New In The Business

Originally posted on July 30, 2007

Hello All! As the title suggests, I’m currently on vacation time from my job as of this post. I’ve taken off this time not for fun, but rather to provide a brief full-time kick-start to my online income stream generation aspirations. In preparation for this week, I sat back my last week of work and thought of the key objectives that would benefit most from a large chunk of time devotion. Once I defined the items that should be on this list, I created a formal to-do list complete with a brief note of the objective, brief notes of keys I wanted to address when working on the objective, and some prospective how-to techniques I would use to tackle the task. At the end of each objective/task, I defined a “hard” time window that defined how long I would spend on the specific task.

Here is an example:

Affiliate Marketing:

• Herb, this is your primary goal of the week!! Need to research a few key IM focused websites about affiliate marketing to learn some tricks to market, draw traffic/enhance SEO, and convert visitors into sales. 2-3 hours
• Get domains if necessary, up to and including tinyurl.com masking. Find ways to draw traffic, convert and DO THEM!!! ½ hour.

This list is much longer, but I think this gives you a good idea. One of the major lessons from the book 4 hour work week requires that deadlines be set to force not only task completion, but also force action based on prior research and minimize paralysis by analysis (which I’ve been guilty of in the past).

Once I had the list created, there was only one more step to take…….GO DOWN THE LIST AND COMPLETE THE TASKS!!!

As previously stated, my income generation focus is on internet marketing, beginning with affiliate marketing. As you can see in the “to do list” example provided, I’ve got some work to do in order to get things going. Although the objective may seem short, I have already made a manual list of sites, and other resources I’ll need to cover in that time frame to get myself up to speed on some of the best techniques out on the web currently. Based on what I find on those resources, I’ll define the best options I can put to use immediately, and as stated in the sample objective….TAKE ACTION!

Prior to this week, I’ve already established affiliate marketing accounts with several companies and individuals, such as the examples provided in the last post. For those of you trying this at home, and also learning this process, I suggest learning to market 2 or more affiliates to test different techniques at the same time. This should let you know relatively quickly what tools, tips, information, techniques etc. are working and which you need to dump.

Since Affiliates already provide the reputable product/service/information, I’m sure the 2 hardest parts of the process will be defining how to best draw consistent traffic to your affiliate sites both from search engines and regular marketing, along with how to convert visitors into buyers once you get them to your affiliate site. I’ll be keeping notes on what I’ve tried and their success levels both manually and with website tools where possbile. Two of the best tools to track website traffic sources are Google Analytics and statcounter.

As I stated in my first ever post, one of the reasons I created this blog was as a motivator for me to ensure I’m accountable, and follow through on the plans I lay out. Plus, you the reader provide feedback, questions as additional motivation and
probably provide some much needed insight or a different spin/approach.

Success or not, the next post or three will include updates or reports on what I’ve found, what worked/didn’t work, the website resources I found to be the most useful, things I learned along the way, “gotchas” to look out for, and most importantly, whether or not my efforts bore any financial fruit. For those following along, feel free to share any thoughts, questions or insight as you see fit. You’re feedback is always greatly appreciated! Until next time, please wish me luck and be sure to check back for future updates! Thanks!

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