Elijah, Author at The At Home Couple

Bum Marketing Madness – Update 2

Hey guys, here’s a quick video update as I am not physically capable of writing a long ass post right now – I’m pretty tired. In the video I mentioned the 20 Questions With Paul from InspiredMoneyMaker.com and I want to confirm with you guys that the interview will be posted tomorrow so stay tuned – there’s TONS of awesome info that Paul shares with us, so you don’t want to miss this one. I really appreciate all the support everyone has been showing for my little personal challenge – I really believe by the end of the week I can accomplish my goal, even blow it out of the water. You guys are making the world of a difference right now – because I don’t want to have to get another job, when I know I can do this and make it work!

Cheers,

Elijah

Bum Marketing Madness – Update

After my post 2 days ago I hit the web with a rapist’s wit and immediately logged into Wordtracker and started digging away trying to find some sexy niche key phrases for me to exploit this upcoming week – and to my delight after an hour I managed to stumble upon a niche with 18 key phrases that have a KEI rating of 100 and above (7 of those 18 are above 200) . Great success!

For those of you who don’t know, KEI means Keyword Efficiency Index and it is determined by the popularity of a particular keyword, and the amount of competition it has. A keyword or phrase with high popularity (searches per day) and low competition (competing websites with the same phrase) will have a high KEI rating. When it comes to niche marketing you ideally want to focus on keywords that have a KEI of 100+ with a minimum 300 searches per day and less than 4000 competing sites in Google.

A little side note…

If some of you reading this have yet to experience the greatness that is Wordtracker, please do yourself a favor and sign up for the free 7 day trial – If you need help getting started please contact me.

Once I found my niche and keywords I stopped by Clickbank and began looking for related products that I could start promoting. It just so happens that I was familiar with the top Clickbank products in this niche, so I already had an idea of what I was going to be dealing with. Very nice! It’s times like this that social networking is very important – I just so happened to hop on Skype and a fellow Shaolin Affiliate Master you guys might know was hanging out, so I dropped him a quick “yo yo homie g funk” and told him what I was up to and he gave me tons of great info regarding certain things that worked well for him in that same niche. I’m not going to inflate his head by shouting out names – but you know who you are.

I’m Rick James Bitch…

So anyways, that was day one (technically night one) on my Bum Marketing Madness campaign and I managed to grab a dot com domain name that contained an exact key phrase from my list before I hit the sack around 4 a.m. yesterday morning – wicked awesome! It looks like I managed to knock of steps 1, 2, and half of 3 in the first 24 hours. The hard stuff is coming up next – finding a WordPress theme that I can tweak out and customize to fit this niche and writing the articles.

It’s time to up the ante a little bit…

Today Veronica and I went grocery shopping, and had to pay with one of our credit cards because we’re broke – so I told her, as we were at the cash register, that whatever the total was that I would try to make that money back as a goal for my Bum Marketing Madness week. So I am officially challenging myself to generate $84.85 in commissions by the end of Sunday, September 15th, 2008.

I’ve yet to make that much money in one week, so we’ll see what happens! Wish me luck…

Cheers,

Elijah

Stop Being Afraid And Start Making Money

Up until this point in my budding career as an unemployed D-List Affiliate Ninja Wannabe, I haven’t really committed to implementing what I’ve learned over the last 8 months in a focused campaign to make money online. Yes I’ve made some pocket change here and there, trying out different techniques and affiliate networks, but I’ve mainly been sharpening my swords and skills in the fields of traffic generation, keyword research, web development and web design.

I’m at the point right now where I have two paths in front of me, and I need to choose one of them asap. Choice number one – get a day job and start to bring down some of our debt (not much) as well as make some loot to fund our online ventures. Choice number two – stop jerking off and start to implement what I’ve learned to make money now, so I don’t have to go back to work.

Here’s my challenge…

I have a tendency to conceptualize a money making blueprint down to the last detail, I launch with a rebel vengeance like a half empty bottle of Glen Livet playing Ninja Gaiden 2, and then loose my steam as the results are never as immediate as I would like them to be. It’s wack, and I’m getting really sick of my half-ass attempts. I know that I have enough knowledge of affiliate marketing and I’ve spent countless hours trying out different methods of generating piles of targeted traffic to a site or blog as per our August blog report, if I combine this with my ability to find high demand, low competition keywords and phrases using Wordtracker I really believe I can make some substantial commissions as long as I stay focused, and committed. I might not see results immediately, but on the other hand I might see trickles of income in the first 24 hours – If I do my research right and hone in on what my strengths are It has to work.

First I Need A Plan…

Since I don’t have adequate funds for doing some PPC experimentation or buying links, I’m going to be launching a focused campaign using as many free methods for traffic generation and promotion as humanly possible – also known as Bum Marketing. The only con with Bum Marketing is the investment of time required, but the pros are substantial especially for someone who is just starting out and doesn’t feel comfortable with dropping a couple c-notes on advertising.

I really want to encourage anyone who is reading and wants to step up their game, to follow along with the next few posts as I plan to document what is working, and what needs tweaking with hopes of creating some sort of e-course or e-book at the end of this.

Here is a brief outline of my blueprint. Feel free to write it down if you like:

Conduct keyword research using Wordtracker or tool of choice to find a profitable niche (high demand, low competition) and compile a list of long tail keywords (10-20) to use for articles, Squidoo lenses and a review-style site which I will be driving the traffic to.
Find 3 to 5 niche related affiliate products based on the research in step one and compile an brief, but detailed review on each product. For this I will be perusing through Clickbank, not Commission Junction and Pepperjam Network.
Once I have the products selected and a resourceful review of each I will design a simple, but effective review-style website either using Dreamweaver or WordPress. I already have a “product review” domain name that I will be using for this campaign. If you don’t, try and find a domain based on your keyword research or simply purchase a “product review” domain to build your site on at Godaddy.com – don’t forget to use coupon codes.
Again, from the research in step one I will write 15 articles focused around selected keyphrases, making sure to use these long-tail keywords in the article title and throughout the content. Once I have the articles written I will submit 10 of them, leaving 5 behind, to as many high traffic, high ranking article directories.
I will create a lens or two on Squidoo and use the 5 articles I didn’t submit for the content – making sure that I use my long-tail keyphrases for the headings and within the content. Within my Squidoo lenses I will link directly to the affiliate products, as well as to the review site.
Once I have completed steps 1 through 5 I will spend a day or two commenting on niche related blogs and forums, leaving my review site domain in the signature field – for even more targeted traffic and back links. Remember NO SPAMMING because it doesn’t work, period.

Bum Marketing Madness…

Considering this is my first time going full blown, I’m estimating it will take approximately 4-6 hours to create a functioning and aesthetically pleasing review site, about 1 hour per article, maybe less, and I’d say between 1-2 hours to build my Squidoo lens. So pretty much to complete step 1 through 5 it shouldn’t take me more than a week, providing I’m putting in 4-6 hours per day – I know it probably be more like 10-12 hours per day. The most time consuming aspect will be the review site, because I’ve never built one before and writing the articles.

So there you have it. I would really like to know if any of you will be following along so I can keep track, but also if some of our more experienced readers have any suggestions or techniques I’ve missed that you’ve found works good for you – it would be much appreciated. Maybe it’s because of the network I have formed over the last little while and knowing that I have people I can bounce ideas off of directly – but I really feel confident that I can, and will make this work. No more day job for Elijah. Not today, not tomorrow.

Cheers,

Elijah

How The Rich Stay Rich: An Internet Marketing Reality Check

In any business regardless if it’s on or offline, it all boils down to one thing at the end of the day… Who you know, and more importantly, Who the FU** knows you. If you have sensitive eyes and figured out that the asterisks after FU are the letters “C” and “K” my apologies, but I’m feeling very passionate as I’m writing this.

Something dawned on me…

I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who has an email address set up specifically for your Guru mailing lists – if you don’t please visit your email provider of choice and set up a dummy account for this specific reason. So as I was doing my normal routine today I logged into my designated email account and noticed that I had 13 new messages, which is nothing out of the ordinary, and while I was sifting through the Aweber generated communications I realized that they all had something in common – they were all promoting Brad Fallon and Andy Jenkins’ Stomp The Search Engines 2 release. Wow.. Immediately I started thinking back to the Mass Control launch and the magnitude of force behind it, and that’s when it really hit me: This is exactly how the millions are made online. It’s who you know, who knows you, and what they are willing to do for you. This financial mantra is no different online than it is with the Donald Trumps and Ted Turners of the world.

You’re going to love this…

Imagine launching a product and having the force of 15-20 of the worlds most successful Internet marketers blasting your launch to their lists every day for a consecutive 2 weeks prior to the release date. On September 3rd I received a blast from the likes of Yaro Starak, Frank Kern, Jason Moffat and Matt Callen to name a few – and if any of the people I just mentioned are reading this and have an issue with your name being mentioned, I love you all and you’ve taught me tons, but in the next 48 hours you will make more money individually than I have made in my entire working career – so bite me.

Back to my point, let’s hypothetically say that each of the 20 people blasting your launch own 5 lists combining 10,000 hungry ass leads – that would give you a total of 200,000 targeted leads not including your own lists. Take that number and throw in a conversion rate of 15% on the first day of launch and a product priced at $97 and with less than half the people converting you would have a total of…

$2,910,000.00 in sales

The last thing I want to do is discourage anyone from aspirations of Internet domination, like my man Avon Blake, but I do want to remove the veil over your eyes for a minute and bring to light the harsh realities of gaining “Guru” status in the affiliate marketing industry. The only way you are permitted access to the inner circle of marketing powerhouses is through money – not by paying your way in, but by becoming a top affiliate. If you consistently out perform on top campaigns and industry wide launches you will quickly gain recognition just as each one of our Guru’s did. You will begin getting phone calls and emails with directions to every “secret” roundtable meet up, and as long as you deliver results you too will be bathing in tubs full of money.

Affiliate newbies and beginner bloggers pay attention…

Keep your goals realistic. Start off by connecting with people who are on your level and create a strong network to bounce ideas in and out of. If you become over obsessed with what the Gurus are doing, you will be passing up opportunities to form your own roundtable of ninja marketers. If you are out to make millions and millions of dollars, fine, but don’t fool yourself with dreams of being the next Shoemoney because it won’t happen. Why waste your time making the Gurus richer by blasting everything they put out? They really don’t need your help if they truely are as big as we think they are. Why not concentrate on making your own network richer by promoting your own products, and eachothers? This is how the rich stay rich my friends. Think about it.

Cheers,

Elijah

25 Things About Elijah That You Might Not Know

During my weekly webinars with Roy Montero and the iWomen gang, we’ve been discussing ways to utilize a “things you don’t know about me” page to get more personal with your readers, subscribers and people on your list. I’ve also been following the video skills of my friend Joe – and how he woos his audience with style and grace every single day using the power of video (much thanks on hooking me up with the mogul ninja stance).

Taking all of this into consideration, I’ve realized that even though I have done some video for this site – I haven’t really been myself. I’m now feeling an urge to let loose and show you guys who I really am in hopes that it will improve our relationship, and give you more of an insight into the mind of Elijah, and what I’m all about. The video is about 15 minutes long – but I promise if you watch the entire thing you won’t be disappointed.

I’d love to know a couple things about you guys – feel free to share anything you’d like.

Cheers,

Elijah

Blog Report For August 2008

Wow, I’m having trouble accepting the fact that TheAtHomeCouple.com is already 1 month old – and what a productive month we’ve had! If you remember back when I posted our goals at the beginning of August, we had 5 main objectives which were fairly attainable. Our top 3 was to post everyday, increase our presence online via social media, and to connect with like-minded bloggers by actively commenting. Mission accomplished.

We actively created profiles and have begun participating on all the major social networking and social bookmarking sites as you can see in the newly added “Connect With Us” section in the sidebar. I also spent the month rabidly commenting on some of my favorite blogs, and discovered some sparkly gems along the way – which is always nice. Somehow I managed to convince Alan from AffiliateConfession.com to grace us with an off-beat interview and he gladly accepted, which was awesome, and I pretty much posted everyday minus 3 or 4 times that I needed to disconnect and let the laptop cool down. As Borat would say, “Great Success!”

If you’re reading this post expecting to see an income report of some kind, it’s not happening just yet and here’s why: a) We have been focused on building the foundation – which is the content and the community, and b) I hate seeing 2 month old blogs that are full of ads and top 10 lists. If you think no one will notice that you’re rewriting content from authority blogs, or polluting your site with 125×125 ad blocks in an attempt to attract buyers for your ad space, think again. It’s blog suicide and unless you’re already established and have social proof of your status online do not pretend to be something you’re not – because you’ll stick out like a sore thumb. Be yourself and you’ll do just fine!

Even though I’m not going to let you know about the $7.85 we made from Adsense, I do have some screen shots I’d like to share with you guys and gals relating to our traffic, subscribers and search engine presence from our Hostgator cPanel admin. As you can see below from our AWStats report we had 1370 unique visitors between 08/01 and 08/31, with 16,855 page views and an average of 5.79 pages per visit.

On a per day basis, shown below, our lowest was on 08/03 with 8 unique visitors, and our busiest day was on 08/08 with 324 unique visitors – which was when I did the first post discussing SocialMarker.com and how to use it for efficiently submitting your posts to social bookmarking sites. Our overall average bounced between 75-100 visits per day, sometimes higher and rarely lower, which could only mean one thing – you guys rock!

In regards to subscribers, as of Saturday we have 25 wonderful people who have locked in with their favorite RSS feed reader to keep up to date with our Internet marketing adventures. I’m still not 100% sure on how to read the statistics provided within the Feedburner dashboard, but as you can see below it says “25 readers” so that’s what I’m sticking with!

For those of you who don’t know, I’m really big on keyword research, backlinks and getting organic traffic from the search engines using Wordtracker, to find kick-ass key phrases for post titles and content. Out of curiosity I opened up Google and typed in “the at home couple” and was pleasantly surprised with the results I received. There are approximately 833 listings for this term, and tons of them are links coming from other blogs as well as social media services that we belong to.

I think that’s enough screen shots for now. I’ve absorbed quite a bit of information in the last 8 months, and even though it’s easy to get overwhelmed it’s becoming apparent that I might actually know what the heck I’m doing – which is comforting. I can remember a point in time when Veronica actually thought I was loosing my marbles with this “Internet” stuff and she would just sit and nod when I’d start rambling about affiliate marketing this, and click through ratio that… Poor girl!

We just want to say how awesome each and everyone of you are. We’ve hit some sort of nerve within the blogosphere and it’s comforting to know that there are other people just like us who lay in bed each night dreaming of working from home or traveling to distant places without breaking the bank. It does seem far fetched until you actually go out and do it, and with the power of the Internet at our fingertips there is no reason why a twenty-something couple or stay at home mom can’t improve their situation and bring freedom and excitement into their life. It really is a beautiful thing.

Cheers,

Elijah