Another month is over and 2013 is well underway. I’ve still only got a few hours a day to work, but am taking things a lot more seriously now, and I am using my limited time more wisely.  I was listening to an old Pat Flynn podcast and he said he was recording it at 3.30am, when his family were asleep, as it was the only time he could work, as he plays with his kid all day.

If that dude can be busy all day with other stuff, and still find the time to do some internet work and earn $40,000 a month or whatever he is hitting these days, I’m sure I can find the time to earn $4,000 a month.

So with that in mind I’ve started getting up an hour earlier each morning to get some work done before the day kicks off proper. Although I love staying up late and hate getting up, the fact is I work better in the morning and get slower as the day progresses.  

So it just makes sense to get up at 6.30 and get straight on the computer while my coffee brews on the hob.  If I can stick with this for a few weeks I might start rolling the time back to even earlier to get more work in. 

Right, that’s enough about my sleeping arrangements; let’s start the progress and income report for February!

Affiliate Marketing

I love affiliate marketing. It really allowed me to change my life, as well as dream about and then actually give up working 9-5. However in the last year or so I’ve really sucked at it, and no longer make any real money from it. I’m determined to put this right this year.  I’ve got a big niche, authority site that I’ve been working on but it’s not taking off. It’s getting about 50 unique hits a day some days, but not making any sales or getting any signups to the newsletter.

Niche Authority Site Second Thoughts

I think the main problem with that site is that it is too general. It is in a sub-niche of the fitness niche but the content and therefore the traffic is too varied. Despite getting 50 hits a day, they are all for different keywords. I might get 5 visitors interested in dumbbells, 5 looking for leg exercises, 5 after a diet idea, 5 wanting to know how to lose weight and 5 who are interested in skipping ropes. While the traffic is a bit focused, it’s not focused on any one keyword, so no sales are made. I do like writing for this site but it’s not giving me much incentive to do so.

A Second Niche Authority Site

Jumping from one site to the next has been my downfall in the past, but I feel it might be time to put the fitness site on hold and start a new one.

I’ve been following Spencer at Niche Pursuits with his new public case study on starting a new niche authority site. This has made me start thinking about a new site. His is on survival knives and so it is just focussing on one type of product. This means all his traffic should be people who are looking for information on the different survival knives on sale, which he will lay out in front of them.

This is what I want to do so am in the process of using Long Tail Pro to look for a keyword and product I can target that gets traffic but hasn’t got too much competition.

This is the same type of site I used to make in the past. But the difference here is my new site will have lots of information posts instead of being 100% pure affiliate content, in the form of product reviews. Writing content for money has shown me I can write 20 or so decent quality 800-ish word articles a week. At least I can when I’m being paid cash for them. I hope I can motivate myself to write for my own site at the same speed. In the past I haven’t been able to do this but hopefully things have changed…

Content Writing

Freelance content writing is now my main focus and way to make money online, as I try to replace some of my lost earnings from affiliate marketing that occurred over the last year or so. While content writing is in no way passive, it does equal pretty much instant cash. This means it is exactly what I need right now. I while ago I was moaning about not finding any work but a few months into being a freelance writer I’ve got some good jobs on the go.

These jobs happen to be on-going freelance blogging jobs for a few different blogs. After looking into the different types of freelance writing one can do, freelance blogging is the direction I want to go in now, at least for the moment. I do love writing product reviews but I don’t think it has much scope for increasing your hourly rate or per word rate. Whereas freelance blogging has the potential for bringing in a nice income once you can build a bit of a reputation in your field.

Since looking into this I’ve come across a few people who are earning in excess of $100 a blog post or over $50 an hour (equivalent to word count) in some cases.  Freelance blogging is good because the style is less informal than some other forms of copywriting, making it easier to write on topics and convey your own personal style.

If you want to start freelance blogging and working your way up to making $100 a post, then I recommend you check out Tom Ewer’s excellent Successful Freelance Writing Online ebook. I did buy this and it is really good.

I’ve got one job from Odesk left, that I’m halfway through, and then I will give the low paying, content mill, generic SEO article stuff a break for a week or two, while I focus on finding some more on-going freelance blogging jobs. So far I’m writing in the WordPress, Travel and Fitness niches which are all areas I am genuinely interested in and (somewhat) knowledgeable in. This makes it much easier to write for, than doing twenty 500 word articles on stepladders for a site or project I will never see.

I’ve also signed up for the Freelance Writers Den. This is basically an online membership site for aspiring freelance writers. It has a job board and forums and courses and costs about $20 a month. I haven’t had time to look around yet but if I can find one good writing job from there it will be worth it.

On top of that I also signed up for Fresh Books which is an invoice creation service, which is actually bloody good. The first month is free then its $20 a month. At first I was messing about with Google docs spread sheets but Fresh Books saves me so much time and makes everything look much more professional. If you ever write invoices, check it out now, you won’t regret it.!

• If you want some content written for your projects, drop me a line via my site at: http://joecanwrite.wordpress.com/

Epic Fail

People Still Wear Shellsuits in Thailand

Do people still say ‘Epic Fail’? It’s hard to know what is going on in when you live in Thailand, as we are somewhat cut off from the outside world. Expats out here tend to continue wearing the same type of clothes that where in fashion the day they left their home country.  The same goes for slang. It is not uncommon to see a person wearing a shell suit with a wet perm saying things like ‘mega’, ‘wizard’ and ‘radical’ without a hint of irony.

Anyway, I digress. My epic failure this month (and the last few months) was not putting an affiliate link on my most trafficked site. I set this site up ages ago as a micro niche site with a few pages and left it. Despite all my other sites of this type getting panned in the Google updates, this one is now number one in Google for its main keyword, and is getting about 50 unique visitors a day.

Now that the site is number one and getting these very targeted visitors each day, I was expecting some good sales for this site, although the product only costs about £10 on amazon.co.uk.  The site has an Easy Content Unit way below the fold, which carries my affiliate links. However there is a big button at the top of the page which says ‘click here to view all products now’.

When I was checking my amazon associates stats for February, I was expecting to see a few sales from this site. However it has only made nine sales, with only one of those coming from a direct link on my site. The other 8 sales being other stuff that was in there basket at checkout. This was a bit puzzling so I had a look around the site only to discover the big button above the fold didn’t have an affiliate link, just a regular link to amazon.  I’ve quickly made the necessary changes so hopefully I will get a few more sales in March.

But knowing my luck, Google will pan the site and send it out of the SERPs just like my others!

Goals for March 2013

I’ve got three on going freelance blogging jobs running now which is great, but I’d like to find a fourth during March. I also want to setup a proper freelance blogging blog to replace my free WordPress.com site. This will serve as my portfolio for finding writing jobs as I can post examples of my writing skills on there. I could use this blog but it’s not really suited to me writing 1000 word posts on my travel experiences in Asia or the time I got bitten by a horse.  Maybe the new blog could also help other people to start being a freelance writer. Who knows…

As I said earlier, I’ve been following Spencer’s public case study on his Niche Pursuits site. I want to give this a go so I will be hoping to find a keyword/niche/product to use for my site in March and get the site up and running.

So my goals for March to make money online are:

• Find a new freelance blogging job or some other writing job that is enjoyable and on going
• Start my freelance writing portfolio site
• Pick a niche/keyword and start a new big niche authority style site

Online Earnings for February 2013

In February I was really busy with content writing. I only get a few free hours a day to work, so I was working most days in some capacity. However most of the work I did, I didn’t get paid for in February, and am only getting the money now we are in March.

The way I’m going to work out my writing earnings is by the date the money reaches my bank account or my PayPal account. This just makes it easier to keep track of what is coming in. So while the figures for content writing earnings below is low, I have about £400 that will come into my accounts in March, for the work I did in February. Hopefully things will even out over the year, so that it gives a good picture of how much I earn each month, from this type of online work.

Affiliate Marketing Earnings:

• Last month: January 2013 affiliate marketing earnings: £162 / $246
• This Month: February 2013 affiliate marketing earnings: £125 / $188

Did I mention I used to make about £1,800 a month from affiliate marketing, before the Penguin update?

Content Writing Earnings:

• Last Month: January 2013 content writing earnings: £50 / $80
• This Month: February 2013 content writing earnings: £243 / $364

Total Online Earnings:

• Last Month: January 2013: £212 / $323
• This Month: February 2013: £363 / $552

So while this number is low, I’ve already got £400 coming my way in March for the work did in February.

Going Forwards

After contacting other freelance bloggers, and reading the sites of others, I’m starting to see that writing for a living could be the next best thing to earning money from internet marketing. It isn’t passive but it does pay well and making £100 a day doesn’t seem that unrealistic. With the big guys charging over £100 a post, I should be able to charge £50 a post in six months or so, providing I keep at it and do what needs to be done to build my reputation. Doing two posts a day seems feasible so £500 weeks could be back again.

The only problem with this type of work is that you do get paid for your time and if you can’t work you don’t get paid, and could even lose your job due to not being able to deliver. While you can write posts in advance and schedule them, effectively giving you time off, it’s still a precarious position to be in. A few weeks ago I had a bit of food poisoning and was out of action for four days or so. If I was still doing internet marketing, I’d have still made money on those days when I didn’t turn on my computer.

So while content writing is great, I still want to get at least one affiliate marketing site up, that is making me a few quid a month to cover me should anything happen.

Shout Outs:

• Matthew Woodward and his Income Report Roundups
• Tom Ewer at Leaving Work Behind
• Spencer of Niche Pursuits and his public case study
• Jason at Lazy Bastard Life
• Dave and the Gang at the Pond

 …and last but not least, all the people who paid me money to write for them this month!

There you go, over 2000 words of quality content and you didn’t have to pay a penny for it. If you liked this post, please Tweet it or share it, it is much appreciated.