My First Squidoo Lens!

One of the tasks on Wealthy Affiliate's 8-Week Action Plan - Week 2 is to create an article. The lesson plan suggested Squidoo.com, so I figured it sounded like a good idea.

Anyway, I just wrote my first Squidoo Lens and I don't really know what to expect really. I guess it's more of an experiment rather than a deliberate money maker. I wrote about something I knew and attached some clickbank products. Hopefully, I can get some sort of feedback on how this whole article marketing thing works.

How to Manually Remove Spyware From Your PC: http://www.squidoo.com/manually-removing-spyware

I used the following steps to formulate my article:
1.) Determine a market and drill down into the niche:

• Computers -> Spyware -> Spyware Removal -> How to remove Spyware -> How to remove spyware manually.

2.) Determine the search demand: Using the general seed word for "spyware removal" listed several thousand search volume using the SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool

• SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool: http://tools.seobook.com/general/keyword/

3.) Determine products to promote in Clickbank:

• XoftSpySE
• Noadware.net - Spyware/Adware Remover
• AdawareAlert.com

4.) Write an article on how to remove spyware manually and then create a module for the 3 different products.

5.) Publish the article

I'm kind of saying to myself, "So, what now?". Does it generate natural traffic? I'm guessing people use squidoo as a resource like google, so I guess we'll see what happens.

I have much to learn!

30 Day Challenge

I subscribed to Ed Dale's 30 Day Challenge at http://www.thirtydaychallenge.com. This will be kind of interesting to do while I am learning at Wealthy Affiliate.

Although I do not know what to expect entirely, I think that the 30DC will be focusing on article marketing, forum marketing and other inexpensive methods of generating that first sale.

My focus for Wealthy Affiliate will most likely be targeted niche keywords for affiliate products using pay per click advertising as the main source for traffic generation.

Wealthy Affiliate 8-Week Course: End of Week 1

Wealthy Affiliate 8-Week Course - Week 1

In week 1, most of the materials were to:

• get acquainted with the forum
• post an intro in the forum
  
• get started with the resource center

So far I've read a lot of the materials in the beginner and intermediate sections.

Most of the topics included:

• Internet Marketing Basics
• Pay-Per-Click Advertising
• Common Keyword Technique
• Ad Copy Writing
• How to setup a Web Site
• Keyword Research
• Performing Market Research

MyBase

Also, I have tried the trial version of MyBase and is an excellent program. The trial version of the WebCollect plug-in is cool as well since it allows you to embed web pages into the database itself. I think I will be making this program as my primary choice for organizing my data and information.

Some of the cool features include:

• Being able to attach any type of file to a node (.doc, .pdf, ,.jpeg, etc)
• Embedded Web Browser that is able to view your saved web pages
  
• 2GB of database size (if it ever reaches that, just create a new database - Each database gets it own tab in the tree browser!)
• RTF Styles make it easy to style the page just like a Microsoft Word document
• Linking to another node allows a reference to related notes
  
• Labels allow each node to be "tagged" with multiple labels
• Custom icons: attach any 16x16 bitmap image to be used as icons for each node
• And much more... This program has waaaaay too many features.

Source: http://www.wjjsoft.com/

Information Management

I have been organizing a lot of data so that I can create a process or procedure for creating my marketing campaigns. Here is the outline that I currently am following:

1. Market Research: Discover Niche to Target
   
2. Keyword Research (Niche Demand): Analyze Niche Profitability
   
3. Product Research: Determine products to sell within niche
   
4. Keyword Research (Product Demand): Analyze Niche Profitability
   
5. Keywords Financial Analysis: Find Cheap Keywords for PPC
   
6. PPC Ad Copywriting: Write Copy for Different Ad Groups
   
7. Create Landing Page: Design Optimized Site for Ad
   
8. Testing: Split-test and tweaking

These steps are almost to be taken in order from top to bottom, so I guess I'll find out if my process can be replicated when I actually create my first campaign.

More to come in the future!

Tree-Based Information Management Software

I've been thinking about how I'm going to organize my research in order to document the steps and processes I am taking towards looking for markets and products to sell. I stumbled upon various software among the "Information Management Software" niche, if you want to call it that. I've narrowed it down to a few software choices to provide with the management I need to organize my research.

**Note: This also serves as an exercise in providing reviews for products, which I think I will be starting out with when I start marketing products.

The tree-based information management software that I will be reviewing includes:

1. KeyNote
2. MyBase
   
3. TreePad

Rank #3: Treepad

Web Page: http://www.treepad.com

Rating: 3.5/5

Description: Treepad's functions are somewhat limited in the free or lite version, but it still does the job of a decent tree-based note taker. There are some limitations such as the ability for tabs, but this is very lite on CPU processing and therefore runs pretty fast.

Rank #2: KeyNote

Web Page: http://www.tranglos.com

Rating: 4/5

Description: This little piece of software is highly functional and is very simple to use. If you need something easy to use and cheap, then this product is definitely a good choice.

It somewhat represents the look and feel of Microsoft Word so it should definitely feel familiar.

Rank #1: MyBase

Web Page: http://www.mybase.com

Rating: 5/5

Description: This is probably the most functional tree-based information manager there is out there. It has plenty of the standard functions of notes and formatting, but it also has the ability to attach files as well as web pages. This program has way too many functions to talk about and is arguably one of the best out there.

There is my little exercise on reviewing a few products. I will be using either one of these information managers to organize my research in a structured way. Some topics that I will probably categorizing include: Niche Research, Market/Product Research, Keyword Research, Campaigns, Research Templates, etc. If I can streamline all of these processes in a cohesive manner, then I should have no problem duplicating the process in the future. More to come in the next posts!

First Steps and Initial Tasks

So in this post, I want to communicate my Business, Personal and Financial Goals for my new business venture. I think it is important to see the long-term goals and then outline the small objectives to reach the big ones.

My Long-Term Vision
The main focus and reason for my business is to be able to get my free time and use the time properly. This means that I should be able to make more money than just $20/hr and be able to design how much I make. Being able to have free time means that I need to be financially well off in order to make that happen.

My Goals
Business:

1. First Affiliate sale using PPC
2. First sale using E-mail Marketing

Financial:

1. First Sale (Make $25 in a day)
   
2. Make $100 in a day
3. Make $1000 per week
4. Make $1000 in a day
5. Make $10000 per week
6. Re-Evaluate Goals

Personal (Fun):

1. Backpacking through Europe
2. 7-Day Cruise (Hawaii or Carribean Islands)
3. Travel to the Philippines
4. Buy iPhone with Business Money

I think that these goals are definitely in reach within the next couple of years. These goals help me to keep my focus and determination throughout this journey.

Motivation
Every now and then I log in to the Wealthy Affiliate forums and read the general success forum. Everyday, there is at least one person that posts about their experience of their first sale. Occasionally, there is the 1-year story about how they went from making $29/day to $1000/day. With online businesses, this is all possible because of the fact that web sites almost remain on the virual web as your own personal army of salespeople. Once a site is successful, you can easily move on to the next, which allows people to reach that $1000/day goal.

In the next few weeks I will be posting about my experience in bring my first goal to fruition, which is to make that First Sale.

The Beginning of a Journey

I just finished the last class in my education of web design through sessions.edu. Although I wanted to get started in the Internet Marketing business as soon as possible, I also wanted to make sure that I finish what I started before continuing on to the next project.

So, this begins my journey through Internet Marketing and most specifically through Affiliate Marketing. Although I have perused many different sources pertaining to Internet Marketing, I have found that Wealthy Affiliate has gotten the most positive reviews consistently among many different sites. Given that I have joined this community, I have started the first week of the 8 week plan, which will outline the path to focus on how I make money with Internet Marketing.

My main vision for this blog is to be able to post my experiences, my goals, my successes and failures until I reach what I believe is financial freedom.

Sources
Wealthy Affiliate - Internet Marketing University (http://www.wealthyaffiliate.com)
Sessions.edu - Online School of Design (http://www.sessions.edu)