The Diary Of An Internet Marketer

A couple of weeks ago I sold my Hoodia website for $500 which has got me motivated to try the site flipping side of internet marketing.  So since then I have purchased three websites with the intent of improving them and selling them for a profit.

Although the Hoodia site was one that I built from scratch, I am going to see how I go with the ‘buying and selling’ sites.  I have also purchased two domain names that I plan to build another 2 websites from scratch with the purpose of selling.

You can keep up to date with all my site flipping news at my other blog www.workfromhome-internetbusiness.com/blog  which I have updated more often with all the site flipping information.

If anyone is intersted in flipping websites then I do recommend giving it a go as it is quite a lucrative method of making money online.  You can find out more at Flip That Site and start flipping away to make some nice profits.  I’m considering actually putting up some of my older sites for sale that I don’t really have time for, so I’ll keep you updated on that too.

Thanks for reading
Take care
Sheryl
www.workfromhome-internetbusiness.com

I know I have said I will not start anything new - in fact I say it all the time.  But this one is actually not for me, this one is for my sister.  She breeds bull terriers and she had a website that was on free hosting and hadn’t been updated for a long time.  So she wanted to get a new domain with her kennel name in it and do a whole new website.  She really doesn’t know anything about creating websites and so she brought her laptop up to me yesterday and we spent the day working on her new site.

She got a domain name at www.langidrik.com langidrik is their kennel name and means ’small storm’.  So check out her site, I have done my bit on it and showed her how to add pages (it’s created using Wordpress) and now she is busy working away at adding pages and photos of her dogs.

Now, I must go and get back to work on all my projects.  Currently still working on my website at www.ourexceptionalkids.com which is coming along nicely.

Take care
Sheryl
www.workfromhome-internetbusiness.com

That’s right - another new website.  Actually this one I have partnered with another Internet Marketer to create this site which you can visit at http://www.ourexceptionalkids.com

This site is dedicated to our beautiful children.  We are both the mothers of boys and we both have one child that has behavior problems.  My son Corey is eight years old and has behavior issues which, no matter what we have tried, have just got increasingly worse over time.  His behavior has reached the stage that we are finding it very hard to cope with it and are also very concerned about his safety and the safety of his brothers.

Corey physically and quite agressively attacks his brothers and more recently has also started physically attacking me.  We have seeked help and when we haven’t received appropriate help we have asked to be referred to someone else and are now seeing a psychiatrist who is really good even though even he is having trouble getting through to Corey.  We believe that Corey suffers from Aspergers syndrome and I wish I had knowledge of this a long time ago and perhaps we could have prevented his problems from getting worse.  At least now that we know, we know what we are working with.

We are trying pretty much every strategy available until we find something that works for Corey and we are really hoping that something will work as we really don’t want to have to put him on medication - that is definately a last resort.  However, due to the agressiveness of his behavior it could be something we may have to consider if nothing else works.  At the moment we are also consulting a naturopath and we are using some strategies and herbal medication which we hope will give us the help we need.

Anyway, having said all that……

The other mother who I am in partnership has a son who also has special needs, which I wont go into here as it is not my place.  But we both decided to get together and form a partnership to create this website so that we can hopefully help others with children that have behavior problems or disorders.

Our site discussing disorders such as Aspergers syndrome, Autism, ADHD and ODD.  We have both done an incredible amount of research on these topics to arm ourselves with as much knowledge as we can so that we can help our children.  With the research and our experiences I do believe we truly do have something to offer others.

We also have a blog connected to the site which you can visit at http://www.ourexceptionalkids.com/blog feel free to leave a comment on our blog.  If you have children and there is a topic you would like to see included in our site then leave a comment and let us know.

That is what I have been working on lately - that is when I have the time as Corey is taking up a lot of that at the moment.

So please visit our website at http://www.ourexceptionalkids.com

Take care
Sheryl

My Family-Friendly Work Schedule as an IM Writer

One of my biggest challenges with freelancing has always been finding enough time in the day to get everything done.

What I’ve learned is that the only way I can make this work for me is to not take on too much work and work smarter not harder.I typically work 6-8 hours on my business. These hours are not the typical 9 to 5 hours. Instead I am a shift worker.

 I work throughout the day long. I take frequent breaks because I have to in order to take care of my family’s needs.To me, they are my first priority so I work my IM business around their needs.

Here is my family-friendly work schedule:

•  
  • Work 2 hours before the kids wake up. During this time, I check emails, prospect for clients, surf the ‘net and write 1-2 articles that I submit to Associated Content.
  • Take the kids to school, run household errands with the baby, complete housework, etc.
  • Work 1-2 hours when my toddler takes a nap. During this time, I complete my clients’ work consisting of web content, articles, press releases, whatever.
  • Pick kids up from school.
  • Work 1 more hour while kids play and complete homework. Here, I work on some more client projects.
  • Make dinner. Spend time with my family and get kids ready for bed.
  • Work 1-2 more hours once kids are in bed. Finish clients’ work and work on some more IM projects for myself. During this time, I review online forums, write my IM writer blog entry, and complete 1-2 more articles.

Weekends

On the weekends, I limit my work time to 3 hours max (if I work at all). During this time, I concentrate on my IM projects and don’t ghostwrite for clients.  On weekends, I typically write eBooks, articles and press releases, build new websites, market existing ones and read IM course material. Once I’m done with my assigned projects, I do fun stuff with my family.

As you can see, I work 6-8 hours Monday - Friday  and 3 on Saturday and Sunday. The rest of the time, I spend time with my family and enjoy my life.

This schedule forces me to work quickly and to get as much done as I possibly can. For instance, I speed write and typically write 2 high quality articles in about an hour. If it is PLR articles, I can usually get three done within one hour.

I work quickly and efficiently because I don’t have time to play around and this schedule works for me and my family.

Well, I hope this gives you a glimpse into the life of a IM Writer. Now, I’ve gotta finish up an article before the kids wake up.

Kristi
http://imwriterblog.com/

I hope you enjoyed part one of my story where I discussed my typical day as a part time internet marketer. If you have not read it, the link is here:

http://www.thediaryofaninternetmarketer.com/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-part-time-internet-marketer-alan-cheng/

Here is my typical day as a full-time internet marketer.

I decided to leave my office job on October 2007. It took me until February 2008 to finally have my last day with the company where all my colleagues wished me the best of luck. The next day I went to work in my own office.

It was a dream for me to have my own office and business. I’ve finally achieved it. Two months later, here is what my typical day of working as an internet marketer is like.

7am - Wake up, drink some water and go for a 15 minute run. I’m following a system called PACE where I can exercise in a short amount of time and lose weight quickly. Just what I need.

7:25am - Have a shower and healthy breakfast

8am - Plan my day using pen and paper. Put the tasks on my PDA.

8:15am - Read my emails. See what other people are promoting.

Marking down the ideas and any news in the internet marketing industry.

8:40am - leave the house

8:45-9:45am - Read an internet marketing ebook or any self development ebook during the bus ride on my PDA

9:50am - Arrive in office. Download the latest virus patches on my PC. Reply to any emails or MSN messages.

10:15am - Write to my blog

11am - Finish writing my article and submit it to directories and mail groups.

12pm - Work on a product. At the time being, I’ve just finished writing my ebook ‘Article Marketing Strategies’. It took me a full month writing it and setting up, preparing videos, getting testimonials etc…

It will be a lot easier next time, since I’ve written down all the steps I need for writing a book and releasing it. You can download a free copy at http://www.trafficbeast.com/ebook

1pm-2pm - Lunch (A relaxing one. Either with friends or old colleagues)

2pm - Work on a product. I switch off my mobile phone, MSN and emails for this session. I get a lot done during these 2 hours.

4pm - Build relationships. Either MSN, Skype or forums.

4:30pm - Buying traffic. Either pay per click, SEO or social media.

5pm - Studying. Watching videos, reading ebooks, information from membership sites etc… During this hour, I take notes on everything. For any ideas which I have from this reading, I put it in an ‘Ideas’ folder on my computer for later use.

6pm - Get the bus home. During this time, I write down ideas for blogs posts, articles and also continue to read any ebook on my PDA.

7:30pm - Dinner with the family.

8pm - Watching TV with the family. Making sure the show is suitable for the kids. Otherwise I’m going to get asked embarrassing questions!

8:30pm - Playing and speaking with wife and kids. This is my normal schedule. If you’ve read part one of this post, everything is the same until 10:10pm.

10:10pm - I only work for one hour after the kids have gone to bed. I have the living room to myself now. During this hour, I will check the statistics of my marketing, commissions and answer any emails.

11:15pm Speak with the wife. If she’s too tired I’ll read the Warriorforum on my PDA using WiFi. I normally fall asleep before midnight.

Bear in mind that I get a full 7 hours sleep since I’ve worked for myself. This is very important and I really hope everyone reading this will try and sleep more as well.

Since I’ve gotten more sleep and started doing some exercise, I find myself being more energetic and my brain is more active throughout the day. On the bus rides to and from home, I don’t fall asleep anymore while reading.

I can manage to focus for long periods of time and get a lot more done. I feel a lot happier and sharp.

On Saturday and Sundays, again I work for 2 hours each day. Normally I just think about the business, reply some emails, planning and building relationships with other internet marketers.

As you can see, my life is still not very exciting. This excludes Saturday and Sundays but that’s another story.

I have setup the routine above for all my weekdays however, I must stress that it changes depending on whether I have any projects on hand. As I mentioned, I was working on my ebook for the past month and the majority of the day was just spent on writing and studying.

Here you have it. The life of one internet marketer. You may notice that hard work is still much needed.

The major achievements I’ve had duing my full time as an internet marketer are:

- building my blog at http://www.trafficbeast.com  

- finished writing my free ebook ‘Article Marketing Strategies’

- wrote many articles

- built a lot of relationships with other internet marketers

- studied a lot of internet marketing products

- contacted a lot of friends I haven’t contacted before

- actually feel the freedom I have with the family and my life

At the moment I love what I am doing and I love my life. I thank God for providing me with such joy. However, if you notice, the life is completely different to what is advertised as the ‘internet marketing lifestyle’. Believe me. Hard work is required to succeed. Don’t believe in easy, set and forget systems.

I hope you enjoyed reading about my life as much as I enjoyed writing it. I know it’s probably not what you expected from a full time internet marketer but perhaps this is a wake up call for you to start working hard and build your own business.

Alan Cheng
Owner, Traffic Beast
http://www.trafficbeast.com  

I am going to talk about 2 different phases of my typical day in internet marketing.
One is how I spend my day on internet marketing when I had my full time job.
The second part is when I finally left my office job and did full time internet marketing in February of this year.

Part-Time Internet Marketer

I worked full time for many industries as an IT Manager. Investment banks, construction industry and the garment industry. Basically I needed to leave the house at 8am and return at 7pm.

Here’s my typical day.

7:30am - get out of bed and have a cup of coffee to wake myself up.
8:10am – during the 50 min. bus ride to work, I get my PDA out and plan on what I need to do for the day (this is regarding my internet marketing business of course). Sometimes I read an ebook using by PDA as well. It depends on the mood I’m in.
9:05am – have breakfast by myself and writing down any ideas I have for writing articles and marketing. I truly believe in article marketing so I spend a lot of time writing.
9:30 – 6pm – During office work, I take a few moments checking emails and submitting articles when I have the chance. Adds up to about 30 minutes per day. Wish I can do more but work is hectic.
6:30pm – During the one hour and 10 mins bus ride home (heavy traffic), I write an article using my PDA (it’s a Dopod 810. Can’t live without it).
7:45pm – Have dinner with my family.
8:15pm – Switch off the television. Talk and play with the kids.
9:30pm – Read bedtime story to my daughter.
9:40pm – Watch TV in the living room while my son goes on youtube with my laptop. My wife is in my daughter’s room reading and talking about her day etc…
10:pm – Read bedtime story to my son
10:10pm – My internet marketing work begins. I normally work 2 hours unless something disastrous happens.
- finish writing the article on my PDA (10 mins)
- Submit my articles to directories and publishers (15 mins)
- searching for affiliate products to recommend (15 mins)
- read my emails on the tons of internet marketers’ emails I have sign up for (30 mins)
- write content for my website or drive traffic to my website (30 mins)
- check my affiliate stats, adsense reports, update my expense report etc… (15 mins)

Midnight – Speak to my wife if she’s still awake for about 10 minutes.
12:10am – Read the Warriorforum using my PDA noting down any ideas I have.
1am – Falling asleep

On Saturday and Sundays, I work about 2 hours a days as well. I love my family life. My kids are still very young so I’m not going to miss any part of their lives.

About once very two months, I will stay in a cheap hotel with wifi and lock myself in the room for 7 hours. Either writing a salesletter, ebook or reports. I find these 7 hours to be very productive. No phone calls, no MSN and I don’t read any emails.

That’s it. Not very attractive I know. But it’s the sacrifice I made so that I can have my own business which I finally achieved.

What I would like to say is, there is no excuse for not having enough time to spend on your internet marketing. You have to make sacrifices. I’ve made lots during the last 4 years.

My sacrifices include:
- not able to watch TV shows
- not going out with friends as much as I want to
- no time to read fictional books which I love
- no doing as much exercise as I should
- etc…

Life was not very exciting at the time. This is why I prefer to keep Saturday and Sunday free. It’s time for me to relax and enjoy. Otherwise I’ll burn myself out.

In part 2 tomorrow, I’ll talk about my full day as an internet marketer. You’ll be surprised at the difference.

http://trafficbeast.com/

Recently I signed up to Facebook as it seems to be the ‘big’ thing lately but I just signed up and that was it, I didn’t really do anything with it. 

Then the other day I received an email from John Reese (Internet Guru for anyone that doesn’t know) who had sent out an email to his list asking them to add him as a friend on Facebook.  There could be a huge benefit by having some Internet Marketing people added as your friends on Facebook.

It is a great way to communicate with your IM friends and I think since John Reese’s email, anyone who doesn’t have a Facebook account needs to get one NOW!

It is actually quite fun and a good idea, so I really recommend that you do get yourself a Facebook account and start growing your list of IM.

http://profile.to/sherylpolomka/

So for those Internet Marketers out ther who have an account at Facebook, above is my link if you’d like to become my friend.  For those of you who don’t have a Facebook account yet - GET ONE!!!!

Take care
Sheryl
http://www.black-spider.info

I’m sure all the Internet Marketing Mum’s (Moms) out there will agree that sometimes it gets hard to juggle both your online business and housework and kids.  I know that my housework often gets neglected as I spend my time on my laptop when I should be cleaning the bathroom.

I have spoken before on my blog about getting organised and so far I haven’t really made a good attempt at doing it yet.  I really must though as my house is getting neglected and so are the kids.

There just isn’t enough hours in the day!

I know that some days I come on here and at the end of the day I just don’t feel like I’ve actually achieved anything and this is one more reason why I need to get myself more organised as I know that if I am on here less and more organised I will probably achieve much more with the time that I have got.

So my goal is to spend less time online, spend more time on housework and definately to spend more time with my georgious little boys.  Otherwise they will be grown men before I know it and I’ll have missed them growing up!!!

Just a note about the Resale Rights Course:

I haven’t started the Resale Rights Course yet as I’ve been a bit crook the last couple of days and also just haven’t had the time.  My husband is going away on business for a few days leaving tomorrow, so I’ll have the evenings to myself for the next few days so I’m planning to get started on the course then.

Thanks for visiting
Take Care
Sheryl
http://www.stayhome-mum.com

Many people can’t believe how much I get done in a day. Well, you don’t make 6 figures a year sitting around twiddling your thumbs. Earning a living online takes hard work…lots of it. Anyway, I was asked what my typical day is like. Honestly, I don’t have a typical day because I am involved in so many things. But here’s an example of how crazy my day can be.

The day I wrote this, I got up at 7 AM and immediately got to work. I eat breakfast as I work at my PC. I start my morning my doing my advertising. I use mostly FFA Hosting and safelists that I send to in the early AM. It takes me about an hour to complete these tasks.

I then start my article writing for Ezine Articles and the many guest blogs that I write for. This usually takes me up until lunch time. Today, however, there were a few wrinkles in the plan. See, I just started a mentoring program for which I now have 12 students. I heard from about six of them today. It was a real crazy day keeping up with assignments.

While all this was going on, I was also working on my new project with a member of the Warrior Forum. We’re working on a new membership site that we’re hoping to finish up by June. In the last three days, I finished up three different workbooks for this site.

And then there are the customer service emails from people who have purchased products from me. I always support all the products I sell. So that means answering questions when they arise. I try to always get back to people within 24 hours.

In addition to this, I moderate 2 forums. It’s not a lot of work and it does have its perks. Being a moderator for a forum that doesn’t have a ton of traffic is nice. I’d never do it at the Warrior Forum though because I’d probably burn out in a day…even with all I can do.

In the meantime, I’m always brainstorming to try to come up with new products. This is an ongoing process that never stops. Sometimes I’ll think of things in the middle of the night. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve woken up my wife with yet another brainstorm.

My day usually ends at about 10:30 when I take pity on the rest of the family and agree to go to sleep.

So when people ask me how I am so successful, I tell them simply, “I work hard.”

There’s no secret to success and making money online. It’s just a lot of hard work and knowing what you’re doing.

Oh yes…you DO need to know what you’re doing.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim
Learn The Real Truth About Making Money Online
http://www.stevewagenheim.com/btl_squeeze.html

I have been so slack with this blog and haven’t been updating it regularly.  If you have read previous posts you would know I’ve been having a very stressful time with one of my children and it really has affected the amount of work I’ve managed to do.  We had a visit with his psychiatrist yesterday and finally someone that has given me some hope as I think I had really lost all hope of this behavior changing in any way.  We have seeked help in the past and haven’t gotten very far but I think we have finally found someone that can help us.

The joys of parenting!!!

Anyway, I am still working on my ’step by step’ project that I mentioned in my last post.  I should have had this finished by now but that’s ok, it’s not too far off.  I just have a few more articles to write and then make a few changes to the report and then it will be ready to go.

Last week I received my sales page for my other ‘BIG’ project that I’m working on.  I have never paid to have a sales page created for me before but this is a big one and I want to get it right.  So now having spent about $300 on graphics and sales page I hope it pays off for me.  Receiving the sales page has motivated me to get stuck into it again and get it finished.  So watch this space as I hope that I get it up and running soon.

Ok, I’m going to go and try to get another article written before I have to go and pick up my son to take him to the dentist.

Take care and thanks for visiting
Sheryl
www.stayhome-mum.com

PS - I almost forgot I did manage to get something almost completed last night.  I am doing a plr article store which I got uploaded last night.  I have lots more to add to it but at least the one’s that are on there are now uploaded and available.  So anyone that needs PLR articles at a good price with good quality then visit my site at http://www.affiliatexplosion.com/articlestore