Still Chugging Along

It has been a busy month.  I am working hard to bring another blog to life and will share more details once it is up and running.  The other two blogs are doing well at this point.  I have been able to make some money and get some debt paid off.

I had hoped to add more Hubs to my arsenal and get to 400 by the end of the year.  I really don't think that will be happening since life is so busy.  However, I am publishing more content and have some goals for the HubPages Ad Program.  I would like to at least get to monthly payments to help offset the fact that I am paying for content for Grand Per Month.

AdSense really did well last month.  It was a record month for me.  But of course, this month has to fall back to earth.  That is the nature of the beast and what would drive me absolutely nuts if I had to depend upon the internet to make my living.  But since I am just working to pay off debt, it is all good.

Amazon also did well last month.  I was pleased.  It is nice to see some consistent orders coming through.  This month is slow, but see the paragraph above.  Roller coaster on the earnings can just drive you batty.

Well, I don't have a lot.  I am wanting to work on another post so I can spend the weekend working on a non-internet related project.  That way I will be somewhat ahead of the game.  I have usually been writing my posts at the last minute and it is no fun.

Until next time.

January Has Been a Good Month

Well, January has been a pretty good month to me and there are still a few days left.  The month saw the launch of my newest blog which has gotten over 1800 visitors in the last 30 days.  I will probably end up January between 1800 and 2000 which seems like a decent launch considering I am not a professional and only do this part-time.

I also completed the give away for my other blog, Cash Flow Mantra.  I will be announcing the winners tomorrow, but they have all received their money.  Plus I still have enough in the PayPal account to cover February and March blogging expenses.

AdSense revenue is the highest it has been in almost 1 year.  It is a really solid month.  I expect that I might come in close to or just over $50.  A little bit of growth in February would mean that I could get another check after two months.  That would be nice since I am trying to pay off a Discover Card balance with blogging earnings this year.

Finally, I was able to meet my goal with the HubPages Ad Program.  I am just over $26 right now and have been adding a lot of content this month.  I hope to hit it hard in February and get to monthly payouts with HubPages which would require $50 each month.  I figure that $2 per day would do it.  I have had only 2 of those in the past 30 days, but I have had several greater than one dollar which I had only done once in the previous 8 months.  I am definitely headed in the right direction.

Ultimately, I would like to be able to cover my author costs for Grand Per Month with HubPages income so that I could start another blog.  I won't have any additional time to write so I would have to pay to have it done.  At $25 per article and 2 articles per week, I would have to pay $200 per month for content, but I think it would be worth it to be able to expand into other areas and try to multiply revenue even if I can only do this part-time.

How has January been treating you?

Passive Income While Playing Golf

This is my favorite part of the year for passive income.  Why?  Because for one week in January, I get to go and play golf with my wife's brother in South Carolina.  It is something to look forward to following the Holidays and breaks the cold weather in half since it usually starts to warm up a little in March.

I also like it because it provides me a good comparison from year to year on the amount of passive income that I can earn while away on vacation.

Looking back at 2011 during the 7 days while we were away, I earned a total of $6.98 with AdSense or not quite $1 per day.  This year I am pleased to report that I earned $14.15 or more than double with AdSense during those same 7 days away while playing golf.

I am also especially pleased to report that I received an additional $82.47 while away due to efforts on my own blog.  This is what is most exciting because I only started Cash Flow Mantra in late May and now have 2 blogs that I will be working on for the next year.

I would dare say that I could more than double the amount that I can earn in that time frame so that I am earning almost $30 per week with AdSense by January 2013 and about $200 per week with my blogs.  At least that is the target at which I will be aiming.

There is no reason not to think that it will be possible.  I recently published my 100th post at CFM and at a rate of 3 per week should be more than double that number in a year.  Also with GPM, I should be at about 150 posts as well so that will be more than 250 additional blog posts compared to the 100 this year meaning that doubling my income in the next year would seem reasonable. 

Then in another year, I might even be earning enough to cover the whole trip.  Of course, I will be using the money to pay off debt first, but every little bit will help.  Ultimately, though, once the debt is paid off and the kids are out of the house, traveling on blogging income would be so cool.

Announcing a Cash Give Away

I just wanted to take the opportunity to announce that I am giving away cash prizes to celebrate the 100th post of my blog, Cash Flow Mantra.  I am giving away $150 total with $75 going to the first winner, $50 to the second winner, and $25 going to the third winner.

The main criteria for winning is that you must have a PayPal account so that I can get the money to you.  I am using money that I have earned from the blog itself to pay out the prizes keeping with my trend of not investing any of my own money into my online ventures, but only my time.

It has been wonderful to be able to attract advertisers and make money since I have been able to expand using some of that revenue and start a second blog hiring some writers to help with the content since my time is limited.  I am hoping that I can start making some revenue with the new blog as well, and continue to expand.

Extra money is being used to pay off some debt as well which is really nice.  I am hoping to pay off the Discover Card this year.  You can follow my progress as I report it periodically at Cash Flow Mantra.  In the meantime, be sure to go enter the contest.

Gearing Up for Grand Per Month

The launch of my newest blog, Grand Per Month, is coming up very soon so I have been working very hard to get all the content together for the first month.  I have all four posts from the hired authors and have three of them scheduled in WordPress.  I have written one post of my own, but still have four of my own to write.  The first one isn't due to be posted until January 9th, but I am wanting to stay one month ahead and have all articles ready to go by the first of each month.

This means that I also have to put together the list of February's potential topics, send them to the authors, let them choose from the list and put together a coherent schedule in the next few days.  I am hoping to get it done today so that may actually take precedence over writing, but I should at least get one of the posts written today.

I have my to-do list filled out for these 3 days (yesterday, today, and tomorrow) and am a few tasks behind already.  The list may end up spilling over into the weekend as there are certain things that must be done by a specific time.  ARRGH!  I am so busy right now.  But, I can't wait until mid-January when I go on the golfing trip to South Carolina.  It will be good to be ahead so all I have to do is answer e-mails and comments.  I would also like to write an article or two while there, but I would like it to be optional.

Grand Per Month has now been announced at my blog, HubPages, this blog, and the two authors' blogs.  It seems to be getting a great response and I have had more visits in these 2 weeks than I did from the first month of Cash Flow Mantra.  I suspect that we might be able to get over 1000 visits in January which I would consider awesome.  I am just over 2000 per month with CFM six months later so I am hoping that a major growth trajectory can occur.

I am doing my best at writing good content.  All the posts will be a minimum of 500 words.  Mine are closer to 1000.  I think the pre-launch marketing is going well, plus I plan on having a give away to celebrate the 100th post of CFM and will tie in Grand Per Month as well to get more exposure.  This will end up being in early to mid-January as post number 93 was published today.

Well, since I am so busy I suppose I better get a few more things done today.  I hope everyone has a good day and a Happy New Year!  I doubt I will post here again until 2012.

Announcing the New Blog

I have been dying all weekend to put out this post because I am so excited about the new blog that I will be starting in January.  I managed to work hard on the site and actually had it pretty much ready to go last Thursday.  It turned out to be a good thing because the cat was out of the bag on Friday since one of the writers who will be working with me let his readers know.  Actually, it was a good thing since I could let the information trickle out and see who might be interested from different sets of readers.

However, since I try to be true to my word and said Monday would be the announcement, I waited til Monday.  But before I reveal the URL, I would like to offer a little background.  I wrote a post at Cash Flow Mantra wondering aloud if there were part-time bloggers who could make $1000 per month.  I figured that it was quite possible for a full-time blogger to do this.  After all, writing for 40-50 hours per week should be able to generate about $2 per hour.  A free-lancing article or two per day plus work on other sites should add up.

But how possible was it for someone who was working 50 hours per week with 6 kids and getting up at 4:30 every morning to write and comment for 1.5 hours before work to actually make the activity worthwhile financially?  I had been following other blogs and commenting in order to develop a following.  This was actually quite motivating, knowing that people were reading what I had to say.  I started noticing that several of these bloggers had jobs and were actually reporting very good earnings.

I saw a pattern begin to emerge and so was able to learn and adapt techniques.  And so I began to make a little bit of money.  Finally, in November of 2011, I was able to make just over $1000 through all of my online activities.  I was shocked and figured that if I could do it, I could help others do the same.  How would that level of added income change the lives of others?  It could provide a decent place to stay and even transportation for a young married couple.  It could be used to pay off debt.  It could be used for college or retirement savings.

Thus was the inspiration for Grand Per Month, my new blog.  It is about figuring out what it takes to make an extra $1000 per month which could help change someone's life.  Each Monday will be a new idea for making an extra $1000 in a month's time on a part-time basis.  Not all of the ideas will involve online activities.  Some of them will be offline.  The purpose is to help people get their creative juices flowing and think about how they might make some side income in these tough economic times.  Thursday's posts will be inspirational and practical in nature.  As the blog grows, we might be able to add other days for links around the web or reader stories.

I am excited to begin working on this project so be sure to stop by the site and check it out.  We will begin on January 2nd with a post on making $1000 per month as a blogger.  It is written by one of those from whom I was able to glean the necessary clues which enabled me to make a Grand Per Month.  Won't you join us on this journey in 2012?

Work Coming Along On New Blog

I couldn't really work on the new blog at all last week.  I was sick in bed all day on the one day I had off to go Christmas shopping so I don't even have that started yet.  This week has been a lot more productive.

Sunday night I was able to get WordPress loaded onto the new domain with only a little help from the online live chat at HostGator.  It simply gets a little bit easier each time.  I then found a theme that I will be starting with and spent the last few days working with it.  I now have a Welcome post and the Policies page complete.

I have also placed my own picture across the top.  I am not exactly computer savvy when it comes to CSS and HTML coding, but I managed to piece together enough information to figure out what I needed to do.  It only took me about 1.5 hours last night to do that.

I have also created a list of all the articles that I want to post for the month of January.  The plan is to post every Monday and Thursday with some Saturdays available for odds and ends.  I had previously sent my list of potential topics to the two writers that will be working with me.  It is simply impossible for me to write that much content with my busy schedule so I am planning on partnering with these individuals for 2 articles each initially.

The cost will be $20 per article meaning $80 in expenses for the month.  I will be on the hook for 5 articles myself which will be doable.  I have already received back from the authors which topics about which they want to write so I can start writing my articles when I get a chance.  I want to try to plan and stay about a month ahead for when times tend to get busy or illness occurs.  I have enough money in the Paypal account for six months worth of articles.  I am hoping that by that time, the site will at least be covering its costs.

One of the authors has already returned his articles and I will be submitting payment to him in January.  So, it looks like the blog is beginning to take shape.  I added Google AdSense and Analytics code this morning.  I should be ready to announce the domain name by Monday and will likely do that.

The two authors are also bloggers so I am hoping to generate a little more buzz and have a ready made audience from my own blog.  This would be a lot better than when I had to start from zero at Cash Flow Mantra.  I plan on announcing the domain on Monday there as well.  Hopefully, I can get everything finalized this weekend.  Wish me luck.  I hope to be back here on Monday morning!

Starting Another New Blog

Over the next few weeks, I will be starting another new blog.  The plan is to launch at the beginning of January.  I don't quite plan on revealing the topic yet, but I think that it will be a great topic and incredibly useful to lots of individuals.

The best part is that I am now making enough with my blog, Cash Flow Mantra, that I can afford to partner with a few fellow bloggers and pay for 4 articles per month with some of the money that I have been making.  Right now, I have enough money in my PayPal account to pay for about 4 months worth of articles.

My plan all along has been to spend my time to develop an online income stream rather than any money.  I have successfully done that and haven't spent one dime of my own money.  Rather by starting with HubPages and eHow, I was able to earn on a platform with no upfront costs.

Then, once I got affected by the first Panda Update, I finally got the guts to start my own WordPress blog.  Of course, I have to repeatedly ask myself why I didn't do so sooner.  I would be much farther down the road had I done this 18 months ago.  I might be making double or triple what I am making now.

If this new blog is anything like CFM, it should take about 6 months for me to be making enough to pay for the costs of paying for content and begin making a profit.  Then, I could start another blog with the additional proceeds and pay for more content.  The goal would be to keep my writing load the same while increasing my internet exposure and earning possibilities.  It would be a lot like reinvesting dividends and compound interest.

Of course, having cross-marketing opportunities across the different blogs will help.  I suspect that this new blog will grow much faster than CFM because I have some experience getting traffic but also some writing partners who will help in that realm and benefit themselves from the traffic.

It is going to be a busy December getting ready, but I am looking forward to it.  Wish me luck.  I will be sure to let everyone here know the name and topic in a week or two.

Getting Ahead of the Curve

Well, it has been a fairly productive weekend and I managed to get 2 posts written for my blog at CFM for the upcoming week.  That means the next post will be for Friday so I am 4 days ahead on my posting schedule.  It has been quite some time since I have been in this position.  My goal was to get 3 done, but I will take what I can get.

I also wrote a link post this morning and got it published so I guess you could say that I really did get 3 posts written.

It seems that having a regular posting schedule is an asset for a blog so that readers can know what to expect.  I also think that more publishing leads to more traffic since the regular readers need to read more and there is more material for the search engines to search and find some longer tail keywords.

My plan is to keep a Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule for the rest of the year at least in order to keep up the intensity and make it through the Yakezie Challenge.  I also have someone submitting to Carnivals for me which I am also hoping will help drive some traffic as well.  These are my two major strategies for increasing traffic over the next 2 months.

1. Regular posting schedule
2. Carnival submissions

I am hoping to almost double my traffic over that time to 2,000 visits per month from 1,200.  I think it is possible.  The most positive aspect has been search engine traffic increases over the past few months.  I would think that I might be able to get up to 600 search visitors per month by the end of December.

For now, though, I will be taking the rest of the evening off and try to write some more tomorrow.  I hope everyone has a good week.

I Think My New Posting Schedule Will Work

I have been inspired to post 3 times per week at my blog, Cash Flow Mantra.  Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday a new post will appear.  I may even occasionally be able to post a review with links on the weekend.

I started my new schedule this past week and am pleased to see that my traffic was up about 40% as far as I can tell.  It only makes sense.  Before, I was only posting about 2 times per week on average.  Since most of my readers currently are regulars with not a ton of search traffic, that meant a reader would see the article and then only come back later when something new appeared.

Now since there is new material more days each week, then I am likely to get more traffic from my regulars with more opportunity that one of my posts ends up in a weekly round-up somewhere.  I also have that many more phrases for some long tail searches to find my blog.  I figure that will only enhance any search engine traffic.

Search engine traffic is actually growing fairly nicely as well along a slow upward trend.  Currently about 27% of my traffic is from Google.  I expect that this number should continue to increase and might even be about 40% by the end of the year.

According to Google Analytics, for the past 30 days, I have had just over 1300 visitors.  I think this is a respectable number for a blog that only started at the end of May.  I would like to have about 2000 per month by the end of the year.  I think with my new schedule, I could come very close.  I did have a big month in September when one of my articles got linked from a larger blog.  I then got over 100 visitors per day for about 5 days.  That was cool!  But now, I am back to my regular level of traffic.

Earnings are OK, but certainly nothing to write home about.  I have been a little disappointed but I have come to realize that there will be a constant ebb and flow in that regard.  Eventually it all evens out in the end.  My goal is to just make about the same as I did last year and to improve upon that each year after this.

Well, I still have to get about 5 posts written for CFM over the next 6 days before I head for Honduras.  I did get a guest post for one day over the next 2 weeks leaving me 5 to go.  I have ideas for 2 of them but will need to spend some time thinking about the other 3.  Anyway, thanks for reading my blog here.  I really appreciate it and thank you for your continued support.

Trying to Write Ahead

Well, I plan on heading to Honduras for a mission trip in the within the next few weeks and will be gone for 10 days.  I will have limited time and internet access while there so I will be working diligently to write some extra posts over the next week or so for my main personal finance blog.  I would like to get those posts scheduled to come out over the time while I am away so that I don't have 10 days without any activity.

I think this is one of the coolest features about Wordpress that I had never really embraced until I started writing for my own site.  I am pretty sure that I could schedule posts here as well, but I never really felt the need.  I was writing whenever I could for the content farms, and it didn't really matter to me to maintain a certain level of consistency.

But now since I am trying to build a strong blog and following, I think it is vital to interact and stay active.  I have been posting 2-3 times per week, and I believe that it would be detrimental not to publish any new material over a 10 day stretch.  So, I will writing furiously tomorrow and this weekend to get several posts ahead.

Well, I better get busy so this post will be somewhat short.

Completing the Yakezie Challenge

I am excited to report that I completed the Yakezie Challenge with my blog, Cash Flow Mantra this week.  What that means is that I was able to get my Alexa ranking under 200,000 within six months of starting the challenge.  I actually started on July 1st, 2011 so I had until the end of the year to complete the task.  As of this moment, my actual Alexa ranking is 198,607.

That being said, I certainly don't plan on quitting.  I will discuss a little bit more about that in a moment, but first I would like to explain how I was able to decrease my ranking so quickly.

No Secret, Just Writing and Interaction

There really isn't any big secret that I used to decrease my Alexa ranking so quickly.  I simply posted some content about 2-3 times per week and began interacting with the Yakezie community of personal financial bloggers.  Actually, that was probably the most important aspect of getting traffic and growing the site.

Through commenting on other individual blogs, I was able to find some readers who took an interest in what I had to write.  Occasionally, these bloggers would enjoy a post and link back to my content.  This was probably the biggest factor in any success that I have enjoyed thus far.

Now, I am starting to generate a little bit of search engine traffic as well.  Hopefully, both social traffic and search engine traffic will slowly increase over time such that I am able to grow the blog little by little.  Up til now, the traffic growth has been fairly quick.  Of course that is because I am growing off a small base.  But I suspect that it will become more and more difficult over time.

Future Plans

I certainly don't plan to stop working hard at this point.  I would like to see my blog grow as much as possible by the end of the year maybe to the point of getting 100 visitors per day.  That seems like a stretch at this point, but I do believe that it is possible.  I will probably continue doing what I have been doing and reassess my progress and plans at the beginning of 2012.

I want to thank each and every one of you readers here who have been reading my other blogs and following my progress.  It is really exciting to see something develop from scratch.  The other part that really excites me is that I was able to develop this using Wordpress and get something done that one year ago was really frightening to me in concept.  The bottom line is that you just have to step out and get it done.

Revenue is Bouncing Back Following Panda

I could tell that revenue (and especially AdSense revenue) was bouncing back following the Panda update, but I really didn't realize that it had taken such a hit until I actually looked at the numbers.  To give you an idea of what happened, allow me to list my AdSense numbers for this year:

• January 2011-- $53.39
• February 2011-- $42.84
• March 2011-- $44.09
• April 2011-- $14.73
• May 2011-- $20.49
• June 2011-- $23.05
• July 2011-- $35.65
• August 2011-- $44.00

As you can see, once the Panda update hit at the end of March, AdSense revenue fell by about 70% but has now returned to the level that I was seeing before the change.

The main reason for this has to due with developing my own blog.  I have earned just over $20 this month by developing CashFlowMantra.com and working hard to get traffic and grow readership.

The effort has been a lot more than $20 worth, that is sure.  But it is fun to make a little something while sharing with my readers which I am enjoying immensely.  I enjoy the interaction and creating a worthwhile venture based upon my own hard work and diligence.

I am hoping that by the end of the year, I can exceed my previous AdSense revenue record of $62.53.  I think I have a decent shot at it.  I would also like to think that I could achieve monthly revenues of $100 by July 1st of 2012 which would still put me on track with my ultimate goal of earning $1000 monthly by July of 2016.

Needless to say, I will keep busy working on my blog and developing others along the way.  If you haven't taken the plunge and developed your own site, I would encourage you to do so.  I know that the idea of developing a blog can be very intimidating.  I knew nothing about WordPress but got thrown into it by a big, bad Panda.  I learned and am continuing to do so, but I can't help but wonder why I didn't do it sooner.  There really is nothing to fear.

The Puppy Website is Online

Hey, I just wanted to let all of you readers here that the puppy website is online.  I spent Monday buying the domain and getting WordPress installed at Hostgator.  The domain cost me $15 for the year.  I know I could have gotten it cheaper, but I went through the Hostgator site so I didn't have to try to figure out or wait for a transfer.  I was able to see it online within about 20 minutes of purchase and installation of WordPress.  It really is getting easier each and every time.

My eldest daughter and I then found a free theme for the site and began working on the various pages.  She wrote a post while I wrote the welcome page.  She spent yesterday while I was at working figuring out how to make a slideshow and put some pictures of the puppies on the site.  She has really figured out how to work with WordPress with no instruction and has only been at it for 24 hours.  It is really easy to set up your own website and get going.  My other site, CashFlowMantra.com is actually paying for itself now.  You should really go to the HostGator site and get started if you haven't already.

Anyway, I knew that several had asked about seeing the puppies so if you go to AvonCockapoos.com you can see our puppies.  They are so cute and are a little over 2 weeks old now.  Their eyes are open, and they have started army crawling around and hobbling about.  By next week, they should be walking.  They will also get their teeth this week.

I would appreciate any comments you have on the site.  We have gotten some great feedback from friends already and have made some changes based upon that feedback.  Our goal is to sell the puppies when we have a litter, but also to provide a resource for those who might try some breeding as a hobby or those who just got a new puppy and would like to learn about development and training.  I would like the website to become an authoritative site with valuable information and an Amazon store as well.

I think it will be a fun family project.  Everyone has played some role in carrying for the dogs and helping with the puppies.  My daughter and wife have been working on the website and with Facebook.  All in all, it will be a great learning experience for everyone.

Carrying Its Own Weight

I am excited (or maybe even ecstatic) that the blog, CashFlowMantra.com, is now carrying its own weight.  Just this past week, AdSense earnings for the site surpassed $10 in the month of August.  Since the hosting cost I am paying at HostGator is only $9.95, CFM has paid for itself.

It was only about 3 months ago that I started the site so I am pleased that it is now "profitable".  Of course, it still is taking a lot of my time which is uncompensated, but I am having fun writing content, commenting on other blogs and interacting with the financial blogger community, and growing the site.  I know that it is going to take a lot more effort, but I am encouraged by the early results so far.

Disappointed

I am a little disappointed that I haven't had as much time to write on this blog and track my efforts better.  I also haven't been able to spend as much time developing another site as well.  I would really like to be able to have more time for writing and building stuff on the internet.  But until myself and my family can learn to live without food, clothing, or shelter, I will have to continue to work and only write in my spare time.




Encouraged

I am, however, looking forward to being able to use my skills to help develop another website for my family.  This will be a fun project.  We have 4 cockapoo puppies that were born two weeks ago.  Their eyes opened just yesterday. 

We plan on spending the weekend putting together a website to showcase the puppies for sale.  We don't plan on having a lot of puppies to sell but maybe one litter a year or so.  In the meantime, I am thinking that we can create a resource for others looking to learn about puppies or breeding or training dogs, etc.  Maybe I can even convince some of the kids to write a bit of content.

I will of course be sharing with everyone on this blog our progress.  The first order of business is to get the domain purchased and get a workable site together over the next 3 days or so.  I had hoped to get started on it today, but circumstances beyond my control may prevent that from happening.  Oh well, it will happen so I will let you know how it is going.

That is all I wanted to share for now.  There are still several days left during the month of August for CFM to make a little more and actually show a profit for the month.  Everything past today is simply icing on the cake.

Plans and Happenings at CFM

I am sure you know by now that I have started my own personal finance blog at Cash Flow Mantra.  It has been live for just over 2 months so I wanted to update you on several exciting happenings that have been occurring.

Guest Posts

I have published 2 guest posts myself at other personal finance blogs.  This was a great experience although I didn't really experience much, if any, additional traffic as a result.  I may try additional guest posts in the future but am discounting the true value at this point.  I also published a guest post at Christian Personal Finance as part of an interview process for a staff writing position.  It is a competition for 2 spots and 10 authors are in the running.  I am OK with whatever happens, but I did have several visitors from the site as a result of my post.  The number was in the mid-teens, but it did help me set a daily traffic record at 62!

Finally, as far as guest posts go, I actually had someone contact me to post on CFM.  That post went live yesterday so I am officially a guest post host.  It is nice having some content without having to write it.  I could get into this and might consider one a week at the most.  I did have an idea for a contest but was planning on saving that for after the first of the year or at some time when I am busy or feeling burnt out.  I would like to have the majority of content on the site self-authored.

Page Rank Update

I heard that there was a Google PR update that occurred recently, and I am pleased to announce that CFM is now PR3.  Yippee!  I don't know if the increased traffic that I am seeing is a result of this or more exposure to my above mentioned guest post, but the last 3 days have been the most traffic ever with a record 62 visits on Wednesday.  I wouldn't be surprised if I could be getting 100 visits per day by the end of the year.

Attracting Traffic

Speaking of traffic, I will be focusing on two things for my blog.  Writing content and posting 3 times per week if at all possible and commenting on other blogs.  I have found that this social interaction is great for generating interest in my blog.  It is one of the ways that I discover new blogs.  Someone who leaves an interesting comment and has a link that I don't recognize is likely to have me visit.  If I like what I see, then I am likely to subscribe and interact.  That blogger may then visit my blog and become a regular reader.

I am still convinced that traffic has to figure into the Google algorithm somehow as an incredibly popular site must mean it is more sought after.  The result would seem to be a virtuous cycle of increasing traffic, improving PR, and better search engine placement leading to increasing traffic and on down the line.  I don't really know how the algorithm works, but it would seem logical.  Not to mention the fact that it seems to be working for me so why argue?

Yakezie Challenge and Alexa Rank

On July 1st, I joined the Yakezie Challenge with CFM.  The goal is to be a supportive community member and by working together help others market their blogs.  I have been working on this and other financial bloggers have been reading my blog as well.  This also goes back to blog commenting.  We are all pulling together to improve our visibility on the web.  My particular goal is to drop my Alexa Rank below 200,000 in the first 6 months.

Well, it seems to be working since my Alexa Rank is 340,083 but the  1 month ranking is below 200,000 so I am thinking that if I keep at it, I should be able to achieve my goal.  Now is not the time to slack off but continue to post 3 times per week and keep interacting like I have been.

Oh and by the way, I will occasionally make a little AdSense income as well.

So as you can see, there are lots of good things happening in just a few short months.  I expect many other good things to happen as well.  You could do it too.  It is simply a matter of getting out there and getting it done.  Host Gator has been a big help also.  I you are thinking of making your own site, I would recommend them.  They helped me out with their live chat every step of the way.  CFM works and will soon be paying for itself.  Feel free to click on my affiliate link banner for Host Gator above.

A Different Kind of Guest Post

I had a guest post published today on ChristianPF.com.  You see, Christian Personal Finance was looking to add another couple staff writers to their blog so I figured I would send an email and ask about it.  It turns out that there were many, many responses to this post offering these 2 positions.  In fact, there were about 100 responses. 

So the owner of the site decided to hold a little guest posting contest.  The editors narrowed down the field to 10 bloggers based upon previously submitted writing samples.  I simply provided the link to my blogs and HubPages articles thinking I didn't have much of a chance against 100 others.

I was pleasantly surprised to find out that I had been included in the top 10.  The next portion of the "interview" was to write a guest post for publication and let the blogosphere help make the decision.  Of course, the deadline for sending in the post happened to be midnight on the evening that we were driving back from Dallas where I had crappy internet access and little time for writing.  At least the deadline was midnight Central time.  Since I was in the Eastern time zone, I had until 1 am to get it done.  When I sat down at 11 pm after driving for 16 hours, I got an extra hour to get it in.

Let me tell you that writing a post late at night after driving home 900 miles from Dallas is not that much fun.  I certainly wondered if I should even bother, but I have always been one to do my best no matter the circumstances.  Besides, the worst that could happen is I get a guest post published along with a link so that I might get a new reader or two to my personal finance blog.

On the other hand, I could end up picking up a staff writing position and making a few dollars per month for blogging while reaching a much wider audience than I can currently.  Either way, I was honored to be considered as one of the top 10% of writers who had expressed interest.  I still consider myself an amateur writer and blogger so to be considered is a great accomplishment for me.

Anyway, if you want to read my article on lessons we can learn from Solomon, please feel free.  I would be honored if you consider it worthy enough to comment upon, tweet or retweet or digg or stumble or share on facebook, etc.  If not, then that is OK also.  I am just pleased to be making progress one day and one post at a time.

Thanks for reading this blog as well as my other writings.  I really appreciate it.

Back From Vacation Trying to Catch Up

Well, I have been back from vacation for a little over 36 hours now and trying to get caught up after not doing any of my daily activities for the past week.  I did manage to get through the large stack of mail this morning and have started to slowly unpack.  Since we stayed in a house, we were able to do laundry and so came home with mostly clean clothes.

I still haven't been able to get much written yet.  I did write a post for Christian Personal Finance last night as part of a paid writing position.  I figure that it could pay for hosting fees for my other online projects and provide a potentially larger audience for my blog.  If I pass the "audition", then great.  If not, then nothing is lost.  I will let you know when it is posted so that you can go and vote for me to become one of their two new writers.

I am also working on the list of articles in my Google Reader and commenting here and there.  I had over 300 to go through.  I have knocked that total in half currently.  I hope to get it done by later tonight so that I can keep up again.  I would also like to get posts written for Cash Flow Mantra, Options Dude, and Options Dude A to Z.  I am wondering if I am trying to get too much done in the next 12 hours.

The good news is that I have a very good idea of the topics that I will be discussing.  The bad news is that it will probably take some time (about 2 hours or more) to get it all done.  And I have a softball game plus some other work at the desk to do for my rental properties plus I would like to sleep some time tonight.  Oh well, if nothing else, I should be back on track by tomorrow evening at the latest.

The biggest problem with vacation is that you have to get 2 weeks worth of work done in one week in order to enjoy some time off.  The work doesn't necessarily stop, but simply gets compressed into a shorter time frame.  Anyway, it will be a bit busier for a few days.  I would also like to get ahead on some posts for Cash Flow Mantra since I really liked being able to schedule my posts during vacation when internet access was spotty and very slow at best.

Six Month Goals for Cash Flow Mantra

I have started a new blog that is a little over a month old now called Cash Flow Mantra.  It is a personal finance blog with the primary focus being cash flow.  You can link to my latest posts in the sidebar at the right.  In fact, many of you have been doing so because this blog is responsible for 7.5% of my traffic over the last 30 days according to Google Analytics.  I want to say that I sincerely appreciate your support in helping me build traffic over there.

I have mentioned in previous posts that I would share with you my goals for the remainder of the year with this new blog.  I honestly haven't had much of a chance to sit down and consider them in detail.  I also haven't had the opportunity to put them down on paper so I will actually be developing them on the fly as I write this post.

First, I would like to be able to publish some quality and thought provoking articles.  I am realistic and know that I won't be able to do that for every post.  I simply don't have that many good ideas but at least a couple absolutely knock-out articles each month is possible along with lots of other good articles on personal financial topics.  As part of the Yakezie Challenge, I will need to publish at least twice per week.  I certainly want to be able to maintain that pace at a minimum.  I would like to have a total of 100 posts by the end of the year.  I am currently at 17 and feel that 12 per month is reasonable.

Next, I would like to be able to get my Alexa rank down to 200,000 by the end of the year.  That is one of the primary goals of the Yakezie Challenge.  I think that this is possible but I will need to grow traffic and probably need to increase it 4 or 5-fold.  As the number of posts increases, the amount of search traffic would be expected to increase as well and could actually surpass my current levels of traffic.  I would also retain and hopefully grow my social readers at the same time.

I don't expect to earn a lot in the first six months, but I would like to see the total slowly grow.  I think this might happen as the search engine traffic grows.  I will not be targeting keywords necessarily but plan on writing what I view as quality content letting the chips fall where they may.  I would expect that by after one year, I should at least be able to cover my hosting expenses of $10 per month.  I currently have enough money in my PayPal account to cover one full year's worth of hosting expenses.  Plus I am getting close to payout with the HubPages Ad Program which would provide another $50 or five months of hosting fees.

I would like to also get some advertising on the site which could help.  As the traffic builds and Alexa rank declines, I might be able to get someone to advertise on the site.  Right now I have a special going, so hop on over and check it out.  Now would be a good time to get in on the ground floor as I build up the site.

These are the main goals that I would have for the site for the remainder of 2011.  I think they are reasonable and achievable but will require that I put forth some effort.  I can't simply ignore the site after a few posts.  I am continuing to interact with other financial bloggers by commenting which has helped me enjoy the best initial traffic success that I have ever had.  I will have to keep working hard in order to meet my goals, but plan on having some fun in the process.

I Just Need Twelve Years and Ten Dollars

I had the opportunity to play golf yesterday afternoon for the first time this month.  Take a busy June and mix in plenty of rain and there is little time for golf.  But the schedule was light at work, and I was able to get out at 2:30 to meet a friend at the golf course and play 18 holes starting about 3:30.  We got the twilight rate for $20 which included green fees and a cart.  We managed to only get sprinkled on for one hole and finished before the rain came in full force.

I had such a good time that it got me to thinking of retirement.  If I could get all my debts paid off including mortgages over the next 12 years, then I could use the income from the rental properties to pay for living expenses.  Then if I could just get $10 per day from my blogs and other online sources, I could golf 3 afternoons per week at the twilight rate.  The youngest child would be 23 years old and out of the house so I would have plenty of time on my hands and could even have lots of time to do other things like travel. 

Now, I just have to come up with a workable plan on the debt since I figure I can get to $10 per day in the next decade fairly easily.

My Newest Site

You can now check out my newest site, Cash Flow Mantra, by clicking on the feed on the right.  I figured that I might as well share it for several reasons.  First, the majority of my referral traffic for OptionsDude comes from this blog so I would gain a likely source of traffic for the new one.  Second, it isn't some super lucrative niche that is easy to monetize so I am not all that worried about anyone stealing my ideas.  My ideas aren't all that brilliant anyway.  If someone thinks that my stuff which will be lucky to get $1 per month is worth stealing, go for it.  Third, I am sure that someone here might have some good comments or suggestions on the new blog so feel free to visit and comment.

Currently, you can get to most of my online ventures through this blog.  It is like the central hub for everything and allows you to see feeds from HubPages, OptionsDude, and Cash Flow Mantra.  I do have a few other content sites that have a little bit of material on them, but they earn nothing.  These three will be the main sources of income for this year.  I would like to develop another blog possibly geared toward sales and Amazon affiliate income.  I have an idea but I wouldn't even start that until after a few more months if I do it.

I am pleased with the progress that I am making with Cash Flow Mantra.  I have been working my fingers off commenting on personal finance blogs and gathering an audience.  It does seem to be working.  I bet by the end of the month, I will have as much traffic as at OptionsDude.  If I get any boost of traffic from this site, then I know I will have more.  It is probably because the site has a more broad topic than simply options.  Options are a fairly specific investment topic with a limited audience.

Feel free to stop by my newest site, read a few posts, comment on them, or come back here and let me know what you think.  As always, thanks for reading.  I appreciate it immensely.