New Monitor!

Yes, nearly a year after I said I'd buy a new monitor I finally have one. Samsung Syncmaster 931BF. I don't know how I feel about it. The space savings is CRAZY. I can actually use my desk. The problem is that images do not seem to appear as well as they did on my CRT. I don't know if this is a function of poor settings on my part, lack of DVI cable, or just what I should expect from a flat panel. Do any of you know?

Routine & New Program Prep

Same old thing. I was able add a few new products to PPC1 today. That site was in SERIOUS need of up keep. I had become complacent and things started to slip in that program. While it is still my most consistent PPC program, it is far from the volume of income that I would like. There are literally 100+ products that I could promote but I am only running 14 currently. I decided that I will add 5/week to test and find winners. Those not producing a sale within 2 weeks/$4.00 (whichever comes first) will be cut with avengence. If I could average 2 sales per day I would bring in just under $500/month. Not big but it is better than I have been doing lately.

These are the baby steps I need to make to get to where I want to be.

Keyword Discovery - Good but Still Boring

That is my verdict. Of the keyword tools out there, Keyword Discovery is the best one I've tried. There are many options and search methods that were readily accessible in the interface. Depending on the results of the labor I've put in with KD, I may just upgrade to the full year subscription for the outrageous price that it is. That said, keyword research still sucks. It is boring and I don't think I will ever enjoy it. Necessary evil I suppose.

I am toying with the idea of opening a third Adwords account. Yes, I said third. The first one is damaged beyond repair and essentially extorts money from me. You know that things are bad with your account when you can bid $3.00 on a keyword and show up at position 65. The second one is in good standing so I don't want to mess it up. It is the home of PPC1 and it brings in money now and then. So this is the question of the week. While I contemplate, I will build my keyword list for PPC2 and the test market of August.

Keyword Discovery - Day 1

You know, I have tested Stomp the Search Engines, Email Aces, the Marketing Sherpa Landing Pages Manual but I have not been able to recommend any of them. Whether they were too elementary, irrelevant to affiliate marketing, or just cumbersome, there has always been something that has kept me from giving them the thumbs up.

Today was Day 1 of Keyword Discovery and I love it so far. I never really liked WordTracker but I do like Keyword Discovery. It is ridiculously expensive but I have yet to have a twinge of buyer's remorse. It has made my keyword research much faster and efficient than it had been before. I'll let you know if I still feel the same way in the coming days. I plan to hit it hard this weekend so we will see if it stands up to a beating.

More Workin' and Keyword Discovery

More the same today with one exception; Keyword Discovery has entered my sphere of knowledge. This program promises big things above and beyond what WordTracker can do. That above and beyond comes with an above and beyond price, too. $49.95/month! That's right, not a one-time charge of $49.95. Nope, it is $49.95/month...

In the vein of breaking cycles, I think I will test it out for a month. I will do the guinea pig thing and see how it is. If it is good, I'll recommend it. If it isn't, I'll tell you why it's not so hot. The things I do for your reader-type people=)

(Re)Enter Adwords

Despite the craziness with Adwords lately, I am going back into Adwords for PPC2. The negative keywords makes it possible to tune your campaigns and eliminate junk searches. If you can do this with Overture, I haven't found it. This is not to say that I will be getting rid of Overture, I will just be (re)expanding into Adwords.

I was able to get the form down to 8.07 seconds. That may be the best I will be able to pull off. I mean, it isn't the sub-five that I want but it is better than the original 35 seconds. It's almost like running. It is easy to make big strides in the beginning but as you approach your physical peak, making significant shavings off of your time becomes harder and harder.

Forgot to Post

Sorry about that. I was pretty tired after working on stuff and I just went to bed=)

I can safely say that I will not be buying templates anymore. This one that I bought was nice and everything but I was quickly reminded of why I was making my templates in the first place. No, it's not because I'm cheap...entirely. It is because in it's original state, this template was loading at 35 seconds for a 56k modem. That is terrible! I spent this weekend and yesterday redoing the template to look like the original but without all of the bloated code. I have shaved it down to 12.07 seconds for a 56k but that is still too high. They say that you have 7 seconds to sell someone on your site. That's not 7 seconds after that 35 it took for your page to load, that is 7 seconds total. I am still loading too long. I'm not sure where else to optimize, though. I'll keep you posted.

Quasi Night Off

Not really. I did some autoresponder stuff and retooled some Adwords campaigns. There is a HUGE upheval going on in the Adwords world. There is all kinds of speculation about what's going on but forums all over the place are not just buzzing; they are screaming. I've noticed some craziness in my account too and so I engaged in some much needed pruning.

Finally Finished

The template has been retooled and tested for PPC2. I let a friend look at it and his comments were, "Your website looks badass." This is saying something as usually he couldn't care less about internet marketing. Hopefully visitors will think the same thing and fill out the damn form from now on=)

This feels great! I haven't been this motivated since probably this time last year. I am willingly working myself into exhaustion. Sigh, 'bout time=) Night.

More Important Than Just Me - Take Action!

This is big people. This will especially effect those of us who want to make a living on the Internet. Do whatever it takes to get Congress to vote against big business and for net neutrality.

A letter from Eric Schmidt, CEO

Freedom of access to information on the Internet is a topic that we believe is of great interest and importance to Inside AdSense readers. Our CEO Eric Schmidt has written a letter to you, our publishers, on the subject of "net neutrality" -- read below for the full text:

Dear AdSense Publisher,

There's a debate heating up in Washington, DC on something called "net neutrality" – and the outcome of this debate may very well impact your business. Therefore, we are taking the unprecedented steps of calling your attention to this looming crisis and asking you to get involved.

Sometime in the next few days, the House of Representatives is going to vote on a bill that would fundamentally alter the Internet. That bill would give the big phone and cable companies the power to choose what you will be able to see and do on the Internet.

Today the Internet is an information highway where anybody – no matter how large or small, how traditional or unconventional – has equal access to everyone else. On the Internet, a business doesn't need the network's permission to communicate with a customer or deploy an innovative new service. But the phone and cable monopolies, who control almost all broadband Internet access, want the power to choose who gets onto the high-speed lanes and whose content gets seen first and fastest. They want to build tollbooths to block the on-ramps for those whom they don't want to compete with and who can't pay this new Internet tax. Money and monopoly, not ideas and independence, will be the currency of their Internet.

Under the proposed "pay-to-play" system, small- and medium-sized businesses will be placed at an automatic disadvantage to their larger competitors. Those who cannot afford the new Internet tax – or who want to compete directly with the phone and cable companies – will be marginalized by slower Internet access that will inevitably make their sites less accessible, and therefore less appealing.

Creativity, innovation and a free and open marketplace are all at stake in this fight. Imagine an Internet in which your access to customers is constrained by your ability to cut a deal with the carriers. Please call your representative in Congress at 202-224-3121. For more information on the issue, and more ways to make your voice be heard, visit www.ItsOurNet.org.

Thank you for your time, your concern and your support.

Eric Schmidt
CEO of Google Inc.

P.S. -- If you are unsure of who represents you in Congress, you can look them up by zip code at http://www.house.gov. And if you would like to stay informed about this issue, and other policy issues affecting Google, you can opt-in to our policy mailing list at http://groups-beta.google.com/group/googlepolicy/subscribe (powered by Google Groups).

WHOA! I Bought a Template!

Yes, I have broken the cycle. I ended up going with TemplateMonster despite the problems I had with their customer service. I spent most of the day retooling the template into something useful. I am almost finished with it too. I reall just need to add in the javascript elements and redo some pages before it will be ready to unleash on the unsuspecting market.

One thing that buying the template has done is provide me with what I need in order to reverse engineer it and create my own that look more professional. I wouldn't be surprised if all of you could feel me smirking through the computer.

Insanity Part Deux

Doing the same thing over and over again wouldn't be that bad if this time around I could break the cycle. I wanted to buy a template (read: break the cycle). I had my business debit card out and was READY TO BUY SOMETHING! But wait, I have to be sure that things will work the way I want. The adventure ensues....

I called TemplateMonster.com to find out about whether the "required software" was actually required. Not very impressed with their phone service. The first number I called, the guy seemed confused and wasn't quite sure what Template Monster was (I'm thinking that it is a smaller off-shoot of a bigger company). Not convinced that I reached the right people to talk to, I call a second number. I am told to leave a voicemail with no indication of who the company I called was or anything of that nature. I call the third number. "All circuits are busy..." In a momentary lapse of control, I turned green and ripped off my shirt. Only for a moment though.

I cycle through the numbers once or twice more and can't even get in touch with Confused Dude. Finally I decide to test their 24/7 chat support. It works. "Phil" on the other end is friendly and helpful. I no longer feel the urge to bite children and small animals. Unfortunately, Phil informs me that the required software is actually required. This is an hour or so after I started my little Odyssey. No templates were purchased.

So, as you can see it is not my fault that the cycle is made of adamantium. There are forces at work determined to prevent me from buying a template (read: break the cycle). Either that or I'm talking nonsense and just need to go to bed.

Definition of Insanity

I am the poster child. While the "definition of insanity" theme has been running rampant thoughout the affiliate marketing blogs I frequent, there is no other way to describe what I am doing. I am redoing the landing page for PPC2. Why I continue to persue this market makes sense to me but probably baffles the hell out of everyone else. Insanity. Yesterday I had the opportunity to see the money one individual brought in with this market for June.... That was all that I needed to get me to jump back into the "PPC2 will work for me" cycle. I can say that it is shaping up decently=)

Happy 4th of July!

It's been awhile. I've been trying to get things on track for a better month than June. Everything has been in a tailspin since March and it's time to turn things around.

PPC2
I've decided that the landing page is not good enough. Costs have risen dramatically with this market since I left (was kicked=) and I really need to get the conversion rates up. This market is one that requires a far more professional face than I have put forth so I've been thinking about buying a template. I went to Template Monster but it says that Dreamweaver is required. Have any of you bought a template there and if so, can you use other html editors?

New Markets
There are 2 new pay-per-lead markets I want to get into soon. For the first, I have the form finished and am just waiting on the merchant to get back to me with the tracking info. The second will require a completely new site and I have not started work on that yet. I have been busying myself with a special project as of late and it has taken up much of my time.