Bankruptcy to Millionaire

Okay, so I’ve had some recent troubles with this blog. First the domain expired. Then the hosting expired. Then I finally switched hosts, and the MySQL database didn’t get backed up (due to my own ignorance). Then finally, I got the site up, but the plugins were breaking the permalinks.

Now it appears everything is working properly! And to my suprise the moment I got the site back up like, I recieved a “rush” of around 100 visitors in the first two hours.

I thought “WTF!”.

I check my analytics, and find that “David Archuleta” is my #1 search term. Turns out my post on David Archuleta and American Idol post is indexed as the #3 Image for that search term. Furthermore my image turns up as the 3 image on the web search page (not just the image search page).

This is pretty cool, & post is maintaining a 7% CTR. Hopefully it sticks!

In other news I’ve launched the new www.TevinAnderson.com this site is being developed for the sole purposes of selling my SEO and PPC services to small to mid sized business owners. Many of the posts will NOT be geared toward the blogging or internet marketing community, but business owners that know they SHOULD be using the internet to market. But just don’t know where to start.

Enjoy.

Yesterday I mentioned that one of the sites I am going to be launching (with my $0.01 hosting for the first month) will be my:

Local Niche Blog.

Well what the hell is it? I was inspired to start one after I read a little bit about what and how to do it over at BloggerUnleashed (WARNING: Not Safe For Work. Uses 4 letter words liberally. Do not visit if you are easily offended by language… I however am not…). Here is a post on the topic: Local Niche Blogging

So after reading that, I came up with some really stellar ideas. I live in Tacoma Washington, the second (or 3rd depending on the year) largest city in Washington State behind Seattle.

So I’ve decided to localize a bit more. I’m going to be launching www.TacomaDowntown.com a blog that will cover basics like: Weather, Traffic, Lottery, Etc. (Things that get searched for online).

But my partner and I have some great ideas for some viral marketing as well. So we’ll be covering the downtown nightlife scene, restaurants, local theatres, the 4 major museums, the local parades.

Basically everything that goes on in my Local Downtown Tacoma area will be covered on www.tacomadowntown.com.

For the first 6-8 months, I don’t plan on monetizing it at all. I just plan to build content. Root myself in the community. But slowly, I will turn to local business owners (almost every business is Downtown Tacoma is independantly owned. So much so there is a “downtown business merchants” meeting every month) for advertising dollars and joint promotions.

I love this project because I love my city. I love downtown Tacoma. So it will be an interesting ride. I’ll will give you more information when it is launched.

This post is in response to Gyutae Park’s post: Make Money Online with Rocket Profit Affiliate Marketing - A Step by Step Example over at Winning The Web

I love WTW and I make sure I read all of the posts on a regular basis. It’s always caulked full of great information, but one of Gyutae’s latest struck me as a bit. His “step by step example” will likely lead to tons of lost money if you do not know much else about Read more »

So I issued the challenge. And I have updates on my challenge that beset upon myself:

The Challenge:

Make $100 in profit online in a 24 hour time span - may use any means possible

Deadline:

11:59 PM January 28th PST

As that deadline looms. I’m in my last ditch efforts to turn a profit. Just before I typed this entry, I wrote what I consider to be a great email to my house list of about 50 people in my niche, that I’ve developed over the past two weeks. I will need 2 people to buy from this email to reach my goal, which I know is a steep 4% response rate from my list. So… we’ll see.

Self-Review of myself over this challenge:

I started this challenge out with much bravado. I was quite proud of myself and the efforts I put up. And with a $25 sale on the first day of the challenge, I was especially excited. But seeing as today is the end of the challenge. I realize, I did not put in near enough effort in the final days to reach my goals.

I did not continue to work hard through the weekend. And I did not continue to read steadily through the final weekend. This is something I am certainly going to improve upon.

I was also disappointed in neglecting to blog, during the challenge. For my next challenge I am going to blog everyday with updates. Instead of only occasionally. I have seen a notable drop in traffic AND subscribers since my updates stopped coming daily.

Tomorrow is going to be a very special day for this blog. Make sure to come back tomorrow for:

• My final update on my challenge. Will I make my $100 by midnight tonight. Come back and find out.
• I will issue a new challenge to myself AND my readers. There WILL be prizes for the winners.
• A video update on one of the most amazing things you will ever lay your eyes on. I am going to show you something that I get paid upwards of $500/hour to show others. So you’re going to want to stop by and find out what that is.

Until then: good luck if you have taken part in this challenge with me? How have you done? Have you stuck with it? Are you accomplishing your goals? Is it time to reevaluate? What can you do differantly next time? What can you do to improve and get better results next time?

How would you like to discover exactly how I made money LAST NIGHT, WHILE I WAS SLEEPING?

Just three days after I threw down the challenge to ALL of my readers (it’s not too late to take part! Take action now!) I have been seen RESULTS. Yes, you read the right. CASH IN MY POCKET.

Am I going to tell you what I sold? No. Am I going to show you the eBook I’m using to promote it? No.

Not yet at least… affiliate marketing is a HIGHLY competitive field, and if I find a successful nice, I just CAN’T afford to give it up (and risk someone copying me). But what I am going to do is tell you what I did, to find success.

First, as I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I’m taking MASSIVE ACTION. And conditioning myself for success.

I was working on my projects after I got off of work from my “real job”. I worked until about 10 pm, writing a sales letter, setting up auto responders, etc. I created a long list of To Do’s in order of priority, and just got to it. I told myself I would NOT leave until what I got done what I needed to get done. In this case, it was a fully functioning site, with a download page, auto responder, opt-in form, etc.

(I’ll provide you with my resources for these items soon.)

So I got it up and running, and I woke up this morning to the following stats of my niche site.

(Note: I’m testing 4 out of about 100 ad groups. So there is HUGE room for expansion if the averages play out.)

I woke up to the following amazing results from 10 PM yesterday - 11 am Today:

• 28 click throughs on adwords ads. @ 1.9% CTR on my adwords ads (I’m paying LESS THAN $0.40 for each click!).
• 9 Email Opt-Ins to receive the newsletter, and free eBook.
• 1 Email Testimonial praising the eBook.
• 1 $24.55 commission (sale)!

So not only do I have a profit of about $19, I also have a start of a mailing list that I can promote niche products to!

I can’t wait to give a further update on all of the techniques I’m going to use to promote via email, and eventually snail mail. So make sure to subscribe to my RSS so you get all of these juicy details!

I can taste my first $100 day already! Are you head toward your goals, or away from them? If not toward why not? Challenge yourself for success!

- Tevin

P.S. If you don’t already, make sure you check out a GREAT AFFILIATE MARKETING Blog: UberAffiliate.

Success is a marathon. It doesn’t happen over night, it takes work and effort on a continuous basis.

You don’t expect to run a marathon after sitting on your ass for the last decade and actually finish do you? You shouldn’t expect anything different from success.

When I challenged my readers to work their ASS off for two weeks to reach a substantial goal that they set. I also am giving myself the same challenge.

I have challenged myself to work my ASS off to PROFIT $100 by January 28th. Just two weeks from the start of the challenge. But for me to work my ass off, I must CONDITION MYSELF. If I’m not conditioned I’m going to be warn out by the end of the first couple days.

Instead, I am forcing myself to take MASSIVE ACTION in all areas of my life. I am going to bed earlier. Getting up early and eating a hearty breakfast (a meal I am notorious for skipping). I am forcing myself to read.

I am reading equal parts of:

Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins & Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill

When I drive I am listening to Yanik Silver’s copywriter workshop (about 12 Audio Cd’s).

I am forcing MASSIVE CHANGE in my life, to achieving MASSIVE SUCCESS. I am skipping lame television shows. I’m not wasting time Entrecard dropping. I am focused.

In the two days since I proposed the challange, I have:

1. Put together a 75 page eBook, that I am giving away for free.
2. Launched a niche blog to promote the ebook
3. Tweaked the blog to look like a sales page and not a “blog”.
4. Put the affiliate links necessary to promote the niche products in the eBook.
5. Tweaked my adwords campaign to promote the free eBook.
6. Started work on a “make money online” section of this blog to rank in the search engines.
7. Listened to two full CD’s on Yanik Silver’s Copywriting course which gave me some fantastic ideas to promote the free eBook.

And that’s just in the last two days. I can taste that $100 day coming!

What are you doing?

Ok I’ve purchased all kinds of eBooks in the past on “making money online”…

I got most of these in my teens. Things from using usEstore to all kinds of weird things throughout the years. Some of my favorite were The Rich Jerk (just because it was damn entertaining to read… not because it made me money LOL!), and a few products by Yanik Silver (www.internetlifestyle.com).

But for the most part, they’re scams (as I’m sure Can’t Get Rich will tell you.)! They’re mostly outdated, BS information that is all but useless. It might have worked as early as 6 months ago… but not so much anymore. Which is why they’re selling the info!

But I just ran across this product. Maybe it’s the same stuff… but who knows. It is v2.0

Blogging To The Bank

Claims to teach how to “make money blogging”. It’s not a huge investment by any means $49 is not too much even if it has nothing (and I suppose I could ask for a refund as it’s 100% guaranteed, it it is totally worthless). So really there is no risk.

And as I’m fed up with all the so called “A-list Bloggers” and their reviews and lack of any real information of “make money online”. Blogging To The Bank might just be worth the investment.

I just wanted to know if any of you have tried it? Have you heard of it? Any reviews? Thoughts?

Since there is a money back guarantee I think I’ll pick it up tonight. I’ll give you my thoughts on it.

- Tevin

P.S. Subscribe to my RSS to be notified of future contests being held at B2M

P.P.S. Give me a $5 Tip get 30 days of Advertising on my Scratchback widget. Bonus 100 entrecard credits for the next 5 to tip $5.

Alrighty!

Results after last night were certainly promising and disappointing at the same time!

I got 19 pages launched last night (roughly 1/3 of the total landing pages I will create if these are successful. So there is more volume).

I tested for about 2 hours on adwords. And received 26 clicks at a 2.5% CTR!!! This is the best adwords campaign I’ve ever put together.

However, after 26 clicks and $10 later, I noticed I did not have a single email opt in.

Now I realize to your average affiliate (not to mention super affiliates) this is not enough to justify a valid test. 26 is hardly any, however as this is not a Pay Per Opt-in campaign. It’s a pay per sale campaign. I need regular opt-ins to justify doing it.

So I looked at my pages and realized several places where I went wrong. So I’ve spent a few more hours revamping. The landing pages I feel are 100 fold better than they were, and I feel will convert more opt-ins.

I just launched the adwords campaign tonight. I’m going to run it for a few more hours. Hopefully if the 2.5% CTR sticks, I will get at least a couple opt-ins tonight.

I’ll report my exact stats for todays test tomorrow!

*This post uses insider vernacular. If you are not familiar with Affiliate Marketing and would like to become more informed here is some information on Affiliate Marketing on Wikipedia.

I also visit Zac Johnson’s and UberAffiliate’s blogs daily. They are “super affiliates” and make tons of money online everyday. I suggest you read their blogs if you are interested in learning more about making money online, and affiliate marketing. UberAffiliate had a great N00b post on here site: here*

Ok, so I’ve launched my affiliate campaign.

After about 1 hour, I think it’s doing pretty good!!!

Here are my (VERY short term) stats so far from Google Adwords:

• I have 19 ad groups. Each with their own specific landing page.
  • In each ad group the key words are all of “Great” quality score. I’ve purged all OK or worse quality scores.
• In just about 1 hour I have 713 impressions.
• I have 17 click throughs
• I have a CTR of 2.31%
• I have 0 email opt-ins
• $0 in commissions

So right now. I obviously don’t have enough for statistical proof. But I’m probably going to pause the campaign tomorrow. If I don’t have a good opt-in rate I am going I will tweak the landing pages and try again.

So far however I’m pleased with my CTR. Lets see what happens by tomorrow morning.

*Note: There are ZERO affiliate links in this article*

I hope everyone had a fantastic Turkey Day (In the U.S. at least… everyone where else I hope you had a wonderful run-of-the-mill Thursday ).

Ok, so I’ve made a bold commitment:

“I will go from DEEP in debt and negative in my bank account to becoming a millionaire in 48 months. And I will blog on my entire journey to prove it.”

So I’m just over a month in… and I still have a TON of work to do. There is still a lot of work to be done on my integrity and my personal fortitude. There are still many things I would like to change within myself. But as I’m doing those things I have to be looking at how I am going to start turning a massive profit.

The first secret I know to become a millionaire is I CAN NOT trade my TIME for MONEY. I’m working a job, and I’m doing magic part time. That accounts for about $1900 in monthly income (even if I had no monthly expenses I would become a millionaire in about 526 months).

Needless to say I’m not going to become a millionaire in just 4 years with this approach. I must find a way in which to begin find out how to do work one time, and get paid for it over and over.

So what’s the best way? I spent a lot of my Turkey Day (and many other days) looking at various ways that people are making money. I found a few interesting things that I’ll share in a second… But first, let me be clear:

I am not some sort of delusional freak looking for the “Magic Pill” that is going to make me RICH overnight. I know there is only one (reliable) way to true, personal wealth. HARD WORK.

This is what I’ve come across in the last couple of days that *could* make me a million dollars in the next 47 months:

• Copywriting
  • There are a ton of opportunities out there to make good money, especially if I can write a piece that converts. My dad *whom is supporting me greatly in the journey, even by sponsoring this blog!* told me of a few interesting ways to get into mail order houses, that will test your list, and pay you on the amount of letter they actually mail. If you write a letter that converts, you could make TONS of money residually for a long time.

• Mail Order
  • This is related to the copywriting field but a little bit more extensive, and requires a bit more capital. But the profit potential is HUGE. I’m just finishing reading through Vincent James’ The 12 Month Millionaire for the 2nd time. This man made TONS of money in the Fake-Medicine market (XYZ enhancement pills).

    I DON’T want to sell the shysty pills he sold. But the information he provides in his book is PHENOMENAL. I do have a few ideas that I think may be a GREAT may order idea. And will tie in perfectly with an online promotion I have planned.

    I have every intention of doing a mail order campaign as soon as possible because I believe this is where becoming a millionaire is MOST LIKELY. Although this probably won’t be launched for another two or three years.

• Affiliate Marketing
  • Promotion of other peoples products for a profit share. I have one of these planned to execute in the next two weeks in the Dog Care Market. I do not plan on making millions here. But it could be a nice profit nest egg generator for my future endeavors.
  • PPA/CPA networks. This is the one I’m the newest to. I’ve just began investigating these opportunies through some guys that are putting up some pretty penomenal numbers. (Shoemoney, UberAffiliate, Zac Johnson, and others) Some of these guys are putting up absurd numbers in the PPA networks, and I’m officially fascinated. But again, it appears you’ll need some start up cash to test what works. And from what I can tell you must DEVOTE tons of time to make sure everything is optimized.

So for those of you that were curious on how I was planning on becoming a millionaire in only 4 years. It will probably be in 1 if not all three of these markets. Have a great weekend everyone!