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So I have decided to jump in and do some CPA Affiliate Marketing.  So now I need a Plan of Attack!

I have a few ideas on what “niche” and market that I am interested in getting involved in. so…

1. Pick out the niche and product that I want to start targetting.
2. Find an “aged” domain that has all of the properties that I am looking for, or add a sub-domain to one of my existing sites (this is the way that I am leaning for these tests).
3. Pick out specific products that I am going to market.
4. Start working on gathering content and keyword related articles.  I am going to use a basic version of wordpress for the CMS as I have found that it works very well, and it is easy to add content to.
5. Start a PPC campaign.  For this I am going to start with Adwords as it is still the Cadillac network when it comes to volume of traffic.
6. Refine keyword list, refine landing pages, repeat.

My goal is to break even in what ever area that I decide to get started in, however I am going to give myself a month to do this.  I am also setting a $$$ limit on what I am willing to put up.  I don’t want to dig myself into such a hole that nothing I can do will get me out of it.

As for timeline I am planning on having my niche, domain and products decided on this weekend.  Then the landing page, contact page, about page and at least 5 other articles related to the product group published.  From there it will be getting some easy links to get spidered.  This will take me about a week or so.  Then the PPC, this I am planning to have started by the second week of July.

I will have a series of weekly posts every Monday or Tuesday as the experiment runs its course.

I wrote a post a while ago about writers block, however it has not helped me very much lately.  I take a note book around with me everywhere.  It sits in my bag and when I think of something that I think that I should write about, or a niche idea that I think I should explore I write it in there.

The pages have been very empty lately.

I think that it may have something to do with the amount of stuff that I do during the summer.  It is really too nice to be inside, and I have also filled my evenings with sports.   This does not leave a lot of time for sitting and thinking, which in turn leads to burn out.   I am starting to feel like I am sinking in a hole, which leaves my mind not relaxed.

I have been trying to get to the gym.  Hitting the weights has always been a good way for me to clear my head of everything.  When you are there the only thing that you think about is the amount that you are lifting, or the speed that you are going.  it really helps to focus for the rest of the day, but I haven’t been doing even that lately.  I have been playing ball hockey and ice hockey very late so that means that I am not getting up early enough to hit the gym.  This is something that I am missing out on, and it is something that I am going to have to make a priority if I don’t want the advances that I have made in the last month to slde.

So now I am off to play hockey, and then it is off to bed.  Tomorrow morning I am going to begin my new workout at the gym to see if I can get focused again, both at work and at home.  I hope that this new routine will get me motivated like I was last month.

Marketing Leverage has gone crazy with the contest sponsorships.  Not that I am complaining I have joined in a few hoping to get something out of them.

The one that I ALMOST missed was John Chow’s.  Today is the last day to enter.  All you have to do is reply to his post or write a blog post with a trackback and a link to Marketing Leverage.

This is my post for the contest

Today I have sold my last link placement through TextLinkAds.  I recommend them if you are interested in selling some text link space.  They are very easy to deal with and the payouts are fair.

Currently TLA is the main way that this blog makes money.  It is about 25% of my total online income currently, but I am expecting more.  I have added the ability to sell private ads using OioPublisher.  This is a great plugin, very easy to install and manage.  The only downfall, if you can call it that, is that it costs money.  I will write a full post on it in the very near future, because it really is worth everything that you pay.

Right now I am offering 3 site wide banners and 1 inline ad.  I have “default” banners located there now, so there are 4 spots available, so get them now before they are gone

My next step in my hobby is to let one site die and build on another.  The killer for me is that the site that I don’t have to time for is the one with the more profitable niche, however I have more “fun” writing for the other site.  Since this is a hobby I am going to leave it this way.  I may not let the other site die prese but maybe I will just let it sit and buy some post for it in the near future.

For my next step I am going to start to investigate my entry into the affiliate marketing space….again.  There seems to be a number of people doing the same, but I am sure that I can succeed.  I have a monthly profit goal in mind that I want to reach for the new year.  If I reach it, I may plan on making this hobby into an actual company.  This has the advantages of limiting my personal liability, but it costs money.

That is enough rambling for tonight.  Maybe in the future when I have more cash flow into this blog I will post my earnings like JohnC and TylerC.

Ciao

I am starting to look for some other web hosts out there.  I am about to begin to dabble in the dark arts of CPA Affiliate Programs and need to scatter my hosts somewhat.  I don’t want to have all of my mini-sites in the same basket, and I definitely don’t want my mini-site experiments to hurt the rankings of my more serious sites.

So along with reading the articles available at WebHostingRating Articles, and now I have found another great webhosting rating site, WebHostingChoice.

If you don’t think that you go enough information at WebHostingRating, there is a good FAQ at Web Hosting Choice.  The other great source of information  at this site is the Cheap Web Hosting page and their Web hosting scams page, here they talk about the downfalls of going with a host that is soo cheap that it is “too good to be true”….Well you are probably right it is.

One of the biggest scams is the Unlimited bandwidth/storage

Unlimited bandwidth/space – it is simply impossible for a company to offer unlimited space or bandwidth to use. As hosting companies and their associated technologies are themselves limited (i.e. bandwidth or hard disk space), unlimited offerings are usually just an advertising gimmick. Often you will find clauses embedded deep within the company’s terms of service contract that negate the unlimited offering. The clauses are usually arbitrary, such as excessive CPU usage will be grounds for account termination.UnlimBand is a good resource to learn more.

So head over to WebHostingChoice and let me know what you think.

I am sure that if you are new in the online community, or are currently on a hosted solution and want to move to a “self-hosted” solution this is a great place to start you brainstorming on the host that you are going to choose.  It is a big decision and your host is going to be a factor in that amount of money that you are going to make online.