In blogging for the past year, on and off, building my dating sites and niche sites, I have come to several realizations about myself.

1. I can’t blog or work on a niche site that I have absolutely no passion for. It becomes boring to the point that it causes me anxiety and I make distractions in order to avoid, the boring. Then I get anxious about wasting time and not doing anything productive.
2. I am easily distracted, even on medication for ADHD, I am still easily distracted, “Ooh shiny…”, I stay focused by NOT browsing the Internet when I am trying* to work, and write.
3. Getting it done doesn’t mean thinking about it more, getting it done means just that, doing it and getting it done.
4. Sometimes I spread myself too thin. When I do that, I know it’s time to sell a website or two to make more room for bigger, more profitable ventures. (Clearing my plate for desert.)
5. I’ve discovered more about myself, the things I am passionate about and the things I stand or will stand for, and things I won’t stand for. I know I won’t stand for mediocrity, although sometimes I catch myself pushing the publish button, when I shouldn’t. I am still learning.
6. I’m still learning. I already said that but am saying it again.
7. I shouldn’t compare myself to others who make more than me in this industry, nor should I base my success or failure on their successes and failures. I am a completely different person, and therefore I am not them.
8. From failure comes success. From success comes knowing many ways that something will not work.
9. Like religion, failure, is only one road to a common destination. The roads are many and varied, pick one,and stick with it.
10. Fail Spectacularly. It takes nothing short of an atomic blast to create change or to do something differently. If you fail in a mediocre way, then so will your change be mediocre, and your end result will also be mediocre. So if you intend on being grandly successful, then fail spectacularly, so you can succeed in a spectacular way.

Random Posts:

• 3 Places Where I find possible Niches
• The Secret to Successful Blogging or Marketing.
• Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill – Book Review
• Hellraiser Puzzle Box meets the economy from hell
• Aweber email service Hacked?

The book “The Big Moo“, by not only Seth Godin, but 33 other successful business people, including Mark Cuban, Dave Balter, Malcolm Gladwell, Tom Peters, and Guy Kawasaki, is a compilation of shorts that tell how people have made their little businesses, remarkable.

Godin’s previous book, “Purple Cow“, talks about being a standout Purple Cow in a crowded field of brown cows. Sometimes you need a Big Moo, to go beyond and become remarkable. Easily remarked about, in other words.

So extraordinary people want to remark about it.

Purple Cow talks about standing out in a field of Brown Cows, but The Big Moo talks about how to get people to remark on your business. Essential to becoming viral in a sea of ordinary and sometimes flooded landscape.

Godin talks about how the product is what people think it is or what they want it to be, case in point the Italian Shop keeper who came to America, to sell his wares. The customers would look at the six pack of drinking glasses and put them back, then walk over to the single bud vases, also look and put them back and not buy.

One day he watched one of his customers and asked them how they liked the store, and they remarked ” I don’t understand why you are selling your bud vases in six packs, when I would only use maybe 2 or 3 of them,” and ” I would really like to buy some of those drinking glasses, but I would rather buy them in a six pack instead of individually.”

The Bud Vases here in America, were actually drinking glasses in Italy, and the Bud vases in Italy, were translated as drinking glasses in Americas big thirst for more and bigger. The product is what the customer wants it to be.

The Big Moo, is a great fast read, or listen if you download the audio version, and I highly recommend it, if you are an Internet entrepreneur. It will open your eyes to looking at things and thinking about things, in a different light.

Bob wears pantyhose.

Bob worked for Legg’s and so did several other men and they too wore pantyhose. They just couldn’t grasp how an improved cotton panel would be beneficial, because of their Male Appendage. One of the Legg’s company marketers, however, was in touch with his family and friends, the females in his life who did wear pantyhose and talked to them about what they wanted, needed and how to improve the Legg’s line. The company marketer always made a better impression than the guys who wore pantyhose.

Why? Because he talked to the customers and not just the person in the mirror. Therefore he was remarkable and so was the Legg’s line of Pantyhose.

If you want a fast read and an eye opener, then I highly suggest getting The Big Moo by the group of 33, and Seth Godin.

Related Posts:

• Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us by Seth Godin – Free Audio Book Download

Heretics are everywhere, but don’t be afraid, you follow them willingly. As Seth Godin States in his book Tribes, “The world has changed a lot. There are heretics everywhere you look,” he writes. “Heretics are engaged, passionate, and more powerful and happier than everyone else, and they have a tribe that they support (and supports them in turn).”

A heretic is now someone who, as the old world would say: speaks against the church, but today they are the movers and shakers, the leaders of viral movements and the starters of revolutions. Are you a heretic? Do you have what it takes to be a leader in today’s world? Heretics move people and get things moving.

This is one of Seth’s books on Leadership, and it also throws in bits of Idea virus, Purple cow and a little Tipping Point from Malcolm Gladwell. If you like Seth Godin and his short, easy to read books, maybe you’ll like to listen to the audio version of his book, Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us. Download a copy of Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us, here at Audible.Com, all you need to do is create a user account. No money needed at all, 100% free.

Enjoy…

Related Posts:

• The Big Moo by the Group of 33, and Seth Godin

Last month I was talking about this months income report, and how it was going to be much better. Well it is. As you can see it’s about $700 better, which was a nice boost. I am shooting for even more in July. I’ve started on several eBooks, 4 of which are already online and selling, Rockabilly Hairstyles.

My next ebooks are about black and white Hollywood Glamour Photography, something people have been asking me for, for a while now. I am hoping that will be a good seller.  I am also going to start my fetish photography site, and a digital photography site. Yeah I know there’s a ton of them, but mine will be different. I promise.

As you can see, I did a website flip last month. I didn’t make much from it but the experience I gained was invaluable. The income from the dating sites went up a bit too, and I sold some old wedding photos to a client whose wedding I shot several years ago. They were sitting there on my hard drive, and I thought maybe I should offer them a disk of unedited images. They can edit and print as many as they want. it’s been like 3 years. They bought it instantly.

Amazon was back up again, and going to be even better for July, I guarantee it! You can also see my ebook sales in there too.

Amazon – 98.79

Dating Sites – 730.83

eBook Sales(Mine) – 76.79

Affiliate eBook Sales – 45.40

Text Link Ads – 62.73

Google – 320.33

Website Flip – 110.00

Photography Sold – $250

Total – $1694.87

last month (may) –$1002.88

Difference of $691.99

Random Posts:

• How to build a Niche Website
• Confessions of a Lazy Super Affiliate
• SOLD! How I Flipped My First Website
• Niche Market Blogging or Streetfighting for Bloggers – Part 1
• “Desperate Buyers Only”, and “Confessions…”

I finished the book Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill a few weeks ago, rather the audio version of it, and almost immediately thought of The Secret. Although I have never read The Secret, or watched a movie about it, I did see an info movie about it, a while back, and thought to myself that this is probably where The Secret started from or got it’s inspiration.

From what I understand, I am correct in that assumption, in doing some research on that before writing this review, Think and Grow Rich is said to be the inspiring topic for The Secret. Personally I was not impressed with what I’ve heard about The Secret, and the way it was presented and  the way I saw it was more get rich quick crap, than fact.

However, in the book Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, I was Awe Inspired, I was delighted with stories of people who were little people who went on to be great people  and in the process because rich as an aside. The author did not disclose “The Secret” in exact words, but gave it in such a way that a person would have to derive it for themselves from the passages in the book.

I found many of the principles in the book ones that I already adhere too, such as having a burning desire for the want of something, or of something better. Faith is also a key part in the procedure of attaining ones goal as is autosuggestion. Not so much as hockey autosuggestion, but in the sense of writing little notes of what you desire and placing them in places you will see everyday. Way’s to reinforce your belief that you will someday attain that which you desire.

Organization, specialized knowledge, imagination and persistence, along with a few other topics were covers, and all with a great deal of explanation were covered in the way to get that which you desire. I was thoroughly surprised by this book which was written some years ago, and still works today for many of us who read and use the principles inside.

Would I suggest Think and Grow Rich to anyone? Yes I would, but not for the simple fact of wanting to become rich or well off, but for the principles and characteristics it instills in people, or helps to bring out in others. I would highly recommend Think and Grow Rich to ANY who wants to be successful in their endeavors.

Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill is available at Amazon.Com

Random Posts:

• Aweber email service Hacked?
• All in One SEO Wordpress Plugin – Video Tutorial
• Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us by Seth Godin – Free Audio Book Download
• Remove Google Background Image: How To Get Rid Of the New Background Image on Google
• Niche Market Blogging or Streetfighting for Bloggers – Part 1

I’ve come up with a little philosophy about internet marketing, niche marketing, finding a good niche and making money online. I am sure I’m not the only person to take this approach, but it all stems from Bruce Lee’s philosophy of Jeet Kune Do.  Take what works, discard what doesn’t.

With this philosophy in mind, take what works, discard what doesn’t, I formulated my own “Style” or philosophy of Blogging and Marketing. Comprised of things that work and get the job done the way that works for me, in the most efficient way possible.  I call it Street Fighting for Bloggers. It is the most efficient, fastest, easiest way to monetize a blog and start pulling income in within the first month of blogging or putting up a site, that I have found to date.

This philosophy I came up with for my own style of Niche Marketing Kung Fu, came from a need of money. I have my own company in which I do I.T. Consulting, and manage small and medium sized businesses. While I watched as my list of clientele slowly started to drop like flies, or were unable to pay me for services already rendered, I also saw my income take a scary downturn. I started seeing a bleak future for my company and my family if I didn’t start to supplement my income somehow.

I started out over a year ago selling old computers parts on eBay, for extra cash, there’s a surprising number of people who buy old computer parts on eBay and build computers with them. I supplemented my Christmas spending money with that one year. Then the economy started to take that downturn and people weren’t buying things like they used to. Instead of buying things they wanted, they ONLY bought things they Needed.

Need before want, was the message of the day and the stuff I had to sell wasn’t selling anymore. No money for luxuries, only for necessities. I had to figure something out and quick, my annual income was quickly going from 70+K a year down to under 30K, in under one year.

I started looking around and while I had a semi lucrative Dating Service I ran for people with a certain medical issue, and thought I knew about making money online, I started to see things that opened my eyes to things I hadn’t thought about before. I came across sites like Problogger, Entreprenuers-Journey with Yaro Starak and Copyblogger. I started to see that I really didn’t know all there was to know about Niche Marketing or even just making some money online.

I started reading Problogger, Copyblogger, and Yaro Staraks Blog. I also bought Darren Rowse’s 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, joined Yaro Staraks Blog Mastermind and joined Niche Profit Classroom and started my education of Online and Niche Marketing.

Blogging was cool and looked like it could make a nice lucrative, even “full time” income, Eventually, but that wasn’t fast enough. I needed money to support my family and quicker than the minimum year it sometimes took for a blog to start generating income.  Niche Profit Classroom, was interesting, I learned about Niche Marketing and small niches, but the way they taught about websites, to me looked spammy, and in the 3-6 months I tried their method, I made exactly $0.00.

I did buy a product I really believe in and that’s Alexis Dawes “Give me Desperate Buyers Only”. With that I was able to make my first Niche Site that actually started making money, 14 days after putting the website up. I’ll talk about that in a few minutes.

All of the things I learned about seemed logical, and feasible to make an income, but it just wasn’t fast enough, I needed to be making money asap. This is when I started to do my own experimenting in blogging and niche market design. I had listened to Podcasts on Yaro Staraks blog, and with the info I gleaned from “Give me Desperate Buyers Only”, I created a site to help people get off a certain painkiller. Being someone with experience in this area, I felt I knew enough of  how to successfully get off of  this painkiller to write an info product that would sell.

It sold, and sold and still sells today. People are Desperate to get off of painkillers, especially those addicted to them for a long period of time. Why did this sell? Because it’s something that people are Desperate for. Something that they Need, as well as want, but the Need is much stronger. So they buy it, several times a month, and the money goes straight into my Paypal account.

After my initiate success with that first website, I tried doing sites in a manner taught to me by one of the programs I joined, to no avail. After 3-6 months of sites that weren’t making money with that style of site they promoted, I decided to make my own layout based on premium Wordpress themes I had.

Street Fighting for Bloggers, is a combination/blend of Amazon Affiliate marketing, Banner Ad Marketing, and Google Adsense, all combined with good content, the basis of all good blogs and websites. With this formula you have almost instant income, which will only grow over time, as you keep adding content to the site it draws more and more traffic. As we all know: Traffic=Money.

My first month of using this formula I pulled in:

Amazon: $51

Adsense: $104

2nd Month:

Amazon: $97

Adsense: $95

3rd Month:

Amazon: $60

Adsense: $60

4th Month:

Amazon: $139

Adsense: $89

The Google Dance

The third month I had a little setback, and I’ll tell you what that setback was in a moment, but just remember this income is from just 3 websites.

On the third month, Google started doing what I call the Google Dance. Once you are indexed by Google, you will enjoy a nice period of being at the top on Page One many times, some people refer to this as the Google Honey Moon Period.

Google will index new sites and give them a good SERP ranking, being high in the first page usually, sometimes even #1. After a few weeks or a month or two, you will disappear, almost completely. Although you will still be indexed, your site won’t pop up for any search whatsoever, at least not in the first 10,20 or hundred SERPs. People get a little nervous when this happens, thinking they may have been penalized for something they didn’t do. Not to worry.

If you have done your homework and picked a good niche, ranked your keywords and use good content, you will return to the high ranks in no time at all. For me it took one site almost a whole month before this happened, on another site it was back up within 2 weeks.

Once you are back on top you will start to see the clicks and book sales start to happen again and start to increase with each month, as long as you have a good niche, and are using good content and picked your keywords wisely.

In part 2 I will be going over how I pick good niches that will bring in income almost immediately.

Part 3 will be about Constructing a Niche Site like I use to bring in monthly Passive/Residual/Affiliate Income.

Part 4 will be about content creation or re-purposing content for adding good content to your niche site.

Part 5 will be about what to do after you get bored with the site,even though it’s making money, or Blog Flipping.

Related Posts:

• What we can learn from Bruce Lee about Blogging

Bruce Lee

Bruce Lee, started a martial arts philosophy called Jeet Kune Do, The Way of the Intercepting Fist. Rather than a system or “Style” of fighting it was more philosophy than physical art. The premise is “keep what works, discaed the useless”. Having drawn from many styles of arts in his life, but the core being from the style called Wing Chun, his own growth in martial arts was very eclectic, taking what worked for him, and leaving what didn’t. In many ways, we as bloggers and niche marketers need to do the same thing for ourselves.

I for one have been through several “Schools of Blogging” and several “Schools of Marketing”, and have found that from each there were things that worked for me, and things that didn’t. The Darren Rowse School of Blogging, 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, was short and sweet, very to the point and inexpensive. Yaro Staraks, BlogMastermind, was 6 months long, and was a bit more from the wallet than Darren Rowses course, but worth every penny, as was Darrens.

From both schools of thought I took away many things that would work for me, and some things that didn’t work for me I just left alone. I then studied several schools of marketing in the Internet marketing world, one was the Micro Niche Adsense Masters Course, by John X-Factor, and the other was from CopyBlogger run by Brian Clark, learning writing techniques and traffic pulling concepts. Again both have their merits, both are good and both have things that didn’t work for me.

I also drew from several other courses, The Lazy Super Affiliate, Niche Profit Classroom and Alexis Dawes Give me Desperate Buyers Only, all of which had excellent points and things I took away with me and the rest I just left. Why carry it around if I’m not going to use it? Right?

With these philosophies I formed my own style of blogging and marketing, some are based on what I have learned from the “Masters“, and some I have developed myself. With these in mind, I would like all other bloggers reading this, especially Early Stage Bloggers, to realize that you don’t have to do everything perfectly by the book, or how the teacher explains, you should develop and find your own way of thinking and growing in the blogosphere.

There is no absolute right or wrong, sure there are right and wrong ways of doing somethings but there are no absolutes. So don’t feel as though you are doing one thing wrong if you do it differently than you were taught, but it works the way you do it.

Just remember, the Masters or A-List Bloggers started exactly in the same spot we all are or have, with only one reader, ourselves.

Available at Amazon: Tao of Jeet Kune Do

Stay Tuned for My Next Article: Streetfighting for Bloggers.

Related Posts:

• Niche Market Blogging or Streetfighting for Bloggers – Part 1

Well I did it! I Flipped my first website! I made more money flipping the website than I did in all the time it was up. Which isn’t much but hey, I got some money for it.

So my first flip was a site I originally put on the auction block at flippa.com, and it received 2 bids total, but didn’t meet the reserve so it didn’t sell. I decided to put a little more content on there, and then I re-listed it for half price listing, since it didn’t sell the first time, and then I also redid the sales page on the auction.

I included the income it was receiving, the traffic stats, and some other ways it could be monetized and then crossed my fingers. It received 1 bid, which was exactly the reserve amount of $60, and it sold with that one bid. The guy then sent me all his login info for his control panel and expected me to put it up for him. However I stated in my auction that I will install the site and set it up for a small fee, to which he promptly paid me a whopping $50 to do.

So I received a total of $110 for that website, and a tiny amount of work, which for the time I spend putting into that site, wasn’t worth it, to some. To me it was worth the experience I received selling my first website. That experience gave me the courage to do it again, or at least I’m not so scared to sell another one.

The initial time I think any of us does something new, is scary. We know not the outcome, if we’ll get burned, or if we’re even doing it(whatever it might be) right. So my first one behind me, and dealing with a customer who needed help setting it up, piece of cake. I’m sure this won’t be a piece of cake for other sites I intend to sell. I’ve already moved plenty of sites from one server to another and no issues whatsoever.

The site I sold in question was www.rosebushcaretips.com, and I’ll tell you why. I started that site when I was in Niche Profit Classroom, while learning their technique for building automated income sources. They give you a “Niche Pack” which is a website, basically, content and some direction on how to put it all together, along with some article marketing, and there you have a self sustaining, automated cash flow machine, right? Well, not quite.

The Niche Packs they were giving out were more like luxury items for sale, and in this recession no one is buying luxury items. When I say luxury I mean things that you might WANT, but not NEED. they are not necessity. So no one will by in a bad economy things that are considered a luxury or a a non-necessity.

The sites looked like this: http://learnroses.com or this: http://www.secretbookofroses.com

In my opinion they look spammy and just one long sales page. You sign up for the newsletter or e-course as they usually call it, and then they send you their sales pitch after a few e-course emails. Well it just wasn’t working for me at all and I didn’t feel like that sort of sales page would sell anything, especially in this economy. So I completely changed it.

The way the site looks now, if the new owner hasn’t changed it, is what I made of it when I ditched the Niche Profit Classroom mode of thinking. I gave the e-book away, I put videos and tons of useful content on there, pictures, Amazon Associate Links and Google Adsense on there. Summer was coming and the traffic was going up, as it’s more of a seasonal thing, but it was ranking high in the search engines, so it will keep going up as long as the content is coming in steadily.

The first month I put Adsense on there it made a total of about $2, the second month it made $4 and the 3rd month before I sold it it was bringing in $7, effectively doubling each  month from the time I started doing it “My Way”. The Amazon Sales were minimal but started to go up as well.

The reason I sold it is this, I wasn’t really into it, I didn’t feel like working on a website that would cost me more time to build it up. Plain and Simple, I just wasn’t into it. I love roses, I’m just not that into it.

I also want to say that while I may seem to have spoken down about the Niche Profit Classroom, I learned a great deal from them, about What’s a good Niche, and Niche Marketing. I just took away what I felt was useful.

So website flipping is somewhat addicting too, as I can’t wait to sell my next one for hopefully much much more.

In case you want to see the auction page it is here: http://flippa.com/auctions/96464

PS wait till you see my Income report for June!!!

Related Posts:

• May Income Report

The new Google background image has a lot of people annoyed and wanting to remove the Google background. Google has introduced a wallpaper image on it’s homepage, highlighting one of its new features, and is causing a lot of people to get irritated with the Evil Empire.

“Remove Google background image” is one of the top searches on Google Trends. The Huffington Post has received emails from readers eager to remove the background image.

As of yet I can only find a white background to change it back to in the “Editors Picks”. Here are the steps:

First step- You need to click on the change background image link on the bottom of the page. Once you click on the link, a small box with different images will appear.

Second step- After checking over the bold print choices on the left side, the best option was the Editor’s pick. Click on this.

Third step- As you scroll through all of the choices, you might see something you enjoy. If not, scroll all the way to the bottom, and click on the last choice, which is white. Then click on select. The white background is extremely bright. If you stare at it for sometime, your eyes might start to hurt.

I personally think this was a bad move by google to do this. They should at least have the option to have the default white Google layout, instead they are forcing people to use their search page like Bing is doing to people.

Google, the next evil empire.

Random Posts:

• Niche Market Blogging or Streetfighting for Bloggers – Part 1
• 10 Steps to Start and Run a Successful Dating Site
• What I have learned from blogging
• Duplicate Content Hurts EVERYONE
• May Income Report

May’s income report was a slight increase from April, for a total of 1002.88. May was the month to start reorganization of my thoughts, my workflow and my direction in Internet marketing and making money online. I started the focus on writing my own product. I’m doing 2 to start with, a photography book on my style of photography, Hollywood Glamour Photography, and the second on my new way of monetizing websites, the fastest way I have found to do it so far.

While all the marketing and money making programs I have done have been good in their own way, for one reason or another, they do not monetize fast enough to help pay the bills.

Like I said This month saw a slight increase from last month, and I am forecasting a gradual but steady increase from here on out. I have a few new sites I’d like to talk about, one being a Kindle Forum. http://www.thekindleboard.com.

I am hoping to make a community of people chatting away about their Amazon Kindles, Apple iPads, and Barnes & Noble NOOKs. If you are one of my readers and wish to help me out, I could use more people signing up and posting on that board. As we all know, no one posts to an empty board. Eventually it will be monetized so if you all stick around maybe you will watch it grow?

I have also decided I have a Domain Addiction. I buy domains with the intentino of monetizing them, but I have way too much on my plate to really do anything about it. So I have decided to start a 12 step program called domain buyers anonymous. For those of us afflicted with Domain Buying Addiction. I almost bought 2 domains today but decided not too, I have tons of domains I can monetize, but just need to sit down and do it.

Do you, or someone you know, suffer from Domain Buying Addiction? We can help…hahaha…

BTW I own over 350 domains, is that sick or what? I ‘d like to know.

Anyway on to the report for this month:

Amazon – 48.43

Dating Sites – 465.17

Affiliate eBook  Sales – 47.50

Text Link Ads – 57.67

Google – 284.11

Advertising – 100.00

Total – $1002.88

last month (April) – 977.53

Related Posts:

• SOLD! How I Flipped My First Website
• April Monthly Income Report