$10K by Christmas - Newbie Journal



Quick question while I work on more content: Does anyone know if there will be a way for me to transfer over all the files and configurations from the Wordpress blog I'm tweaking on XAMPP to my host so that what I tweak now will be up and ready to go once I have the website live?
 
A couple of links to help keep you moving forward.

As long as it's possible, I'm golden. Thanks for the answer, homie. Appreciate it.

Here you go, it's an older tutorial, but the info is pretty concise and good.

Convert a local WordPress XAMPP installation into a live site

Here is a little something I use to speed up article research & creation. (It's called Answer Analyst) Kinda boring the first few minutes of the presentaion, but by the end you should be able to get some ideas of just how much time this program can save you, as well as give you plenty of fresh research to use on any topic.

Help and Documentation

P.S. I am NOT an affiliate of the above product, though they do have an Affiliate Program. The invite is right below the video player.
 
Day #3

Today I wrote 5 more articles and finally got Wordpress set up with XAMPP. (Btw, thank you Midas Touch for the link to the tutorial. I appreciate it!)

Since a lot of my questions from yesterday weren't answered, I'll only add a few today and I'll keep everything brief 'cause I think I'm overwhelming people with the length of my posts.

I was tipped off about an eBook called Revenge of the Mininet. I downloaded it and skimmed through it and there is a lot of info on some pretty complex-looking link building strategies. If anyone's read this eBook in full and implemented any of the link building strategies, can you let me know which one you found to be most successful? If nobody's read it, I'll just go through and pick one strategy and implement it once the site is live.

Anyways, onto the questions:

  • When submitting articles to article directories, can they be articles that I wrote for the site itself, rather than articles I wrote to be submitted to article directories? I'm not sure if this is an obvious question, since I've never submitted articles to directories before, but I was curious.
  • I have decided I will monetize the site at first through eBay and Amazon. But, I had a few questions specifically about the eBay affiliate program. I've seen a few sites running through their affiliate program that have a sort of running index of live auctions going on for specific products. It looks like eBay provides a script to enable users to always see what's currently being auctioned off for a particular search query and that the script indexes the auctions up to about 10 pages. I was wondering if that was how things worked?
  • What're your thoughts on "ripping" the website structure of your competition? What I'm thinking of doing is making my website structured like the current #3's site is structured, and was wondering if this was advisable?
I'll stop today's questions there for today.

In other news, I'm getting more and more excited as the day I go "live" approaches. I still have quite a bit to do with tweaking the Wordpress template I downloaded and structuring everything, but I will get that shit done.

Let a friend in on what I was doing and as a source of some motivation, he told me that if I made $150, he'd throw $150 at me to get me a Netbook so I could get off this piece of shit Dell Inspiron laptop I have. I know Netbooks are lol, but this laptop I have is a brick and it can only be used for like 5 minutes without a charger. :) Plus, it's cool that I can add that to my goals.

Hit a patch of "wtf am I doing" today. Everything felt really monotonous and I felt like what I was doing wasn't worth anything. But, I soon got over that. Just had to remind myself that stopping at monotony is where failures are made. Pushing through to the end despite the emotional rollercoaster is how I will succeed.

Any one got tips on how to deal with shit like that?

 
Day #3


Hit a patch of "wtf am I doing" today. Everything felt really monotonous and I felt like what I was doing wasn't worth anything. But, I soon got over that. Just had to remind myself that stopping at monotony is where failures are made. Pushing through to the end despite the emotional rollercoaster is how I will succeed.

Any one got tips on how to deal with shit like that?


Outside of out sourcing it and paying someone else to do it, only what's below:



I know this will "sound" a little smart assy, but here is something to think about:

Each day we eat then get hungry and have to eat again.
We have to piss and then later have to piss again.
We sleep then wake up and then get tired and sleep again.
We have sex and then later want more and have sex again.
We get dirty and have to clean ourselves and then get dirty all over again.

I could go on and on.....but you get the idea.........LIVING is a monotonous endeavor yet we continue on.


All things in life have some degree of monotony/repetition to them. This is why we as humans are ATTRACTED to the "NEW" and "DIFFERENT" things in life. (Think of this when composing your next copy writing.)


OK, time for something that may be of use to you while doing the Mundane tasks of this business.

I like to set goals for EVERYTHING that I do. It might be a Time goal, like figuring a faster way to accomplish a task that I must do often. Each time I perform it I time myself and do my best to improve upon it.

It might be what I call a "Trim the Fat" goal. This where I set up a site as basic as possible and for as little money possible and see if I can't get it breaking even or profiting sooner. (I do this every once in awhile just to break things up. This of course was NOT an option when I first started out, it was a NECESSITY!! LOL)


It might be to use a "different" program every now and then to do the task just to have something different to look at while doing it. (I bounce between Dreamweaver and MS Web Expression 4 for Html stuff. I use Microsoft Office, Open Office, and Corel Office Suite for my text stuff to mix it up from time to time. I have several PHP development programs that I use. I even bounce between Window7, XP, and Linux when things begin to get stale.)

If you have a laptop and can find a different place to do the tasks it will also help sometimes.

The MAIN thing to keep in mind in this business is that "EVERYTHING" you do "IS" making you money whether you see it immediately or not. Link building & article writing can be boring as hell and seem like a waste of time while doing it. But after doing it long enough it starts to show the benefits of that tedious labor.

Think of it as kind of like farming.

You first do a little research to see what kind of crops people are willing to pay for. You then find fertile ground where that particular crop will grow the best. You then put in all the work of planting, fertilizing, watering, keeping pests away, and monitoring the crop's health as it matures.

Then when the crop is ready for harvest you harvest it and then take it to market to get paid for the labor and then you start the whole process all over again.

Hopefully you make enough off the first crop to find more fertile fields to plant and diversify your crop base to the point where you have crops coming in several times THROUGHOUT the entire year and not just once or twice a year.

This way you have money flowing to you all year long. If your first crop fails, you analyze what went wrong, correct the mistakes and continue forward.


BTW, never just plant any ole' crop, do all the work, then go to market and find out that NO ONE wants your particular crop. Always find out what the people want FIRST before doing anything else. Make sure there is a reasonable enough demand for a crop before doing anything else.


Many people think of their business as a they would a child. The business/website is born and then you must tend to it until it can somewhat function on it's own. Then you give it the tools needed for it to function on it's own more. The ultimate goal is to have the business/website running on it's own most of the time where you only have to "Consult" with it from time to time to keep it functioning & up to date.

I know, I'm just rambling on again. It's hell to get OLD!! Lulz

Keep those Fires of Achievement Burning Hot & Bright!! That way no amount of rain or bad weather will EVER put them out!!!



P.S. Looking back at your thread title/goal, plan on learning about PPC, PPV, and Google AdWords in the next few months to be sure to make your goal in the time frame you have set. (Don't get too distracted from your current activities with these things until you have a few sites up and converting though. This is just food for thought in taking the next steps.)

You can start small to get a feel for it and then when you have some extra money you can ramp it up. This will be one of the quickest ways to get traffic to your site. I am a firm believer in natural SEO, but you just cannot ignore the MANY benefits of time and economy when it comes to DRIVEN traffic to an offer.

It can wind up costing you though if it is not approached correctly and you're on a tight budget. So learn as much as you can about these vehicles before using them. But don't be afraid to use them.
 
Quick question while I'm in between classes: Found some .edu sites, a lot actually, that have blogs related to my product. The main .edu sites are of course very high PR, but the blogs within 'em have no PR. Does that matter?
 
Another quick question: Anyone down to hit me up on AIM regularly? None of the people in my social circle are interested in internet marketing, so I don't really have people to discuss it with in real time. I would definitely be down for some convos through AIM about your currect projects, what has proved successful for you, what hasn't. I'm always on AIM if I'm sitting at my computer, so if you're a newbie or someone who is willing to chat every now and then with someone who is coming up in internet marketing ( ;) ), hit me up. AIM name is needthatscrilla.
 
Quick update: Haven't done shit 'cause I'm obsessed with getting this fucking Wordpress template to look the right way. Someone help. I'm about to jump off a cliff.
 
Quick update: Haven't done shit 'cause I'm obsessed with getting this fucking Wordpress template to look the right way. Someone help. I'm about to jump off a cliff.


hahaha I been there myself, and without knowing anything about your specific issue so can I tell you straight away that Google is your friend. I have learned how to do all my customization from googling my issues...

on a second note, I believe that we are somewhere at the same stage on our SEO skills and got a journal both of us. I enjoyed your title $10k and I come think about a thing. How about if we make it a contest?

hit me up on skype or msn


Micha
 
hahaha I been there myself, and without knowing anything about your specific issue so can I tell you straight away that Google is your friend. I have learned how to do all my customization from googling my issues...

on a second note, I believe that we are somewhere at the same stage on our SEO skills and got a journal both of us. I enjoyed your title $10k and I come think about a thing. How about if we make it a contest?

hit me up on skype or msn


Micha

I'm so, so down to compete to a monetary goal. How often are you on AIM or Skype? Just tried sending you a message on AIM and you weren't on, although you answered like a second ago. :)
 
Hey...

IM always online, Im hanging out at my rents place at the moment.. That means that Im working 24/7 Im raping and molesting my wifi in the laptop though so I ping out sometimes....
 
So, today I bought my domain. I settled on deals-on-xxx-xxx.com, I set up hosting and tried to get Wordpress set up, but the nameservers haven't propagated yet.

I am slacking on writing content. I will try to knock out 10 tonight, since that's how far I am behind. I am also going to make all the pages that I will need for my product pages. I have my Wordpress theme set up to be how I pretty much want it.

So, what I have left to do until Sunday is write 20 more articles, get all the product pages set up, once the nameservers propagate, verify my domain with eBay for their eBay Partner Network. As soon as I do that, I will yank the codes I need for my product pages and get those up + start setting up the articles to drip feed.

Also, I have a competition with onkelmicha in the works right now. I think the end goal is who can make the most money by Dec. 25 of this year. Keep a look out for the post he'll be making. We need some advice.
 
Update: Domain is bought, hosting is set up, nameservers have propagated and I've confirmed my domain with the eBay Partner Network. I've done half of the product pages and am now waiting for a confirmation email from eBay so I can login and get the scripts to place on these pages.

Questions: Anyone know how long it takes for eBay to send you the confirmation email that you're in the Partner Network after you've confirmed your domain? Is it a manual review? What are the critera?

Should I bother with redirecting deals-on-xxx.xxx.com to www.deals-on-xxx.xxx.com?

Am 2 days behind on my content writing, but will force myself to make it up tomorrow, which means I will be writing 15 articles on low comp. keywords. May be on suicide watch, so words of motivation are appreciated.

Sunday's the day, bros'! Get ready to watch this newbie go on to reach his goal & then some. ;)
 
Be prepared for disappointment. Ebay is pretty picky about who they except into the program, so if you submitted a brand new empty shell website they are more than likely going to say get lost.