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!

I didn’t get too much work done in the last week of May, as I was having some fun, but overall I had a solid May and it was a good start to the summer.  I decided to try and get my partying and some stuff done near the end of May and start of June, as June will be a really busy month for me with the World Cup starting up.  Below is a recap of my May goals and my goals I have set for June… it is going to be tough as June is usually the first really solid month of good weather, but I need to grind it out.

MAY AFFILIATE GOALS RECAP:

Transfer The Sports Geek + Add Content – This went really smoothly, although it did take quite a while for me to switch it over.  I really like the new template and I think it will help create more of a brand and repeat visitors.  Conversions for my newsletter are already way up which will be good in the long run.  I am going to test with a lightbox e-mail capture soon too.

Organize My Business More + Plan Summer – I did a pretty good job at this in May – things are a little more organized and I have hired a few writers for the World Cup, since I basically know nothing about soccer.  I have a basic plan in place for the summer that I will try to stick to as well.

Video Poker and Slots Sites Going – Yup got these both going with a couple pages of content and a few links pointing to them for now.  I will link to them in a future post, but they are nothing special at all, although I do like the Video Poker domain a lot.

5k in Affiliate Revenue – I actually surpassed this by quite a bit this month, which was surprising after the site sale.  I still have poker players playing under my MGR accounts which adds up and also received a few poker CPAs from past players.

JUNE 2010 AFFILIATE GOALS:

• Work hard at the World Cup.  Get one article per each match played in the round robin up on the sports geek. Optimize my Bet World Cup 2010 site
• Be smart with investing in some advertising + content
• Get one of my semi-premium sports betting domains up and aging with some solid content
• 10k affiliate revenue (expenses will probably be around 5k)

As far as personal goals go I want to try and fit in some fun during the World Cup – if it means for a little loss revenue oh well, its my summer.  Need to keep hitting the gym 4-5 times per week to stay in shape.  Make it out to a Blue Jays game or two.

Sorry nothing too exciting in this post, I will try and get a good post up sometime within the next two weeks, check back.

I am a little drowsy writing this, as I just had surgery yesterday getting my 4 wisdom pulled and am on a couple meds but bare with me.  The surgery actually went pretty good and I wasn’t in as much pain as some people had told me they had experienced.  Yesterday I did basically nothing but sit on the couch watching TV and movies with my laptop.  Today I did pretty much the same, except I got outside for a few minutes to read a magazine – I should be back to working a little bit tomorrow.

I am all done school now and it feels unreal! I have 4 full months to work, relax, party, vacay, or whatever I want really.  In my last post I said I had some pretty significant news to share with any friends or other affiliates who read my blog.  If you’ve been following my progress you know that I started off with poker, which has been my main source of income in my close to three years in the business.  The other week I completed a sale selling off all of my poker websites, so I am just left with a few casino sites and my sports betting sites.

I did this for a few reasons.  The main reason being I am not too big of a poker player, and don’t enjoy writing about it as much as sports and casino stuff.  Another reason is that poker affiliate programs seem to be screwing over affiliates lately and it was really annoying.  The last reason was I just simply had too much on my plate and wanted to cut down on the amount of sites i owned.

Anyways onto my April goals recap and goals for May…

APRIL AFFILIATE GOALS RECAP:

Kentucky Derby $$ – This just passed on Saturday, which was technically May 1st, but I included it as April goals because all of the work was done in April pretty much.  I got my two domains ranking decent and got some pretty good traffic on the sites.  Me and Niko made some money off our site, which was my first site I’ve ever partnered on (besides a smaller one with a buddy of mine) and I have to say I’ll probably be looking to partner up on future sites with other affiliates, I really liked how it turned out.  Overall I met and probably exceeded my expectations of this years Derby, and I plan to working on things further in advance next year.

30 pages of content up – I ended up purchases a lot of content in April and got around to some articles myself, so I definitely got this goal done.

Launch UFC, MLB and Nascar Sites – I got all of these sites launched at least temporarily so they can be indexed and start aging.  For some reason my new MLB site I got up maybe 3 weeks ago still hasn’t been indexed, I hope its not penalized from the previous owner of the domain.

Earn 10k Affiliate Revenue – Didn’t hit it this month, but I was over 5k which will always keep me happy.

Cut back on expenses – Errr I did this a little bit compared to the month before, but still spent quite a bit. I spent smarter though, which was my main goal.

MAY 2010 AFFILIATES GOALS:

• Transfer The Sports Geek to the new template, which means I have about 20 pages of content to write for it as well
• Organize my business more as I will be outsourcing more so I need to do some planning
• I am going to try and plan my whole summer as far as work goes, of course things will change but I want a plan
• Get my slots and video poker sites up and going
• 5k in affiliate revenue – yeah half of my goal last month as I cut out a good chunk of my revenue with my poker sites

As far as personal goals go I am still wanting to make it to the gym 4 or 5 times a week.  I am also playing hockey 4 times a week (2 ice hockey and 2 ball hockey).  I want to get out for a few rounds of golf.  I also want to make a trip to Detroit to watch both a Red Wings playoff game (assuming they don’t get knocked out early here by the Sharks) and a Tigers game (maybe May14th vs the Yankees).

Have a great month everyone!