Goals

This post is going to be a mix between my November Goals (and October recap) and little bit about my new affiliate “experiment”.  It will be a bit shorter than most posts because I am heading to the movies in a bit, but I wanted to get it up tonight.

For those of you reading the PAL forums, you have probably seen the discussions about the affiliate “experiment”.  Basically I am sick and tired of a lot of stuff going on with the gaming industry… late payments, lower commissions, etc… and I am looking to expand my business into other niches.  I decided it would be cool if I could get a couple other poker affiliates to test out other markets too, so that we could talk, brainstorm, bounce ideas and results off each other, etc.   The experiment is basically just start your own site within another niche, and try to monetize it to make money (whether now or in the future).

Working on a topic you enjoy or are passionate about will be a lot easier and feel less like work, so I decided to get build a site around something I do 4-6 times a week – “workout”.   I really enjoy working out and have a lot of experience with it. I know there are workout or sports supplement affiliate programs out there plus a lot of different ebooks and products that you can become an affiliate for.  I decided to start a site that will help people find out where you can buy supplements online, which will of course have my affiliate links within the content.

I don’t have too much else to say about the site as it is very new, but if you are interested in discussing things hit me up on chat or join our weekly “mastermind” group where we talk affiliate marketing stuff.

October was a crazy month for me… for those of you following the forums you have probably also seen the thread about me contemplating dropping out of school.  I still haven’t really come to a full out decision, but I know I am at least cutting down on classes to move forward with my business.

OCTOBER RECAP:

Post all NFL game previews plus at least 5 CFB articles each week – Yup.

Find a full time writer for hockey blog – Have a couple writing for me.

Post articles for a lot of the MLB playoff games – Did this.

Get poker site ranking top 3 for its keyword (currently 6th-ish) – Meh it was 2nd one day, 3rd another, now back to 6th… been bouncing around all over the place.

9k affiliate revenue – Hit this.

expenses under 3k – Not even close, but I sold my bingo site so I used that cash to re-invest.  If I didn’t sell the site I probably would have been at right around 3k…  will need to cut down this month for sure.

NOVEMBER AFFILIATE GOALS:

• Post all NFL games + at least 5 CFB per week
• Make 1st page for new sports betting site
• Make 1st page for supplement site
• Stay connected with my email lists
• Wake up no later than 10am M-F
• Write 10 pages of static content for the geek
• 10k affiliate revenue
• expenses under 3k

As far as personal goals I want to cut a little bit of weight before I head to VEGAS!! Leaving November 12th with 7 other friends… very excited as last time there was only three of us there and I didn’t get to do everything I wanted to.  So hit the gym 5-6 times per week and eat healthy.. been slacking a little bit lately with my eating.  I also want to figure out my school situation… I’ll be doing that basically this week though.  Just for fun here is a pic below of me on Haloween…. have a good November everyone!

Well September was my worst month of 2010, but it has provided a lot of motivation for me to get going.  I expect big things over the next few months and will work hard to make sure I get there.  Below is my September recap and my goals for October.

SEPTEMBER AFFILIATE GOALS RECAP:

Hire a couple of NCAA football writers for a reasonable wage – Got this done and they have been doing a pretty good job!

Add 5 static pages to The Sports Geek – Didn’t do this, I keep avoiding this and need to get my ass in gear on adding some more static content to the site.

Add a few pages of content to a newer sports betting site of mine – I have a writer doing these articles for me now, and I also put up another Sports Betting Picks site which is an awesome domain name that I hope I can get ranking!

Stay organized with my NFL writers and cut down to my most quality writers while covering as many games as I can – Cut down to my more quality writers and have got a pretty good system down to make things easier on me.

Get fully prepared for NBA and NHL season – Doing pretty good preparing for the NHL season which starts Thursday.  I put up Popup Domination on my NHL site which has increased newsletter sign ups from 1% to 5% of my visitors!  Pretty excited about that and I look to build a good relationship with those NHL fans throughout the season.

8k affiliate revenue – Didn’t even really get close to this in September… very disappointed in how the month went.

Keep expenses under 3k – I kept my expenses between 2-3k which I was happy with.

OCTOBER AFFILIATE GOALS:

• Post all NFL game previews plus at least 5 CFB articles each week
• Find a full time writer for hockey blog
• Post articles for a lot of the MLB playoff games
• SEO/Marketing Experiment
• Get poker site ranking top 3 for its keyword (currently 6th-ish)
• 9k affiliate revenue
• expenses under 3k

I want to have a very productive month as I am heading to Vegas in November with some friends!! (Nov 12-15 anyone going to be down there?)… whenever I go on vacation I usually have a poor week prior and week after so I need to have a big month in October.  Personal goals include of course hitting the gym 4-5 times per week and eating healthy so I can stay in shape… I haven’t been doing too well with that the last two weeks here so I need to get back on track.  Oh and I put up some pics of my apartment in my last post… so far loving it and I’ve been a lot more productive… like A LOT more.. since living on my own.  Lets make October a good one!

Wow, its been a crazy last couple of weeks.  As of today (Tuesday Sept 7) I am officially back in school… for those who don’t know I am in college taking Business Marketing.  At the start of September I moved into my own apartment (See Pics at the bottom of the post) and have been extremely busy with the move, plus doing some fun stuff to end of the summer.  Last Thursday I went to Commerica Park in Detroit to go see the Eminem/Jay Z concert, which was absolute INSANE – definitely the best thing I’ve seen live.  Me and some friends took a limo bus from London to Detroit and back and it was just an all around awesome time and awesome concert.  With football season starting up things have been pretty crazy for me and I haven’t had an easy time balancing work and other stuff.  Below is a recap of August and my goals for the month of September!

AUGUST AFFILIATE GOALS RECAP:

Find some full time writers for my main site at a reasonable wage – I have found a handful of NFL writers that are mostly all new to writing but have been doing a good job so far, and they are working for a reasonable wage for me to be able to afford them.  They actually have been doing a much better job than some other writers I have hired for nearly twice the $$.

Add 15 static pages to The Sports Geek – Didn’t happen although I did add a few pages.  I got a fair number of news posts up though so I am not too angry at myself for not doing this.

Get one of my newer sites ranking top 3 for my main keyword – Still sitting around #5 and with Google acting the way it is lately I am just glad to still be up there.  I think I can give it another 3 months before worrying about it not moving up any higher.

Launch my new idea for a workout related site as a side project – Haven’t gotten around to this and I’m thinking about pushing it back another month or two until I get everything settled with the NFL season.

5k affiliate revenue – I managed to get a little higher than this number which I was satisfied with!

Keep expenses under 2k – My expenses were around the 2.5k mark.  I really need to look at cutting this down some even though this was my best month in a while.

SEPTEMBER 2010 AFFILIATE GOALS:

• Hire a couple of NCAA football writers for a reasonable wage
• Add 5 static pages to The Sports Geek
• Add a few pages of content to a newer sports betting site of mine
• Stay organized with my NFL writers and cut down to my most quality writers while covering as many games as I can
• Get fully prepared for NBA and NHL season
• 8k affiliate revenue
• Keep expenses under 3k

For personal goals, I want to make sure I have some fun in September as all of the college and university kids are back in town and it is usually a pretty fun month.  With the extra partying I need to make sure I eat pretty clean and continue to workout about 5 times a week.  I want to get the last few things I need for my apartment and be fully settled in mid month.  I also want to get another post up on this blog mid month as I haven’t been posting as much lately.  Check out some cellphone pics of my new 1 bedroom apartment below and have an awesome month!

July was a fairly slow month, but I did get more work done than any other month this summer.  I also even got a couple posts done on the blog here, and will look to continue that in August as it seems to help my motivation as well.  Below is a recap of my July goals and my new goals for August 2010!

JULY AFFILIATE GOALS RECAP:

Get 2 premium sports betting domains up aging and my poker domain up and going – I decided to change plans for my semi premium sports betting domains and even listed them for auction (although I had a couple interested I didn’t have any buyers).  I am already spreading myself too thing right now and developing those would make it worse, although if I got them aging I could probably double the asking price if I wanted to sell, but I don’t want to spend the time on that.  I started a really small Sports Picks Buffet site instead.  And I did get my poker site going and even linked to it from my last blog post.

Post purchased content – For the most part I got this done, although there is a bit of content I am saving for future projects or for blog posts.

Add 15 static pages to the sports geek – I am pretty sure I got this done, half of it being purchased content and half content I wrote myself.

6k Affiliate Revenue – Barely achieved this, but my expenses were way more than I thought they would be.  I ended up with a net revenue in the negative for the first time ever – hopefully the re-investments pay off soon.

AUGUST 2010 AFFILIATE GOALS:

• Find some full time writers for my main site at a reasonable wage
• Add 15 static pages to The Sports Geek
• Get one of my newer sites ranking top 3 for my main keyword
• Launch my new idea for a workout related site as a side project
• 5k affiliate revenue (I anticipate this is going to be even slower than July and one of my worst months in a while)
• Keep expenses under 2k

For personal goals, I have a few fun things planned for the weekends in August (only 5 more weekends until I start school).  During the week I want to workout more and harder, and eat healthy again, as I had a brutal month in July for both.  I am getting ready to move into a 1 bedroom apartment September 1st so I need to do some shopping for the new place… living completely by myself for the first time ever should really help with productivity and I’m really excited.  I plan on buying a new big screen TV and already purchased a nice lazyboy couch so I will have to get some pictures up on the blog when I’m all settled in.

Here is to a good month in August, Cheers!

Just as I figured I didn’t get any posts in on the blog for June as I was busy enjoying summer!  I ended up not doing as much work as I would have liked, but was pretty strict with getting my World Cup articles posted up.  Traffic was great on both my World Cup Predictions site and The Sports Geek and I had a lot of repeat visitors which is always nice.

JUNE AFFILIATE GOALS RECAP:

Work Hard at The World Cup – Did a pretty good job at this with getting articles posted and updates on my sites. Revenue was around what I expected with the World Cup and I hope these bettors stick around to bet on a variety of different sports now, as I am mainly on MGR.

Be Smart With Investing – Meh, I spent a lot of money this month and make a couple purchases I regret a little bit, but overall I did a pretty solid job.  I invested in content which is always good and got a couple solid links towards my sites.

Premium Sports Domains Up and Running – I am in the middle of doing that now, but wish I would of got it done in June.  I might even try and find a partner for the project as I’m not sure I could handle it myself.

10k affiliate revenue – Yeah I hit this again, which included a couple paid advertising spots for my World Cup site, and expenses were around where I thought near the 5k mark.

Overall I am satisfied with how June went, but I am probably going to regret not working hard in May and June as it’s just going to get harder in July and August as I get closer to the school year.

JULY 2010 AFFILIATE GOALS

• Get 2 “premo” sports betting domains up and aging, and my other poker domain going with a few pages of content
• Post purchased content
• Add 15 static pages to The Sports Geek
• 6k affiliate revenue (expenses around 3k) – I think it will be the slowest month of the year possibly for me

As far as personal stuff goes I am heading to Calgary on Thursday for another vacation … heading out to visit a buddy who moved out there and going to the Calgary Stampede!!  I also have a ball hockey tournament the following weekend and a few parties on the weekend so it will be a fun month but I need to make sure I get work done during the week.  Also continue to workout 5 times a week.

Have a good month! You might see another post in July from me, but if not the next will be a recap and August goals.