On Day 30 of the 30 Day Challenge Dan presented a pdf of one of his niche sites and it's reach. I thought it was really neat how he mapped it out - and it's nice to have a visual representation of the kind of network that we're trying to build with a niche using a combination of free platforms and our own domains.

Two days ago I purchased a domain for the niche that I made my 30 day challenge sale ($18.78) in. I like the niche and think there's a lot of potential in it. I'm also finding a few more key phrases that fit the parameters that were looking for as far as competition and daily searches. One of the free platform sites that I put up is ranked fourth in google and is getting pretty good traffic.

Anyways - I thought I would take the next step by purchasing a domain and putting up a site - which is why I haven't posted the last couple of days, been busy putting that site together.

And tonight I made a map of my niche so far - I'd say about 10 percent completed compared to Dan's site. But it was fun to map out, and since I'm a pretty visual person, it really clarifies my direction with this niche for me.


Technorati Tags: 30 day challenge, making money online, niche, internet marketing

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Just as I was about to hit 'publish' on the previous post about the 30DC Mass Hysteria taking place, Harper walked by with his tupperware helmet on. I thought it was appropriate.


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Tumblr Tumbld
Following the last few days of excitement as people dove into the 30 day challenge - things seem to have reversed. Panic and hysteria has set in as a majority of the 30 day challenge participants logged onto their computers today to find their tumblr sites had been erased from the internet.

Unfortunately, my 3 sites were erased as well - though all three of them are still ranked in the top 10 of their respective phrase match searches on google. Oh well.

It's funny - I finished working at about 5 this morning and when I logged back on this afternoon it was obvious something was wrong. The first thing I usually check is my BlogLines, and there were plenty of posts already talking about the carnage. I checked my sites and confirmed, yes, they were gone.

Oh well.

What can you do but move on. Something like this was bound to happen - and I think like Ed said in his response video today - it's time to make a choice.

So what's it going to be?
If you've spent the day angry and upset and full of panic - then you might want to take a step back from the challenge.

I think making money online is equal parts determination and attitude. If you're going to let one site, ONE site get you this worked up - then trying to make money online is going to be a long tough road for you.

After seeing my tumblr blogs (hours of work) gone - I stepped away from the computer. It was frustrating sure, because I feel that I genuinely had some good content up on tumblr with one small link at the bottom of each blog, not spam in any way shape or form, but it's ok. So about a half hour later I was back, looking for a new platform to start again. Last night I had actually started work on a different platform from tumblr, so I finished that one up, and then immediately set out on another.

Tumblr was never meant to be the crowning achievement for you in your quest to make money in a niche market - it was one tool among many that we will be using. Some of them are going to work, some of them aren't. It's too bad that tumblr falls into the latter category. Especially since so many had experienced a little initial success from it.

My first $10 from the 30DC
In fact - while working on a new platform, I logged into my clickbank account to get some links that I needed for my new pages - and what do you know, there was money in it.

$18.78. Apparently, before tumblr had been nuked - I had made a sale from it. I knew for sure that it was tumblr because it's tracking code showed up in the details of the sale.

So there. A little bit of success amongst the rubble. I was really excited to see the sale, but, I had already made up my mind to trek on - this was just a nice little extra.

So make that choice. Are you going to suck it up - because in the world of the internet, there are going to be plenty more bumps - some harder to take than this one.

I have a feeling that we're going to lose a lot of people this weekend - but that's a natural process in anything - not everybody is meant to do this. Throughout my life I've tried many different things, and I've learned what I'm good at and what I'm not - use it as a lesson, use it as motivation.


Technorati Tags: 30 day challenge, making money online, tumblr

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Ready, Set, GO!
So the 30 Day Challenge is really starting to heat up. It's almost starting to feel like a race as thousands of challengers are now diving into tumblr to get their content up and begin fishing for traffic.


I just completed my first two tumblr sites - and feel like I'm bringing up the rear as I read the forums and all the people bragging about finding their sites on google already. Oh well. Also - both! of my umbrella phrases were already taken for url's in tumblr. I looked at both sites and their wasn't any content up yet, so I at least beat them to the punch there.

Another Contest
Continuing my week long study of contests, I came across another contest via Contest Blogger today. It's for a contest on the blog Just Not Martha. All you have to do to enter this contest is write a post about pampering yourself or somebody else or something to that effect and link to the contest page like so, and you'll get an entry into the contest. The prize is a nice little "Pamper Me" package full of fruity tooty bath stuff that I'm sure my wife will love. And yes, if I win I'll be surprising her with the package to thank her for letting me spend so much time working on this blog and the 30 Day Challenge. Is that a fair trade? Soap for hours upon hours of sitting in front of the computer?

Well, maybe I'll keep the Whipped Body Creme for myself. It sounds like it could be fun.

Another thing that caught my eye about this contest is the nice little banners that they provide for it - how easy is that?



Technorati Tags: contest, 30 day challenge, mac's mappin, niche, umbrella phrase

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Both Harper and I took the weekend off of the computer. Well, I guess he didn't really take it off as he still likes to walk up to the computer desk and bang on the keyboard when I'm not looking. He's getting pretty good at doing things when I'm not looking. In fact, that's how most of our days are spent, looking for things to do when dad's not looking. Climbing on the chairs to get on top of the table, taking all of the pots out of the cabinet, putting dad's keys in the dog's water bowl...

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Does this excite you?



Only 23,800 competing pages!

Finally. They were right, I did do a little dance around my chair when I saw this. If you don't know what I'm talking about, but are curious: 30 Day Challenge.




Technorati Tags: 30 day challenge, making money online, internet marketing, umbrella phrase

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A quick little blog upkeep post. Some odds and ends that I've been collecting to put into a single post.

I've had a few readers contact me in the last couple days with some questions. I'm always happy to get emails or comments from anybody with any questions for me. If I can I'll reply through email, or perhaps if it's something I can address on the blog itself - I'll do that.

And with my participation in the 30 Day Challenge there are all sorts of new ways that you can reach me.

Facebook Profile - Add me as a friend, I could use a few.
Twitter - follow me and I'll do the same.
or good old fashioned email - chewingglass(at)aol(dot)com

For everybody looking for my RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed, fret no more. Like a scavenger hunt or Easter Sunday I've taken the liberty of hiding a button on this page that will beam all this wonderful content directly to the feed reader of your choice. Look carefully and see if you can find it - it looks a little like this:


Technorati Tags: 100 in 100, making money online, 30 day challenge, cashcrate, pay to read

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http://www.johncow.com
(don't ever 'blink' stuff on your site - it's sorta tacky)

This is by far the most excellentest blog post / explanation of Niche Markets that I've seen since I began the 30 Day Challenge. I thought I understood niche markets - but after reading this post by Mike Mindel (co-founder of WordTracker) I now have to go back through and start over. But, I'm sure that's going to be a good thing. I wouldn't want to get to far into it before I realized a mistake and had to start over. And luckily I think I still have two hours before Harper wakes up. Oh. Crap.

So far I think I've been super focused on the niche and forgot about the second half - the market. Anyways, I believe that this blog is going to go hand in hand with the training videos and podcasts from this point on. Like a super, free Cliff's Notes this blog is.

http://www.webventurer.com/blog/thirty-day-challenge-3/


Technorati Tags: niche market, internet marketing, 30 day challenge, mike mindel, making money online

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Here's what Angel had to say on my previous post about Associated Content:

Seems like a lot of work for little return. If you have serious articles, why not submit them to magazines?

Yes - I agree with you. It probably is a lot of work for what you receive back monetarily. But, there are a lot of ways that you can use Associated Content that will benefit you in other ways and increase the return you receive.

For example (for all the 30 Day Challenge participants reading): use articles on Associated Content to help launch a niche site. How do you do that? Well, to use Ed's favorite example again - let's say you want to develop a site on sausage making.

We've been told that the narrower your topic is for your niche, the more likely you'll find success. This is true on Associated Content as well. If you establish yourself as an "expert" on a certain topic like sausage making by writing a lot of articles, you're going to have more of your articles published, as well as less competition for searches looking for that topic.

So you develop your site on sausage making.

As you develop it, you write 6 - 8 (or more!) articles on sausage making.

• The History of Sausage in the New World
• Sausage makers in San Antonio, Texas
• How to make a Summer Sausage
• Sausage and Cheese: A primer
• I fell in love with a sausage maker
• Annual Sausage making conference lands in Grand Forks, ND.
• Sausage Making: Not a pretty picture

Important: Place a link to your site in your article. Duh!

Associated Content publishes the articles and you get 30 or 40 bucks deposited straight into paypal. Now, let's say you had some startup costs for your niche site on sausage making. A domain name, hosting, etc. The money from the articles more than covers that cost.

So - you get paid up front for the articles, plus you potentially drive more people that are interested in sausage making to your sausage making website where they purchase the Sausage Maker 2.0 Deluxe. In reality, your article that took 20 minutes to write has paid you on the back end as well.

I agree - if you're writing serious articles, why not submit to magazines. Well, like you said - serious is the key word. I spend 20 minutes on article. Not exactly what I consider serious.

I'm using Associated Content as one of many marketing tools and a way to make a few bucks on something that most places are not going to pay me for. Another way to use this tool - if you do want to submit to magazines - is as a sample portfolio. It's easy to point people to your Content Producer page (here's mine) so they can get an idea of your capabilities. It is in no way a complete portfolio for me, but it works if somebody wants something quick and easily accessible. They can always request to see more if it sparks their interest.

You can always use these articles as a springboard for larger projects. One thing about writing is that the more you do it - the easier it becomes. I try to make sure that everyday I post to my blog, I write a few articles for Associated Content, and I read as much as I can. If you keep up a routine it makes things like writer's block a problem you won't have much trouble with.

You can check out Angel's blog here. It's one of my regular reads - I try to read it everyday and he always has thoughtful and well written posts.



Technorati Tags: 30 day challenge, associated content, pay to write, 100 in 100, making money online, angel

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While they're updating the servers over at the 30 Day Challenge - I decided I would take some time to catch up on some articles for Associated Content.

If you were wondering how Associated Content works - here's a few quick pics to show you how easy it is to make money there.




Technorati Tags: 30 day challenge, 100 in 100, making money online, associated content, pay to write

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You feel like you've just moved from the big city into a town of a couple thousand people. Everybody there has the same interests. The town has a general store to take care of the necessities. And you have first crack at setting up shop. If you do it right?

Well...let's just say all you have to do now, is figure out what it is that these people want.


Technorati Tags: internet marketing, niche, 30 day challenge

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Ok. The problem with telling me to generate 7 ideas for niche markets, and then handing me a list of site indexes to use as reference material, is that I end up reading stuff like this:

If you're anything like me, when you start a new project you like to dive in head first. I go all out. I try to find out as much as I can about my new project. I immerse myself in it. That's been no different with this year's 30 Day Challenge. I'm at full speed ahead.

But now it's time to come up for a breath of air. My head is full of niche markets. Niche this, niche that. I need a few hours to regroup. That's ok though, because you'll find moments spent regrouping often lead to moments of clarity when you dive back in.

Today in my blog reader I noticed multiple posts across a few different blogs on the subject of writing a blog. My bovine friends over at John Cow had a rather a nice lengthy list of tips which included:

16. Write about many different topics while still remaining at least somewhat relevant to your industry. The more you talk about, the less likely your readers are to become bored with your blog.

I like that one. It's easy to get stuck writing about the same thing. Over and over. And over. Obviously try not to go from a post about Sausage Making to Underwater Kickboxing (examples Ed likes apparently), but try to vary things up a bit.

Try to think of your blog as your own personal magazine. You're the Editor in Chief - which means you can publish whatever you want, but remember, you still have to create interest in your readers. Change it up. Post a video about sausage making. Write an article about good Vermont Sausage. Make a list of the best sausage restaurants east of the Mississippi.

A lot of times I'll write a post and then become unsure of whether or not I want to post it. If you are overly critical of yourself, you might do this a lot. But remember, this can bring your blog to a grinding halt. Soon, nothing you write will be good enough to publish. When I'm not sure about a post, I'll save it as a draft. Then - I'll immediately write another post and post it. After one day, I'll come back to the saved post. If I've changed my mind and am ready to post it - I'll post it. If I've decided not to post it for whatever reason - I'll delete it. If I'm still unsure - I post it. Some of my most popular posts are posts that I wasn't sure of at first.

Another aspect of running a successful magazine is handling advertising space. We've all read posts about monetizing your blog and all that good stuff.

But don't forget this: the most important advertising space on your blog are the posts themselves. They are what drive traffic to your site, they are the things that are front and center - what people read first. If I write a number of posts in a day, I'll often find myself trying to space those posts out - because I want to give each post plenty of time at the top and center.

If you have a new blog - remember that controlling your front piece is super important, because a lot of readers are going to be seeing your blog for the first time. First impressions count, so make sure what you have up is what you want them to see when they first get there. On the other hand - I often find this is a great motivator to write more posts, because if I think that my current post is simply average, I want to replace it with something better - which forces me to constantly write to improve that center space.

Further resources about 'writing a blog:'

Angel writes on everybody's favorite subject: Punctuation and Grammar!
Darren has compiled a list of "How to Blog Better" Articles




Technorati Tags: blog, blogging, writing, 30 day challenge

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I'm a procrastinator. If there were a Procrastinators Anonymous, you'd hear me in the front row, "Hi, my name is Patrick..." So I was reading one of the many excellent blogs that I've found because of the 30 Day Challenge, and Income Hero was talking about Increasing StumbleUpon Traffic. Cool, I'd like to do that. Here's something that caught my attention:

So the strategy that Jimmy suggested me to use, is really simple — as
soon as you get Stumble account stumble as much as you can. If you see
a site that you like at least just bit rate it “Thumbs up!” and write a
short review of it. Make sure that you rate at least 60-80 pages that interest you.

Ok, let's try that. 3 hours later I think I may have Stumbled Upon virtual gold. Some of the sites I came across were simply incredible. Here's a gem. Or how about this artist turning movies into prints. What? You just have to see them. I looked at these user submitted transparent screens for a while and thought about doing my own until I forgot about it because I stumbled upon this how to guide. I mean really, doesn't that answer a lot of questions you've had?

I finally stopped after I spent 45 minutes on Pandora. I mean seriously - I think that might be replacing iTunes for awhile.

So now - it's about 2 and a half hours until the start of day two, and I still haven't done my homework for the 30 Day Challenge to generate a niche list. Luckily for me I had my google notebook open so I could take notes while I stumbled...let's see what we've got.


Technorati Tags: 30 day challenge, stumbleupon, 100 in 100, making money online

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In the spirit of the 30 Day Challenge, I've decided to run my own challenge here.

The 30 Minute Challenge

The Goal: To go from making $0 dollars online to $3 dollars in 30 minutes.

What's it cost? Nothing silly. Duh. It would suck to have to invest $5 dollars to make $3. That leaves you with negative 2.

What do I need? Well, 30 minutes, oh...and a keyboard. And a PayPal account if you want to be paid.


The Process

1. Sign up at Associated Content.

No. It doesn't cost you anything. By signing up you are just basically registering as a Content Producer (Writer). You can view the Associated Content FAQ. Basically - AC pays you to write and article for them. They're able to do this because they publish your article and make money from the advertisements with the article. Here's an example of one of my articles: Free Vegas: Sin City on a Budget. That's actually my first article I wrote and I made $7 bucks for it. So why $3 only? Because that's the lowest payment I've received for an article. I average about $4.75 per article.


2. Submit an Article.

Write about something you know a lot about. Something you are passionate about. Maybe a hobby or something you enjoy doing. You can write about anything - but think of it like building niche sites on the web - the narrower the better. This is because AC is basically building a library of information, so if you write about something that they don't have a lot of, you'll receive a higher offer than for something they have a lot of content on. Or. Or, try to put a unique spin on something. Perhaps you have a how to guide for something. Really, you can write about anything. If you need some more ideas, browse around the site and get a feel for what's on there.

I spend about 20 minutes writing an article. Do what's comfortable for you. Longer if you need it, or shorter if you think can whip it out quickly. Just remember, you're going to make a few bucks on this, but don't spend 6 hours trying to write an article - because you might be trying to hard. Remember, this should be an easy process - I'm thinking 30 minutes max. A quick exercise in quality article production in a timely manner.

3. Leave a comment here that you're taking part in the challenge and I'll list the participants with links at the end of this post.

After you write the article it takes AC 2 to 4 days to review it and come back at you with an offer. You can accept or not if you think you can get more someplace else. My thoughts are take the money - AC pays more than most places available like this. A day after you accept the offer, the money will show up in your PayPal Account. It's that easy. In the meantime, leave a link here in the comments that you're taking part - I'd like to link to all the articles written once they're published (they do have a page view bonus on how many times your article is read which means you could potentially make a lot more than the initial 3 - 7 dollars).

Oh yeah - and after you submit your article, don't publish it anywhere else like your blog - because AC does search to make sure it's original content and not taken from someplace else. After it is published you can post it on your blog or wherever (just submit it as non-exlusive, that's what I do).

4. Good Luck!

And if you have any questions about Associated Content please leave a comment and I'll answer as best I can.







Technorati Tags: making money online, associated content, 30 day challenge, 30 minute challenge, pay to write

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So I have a lot on my plate. Harper does too - he's busy messing with the dogs and causing havoc in general.

Today the 30 Day Challenge officially kicked off and I've spent a lot of time reviewing the material and doing the 'homework' assigned for today which consists mainly of brainstorming ideas for niche sites. There's still time to try it out - it'll just take a little work to get up to speed, but you could do it if you wanted to.

Yesterday I was driving and listening to NPR and heard a story about people being addicted to FaceBook. Now I've been on Myspace and did it for a while, but became rather bored with it and got tired of my account being constantly flooded with crap and spam. Now I don't know if this is going to happen on FaceBook - but I'll tell you this - I really like it. It's a really neat way to interact with friends and other people. It's definitely working it's way into my daily online routine. If you want to add me as a friend on FaceBook - here is my profile - add me as a friend and let me know you're coming from my blog.

After I heard the story on NPR - I also came across this video in the 30 Day Challenge Forums. It's one of the founders of Facebook speaking to a large group of developers (I know, who cares if you aren't a geek?) about how FaceBook is basically starting a revolution in how information travels. I'd consider myself a semi-geek so I found this video super interesting, but I think most anybody interested in how the internet works would find it informative. Though I guess, if you're interested in that you're probably a geek or a semi-geek as well.

Ok. Despite having all of this new stuff to work on. I'm determined to continue the path that I had been traveling already as well. By that I mean I'm going to spend some time today catching up on some other things like writing some articles for Associated Content, updating my blogs, and completing some offers on CashCrate and Treasure Trooper. I think I have some ads to click on in Hits4Pay as well.

I haven't written a whole lot of articles for Associated Content in about a week. But I got a few more offers, including a couple that were over 5 bucks (I'd been averaging $4.50) so that kind of sparked my interest to write some more today. I'm hoping to kick out 4 or 5 articles tonight. If you like to write check out AC. It's a great way to make a little extra cash - plus it always feels good to get paid for something you write. I'd say it takes me about 20 minutes to write a decent article on AC, but it's hard to sit down and write article after article - so I probably average 2 an hour which comes out to 9 or 10 bucks an hour. That's not too bad - I guess I could go get a job at Dairy Queen and not make that much - or I could turn on iTunes and write a couple articles. Hmmm...decisions decisions.



Technorati Tags: 30 day challenge, associated content, hits4pay, treasure trooper, cashcrate, making money online, facebook, pay to read, pay to write

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I've been spending most of the afternoon preparing myself for the Thirty Day Challenge by familiarizing myself with all of the different applications. It's funny because I've seen and used all of the applications - things like twitter and StumbleUpon, add ons for FireFox, but I don't think I've really used them so far. I'm excited to learn how to really make these things work for me.

In between playing around with the different apps, I've also been writing some more articles on Associated Content. I know the goal of this challenge is to make 10 dollars in 30 days online, I've already done that today. That's not the hard part - but if you think about it, the money I've made today has been from work like writing articles. The thing about the challenge that I am most excited about is learning how to make a more residual income. One that keeps growing. I know that takes a lot of front end work, but the benefits on the back end will hopefully be as Will Ferrell likes to say, "Glorious."

At one time in my life - a short period - I worked as a Financial Advisor for American Express. For every insurance program I sold I earned an initial commission, as well as a residual commission every year (though I didn't stay on long enough to see those). That's the idea I'm looking to create here - I want to do a lot of work over the next thirty day (more likely a lot longer than that) and I want that work to build something for me that keeps paying me over and over.

One of the members of my team is from Uruguay. His name is Esteban. We've only been interacting for a couple of days now, but he's already pointed me in the direction of a pretty neat free application for screen capture in windows. Here's the link: Screen Hunter. It's free and it works like Skitch for the Macintosh.



Technorati Tags: 30 day challenge, screenhunter, making money online, associated content, pay to write

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This is another great tool that I came across in the forums on the 30 Day Challenge. What a great resource. If you've ever sat there for an hour going through the code to realize you forgot a "." then this is going to save you a bit of time. In fact - it might even lengthen your life expectancy* by reducing your stress levels.

Check it out: http://htmlplayground.com/

*This statement has not been verified by any sort of medical professional


Technorati Tags: 30 day challenge, html playground, html, code, 100in100

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