The Diary Of An Internet Marketer

I’ve just come back from a couple of days camping on the River Murray.  It was a nice relaxing weekend but I didn’t go completely without doing any work.

I took my notepad with me and I spent a little bit of time while I was away writing notes for my ebook Black Spider Blogging.  I got into the mood of writing it then and when I got home I sat down at my laptop and got stuck into finishing it.

I mentioned a while back that my kids all had blogs and my youngest son Lachlan has a blog at http://www.black-spider.info Lachlan is only five and wanted a blog because his brothers had one but he is a bit too young to really manage it.  So he chose a name and a theme for his blog (which is where the ‘Black Spider’ bit came from) and I pretty much do everything else for his blog.

So this ebook was written for him for his blog but please don’t think for a second that it is second rate because I wrote it for a five year olds blog.  This blog is managed completely by me and this ebook is as good quality as any other I’ve written.  Lachlan just gets to tell his friends that it’s his

Anyway, I’ve decided to give this ebook away for the release but I will start charging for it shortly.  After all the sort of information that you will find in this ebook other Internet Marketers are charging up to $40 (or more) for.

Black Spider Blogging is a step by step guide to making good money by blogging.  Whether you have a blog and just aren’t making as much money as you’d like or whether you have a personal blog that you’d like to make money with then this report is for you.  Or perhaps you don’t have a blog at all - I can’t imagine why, everyone should have a blog - but if you don’t then you should so grab a copy of this ebook and learn how to set up a blog to make good money.

So head on over to http://www.blackspiderblogging.com and grab your free copy and get blogging. 

I’m off to do some more article marketing - about blogging!

Take Care
Sheryl
www.stayhome-mum.com/blog

I have just created and uploaded a new product called ‘Discover Your Life Purpose’.  When I first heard of these methods in this book I really had a good think about it and thought perhaps it is right.  Perhaps if I can work out what my true ‘Life Purpose’ is I can live my life the way that I ’should be’.

Guess what???

It worked.  Knowing your life purpose can change the little things in life. Here’s an example….

I have a problem child, my middle child (I think he has middle child syndrome).  Anyway, for the past couple of years I have spent the time trying to understand him and trying to understand why he acts the way he does.  I try to ask him why he does it but I don’t think he understands either.  It wasn’t until I really thought about the whole ‘life purpose’ thing that I thought my purpose is to be his mother and to be the best mother that I can be.  My purpose is not to understand him but it is to help him and be a good mother to him.  You have no idea how much just changing my whole perception of the situation has helped to deal with it, it is truly amazing.

So now I am offering what I know about discovering your life purpose to anyone who wants to know it.

I have released this ebook at a price of $7.50 at http://www.your-life-purpose.com

But…. don’t buy there…..

Because for my blog visitors I am going to give you a new release blog visitor special and you can have this ebook for just $4.50 at http://www.your-life-purpose.com/newrelease.html

I will keep this page up at this price for just a few days so if you want to grab a major bargain and discover your own life purpose then grab it before I take that page down.

Thanks for visiting my blog
Take Care
Sheryl
http://www.your-life-purpose.com/

So much for a diary - aren’t you supposed to post every day in a diary?

Oh well, I haven’t posted for a week or so as I had a fairly stressful week.  It started off last Sunday with my five year old getting really sick.  He was fine one minute and the next started vomiting.  We’re not sure if it was a virus or food poisoning or what caused the vomiting but none of the rest of us had it.  Anyway it was pretty full on and he was vomiting every 2 or 3 minutes and then started vomiting blood so I ended up taking him down to the hospital.

The hospital closest to us doesn’t have a Paediatric unit so they called an ambulance and sent us over the other side of town to the Womens and Childrens hospital where he spent 24 hours.  They had to give him medication to stop his vomiting and took bloods and did Xrays.  Then he was put on a drip which he stayed on all night and day to rehydrate him.

They are pretty sure the cause of the blood in his vomit was that because he was vomiting so much that he tore blood vessels in his oesophagus so he was put on medication to reduce acid levels in his stomach to give them a chance to heal.  He took the last dose of that this morning.

Anyway, he is fine now but it was pretty scary at the time when your kid is vomiting blood.  And so, there is my reason for not posting it has been a very stressful period.

I actually managed to finish all my article orders, I finished the last one yesterday and I don’t think I’ll advertise for anymore for a little while and give myself a chance to get some work done on my own sites and projects.  I have one site at http://www.workfromhome-internetbusiness.com that I haven’t updated for a long time so I started doing that yesterday and I’m giving the whole site a complete make-over.  It really is outdated and some of the programs I have on there are no longer running.

I did quite a bit of work on that yesterday and have just about completed the whole new site but throughout the site I mention a few times my project at www.affiliatexplosion.com which is still a work in progress.  So I’m going to work on that and get that finished before I upload my new look site.

Affiliate Explosion is my big project that I’m hoping will do really well.  I plan to sell that through Clickbank so anyone that wants to promote it as an affiliate when it is launched feel free to do so.  I will talk more about that when I get closer to the big launch.

I actually don’t think I’ll spend too much time online today, I might write myself a couple of articles and submit them and try to get a little bit of work done on Affiliate Explosion and that will be it.  I need to spend some time house cleaning - the joys of it all

So take care and I’ll try to keep more up to date with my posts
Sheryl
www.thediaryofaninternetmarketer.com

Ok, just a quick post today before I head off to bed.  I had another one of the kids home sick today and boy did he really put on the acting this morning.  Within an hour after the other 2 were at school he was fine so I’m pretty sure he was pulling a ‘fakey’.  He’s getting pretty good though he’d probably win an Oscar for today’s performance.

Anyway, yesterday I think I mentioned that I bought a website through a WSO.  Well all I had to do to it was to change the affiliate links within it to my own and then upload the site to a domain name which didn’t take very long to do.  So here is my progress with my new site.

I purchased it just yesterday afternoon at a cost of $27.  Then I purchased a .com domain name for it which was about $10.  I wrote and submitted one article to 2 directories - cost of $0. I set up a PPC campaign (Adwords) and so far have a cost there of about $6.  So all up I have spent about $43 total on this website.

Today I made 2 sales with a commission of $33.90 each so a total of $67.80 in commission minus my $43 in expenses and I have a profit within my first day of around $24.  I’m pretty happy with that and with my only expense from now on being the PPC campaign I should make more profits.  Web hosting is costing me nothing for this site really as I have unlimited domain hosting with Hostgator and I added this site to my account there so it doesn’t cost anything extra.

My PPC campaigns are actually directing traffic to my articles that I submitted rather than to my website itself with the aim of getting  a higher ranking for my articles to get them hopefully up to page 1 in Google.  Once they hit page 1 then I can take off the PPC campaign and run on profits with no expenses.

So that’s my news for the day and it was a reasonably successful day.  I’m still working on article orders but don’t have too much more to do now and then I will concentrate on my own work.  I will aim at getting all 3 kids to school tomorrow and hopefully have the day to myself to concentrate on what I’m doing.

Thanks for visiting, take care
Sheryl

Today I had Lachlan home from school as he wasn’t feeling too good this morning with a blocked nose and headache.  He picked up fairly quickly though and probably would have been ok to go to school.

Today I purchased a WSO (I really need to stay out of the WSO section) it was a review website already made up promoting a particular product. As soon as I saw the product I liked the idea as I’ve seen this product do well for a colleague in the past, so when I saw an already made website for it I couldn’t help myself.  I did some keyword research and there is a ton of searches and keywords to use.

The only thing I had to do with the website was to change the affiliate links to my own and upload it to a domain name which I purchased.  I have written one article and submitted it to a couple of article directories and have also set up a ppc campaign.  So fingers crossed this will do well.  I shouldn’t need to do to much other than drive traffic to the site which I will mainly do through article marketing.

I actually managed to finish another article order and have two more to go. I wish I could be more focused and get stuck into them instead of getting sidetracked and looking through the WSO section.

We had aquantance night at school tonight which I wasn’t going to go to but the kids talked me into it.  Worked out well since they had a bbq there so it saved me cooking tea (I hate cooking).

Well, heading off to bed now.  I do feel like I have been a bit productive today which is good.  I hope you have had a productive day also, goodnight.

Sheryl
PS Don’t forget to fill in your detail to download your free reports.

I’ve missed a couple of days diary entries but I have had the worst headache for the last couple of days.  I’ve been struggling along and have been working on these articles orders although they have taken me much longer than they should have. 

I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I just can’t seem to focus on my article writing lately.  I’ve had one of those weeks when I just don’t feel like I’m getting anywhere and sometimes I wonder if it’s all worth it.

Do you ever have days like that?  When you think about all the hours and all the effort that you put into your internet marketing business and just wonder if it’s all worth it.

I don’t know what it is but something just keeps me going and wont allow me to quit.  I don’t know if it’s the determination that one day it all will pay off or if it’s just that I can’t let my husband say ‘I told you so’.

I made a post a couple of days ago about being organised and I know that is one huge problem of mine.  I really need to set up a daily routine and try to get my internet marketer work done while the kids are at school and learn to just turn the computer off when they get home.  I feel like I neglect the children a bit because I spend too much time on this computer.

I couldn’t even tell you how much I’m making monthly, I should sit down and work it out.  I am so disorganised that I don’t even have all my financial records in order.  I really should do that, maybe if I had the actual figure of what I was making each month then I could set a goal to increase that a little each month.

I have about three more article orders to get through and I really should just get stuck into them and get them out the way so I can concentrate on my own work.  The only problem is that if I wasn’t doing this writing for others then I wouldn’t be earning all that much. 

Today I installed Adwords Analyzer on my laptop. I had it on my old computer so I copied the file over to my laptop and installed it but it’s just not working right.  It’s really been peeving me off too I hate when you just can’t get something to work properly and you spend way too much time on it trying to get it to work.  I need to do some keyword research on some of my work and although there are free keyword research tools they just aren’t as good. 

Ok, well I’m going to go and try and get some sleep. 

Take Care
Sheryl

Yesterday I mentioned that I was watching our mouse who was about to go into labor at any minute.  Well last night as I was about to go to bed I had a look and she was doing these weird jerking things with her legs and I wondered if it was contractions or something.

Anyway about five minutes later she had a baby.  That’s the first time I think I’ve seen a birth in real life - even though I was present at the birth of my three boys I didn’t actually ’see’ it. It was quite amazing to watch really, she ate the placenta (which by the way I did not do at the birth of my boys:) ) and then licked the baby like crazy until there was not one spot of gunk left on it.  She’d pick it up in her paws and turn it around licking it, its just amazing.

Then she had another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another and another.  She had eight little babies over the period of about half an hour and then she just looked exhausted.

Poor little girl, I will be sure to keep her well away from any little boy mousies from now on.

I have spent half the day today checking on young Coco who is likely to go into labour any time now.  She’s one of our mice and she looks like she has swallowed a tennis ball.  How unreal is this though, here is the story of Coco…..

We bought Coco about a month ago and it turned out she was pregnant when we bought her.  Then she escaped from her cage one night and disappeared.  We searched the house and we could not find her anywhere and after a week we figured she was gone for good.  We still had 5 other mice.  Anyway, a couple of days later we found Coco who had made a nest in Bens room and she had four babies.  Now Coco and the babies have been kept in a cage of their own so Coco has never been put back in the cage with the other mice since she has had the babies.  In the other cage are 3 females and 2 males and they are together 24/7 but there is no sign of any of them being pregnant - which is good.  How weird is it though that Coco is now due to have babies and she has never been in the cage with the boys.  The only thing that we can think of is that one night - during that week that Coco was missing - one of the boys disappeared and he was lost for about 4 hours before we found him and I found him in Bens room.  So what are the chances that on that one occasion that he disappeared he has found Coco and done the deed and it must have been just after she had the last babies.  That’s the only way it could have happened, either that or she isn’t pregnant and has a tumor the size of a tennis ball.  I can actually see babies moving though so I don’t think it’s a tumor.

Anyway, that has nothing to do with Internet Marketing so let’s get back to the rest of may day.  I spent probably a good half of today writing articles.  I have tried hard to avoid everything else and just concentrate on my articles.  I have just finished one order and tomorrow morning I will start on a 2500 word report.

I spent a good part of the day looking for my Medicare card too since my son had a doctors appointment after school and I cannot for the life of me find my Medicare card.  He has a specialist appointment tomorrow too which I need it for so I just hope they don’t make me pay the full amount since I don’t have my card.  Actually if you read todays ‘tips’ you will know they were about being organised.  Looking for this Medicare card actually started me in my organisation as I had to clean up a fair bit to look for it.  My office desk is a lot cleaner than it was this morning.

I did the grocery shopping today too, so I did actually achieve quite a bit today, still not as much as I’d like but it wasn’t bad.  I’m heading off to bed a little earlier tonight as I really didn’t sleep too well last night.

So goodnight and take care
Sheryl

I should have done this earlier as I’m just about ready for bed.

My day started as usual getting out of bed at around 7:15am, having a coffee in an attempt to wake me up and then running around like crazy trying to get the kids to school in time.

I have the youngest stay home sick today - although I think he was maybe faking it.

After dropping the kids off at school I log on and check my stats and emails.  Then I spent half of the morning working on this blog and visiting the Warrior forum.  After lunch I spent some time writing articles before heading down to the fruit and veg shop to pick up a few things.  Back home I spent some time cleaning up in the kitchen before picking the kids up at 3:15pm and then spent some time with the kids and then folding washing.

This evening I spent more time writing articles (as a ghostwriter for other people). 

I will only write so much a day otherwise I start to lose focus which would result in poor quality articles.  So when I find myself losing focus I will stop for a while and do something else.

I do a bit of article marketing myself and although my customers are happy with my work I have never really been as successful as I’d like to be with my own article marketing campaigns.  So a couple of days ago I decided to purchase Article Marketing Domination by Josh Spaulding to see if I can get an idea of how I can improve my own article marketing.  I have just finished reading it and I must say that this is probably the best ebook that I have read in quite a long time.  In fact I emailed Josh to thank him for sharing the information in his ebook and to let him know how impressed I was.  In my 2 years of marketing I have never done that so that was just how impressed I was with this ebook.

I have no doubt that I now know what I have been missing in my article marketing campaigns and soon I will start using the methods in Article Marketing Domination and I am really feeling quite confident about it.  Tomorrow I am going to re-read the ebook as I like to read them twice just to take everything in as best I can.  Although I am not likely to get started until I finish this lot of article orders that I am working on.  I am quite looking forward to getting stuck into my own article writing though.

So I will submit this post to the usual sites that I submit to and then I’m going to bed.
Goodnight
Sheryl

PS. that is my three boys in the picture

Let me start by introducing myself.  My name is Sheryl Polomka and I am married to Derek and we have 3 beautiful boys aged 10 - Ben, 8 - Corey and 5 - Lachlan.  I have one lovely dog he’s a Rhodesian Ridgeback called Kaiba.  My sons have 1 rat - Cosmo, and 10 mice - Hearts, Tails, Paws, Cortex, Rosie, Coco, Popcorn, Popper, Snow and Goober.  We started with 6 mice - they had 2 each - and then Coco became the mother of the last 4.  We are fair dinkum Aussies so don’t get too confused if you are reading a day and the day is only starting for you.  We are ahead of most countries timewise so my day may be finishing as yours is just starting.

I have been working in Internet Marketing for two long years and it has not been easy I must say.  Anyone entering into Internet Marketing that thinks it’s going to be easy then think again. I’m not saying forget about it and that it’s too hard, not at all. It is hard work but it is worth it.  What I am saying is that if you think it’s going to be easy and that you will get rich overnight without putting in any effort, then you are going to be very disappointed.

So why have I decided to keep a diary?  I was reading a fellow IM’s blog the other day and he had a post in his blog about ‘The day in the life of an internet marketer’ and he said that this was the most read post he’d ever had, it’s like everyone wants to read about how an internet marketer spends his/her day, so that is what gave me the idea to do a diary of my days.

I was a little hesitant at first as some of my days are not as productive as they should be but keeping a diary will hopefully motivate me to be more productive.

You’re probably wondering by now just how successful I have been with internet marketing after two years.  Well, I am having success but not as much as I’d like.  But you know what!  That is going to change and it’s going to change soon.  The other day I sat down and wrote a list of everything that I have to do - all my current projects that I want to complete.

This is one big problem many internet marketers have - they start a project and before it’s finished they start something new and quite often nothing gets finished.  This is a classic example that I’ve started this diary even though I have other unfinished projects.

So I wrote a list and I am going to finish them all.

I make a big part of my income through ghostwriting.  For those who don’t know what ghostwriting is, it is a person that writes articles or reports for other people and the other people have full rights to the products and can put their own name as author.  The problem is that when I’m writing for other people I have less time to work on my own projects so I want to do less of that and more of my own stuff.

Right at this very moment I should actually be writing articles for other people but instead I’m working on this blog….ssshhhh don’t tell them.  In fact I finished one article order this morning and have spent half the day working on setting up this blog instead of starting another order.  The rest of my day will be spent writing articles although I need to fold the washing too and pick up the kids from school.

The joys of working from home - juggling an internet career with household chores.

Well thankyou for reading my diary and I hope that you come and visit again.  Don’t forget to sign up to our newsletter and receive free ebook called “Success By Three”  and a report called “Make $150 a day with Bum Marketing”.

PS.  That’s Ben and I in the sponsor box photo for http://www.stayhome-mum.com (on the right)