Even before I started the 30 Day Challenge, I was doing some blogging and working on other internet marketing projects. On an average day, I spend only 2-3 hours on the 30 Day Challenge. There were some days when I’ve worked 5-6 hours, and some days (like yesterday) when I work only an hour. So what am I up to now?

Personal blog: Life Conquest
The aim of this blog is to document and track my progress from struggling internet marketer to online superstar. I aim to update it daily, but it just doesn’t always happen. Sorry!

News blog: Small Niche
This is that news blog I started a couple weeks back. I won’t go into details about what it’s all about, but it’s in a small niche and I promote some stories using the Web 2.0 tactics I learned in the 30 Day Challenge. I’m starting to write longer summaries as opposed to 3-4 sentence blurbs for each article. Updated daily, and it takes me less than 20 minutes to post a couple stories, and the niche is so small that some days I can only find one or two relevant stories (although I could probably find more if I looked hard enough). I’ve earned a little AdSense but not much. If I can end up making a few consistent bucks a day with this blog, I’ll start another one in another small niche.

The Two “Other” Blogs
These are the two blogs I occasionally mention in my posts, which I’ve been working on since before Life Conquest went live. One blog has been active since late last year, the other since early this year. They are in two distinct niches. Unfortunately I think the niches they’re in are a little broad. The good news? I’ve used the GTrends method to siphon a little more SE traffic using a great keyword. I update both blogs 2-3 times a week. Earnings are only through affiliate programs and I’ve made $60 this month with one of those blogs.

Two Experimental SEO Blogs
These are two blogs which I’m using to test GTrends, Web 2.0, and SEO so I can get a blog up into the top 1-3 on Google for a phrase. The idea is not to set up a blog to test the market as in the 30 Day Challenge, but to set up a blog for the long haul. They are not yet in Google’s top 10. I post in both of them 3 times a week.

30 Day Challenge Blogs
I have seven of them, but I’m actively working on four. Two of them are in Google’s top 10, whereas the other two are listed but far down. I update these blogs daily with one or two posts. I try to add a lot of photos and videos to make things interesting. I find I get a lot more stumbled traffic to my video posts. I haven’t made any sales.

I track all my blogs with StatCounter. I’m going strong on blogging because it’s ridiculously easy to set up and in many cases I can test the waters with a free hosted blog. The hardest part is writing up content! I’ve done review sites and “set and forget” blogs, and blogging has been most profitable for me so I’m sticking with it for now.

Technorati Tags: 30DC, Thirty Day Challenge, TDC, 30 Day Challenge, Blogs, Blogging, Earning Money Online, Making Money Online, Money, Internet, StatCounter, Problogger, Ka-Ching!

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I can rebuild them. I have the technology. I can use a different platform to completely transform my “tumblelogs” into full-fledged something or others. Better than they were before. Better. Stronger. Faster.

I’ve created new blogs for three of my keyword phrases, and if I don’t fall asleep I’ll have the other one finished before bed.

What am I doing now?

I’m building better content. I haven’t even added affiliate links yet. I’m just trying to get listed. One of my blogs was listed at #11 and #12 for the exact and broad match phrase, respectively, in less than two hours. Still waiting for the others. I’m also using two blogging platforms. One is kind of iffy, I never heard of it before and doesn’t have that great a layout, and the other is probably going to be one of the more popular Tumblr replacements. I won’t mention their names but you can probably figure out the latter.

Each blog has at least five initial posts with decent content. I’ve mixed a lot of other media in there, including videos and pictures. I’ve actually acquired a genuine interest in one of my niches, and I think it’s really showing in my posts.

Technorati Tags: 30DC, TDC, Thirty Day Challenge, 30 Day Challenge, Tumblr, Tumblrgeddon, Tumbliterated, Tumbludgeoned, Tumblrdered, Tumblelogs, Content, Better Content, Six Million Dollar Blog

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… from a blog which is not affiliated with the 30 Day Challenge.

This is one of the reasons why I love internet marketing: your blog or website works and earns while you’re not around, even when you sleep. The other reason is that I can work on said blog or website in nothing but my underwear and a T-shirt.

This not only increases my August earnings to over $60, but I’ve hit my minimum payout for this unnamed affiliate program and should be expecting a $120 cheque in the mail in 2-3 weeks! This is my second cheque from online wheeling and dealing and it’s over four times bigger than the last one! I really, really, really, really, really hope that I keep getting cheques (sorry, I’m Canadian) in the mail each month, and I’m not just getting lucky. The thing is, traffic hasn’t increased much in the past few months, but I’m making more money. (Note that my 30DC goal is to make $100 solely from the 30DC, so this doesn’t count towards it.)

I’m earning more money with my other blog projects that I’ve put on the back burner since starting the 30 Day Challenge. It’s too early to say I’m disappointed in the 30 Day Challenge, because we’re just starting to get into the meat and potatoes of it.

But not everybody has been pleased with the way the 30 Day Challenge. Mark at 45n5 criticized the challenge for using parasite SEO and not really working to create something sustainable. I agree with him that what we’ve done so far isn’t really sustainable, but we’ve just started, and Ed has mentioned that there are still more things to do. Mark suggests to “Do what they do, not what they say,” but I think we are building up to what they really do, which is create and sell (or get others to sell) your own info product.

I’m going to chug along with the 30 Day Challenge, and if I don’t end up making anything, I’ve only lost a little time.

Technorati Tags: TDC, 30DC, Thirty Day Challenge, 30 Day Challenge, Parasite SEO, Online Earnings, Internet Income, Making Money Online, Making Money While You Sleep, Tumblr, Tumblelogs, Tumbleweed, Tumblespam,

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So I just woke up and saw that neither of my four tumblelogs were ranked, although one of my posts on Netscape was listed. A little disappointed, even if I would never expect to be listed in less than 24 hours. But this isn’t what I was afraid of.

While using SocialPoster, I noticed something. I noticed a lot of other tumblelogs on all of the social bookmarking sites! It seems the one problem of having a huge turnout for the 30 Day Challenge, aside from the increased bandwidth usage, is that when Ed posted Rob’s Tumblr and SocialPoster videos there would be a huge surge of freshly created Tumblr sites posted on the major social bookmarking sites.

It appears I’m not the only one who noticed this. The funny thing is early yesterday morning, just hours after the SocialPoster video was put up and before I was even finished all my tumblelogs, IndianPad banned Tumblr links from being posted.

The problem is that you have all this tumblespam on Digg, Reddit, Netscape, etc. which is getting very little “love” except from teammates and a few other fellow 30DC’ers. Most tumblelogs don’t have much in the way of content, while there are some that really do a good job of using great, even “sticky” content in just a few posts. Unfortunately most of those get buried in the deluge of other tumblelogs on the social bookmarking sites.

This publicity is also turning Tumblr into the next Squidoo, and may get “slapped” by Google in the future. Although a more likely scenario that could happen before the end of August is Tumblr deleting the blogs with the least valuable content on them. And seeing how almost everyone is posting a couple times and just leaving their tumblelogs alone, that might not bode well for 30 Day challengers. In fact, I think I’ll make another post on my tumblelogs today.

This challenge is going to be especially difficult since I’m working without a team and because my goal is $100. Now that I think about it, I have less than two weeks to make $100.

Technorati Tags: 30DC, TDC, Thirty Day Challenge, 30 Day Challenge, Parasite SEO, Ticks, Tapeworms, Tumbleweeds, Tumblr, Tumblespam, Tumblelogs, Blogs, IndianPad, SocialPoster, Web 2.0, Social Bookmarking, Googleslap, Content

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Just a few hours ago, I posted on my first Tumblr blog, marking the end of the strategic phase and the beginning of the tactical phase. We’ve laid the plans as per Sun Tzu’s Art of War, and now we wage war!

It is a battle against ourselves, against laziness and lameness, and tap into our potential. It is a battle against the internet, an unforgiving environment where you will find some of the most unsavory characters that have ever traversed the web. It is a battle against all odds to reach our goals before the month’s end.

I’m all open. All out on the internet now. I’m still finishing up my last two tumblelogs. I’ve submitted my completed tumblelogs to a whole slew of social bookmarking websites, not necessarily to get traffic, although that would be a bonus, but to get Google to notice my blogs and rank them quickly.

The tumblelog-building process has been enjoyable to say the least. My original plan of 2-3 posts ended up being 3-5 posts. I discovered that I could easily add video content which would complement and add much more value than just my text and odd picture. I also sprinkled affiliate links here and there. One potentially “killer” keyword phrase has about 34 000 results, but 400 daily searches according to GTrends. If I can even hit the top 10 I’m sure I could get a nice juicy slice of that traffic.

I also noticed that I’m probably going to have some friendly competition with fellow 30DC participants in a couple of my niches. I hope they can settle with being #10 as I steal 1st place on the SERPs. :p

Today is a good day, and if I get ranked and start getting some traffic, today will be quite nice.

And if I make my first sale, today will be super awesome.

Technorati Tags: 30DC, TDC, Thirty Day Challenge, 30 Day Challenge, Tumblr, Affiliate Marketing, ClickBank, GTrends, Google, Genghis Khan, Sun Tzu, Art of War

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I was outside for a change, running errands and doing some birthday shopping so I got in a bit late today! This post is going to be a short update so I can get started on today’s task!

Today’s videos were not a surprise and I didn’t really learn much. But regardless, I’m following the 30 Day Challenge as closely as possible to see if I really can make $100 this month. But because I set my goal a bit high, I have six niches I’m going to promote. I’ve written four “articles” for each of my keyword phrases, and I plan to add five more by the end of the weekend. I’m not terribly satisfied with them, but from the looks of it they’re just supposed to be blog posts, so I’m not worried as much about quality (I wonder what that says about my blogs!).

Tonight I’m going to setup my Tumblr blogs with two or three posts each, with an affiliate link in 1-2 of those posts. I specifically chose my final niches to have relevant ClickBank products so if I make a few sales in all of them, I won’t be chasing minimum payment requirements.

Although Ed and the gang haven’t gone over how to get that first trickle of traffic and get listed on Google, I’m going to stumble my blog posts after I’m done and anxiously await tomorrow’s video.

Today’s Action Plan:

1. Setup a Tumblr blog for each of my keyword phrases.
2. Setup Tumblr blogs in ScribeFire.
3. Make 2 or 3 posts in each blog, or alternatively, one post immediately and one tomorrow.
4. …
5. Stumble!

Technorati Tags: Tumblr, Blogging, Blogs, 30DC, TDC, Thirty Day Challenge, 30 Day Challenge, StumbleUpon, ScribeFire, Stumble!

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I’ve picked my final six niches, but I’m going to focus most of my efforts into the best three over the next few days. This is because most of my niches have two keyword phrases pulling 40+ searches a day. At 3 mini articles per phrase (6, actually!), that adds up. But hey, when I get back later tonight and start on these mini articles I may end up speeding through them and catch up entirely.

Today’s video taught me nothing new, but I loved the teaser at the end showing Ed’s Tumblr blog as eighth on Google. I checked it a few minutes ago and it’s sixth. Not bad indeed.

I smiled when he was going through ClickBank. I’ve used it in the past and made a few sales, but never made the minimum five sales, at least one with Visa and one with MasterCard, that you need to make before ClickBank can start sending your cheques. Below is an actual screenshot, only edited to make it fit the blog post. Yes, these are my actual ClickBank earnings.

Note the “LOL.” After a few months of no sales activity, ClickBank starts removing $1.00 every pay period. Perhaps after this month I’ll have better success with ClickBank, using FREE traffic. I spent (i.e. wasted) almost $50 in PPC ads. Nowadays I never use paid advertising. After I make some more money, I’ll reinvest it in some PPC arbitrage projects.

I’m already tinkering with the idea of using the “GTrends” technique to identify keywords that I could use to get more search engine traffic to my other blogs. Currently, they receive very little SE traffic, and in the case of two of my other four blogs, they get nothing. I could do this with maybe two of my blogs which are very “niche.” Tomorrow, when I make updates for my other blogs for the next week (takes a few hours for all of them) I’ll do some keyword analysis.

Technorati Tags: 30DC, TDC, Thirty Day Challenge, 30 Day Challenge, Affiliate Marketing, ClickBank, Earnings, LOL, Funny, Actual Screenshot, GTrends, Google Trends, Technorati Tags

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As frustrating as internet marketing can be, the community can be very encouraging and inspiring.

I read a blog post at 45n5 on how to make money blogging and I think it’s a great supplemental resource if you want to earn money as a blogger.

The one thing I’m not so sure about is his suggestion to not go for small niches but go for a broad, competitive topics. I suppose it makes sense, since there is definitely money to be made and it would be easier to keep writing content i.e. blog about baked goods vs. a Louisiana apple pie blog. But I’ve always been taught to go for the small, the untapped niches.

His step-by-step plan focuses more on frequently writing great content with the aim of getting others to link to you. Also, the goal is to profit $600 per month from three blogs in about a year. That will take a lot of work and patience, but it’s very reasonable. When I start my blog project I will refer back to this post.

The 30 Day Challenge podcast and video was posted yesterday. I’ve already sized up the demand and competition for over a dozen niche markets. I’ve narrowed down the choice of niches for my pending blog project, and I plan on having the first blog live with a nice first post by tonight. My news blog is coming along nicely.

Oh, and if you’re using StatCounter, or any visitor tracking tool, look for something that will block your visits from being counted. I just found out yesterday that StatCounter has such a feature in the configuration settings ( ) where you can select “Create blocking Cookie,” which will prevent your visits from inflating your visitor count.

Technorati Tags: Blogs, Blogging for Money, Blogging, StatCounter

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