Starting tomorrow I have a week off from my day job. This will give me a good opportunity to get cracking on my affiliate marketing stuff for 2011. I’ve got lots of written content to get around to adding to my sites that I’ve been putting off for ages. Plus I want to try a few link building approaches I’ve read about. Apart from that I plan to do a fair amount of wakeboarding, muay Thai and golf practice as well as a few gym session. Should be a busy week!

Affiliate Marketing Goals for the next 7 days:

• Try out a mailing list software type service on one of my sites (any suggestions?)
• Get all my sites up to date
• Look into outsourcing adding content to my sites
• Write my ‘two years in affiliate marketing’ post

A Week off Work is a post from: How I Got Rich

In prepartion for me giving up the day job and becoming a full-time affiliate marketeer in about seven months I am planning to work on a ‘big site’ from now to then with the goal of it bringing in ₤1000 a month by around July 2011.

Along with the income from my other sites this should cushion the blow of leaving my job and cover the bills until my full time earnings kick in.

The main thing stopping me from starting this big site is deciding on what area or niche to set the site in.

I’ve got three ideas I think are worth a punt but I am very wary of picking the wrong one. I am aware of ‘paralysis by analysis’ which is all too common in new affiliates starting out but seeing as I’ve never really made a successful site so far I don’t want to get it wrong.

My criteria for this project is the following:

• Products must not be seasonal – or at least not completely die out for parts of the year
• Products must cost over ₤50: so that they bring in at least ₤2.50 per sale of which I will need 400 per month at this price which is 14 a day to reach my target.  Increase the product price to ₤100 and I will need just seven sales a day.  This is very rough as commission rates vary between merchants.
• Lots of the merchants operating in this area must have affiliate programmes.  Don’t want to be competing with brands or merchants that I can’t promote on my site.
• Cannot promote with PPC.  Due to my run in with Google Adwords I can no longer get traffic via Adwords so it must be a product type/area/niche I can promote via SEO and get traffic via the organic search results.

Ideas on a postcard please!

How to Pick a Big Niche for my Big Site is a post from: How I Got Rich

Now that I am back working full-time some of the things I’d left behind are returning.

The main one is that Sunday night feeling where you know you have work the next day which is even worse after having some time off.  Last week I was off from work and was on holiday and today (Monday) is a public holiday so I am getting that Sunday night feeling a day late but it is just as strong if not stronger.  I am really fired up to do some affiliate marketing work but have lots of planning and preparation to do for the day job so can’t even do that!

I’ve set myself another goal which is to be earning £900 a month by the end of June which is about four months time.  This should be enough for me to quit the day job and go full-time again.

I plan to do this via my existing sites and the addition of one big site which I am yet to start.

Can it be done? Watch this space.

That Sunday Night Feeling is a post from: How I Got Rich

Well being a full-time affiliate again didn’t last long.  Less than a week later I have a new job but will be working full-time not part-time like before.  This means my time for affiliate marketing will be greatly reduced.  I wasn’t looking for work but something landed in my lap and was offered ito me and I am not in a position to turn work down so I will be starting next week.

Maybe this will spur me on and give me an incentive to put more effort into my affiliate marketing sites.  I must admit I had been getting lazy.  Around my previous job in England I still managed to put in quite a bit of effort into affiliate stuff and got to a level of earnings I have yet to go above (apart from Christmas) after trying affiliate marketing full-time for the past few months.

I’m setting myself the goal of writing four new product review pages/posts a day to one of my existing sites (rotating through the sites) and also adding one new product review page to each of my two big sites.

With the extra money coming in I will be reinvesting some of my profits from Internet marketing into my sites by buying content and looking into link building and how much that costs.  Anyone know any thing about that?

My long term goal is still to get from my current earnings of about 400 pound a month to 2,000 a month by the end of 2010.  Will I be able to do it?

Back to Work, Full Time! is a post from: How I Got Rich

I have now finished my part-time contract I was on and am now back to being a full-time Internet marketer again.  I will be looking for a new job (hopefully part-time) as I am still earning bugger all from this lark but hopefully before I find one my fortunes will pick up.

Last month was amazing but this month has been back to normal and I think I will be lucky to clear £400 which is nowhere near enough.

I am starting to wonder at what point do you call it quits and admit that something isn’t going to work out for you and move onto something else?  I guess if I have another month without any rise in profits then I will have to have a long hard look at where I am.

Back to being a Full-Time Affiliate Marketer again is a post from: How I Got Rich

Another good day in the run up to Christmas.  Yesterday I tweaked my Adwords ads and updated some of my ECUs that were pointing to out of stock merchants and today I have a lower PPC spend and have made more commission.

Break down goes a little something like this:

• Awin: £42
• Amazon: £26
• Adwords: £14
• Profit: £54

Obviously these are all pending but I’ve not had many rejections so far (touch wood) and PPC spend isn’t in sync with sales as there are time zone issues afoot but overall it looks positive.

I’d love to spend today checking my sites and setting up some new campaigns but as regular reader may know I recently started a new part-time day job.  Although the job is only one day a week it also takes a full day to prepare so unfortunately today and tomorrow will be affiliate marketing free apart from the odd bit of stolen time.  I am quite gutted as I only get £35 for the day of work (which actually takes two days) and I could earn more than that from Internet marketing but its not all about the money right?

Knock me down with a feather – another £50 day is a post from: How I Got Rich

Since giving up the day job and moving to Thailand I have been trying to make a go of it with affiliate marketing but as my regular readers will know things didn’t really pan out in the way I had hoped and I’ve not been earning enough to live off out here even with the low cost of living.

Due to this I have started a new job teaching web design in English at a Thai school.  Since Thailand has strict laws on immigration it is only possible to get a work permit for a job a Thai person cannot do and that really only leaves teaching hence the teaching job.  Most people teach English but when I saw this job I thought it would be ideal as it combines something I have done in the past and know a fair bit about (web design) with the requirement to teach.

However the first day nearly broke me and it was touch and go whether I’d make it to the end of the day.  The main reason for this was the kids were so badly behaved and I didn’t have the teaching skills to handle a class of 35 unruly Thai teenagers who had little respect for their farang teacher!

The job is only part-time and I get paid a bit more than the going rate for teaching English and it works out to about £35 a day.  Not a lot for the effort and grief but better than nothing.

The one good thing to come out of this is that it has really spurred me on to make something of my affiliate marketing efforts.

Surely from the 35-40 sites I have it shouldn’t be too hard to make £35-40 a day from them?

At the moment that is too much to ask but I am going to be working like a dog from now on to make it happen.  This weekend I’m staying in and not venturing out or down to the pool even though the sun is out and its nice and hot.

From now on I am going all out to make the dream of giving up the day job a reality!

First Day In My New Job is a post from: How I Got Rich