’t be 100% the same, as I’ll be using Wordpress and my own idea of the way I like it to look etc, plus I’ll be adding more unique content than they suggest, but I’ll make use of some of the very good and unique advice that IPK has to offer. Coincidentally, IPK have opened their doors again today for the year (it’s aimed at getting sites ready for Christmas but works all year) – and I’m quite annoyed because they’re charging less than I paid! It’s now only $37 – check it out here.

(And in other news I’ve got a lot less time to work due to flat hunting, ringing agents, going on viewings, trying to make extra money for fees and so on! Hopefully I’ll find a place soon, at the moment I keep dreaming about flats!)

I meant to update more often this week but, as you can see from the title, I’ve been working really, really hard.

I rent a flat and my landlord has given us notice to leave (unfortunately they’re moving back in) so we have to find a new place. I’m trying to find a private landlord to avoid all the agency fees, but nothing’s come up yet. If we go with an agent we could be looking at lots of fees, plus other costs involved with moving and the deposit, it really is crazy. Unfortunately I just paid off a £1000 overdraft which I used a lot of my savings for!

So I have a while to look for a new place, it’s really distracting so I’m hoping I’ll find one soon so it doesn’t take up too much time. I’m also taking on extra work to raise a bit of extra cash and make up for any time I’ll have to take off when I move. But I’m trying really hard to make sure my passive income efforts don’t go neglected.

Update on My Article Marketing Backlinking Strategy:

OK so a couple of weeks ago I wrote about my article marketing plan. I never got fully into it. Before yesterday I’d only submitted two articles to Ezine Articles and nothing else. Now I have:

• Submitted three more articles to Ezine articles,
• Submitted spun versions of those through Unique Article Wizard (5 in total),
• And submitted spun versions of those 5 articles through Hubpages, Infobarrel, Xomba and Squidoo.
• I also set up a twitter account for this particular niche blog and set it to automatically tweet the link to each new blog post and each Ezine Article.

The reason this took me so long is that I spin it manually. I will never bring myself to submit meaningless rubbish that’s been done by a computer, so I rewrite it manually. The article content stays the same, I just change the words to help give them a boost in search engines.

Each set of article includes two links to two blog posts on the site. In total I’m submitting 10 articles, which means linking to 19 posts plus the homepage from all those different sources. I’m really hoping this is going to give my site a boost!

Other Projects:

I really want to start some new sites but I am really holding myself back since there’s still loads to do on my current sites! I am just going off now, though, to write content for one of the “hot” niche sites I talked about last time. This is an Amazon site, I’m going to make it as useful as I possibly can, which means a lot of research but I think it’ll be worth it.

I plan to have the 10 article backlinking strategy completed next week after which I’ll monitor results. I have no idea how fast I can expect results, but I will apply what I learn to some of my other niche sites. I really want to be able to come up with a solid backlinking plan like Michelle posted about earlier in the week.

Just a short post as I’m really looking forward to relaxing with a glass of wine

I just put up my earnings page which I’ll update every month. Nothing spectacular yet, but I already know July’s going to be a lot more focused so I’m hoping that’ll make a difference!

In other news, I registered a couple of new domain names the other day and setup Wordpress on them today. They are very much “hot” product niches, meaning that a lot of people will be buying the products in the coming months. I’m really hoping I can capitalise on this, but it does take a bit of focus off my other niche sites so I think I’m going to outsource a bit so I don’t let things go too much.

Talking of hot topics, I kind of want to start some Halloween/ Christmas sites but I’m worried I’ll lose focus too much if I do. Hopefully I’ll get some time later this month!

As my recent breaks in posting show, June has been pretty disrupted for me. In a good way, though. I was busy doing things, taking breaks and having fun. But it wasn’t as good for my online business. Considering all the new sites I set up in May, I didn’t see a noticeable increase in earnings. It was above May’s level but not by much.

Some of the things I achieved in June:

1. Wrote a lot of content for my niche sites. This is essential to make them informative, useful and “Google friendly”, but it doesn’t really bring instant results in terms of traffic and cash. They are the foundations on which I’ll build in July.
2. Started marketing sites just by doing one Ezine Article and one Unique Article Wizard Submission. My last post reported on the results I’ve seen from that.
3. Decided to do a bigger article marketing test on one site (which I wrote about here). Unfortunately I didn’t get as far with that as I’d planned, so I’ll finish it off next week.

My sites seem to be getting less long tail traffic and less Google Adsense clicks as a result of Mayday. Though I’m glad to say four of my new sites have all made one Clickbank sale in June. I know this isn’t much, but one sale shows me the product does convert and that there are buyers out there – I just need to increase the traffic in July.

I wanted to do a better update but I’ve just been really busy – I’ve got more client work to do which I’m trying to get through so I can work on my own sites again. I’ll also be adding an earnings page very soon so I’ll post my June earnings there.

I mentioned a few days ago that I’m going all out on an article marketing campaign for one of my sites – but this post isn’t about that. It’s more about the strategy I use for new sites. As soon as I can after I get the site up and running (sometimes it takes me a few weeks to get round to it), I’ll write an article to Ezine Articles, and manually rewrite it to do a bulk submission through Unique Article Wizard.

I’ve been checking my rankings and have noticed that this is most definitely giving my sites a boost in the search engines. I usually check my rankings every Friday but didn’t do it last week, so this is over a period of about two weeks up to today that I’ve noticed the change with my latest sites.

• One of my new sites, an exact keyword domain, ranked in initially at number 10 (setup before Mayday). In the middle of May I submitted the Ezine Article and started off the UAW submission. It climbed to positions 7+8 with 24 backlinks within a week. Now, after the submission’s gone to a few hundred sites in UAW, it’s gone to positions 4+5 with 60 backlinks.
• Another one set up at the same time initially ranked at number 15. It climbed to 7+8 with 27 backlinks after the submission started, and today is at 8+9 with 71 backlinks.
• Another very recent site (just a couple of weeks old) ranked at 101 after I set it up (unfortunately I left it without content for a while – in my experience if you don’t put content in but it’s indexed for a few weeks, its ranking goes lower than other exact keyword domains I’ve had). Then after submitting the Ezine Article a couple of days ago, it’s at position 75. Not fantastic I know, but I’ve only just had the UAW approved and put all the content on the site.

From what I can see, it’s clear that the EZA and UAW has a real effect. EZA is a great way to boost your sites initially, but the UAW is also affecting it over time. In the case of site 2 above, it did go down by 1 point, but the backlinks went up – so I’ll have to keep an eye on this to see how useful my method is.

Unfortunately I’ve been pretty bad at tracking results like this but I’m going to make sure I do it more often. After all, time is money and I don’t want to be wasting it on things that don’t work.

Another observation: my main keyword rankings have been unaffected, or even improved, since the Mayday update. However, it’s clear my Adsense click through rates and cost per click have gone down. I also have quite a few sites high up in the SERPS that just aren’t converting – so I’ve got a lot of work to do! At least these initial results look promising.

Other Details About My Progress

It’s hard to work right now as I’m so excited I’m going to see Stevie Wonder tomorrow night and Paul McCartney on Sunday! I am a HUGE Beatles fan so I keep finding myself sneaking off to Youtube to watch live performances and getting myself excited. I also need to get myself ready as I’m getting the coach to London quite early tomorrow (it was a bargain, only £5 even though it’s a 2 hour+ journey!)

But I’m still proud with what I’ve done and just trying to push through today before I start getting really excited. For the rest of today I’m going to carry on manually spinning that big batch of articles (and hopefully submit a few) which I’ll finish next week.

Also on the agenda: upload 10 blog posts I wrote previously, rewrite a couple of my latest Ezine Articles so I can do that initial UAW submission for a couple of my sites, and maybe write a few blog posts.

Thank goodness England picked things up today (and congrats to USA) – now after all my uncharacteristic football-watching, it’s time to get back to work.

I did a lot today, despite taking a few hours out for the football! I got started spinning some of those PLR articles I rewrote yesterday. I spun it so it was very unique, but because of that it took me a long time. Because of this I realised it’s going to take me longer than planned to spin them all, but that’s ok. I’ll just submit them when I’m ready. Today I did two and submitted both to Ezine Articles and Unique Article Wizard.

I also wrote 16 blog posts and scheduled them all up to go twice weekly in their respective blogs, and submitted/ scheduled all the articles and blog posts from last week.

Phew! That’s a lot of work today. I haven’t focused like that in a while (and I’m feeling pretty tired now!) I guess I was really desperate to get a lot of work out of the way before I watched the game

I’ve decided I really need to kickstart my marketing efforts. As I mentioned at the end of last week, I’ve been writing a lot of content for my blogs.I have about 15 blogs that I’m actively working on adding content to at the moment, and all of these are about two months old or less. The only marketing I’ve done for them is submitting the RSS feed and then maybe an Ezine Article and a UAW submission. This is because I wanted to focus on making sure they all had at least 20 posts to start (so much writing to do!)

But simply putting up new posts doesn’t really increase earnings. It’s not that I think new content is a waste of time, most certainly not! But when it’s new, it needs a push to make sure it starts getting found in the search engines. To start with, I’m going to use article marketing to do this.

Testing With One Site

With one of my sites that was built in April I’ve been getting traffic every day but not much. So I’ve decided to try and give it a boost by writing 10 unique articles. I got some good PLR and rewrote all 10 articles today, and included keywords, as a starting point. This is what I’ll do with each of these 10 articles:

• Submit each to Ezine Articles. Each one will link to different blog posts on the site.
• Then I’ll spin them all to a high level of uniqueness using Magic Article Rewriter (making sure they’re all good quality and make perfect sense!) This will take some time, as I want to make them unique enough that I can use them in quite a few different places.
• I’ll submit these spun versions of the 10 articles to Unique Article Wizard, and eventually to sites like HubPages, InfoBarrel, Squidoo and Xomba (and maybe some other article directories like GoArticles and ArticleBot).

Like I said, I’ve already done the first version of these. I don’t know about when is the best time to submit to Ezine Articles, but I’ve decided to just space them out and submit them on various days whenever I think of it. Since each article will include links to different blog posts, I’m not too worried about submitting too many articles to the same link.

So I’ll see how all of this affects (a) the ranking of my site (b) the number of backlinks showing and (c) any direct traffic from the article sites. I’m trying to use longtail keywords that maybe have less searches in the hopes that they will rank without me having to backlink the articles themselves.

The Results

I’ve got no idea what the results of this will be – it’s just a test. I haven’t even made any sales of the product this particular site is promoting, so I don’t even know how well it converts, because I haven’t had enough visitors yet. But hopefully I’ll know soon whether this product does convert or not. It’ll also give me some more ideas about marketing my future sites.