Formulating A Plan: Working Towards Niche Sites

If I have learned anything about Internet Marketing it is that it is important to have a plan. That's all very well of course, but what plan?! I have been using One Week Marketing as a starting point over the last couple of months, but I have been thinking about where to go from here. I am keen to move on to putting together some Wordpress niche sites and was considering using my existing One Week Marketing campaigns as a launchpad for these sites. However, my existing campaigns are fairly undeveloped so I don't really know what will convert and what won't at this point, so there is a danger of devoting a lot of time developing a niche site only to find that I cannot attract sufficient visitors, or I get visitors, but no buying visitors. So I have decided to develop my campaigns further on Squidoo etc to really test them out before moving on to niche sites.

So, here is my 3 step plan:

1. Set up 10 One Week Marketing campaigns.
2. Go back and improve on each campaign - improve my Squidoo lenses, write more articles, increase monetisation options if appropriate, get in more backlinks, etc.
3. See which campaigns are converting and set up Wordpress niche sites using the OWM campaigns as a launchpad.

Between improving campaigns I will be seeking out more potentially lucrative niches to start more campaigns. I am currently up to my 7th campaign so I am looking forward to moving on to stage 2 soon!

So, what's your plan?

Have You Been Trying to Contact Me?

I have noticed in recent weeks when checking my stats that a number of people have clicked on my "Contact Me" tab, but nothing has been arriving in me e-mail inbox. So I thought I had better check that it was actually working - and I discovered that it was not!! So I have now changed my provider and the new link does now actually work. In case you are interested my new provider for the Contact Me form is FormSpring who offer free forms or you can upgrade to a paid version for additional features.

So, if you have tried to contact me within the last four weeks or so and had no response, if you would like to propose a link exchange, if you want to buy advertising on Extra Cash Challenge, if you want to request to write a guest post.......or if you just want to so say hi, then click on the Contact Me tab at the top and fill in the form.

Get Paid to Search the Internet: Goodbye Scour, Hello Swagbucks!

For the last few months I have been using Scour to search the internet. The deal was for every search you did you earned points. You could also earn extra points for voting and commenting. And then, without any warning, the points system has been abandoned this month. There is no option for cashing in the points that I had earned so far, which is really quite annoying. They say that this is so that they can concentrate on improving the search experience.

As a result of this I have abandoned Scour in favour of Swagbucks. The way Swagbucks works is that every time you search the internet you have a chance or winning points, known as Swag Bucks. These can be traded in for various prizes (including vouchers). I have to say that it is much quicker and results are more relevant than Scour anyway, so Swagbucks is definitely my search engine of choice. After all, what can be easier than getting paid for doing what you do anyway!

How Changes to the Ebay Partner Network Policy May Affect You

There have been a number of changes at the Ebay Partner Network recently, but the particular change that I am concentrating on here is that you are no longer able to display Ebay ads on websites that are not your own. This change actually took place a few months ago, but I have to admit it passed me by. I did read something about it on an e-mail from HubPages, but didn't really take much notice. Then after doing a bit of research at Squidoo I realised there was a problem.

So here are few examples of sites that are affected:

Squidoo - you should no longer put your own Ebay affiliate RSS feed onto your lenses.
Qondio - you should no longer add Ebay ads
Infobarrel - the site have already removed Ebay ads

If you have your own Ebay ads on Squidoo or Qondio, or any other site that is not yours, then you need to remove them now. If you don't then you risk being removed from the Ebay Partner Network!

These are not affected:

Squidoo - Squidoo's own Ebay affiliate module is not affected and you should continue using these.
HubPages - The Ebay affiliate module is not affected.


So far I have not made any money at all from being with EPN, but this is basically because I have not yet utlised it much yet. However, I plan to incorporate these ads to a greater extent as I expand my affiliate empire. But more about that on another post...........

Monthly Total for August

It has become a tradition at Extra Cash Challenge at the beginning of each month for me to review my online earnings over the previous month and to look at my mission to create on-going online earnings. My self-imposed rules are that I only post the earnings I have actually received - this is as a result of the fact that I have learned that there are occasions that I have "earned" money never to actually receive it. Likewise, due to thresholds for payment, there are some earnings that it may well be some time before I actually get to see any of it. Adsense is a good case in point where at my current rate it will take me another 3 year before I will see any of this! I am working on increasing my Adsense income, but you get my point.

Anyway, to this month's earnings. This month's earnings have been.......(drumroll please).....ZERO!! That's right, nothing, zilch, nada, zip, nowt!!!!

This makes this month officially my worst month since I started posting my online earnings!

This does not mean I haven't earned anything. On the contrary, I have continued to earn from Adsense, I have done a few surveys, continued to get decent traffic to my Squidoo lenses and Bukisa pages, I have clicked on some paid e-mails and (most importantly) made a few affiliate sales. Unfortunately, only one of my affiliate sales gave me a decent commission, the others were really very small. But, nevertheless, this is the most sales I have made in a single month. There are also a few payments pending which I hope to receive shortly.

So, (working on the "glass half full" principle) not all bad news then!