July 8, 2008 By 1 Comment

The “I Haven’t Made Up My Mind About The Thirty Day Challenge” – Competition

My little countdown widget beside the blog posts told me today was 22 days (22 hours and 22 minutes) to the beginning of the Thirty Day Challenge and it crossed my mind that there must be people out there that have not signed up to be part of the challenge yet. Hmm what can I do to help them decide?

Maybe they are worried it is a scam, maybe they think they will not have the skills or the time to get involved. Whatever the reason, I am here to assure you that there is no selling, no previous skills required and minimal time needed (the challenge is actually open ended…the information will be there after the 30 days… for a whole year at least).

I am thinking that if you have not signed up now you might need a little sweetener to do so. Something that will get you to enter your name and email. Something that will be useful to you after you have completed the Thirty Day Challenge. Something that could potentially earn you cash when you know what to do with it.

Some background on the prize -

Dan Raine (mischief maker and all round awesome internet marketing dude) was playing around after one of the Justin.TV shows Ed Dale had done to test how best to present this years 30DC . There was a small audience of hardcore fans (like myself) that was enjoying the banter (yay Team After-Party!). It was all very intimate and fun as I recall.

Anyway Dan loves to get a little tricksy with things that he gives away. So randomly, Dan tossed out a small number of keyword searches that he had picked up as being potential business starters. Now Dan doesn’t chuck around rubbish and I know he is the “real deal” when it comes to making money online. Seeing the opportunity I registered a couple of the .com domains for those keyword searches as they came up.

And it is one of those expertly chosen keyword search domains plus six month’s hosting with my host Servage* that I will be giving away to the winner. This will be a real asset when you have finished the Thirty Day Challenge, even if you do nothing and just sell it.

So how do you enter.

Well it’s really simple. If you have NOT signed up for this year’s 30DC then

a) Clean your cookies from your browser

b) Click on my Thirty Day Challenge affiliate link

c) Sign up!

d) Pop a comment in the comments section here that you have done the above

e) Cross Fingers!

I will be announcing the winner on August 1st 2008, so make sure you get in early so you don’t forget!

If you have ALREADY signed up for the Thirty Day Challenge do not worry, if you send my link to someone and want to walk them through the above process and then pop your name in below when they are all signed up that is cool too.

To all entrants please remember to put the comment in as soon as you sign up so I can check it against my dashboard numbers :)

Any questions? Leave them in a comment and GOOD LUCK!

* Servage offer unlimited domain support with unlimited email accounts with auto install for most of the popular applications such as WordPress plus much much more.

_____________________________

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June 1, 2008 By 2 Comments

Now This Looks Interesting

If you are a bit of a trend seeker like myself (that is not trend setter, I am as fashionable as a red setter) you will be interested in ferreting out information about what people are thinking, doing and saying. This would explain my infatuation with FriendFeed and today my love-at-first-sight meeting with Twitscoop.

This thing is awesome (and is probably not unique) as it shows you in cloud form what words are “big” right now in the Twitterverse. I happened to take a screen shot earlier today after the announcement of Yves Saint Laurent’s death. Can you see how the news was suddenly a HUGE topic on twitter.

Twitscoop of Yves Saint Laurent's death

You can see that everything else being spoken about is dwarfed by this discussion. Hover your mouse over the words and the last 5 or so Twitters on the subject are displayed. Click on the word and they are all displayed in chronological order.

I was a little late catching the Thirty Day Challenge broadcast hype screenshot, being about an hour into the broadcast I missed the lead up, but this gives some idea.

Twitscoop Thirty Day Challenge

Ok that is pretty cool but what else can it do? A couple of things that I can see that are useful…

You can save specific clouds, which I am guessing might be a vanity thing, but would be great for when you see something interesting but don’t have time to investigate.

You can search for terms and look at the trend over 1-6 hours – 3 days. I can see using this for launches as a hype meter, research into how trends pass through twitter, and monitor how the rise and fall.

Here again is “Yves Saint Laurent” search term over today

Twitscoop trend of Yves Saint Laurent's death

And then there is the search term search which I love in web page format. For niche research it is a beauty! Killer use – type in “question” and see people asking all sorts of things. ” I have a question blah blah blah” “Can someone answer my question”. The view is over a three day period maximum, but still that is fertile ground to dig into for ideas. For those people in the Thirty Day Challenge this could be a pretty handy tool to use

I was able to tell Jason Moffatt that only two people had mentioned Goji Juice (his pet thing) over the last few days. Only two in how many people?

Oh and what is that to the left of the cloud? Why it is the recent bigger hitters in Twitter about every two hours. Now if that doesn’t give you ideas I don’t know what will!

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May 31, 2008 By 2 Comments

Thirty Months PANIC!!!!

You might have noticed that I run a timer (down there in the right sidebar) that is counting down to the day I will be walking out of corporate life. When I read it yesterday is said two years six months till that momentous day. Two years + …plenty of time…cool

Then I converted it to months and freaked out. Thirty months. Only 30!

You see for the last 8 years I have been paid monthly. I pay my rent monthly. I pay my bills monthly. My life is organised around months. To realise I only have thirty of these time units to complete my plan for world domination has been an icy splash of water to the face.

In reality it is not a bad thing to have these wake-up calls every now and then. Creating a sense of urgency is a well known tactic for ensuring the procrastination monster does not entirely take us over. Setting ridiculously short deadlines will get work done, and done quicker. But you can only pull that a few times before burnout starts to become an issue.

Back to my thirty months.

I started thinking about the things that I have created in a short period of time. Last year’s Thirty Day Challenge for example seemed fairly leisurely even though we were performing tasks on nearly a daily basis, and I had a good outcome from that.

Then my plan to get a MacBook Pro without digging into my bank account is now $2000 realised after about 6 hours work over 2 weeks writing Knewsroom* articles. Not bad going, but still it is “work” for cash not passive income…

I have been slack with my ebook only writing a couple of hundred words every now and then. This will not do and so I will set the realistic goal of having it published on or before June 14. If I do not then I don’t get my Macbook Pro, I will put the money into the mortgage.

As we go forward the next two months are starting to get booked out. June is Thirty Day Challenge pre-season. July is erm…winter. August is the Thirty Day Challenge proper. Somewhere in there I have to flick the switch and get the niches up and earning money. No more mucking around with piddly amounts and things only for fun.

Well apart from Spore when it comes out.

*If you want an invite to Knewsroom drop me a note in comments, or Twitter :)

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May 23, 2008 By Leave a Comment

Projections

Time to narrow the focus on my projects down a bit as we come up to June 1st and pre-season for the 30 Day Challenge. If you have read the About Me section you will know that I have Multiple Sclerosis and this can, and does, interfere with how much I can output. As much as I want to go at a million miles an hour, the body/brain need to be frequently rested.

So there is one single goal this weekend and that is to finish the e-Book. That’s it.

My inner voice is yelling out about other stuff like writing some great content for Knewsroom, or finishing off some of the other sites I have, or playing around with the Storestacker app, but I have to tell it to shut up. If I keep going too hard I am going to be in all sorts of trouble physically, and that just won’t do.

On another note I have been flabbergasted as to why Project Supernova has faltered somewhat. The CTR has remained high (20%+) and the cost of a click is down to 32c but these buggers are not buying anything.

Then it struck me, I am only getting 32 visitors starting at whatever time Google considers start of day . So if I get 32 people between midnight and 6am for example, how many of them are really “buyers” and how many are just “lookers”. To test my theory, I have upped my maximum daily spend to $25 which will give me 75 new people a day. If this does not prove to be successful by Sunday night US time then i will close the whole thing down as too costly for this niche (but oh so good for say my ebook niche maybe?)

So don’t worry if you don’t see me saying much on Twitter over the next couple of days, I will probably be enforcing some bed rest with a good book for much of the weekend.

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May 16, 2008 By 2 Comments

Defending The Indefensible

Sometimes i KNOW I am wasting my time. It is usually when I am commenting on blogs or in forums about certain issues.

Take this year’s Thirty Day Challenge.

Now I know what it is and what it isn’t. I know that it will be automatically, in the minds of many trigger the SCAM button. Why?

  • people evangelise about it
  • it involves making money
  • evangelising + making money = MLM
  • everything on the internet is a scam
  • it’s free, it has to end up costing something

I am all for people being naturally cautious. Everyone should be responsible for their actions. I am naturally cautious, but I funnel that into finding out about the opportunity first before making any form of decision.

I guess for some it is easier to dismiss something out of hand than go research, even if it is potentially beneficial.

So no more time wasting! Say my piece, get in and then get out. It is not benefiting me one iota getting into an argument on the internetz

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May 15, 2008 By Leave a Comment

Everybody is Working for the Weekend

The weekend forecast says the weather is going to turn cold(er) over Saturday. Sounds like a great reason to pull my finger out and work on some niches I have up my sleeve.

Niche 1

This cutie of a niche will need some interaction with a programmer to make me a “thing”. The “thing” will bring traffic and while the traffic is there, they will see some cute hard products to purchase.

to-do

  • must write specs for the thing (flow)
  • grab example from else where on the net
  • write a bloody long list of words to be produced by the thing
  • look for cute blog skin

Niche 2

This niche is a how-to niche that will be based on a free how-to product with paid upgrades, a membership/forum site with page advertising. This weekend I will need to engage an “artist” to design the free how-to and upgrades.

to-do

  • write spec for artist(s)
  • look for appropriate forum application
  • look for nice blog skin

I have not used either of these business models before and to be perfectly honest i will probably get them up and running and sit on them for a while, then use them for testing site selling.

What I like about both niches is that they are both interesting and will be fun working with. Much better than my joke suggested niche (that is a perfectly viable one) about pap smears.

I will also be doing the usual weekend thing of shoving as much information in my head as possible. I have a few videos I want to re-watch from the Immediate Edge, as well as start thinking about my approach to this year’s Thirty Day Challenge.

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May 14, 2008 By 4 Comments

My Blatant Spam Thirty Day Challenge Request

I am being totally up front here I want YOU to use my code to sign up for this year’s Thirty Day Challenge.

If you have ever thought about learning how to bring traffic to your current sites, make money from the internet, or just understand what things like Google AdSense are all about then join this FREE learning opportunity.

http://www.ThirtyDayChallenge.com/challenge/537

No scam, no spam, and you can ask me anything at any time if you have signed up through my link.

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May 13, 2008 By 2 Comments

Free Macbook Pro – Continued

The story so far…. I want a free Macbook Pro.

By free I mean I do not want to pay for it.

I am willing to swap my time, my imagination and any unwanted goods for this baby. Knowing me I will spend more time than the AU$4k I would need to buy one, in time scheming how to get one. But isn’t that half the fun?

So what have I been up to

A

First I hit up Twitter to see what was being thrown about in the Twitterverse. There were some interesting results coming out of Tweetscan.

  • Spotted this blog that is giving away free MacBook Air and iPhones. I need an iPhone and I could use the Air to leverage to the Pro maybe . Really need that iPhone….fancy a blog giving away all that stuff. I will be back to check  out via RSS feeds I think!
  • Apple appear to be incredibly generous with their replacement parts and upgrades with many 140 character missives praising them for replacing this or that for free, outside of warranty, or just plain upgrading for nix.
  • A person I follow scored a Macbook pro as “in kind” for some training work he did for them…. nom nom nom
  • Most people who are looking for a free Macbook Pro are participating in the US-centric referral type sites which is no good for lil ol’ Aussie me.

Time spent: 1 hour

B

Next on the list of potential methods of gaining a free Macbook Pro is to win the Marketing Pilgrim’s Search Engine Marketing Scholarship and swap the prizes with a rabid marketer for a MacBook Pro. I think that is a pretty good deal if done properly. Winning of course would be ultra difficult, but the backlink to the blog will be handy.

Budgeted time : 8 Hours

C

The Thirty Day Challenge kicks off tomorrow with whispers that there will be some FABULOUS prizes being given out along the way. This may get me deleted from many friends lists, but I am prepared to spam the crap out of everyone to win whatever is on offer and then leverage it.

Actually i lie, I wouldn’t subject my friends to more than one spam, my acquaintances on the other hand…mwuahahahahh!

Actually..I am on my knees now, begging you to follow any link I put up to the Thirty Day Challenge *puppy dog eyes*

Time Budgeted: Unknown at this stage

D

?

Ideas anyone?

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May 10, 2008 By 3 Comments

Project SuperNova – Curing Niche Cancer

When you choose a niche that is based on something that is in vogue you need to be prepared for the inevitable decline in traffic to that niche when the searchers go elsewhere for the next big thing.

Last year, during the Thirty Day Challenge, I picked a niche that I knew would have a limited popular lifespan, but should still live on as minor search term into the future. This niche has done pretty OK for me and I have learned a hell of a lot from it.

This niche generates just about 100% of its traffic from searches in Google Images.  I have  around 5 of the top 10 images,and always #1 image, in several similar search terms (since day 1!). For a while this worried me deeply as it seemed many eggs, one basket. And to be truthful I was (and have been) very, very lazy in creating other traffic generators apart from answering questions in Yedda and the occasional Stumble love.

Now looking at the graph there does not seem to be much of a downward trend, and it could quite possibly be seasonal (northern hemisphere summer means less people thinking about my niche or in front of the computer) or an temporary aberration. It could also be the beginning of the end.

Traffic decline?

I have no exit strategy for this niche. No plans to sell or close down. What I am going to do is experiment with PPC (pay per click) advertising to see if I can funnel some cashed up people to the site. The plan is to go supernova, burn brightest before winking out of existence.

After watching the StomperNet PPC video (god Andy Jenkins pisses me off, he so does not come across as authentic) I have set up a mini campaign in one country to test out what seems to be pretty common sense stuff. I have avoided PPC like the plague as it all seemed like black magic that could end up costing you an arm and a leg.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained as granny used to say, and so i am dipping my toe in before the Thirty Day Challenge this year, which will also be touching on PPC.

After an hour live the campaign has had 9 impressions with one click. Totally too small to be statistically significant, but at least I know I have set the darn thing up right. I am also happy with the amount I am paying per click, as I knew the landing page is optimised for XXXXXXs and the add campaign is using XXXXXing  as its keyword phrase.

Will continue to update on progress.

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May 2, 2008 By 1 Comment

Product Phobia – I Has It

I have come to realise that I have an irrational fear of creating my own product.  What is so hard about creating something that people will want to pay money for?

I was contemplating this after a series of posts and replies in the Thirty Day Challenge Forums.  In the back and forth of discussion, my opinion about what a beginner should be paying for tools, solidified. I really don’t think that anyone should pay for anything till they know what they are doing with it. But is this a sensible opinion?

If a beginner guitar player buys the top of the range guitar will it encourage them to continue playing longer and hone their craft? If they are given a free instrument will that diminish their enjoyment, or reduce their skills?

The thing here is, when it comes to online products, what I really believe is never pay for anything that is of low quality; and a lot of what I see people produce as products are low quality.  There again a lot of what I see is for free. Vicious cycle 101!

So what is stopping me create a quality product? Nothing at all!

I know I am a creative little soul and have done some kick-arse work for others and in my corporate career. I know I can write (this blog may say otherwise :) ). I have passion, I have self confidence in bucket loads. I have seen and paid for various products in the first niche i want to produce a product for and I know I can do better.

What I don’t have is a mentor in this area, someone who can give constructive criticism and not brush things off as ‘well you are just beginning so any old crap is OK”. That is not something i have seen covered. The peer review of a project, who do you choose?

Would love your input

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