Shameless plug: Bar Blenders
Saturday, December 15, 2012
Future of InfoBarrel Experiment
I haven't posted in a while but I'd like to update everyone on how the experiment is going. Well, I never got to see The Who in November. So sad. Oh, wait, that wasn't part of the experiment. Haha. But really, I have written 35 articles on Squidoo and they have made around $80 so far in December. That's a much better ROI than InfoBarrel. Last month on InfoBarrel, I made $93.23 on Adsense, $64.40 on Amazon and $0.52 on Chikita for a total of $158.15 on 150 lenses articles. InfoBarrel has added an Amazon module so I can promote 1 product per 200 words. That's 5 products per 1,000 word article. I put the modules on all of my articles and I have only seen an increase in Amazon sales on one article. My sales have plummeted on the rest of my articles. I'm not sure what is going on. I would love to be able to make a living just on my InfoBarrel articles alone as it's my favorite writing site but Squidoo has a much better rate of investment. So I have another plan (I know, you are probably sick of me making plans and not following through). I spent all of November doing keyword research. I came up with a list of 500 keywords that get at least 1,000 views a month, make at least $1 CPC and look like they should be easy to rank for. I'm going to write 2 articles for each keyword and put one article on InfoBarrel and the other article on Squidoo. The InfoBarrel article will link to the Squidoo article. It should take around 2-3 months to get all of the articles/lenses written. Then I will spend time backlinking the lenses that don't rank right away. I'm hoping that the 500 articles/lenses will make at least $2,500 a month on Squidoo and $1,000 a month on InfoBarrel. That's enough to pay all my bills each month. It would definitely lower the stress I feel each month when the bills come around and I realize that I can't pay all of them. I am hoping to be done with this plan by the middle of February so I'll post another update in March.
Shameless plug: Bar Blenders
Shameless plug: Bar Blenders
Sunday, August 12, 2012
Taking A Break
You could probably see this coming from a mile away but I'm going to put this experiment on hold. I really think there's a big potential with Squidoo and I want to take advantage of it. Someone on InfoBarrel has around 300 Squidoo lenses and is making over $4,000 a month. Crazy! My new "experiment" is to write 300 lenses as soon as possible. Squidoo lenses are easier to write than InfoBarrel and I can put more links in each lens. With InfoBarrel, I'm limited to two links in each article. I can put unlimited Amazon links in my Squidoo lenses. I'm hoping this will lead to more money. Since the lenses are easier to write, I'm pretty sure I'll be able to create all 300 lenses in less than a month. Then I can get back to my InfoBarrel experiment or I can pay someone to write InfoBarrel articles for me.
Although this blog is about InfoBarrel, I still want to put my plan on paper (or on a blog post) so here is my Squidoo plan:
Tonight, I created a Facebook page for my Squidoo articles as well as started a Twitter account, Pinterest account and a Stumble Upon account. I also got a new email address. This will make it easier to promote my articles. I also came up with six different niches I want to focus on for these 300 articles. I think I am going to set up a new Squidoo account for each niche just to keep them all separate. I am going to write 50 lenses for each account. I already came up with 50 ideas for one account. I still need to do this for the other 5 accounts. After I get all 6 accounts set up and found lens ideas for all accounts, I will start by writing 10 lenses a day. I will post each lens on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest and Stumble Upon. That should get the lenses indexed quickly. For each account, I will like 50 lenses and comment on a few of them. This should help get some Squidlikes which are important for ranking within Squidoo (though I'm not expecting to make much money with the tiers). After I get all 300 lenses done, I might do some backlinking on other article sites to help get my sites ranking better.
I've gotta go. One of my favorite bands, The Who, is on the Olympics Closing Ceremonies right now. I hope to see them in November - if I can make enough money by then to buy a ticket.
Although this blog is about InfoBarrel, I still want to put my plan on paper (or on a blog post) so here is my Squidoo plan:
Tonight, I created a Facebook page for my Squidoo articles as well as started a Twitter account, Pinterest account and a Stumble Upon account. I also got a new email address. This will make it easier to promote my articles. I also came up with six different niches I want to focus on for these 300 articles. I think I am going to set up a new Squidoo account for each niche just to keep them all separate. I am going to write 50 lenses for each account. I already came up with 50 ideas for one account. I still need to do this for the other 5 accounts. After I get all 6 accounts set up and found lens ideas for all accounts, I will start by writing 10 lenses a day. I will post each lens on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest and Stumble Upon. That should get the lenses indexed quickly. For each account, I will like 50 lenses and comment on a few of them. This should help get some Squidlikes which are important for ranking within Squidoo (though I'm not expecting to make much money with the tiers). After I get all 300 lenses done, I might do some backlinking on other article sites to help get my sites ranking better.
I've gotta go. One of my favorite bands, The Who, is on the Olympics Closing Ceremonies right now. I hope to see them in November - if I can make enough money by then to buy a ticket.
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Daily Update 08/10
Time really flies when you are hard at work. I didn't realize it had been 3 days since I posted an update. It's getting late so I'm going to make this brief.
- The spun intro I made looks great but I'm not sure it's going to be considered unique enough. I'm going to use it anyway and, if Admin complains about it, I will have to rewrite them.
- I've got about 30 intros done but, now that I've got the spun intro done, I should be able to get all 400 intros completed tomorrow. *Unless I decide that the spun article isn't unique enough for 400 articles. Then I will use the current spun intro for 200 articles and I will write another spun intro for 200 articles.
- Squidoo is awesome! I'm getting a ton of views on my 2 lenses plus I've already made $1.65. I'm currently working on a Halloween lens that I'm hoping will get a lot of views. I think I'm going to try to create 1 lens a day based on the topics of my InfoBarrel articles. I'm tempted to drop the InfoBarrel experiment and switch to a Squidoo challenge but I'm going to stick to this. I never finish what I start so I need to get this done before I attempt anything else.
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
Daily Update 08/07
Did I ever mention how much I hate to write introductions? They are pretty much useless but I have to include them to get the word count up and to let the big G know what the article is about. I was going to write 50 intros a day and knock all 400 of them out in a week. Right now, that's not going to happen. I wrote 3 intros today. Three!! I can't believe it takes me so long to write these useless paragraphs. If you are reading the article, you already know what it's about and you don't need me to tell you. I think I have discovered a way to create a lot of unique intros easily - like in a few seconds I can have an amazing (well, maybe not amazing but pretty good) introduction. The plan is to write 3-5 introductions that could be used for just about any article. I will paste the intros into The Best Spinner and I will rewrite each sentence 2-3 times and I will spin on the word level manually. All I will have to do to get a great intro is to copy one of the spun intros and replace the starred words with my keyword. I will, of course, edit the intros to make sure they make sense and are on topic. I might even change a sentence or two just to make them more unique. I should be able to do intros a lot faster this way. So far today, I wrote one of the intros and I will write the other two before bed. I hope to get them spun tomorrow and then I can just go through the articles and copy and paste the new intros. It should really help speed things along.
I'll let you know how it works tomorrow.
I'll let you know how it works tomorrow.
Monday, August 6, 2012
Daily Update 08/06
In terms of income, I had a very productive day today. In terms of writing articles, I didn't even come close to my goal. Last night, I was looking at my new year's resolutions and realized that I wasn't close at hitting any of them. I decided that I should probably get down to business if I want to get at least one of them done by next year. I picked the resolution to pay off my car loan by the end of the year. Actually, I'm going to try to do it by the end of the month. I need to make $290 by September 1st or $15 a day. So that is what I spent most of the day doing. I worked my butt off on Mturk to make $15. I only got 3 intros written for my InfoBarrel experiment. Hopefully tomorrow I can reach my daily goal of 50 intros and make $15. It should be easier to work tomorrow. My dad turned the power off in my office today so he could work on some lighting in the basement. I had to work upstairs in the dining room which sucked because my mom had the TV on all day. It was a huge distraction. There will be no distractions tomorrow. I will reach my goal of 400 articles by the end of the month and I will pay off my car loan. I can do it!!
Sunday, August 5, 2012
Daily Update 08/05
I tried to take the weekend off but it was too hard to stay away. I created folders for each week in August and added 100 folders for each week. I labeled the folders with the name of the article. I ran out of article ideas with about 250 articles left so I had to do some keyword research for those last 250 articles. I'm going to do a combination of Halloween and fall articles for the last week of August. Hopefully they will have matured enough by Halloween to start making money.
Yesterday, I created two Squidoo lenses and started on a 3rd lens. I'm still not sure how I feel about Squidoo. I like that there is very little writing involved. I just have to write a short intro and then write a sentence or two for each module I decide to use. I'm not sure how well my lenses are going to rank being as they are so short. I'm also worried about the work in progress thing. If your lenses haven't been updated or aren't ranking, they fall into a work in progress state which means that they won't be ranked at all and won't make any money. I don't really have the time to be updating my lenses very often. Anyways, I'll see how these three lenses rank this month and then make more if they rank well.
Today, I worked on writing introductions for my InfoBarrel articles. I'm going to try to get all of the introductions written and the research done for all 400 articles by Monday of next week. This means that I'll have to write 50 intros a day which is totally doable. After that, I will have the next three weeks to write 400 articles. Since I will have all of the intros and research done, they shouldn't be very hard to write. If I write and post 25 articles a day, I'll get them all done by the end of the month.
So that's the plan for this month. I'll try to post another update tomorrow night and let y'all know how it's going.
Yesterday, I created two Squidoo lenses and started on a 3rd lens. I'm still not sure how I feel about Squidoo. I like that there is very little writing involved. I just have to write a short intro and then write a sentence or two for each module I decide to use. I'm not sure how well my lenses are going to rank being as they are so short. I'm also worried about the work in progress thing. If your lenses haven't been updated or aren't ranking, they fall into a work in progress state which means that they won't be ranked at all and won't make any money. I don't really have the time to be updating my lenses very often. Anyways, I'll see how these three lenses rank this month and then make more if they rank well.
Today, I worked on writing introductions for my InfoBarrel articles. I'm going to try to get all of the introductions written and the research done for all 400 articles by Monday of next week. This means that I'll have to write 50 intros a day which is totally doable. After that, I will have the next three weeks to write 400 articles. Since I will have all of the intros and research done, they shouldn't be very hard to write. If I write and post 25 articles a day, I'll get them all done by the end of the month.
So that's the plan for this month. I'll try to post another update tomorrow night and let y'all know how it's going.
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Daily Update 07/31
I HATE CONTESTS!!! I was completely right. The guy in first place wrote a bunch of articles today but I was ahead of the game and wrote the same amount of articles as he did plus one. Here's the kicker - that stupid puppet guy (dj) posted over 50 articles today. Last week, I predicted he would do something like that. I copied part of one of his articles and pasted it into Google and found that he has a blog with over 1,000 articles published on it. Apparently, he's been deleting articles off of his blog and publishing them on InfoBarrel. The articles he's publishing are over 2 years old and, frankly, they suck. Plus, no one has a chance at the contest. He's won the contest for the past two months in a row and now it looks like he's going to win the contest again. I could just scream. No matter how many articles I'm going to post, he'll post more. Every. Single. Month. It's crazy.
Anyways, I'm sitting here trying to come up with my next plan of action. I have an hour and a half before the contest ends. I could find some ezines and throw them into The Best Spinner and post them and then edit them tomorrow. I did that two years ago when I was trying to win the contest. I ended up rewriting the articles later and they do make me some money. I'm just afraid that whatever I post, dj is waiting and will post even more. It's a losing battle. I should just go to bed and start fresh tomorrow.
Update: Shorty after I wrote the above post, I realized that dj stopped posting articles so I calculated how many points he would have. I realized that I would only need 4 more articles to beat him so I went ahead and found four 1,000 word articles, spun them, edited them so they are readable and posted them. All in an hour. I sure hope my calculations are correct because I should be one point ahead of dj in the points. If I did calculate wrong and I didn't win, at least I tried my hardest and didn't give up.
This weekend will be spent rewriting those four articles. They aren't bad - actually, they are better than dj's articles - but I think I should rework them and add in some Amazon links and some pictures. I'm afraid the articles aren't very unique so I want to make sure they would pass Copyscape.
I'm taking tomorrow (err..today) off because my grandma is coming to spend the night. I don't get to see her very often now that she lives in a senior apartment building so I want to spend as much time with her as I can. I'll probably post another update on Saturday.
Another Update: As I was finish the second part of this post, the contest updated. I did miscalculate the contest and I lost by 3 points. I have to keep reminding myself that all that hard work wasn't for the contest. It was so I can have the lifestyle I want through a passive income. That's the important thing. Building a passive income. A contest is a stupid thing that just drove me crazy, stressed me out and lowered the quality of my work. As long as I keep writing articles, I will eventually win a contest. The first time I tried to win a contest, I came in 3rd. This time I came in 2nd. Next time I will be 1st. I will take this weekend off to relax and destress and will come back fighting hard on Monday.
Anyways, I'm sitting here trying to come up with my next plan of action. I have an hour and a half before the contest ends. I could find some ezines and throw them into The Best Spinner and post them and then edit them tomorrow. I did that two years ago when I was trying to win the contest. I ended up rewriting the articles later and they do make me some money. I'm just afraid that whatever I post, dj is waiting and will post even more. It's a losing battle. I should just go to bed and start fresh tomorrow.
Update: Shorty after I wrote the above post, I realized that dj stopped posting articles so I calculated how many points he would have. I realized that I would only need 4 more articles to beat him so I went ahead and found four 1,000 word articles, spun them, edited them so they are readable and posted them. All in an hour. I sure hope my calculations are correct because I should be one point ahead of dj in the points. If I did calculate wrong and I didn't win, at least I tried my hardest and didn't give up.
This weekend will be spent rewriting those four articles. They aren't bad - actually, they are better than dj's articles - but I think I should rework them and add in some Amazon links and some pictures. I'm afraid the articles aren't very unique so I want to make sure they would pass Copyscape.
I'm taking tomorrow (err..today) off because my grandma is coming to spend the night. I don't get to see her very often now that she lives in a senior apartment building so I want to spend as much time with her as I can. I'll probably post another update on Saturday.
Another Update: As I was finish the second part of this post, the contest updated. I did miscalculate the contest and I lost by 3 points. I have to keep reminding myself that all that hard work wasn't for the contest. It was so I can have the lifestyle I want through a passive income. That's the important thing. Building a passive income. A contest is a stupid thing that just drove me crazy, stressed me out and lowered the quality of my work. As long as I keep writing articles, I will eventually win a contest. The first time I tried to win a contest, I came in 3rd. This time I came in 2nd. Next time I will be 1st. I will take this weekend off to relax and destress and will come back fighting hard on Monday.
Monday, July 30, 2012
Daily Update 07/30
I'm going to try to make this a quick update because I have a lot of work I still want to do. It was a really productive day. I've written 7 articles so far today and I published 7 articles. The contest will be really close. The person in 1st place right now posted a ton of articles today. I need to write around 3 more articles to be caught up with them in points (that's if they get 5 pts per article they posted). I'm going to get those done tonight. I hope that the person currently in 1st doesn't post anymore articles tomorrow but I know they will. I'll have to try to anticipate how many articles they are going to post and write that many articles plus a couple more. Today they posted 12 articles but I'm not sure how many of those are 1,000 word articles. I don't think all of them are. I'll have to wait until 2 am or tomorrow morning to find out how many points they actually got. I'm going to aim for writing around 13 articles tomorrow. I know it's a lot but I really want to win this contest. Tonight, I'm going to write the 3 articles to get caught up and then I'll write another 2 or 3 articles. I'll also try to post all of the articles I've written so far as rough drafts. They'll save me some time tomorrow when I need to publish them all.
I'm off to do some work. I'll let you know tomorrow if I can come up with enough points win the contest.
I'm off to do some work. I'll let you know tomorrow if I can come up with enough points win the contest.
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Daily Update 07/29
I don't know what is wrong with me lately but when I sit down to write, my brain shuts down. I can't think and even the thought of writing makes me want to throw my computer across the room. Writing just one article takes a ton of effort. I was really tired today so that was probably why I only was able to write 3 articles. I need to get these articles done and posted by Tuesday so I can get the points for the contest. I have 18 articles I still need to write. I'm going to try for 10 tomorrow and the other 8 on Tuesday and then get them all published Tuesday evening. I could win the contest with what I've got written now but I'm not sure how many more articles the current top 2 writers are going to post. Right now, I'd be one 1,000 word article ahead of the the leader. If I can get these last 18 articles written, then I will have a sizable lead. I'm going to go to bed right now so I can get as much sleep as possible. I find it much easier to write when I'm not tired.
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Daily Update 07/28
Today did not go as planned. After I posted this morning, I took a shower and by the time I got out, my parents came home. My mom wanted to go to town to go grocery shopping and she wanted me to come with so I did. I didn't realize that it would take so long to get home. We ended up getting home after 3 PM. I wrote one article and then it was time to make supper. We didn't get done eating supper until around 7. I started to write another article while watching the Olympic games but couldn't concentrate on what I was doing. So I wrote a total of 1 1/2 articles today. Not good at all. I'll have to really step it up tomorrow if I want to get these articles done by the end of the month. Oh, I did something today that I shouldn't have. I started an account on Squidoo. I'm not going to post anything but I just wanted an account so I can comment on lenses and start collecting points.
The plan for tomorrow (hopefully I can stick to it) is to get up around 10 am, get dressed and eat breakfast and then write for two hours until the NASCAR race starts. I'm going to watch the race and try to write some stuff during commercials. Not sure if I'll be able to do it. After the race, I will write for a couple more hours in my office. I hope to get at least 10 articles written tomorrow.
The plan for tomorrow (hopefully I can stick to it) is to get up around 10 am, get dressed and eat breakfast and then write for two hours until the NASCAR race starts. I'm going to watch the race and try to write some stuff during commercials. Not sure if I'll be able to do it. After the race, I will write for a couple more hours in my office. I hope to get at least 10 articles written tomorrow.
Daily Update 07/27
When I woke up this morning, I realized that I forgot to post an update yesterday so I'm doing it now. I had a lot more motivation to write articles yesterday. Taking the night off really helped. I still only wrote 2 1/2 articles but I got the intros and conclusions written for 8 more articles. The intro/conclusions are the hardest part of the article so I should be able to fly through those 8 articles today. I am going to try to write the intro/conclusions for the other 17 articles today. I'll write half of those tomorrow and the other half on Monday. I'm going to publish all of them on Tuesday and hope that I have enough points to win the contest.
As far as the contest goes, I don't know what's going on. Dj deleted all of the articles he posted in the past two weeks and then posted in the forum asking where is most recent articles were. Later, he thanked Admin for figuring out the situation out but I still don't see his articles on the site and he has dropped to 4th in the contest. I'm not sure if he is planning on re-publishing those articles or what. Right now, the leader of the contest has 175 points. I should have 260 points after I post all of my articles. I'm hoping the leader doesn't have that many articles saved up. I guess I'll have to wait and see. I'm definitely going to win the contest next month, especially if I can hit my goal of 400 articles a month.
Squidoo still calls to me but I'm going to hold off until I have reached my monthly goal next month. I'm itching to put something on there to see how much I can make. There's a woman on the InfoBarrel forum who only has 200 lenses and says she made $2,000 last month and that was sharing her earnings with Squidoo. Her lenses are almost exactly like my InfoBarrel articles. I always have an intro, write about five different products found on Amazon and then have a conclusion. Her Squidoo articles have an intro, she highlights a few different Amazon products, has a conclusion and then has an Amazon search box. She says she gets a lot of her sales from the search box. I think my InfoBarrel articles would transfer well to the Squidoo format and I think they would make more money there than on InfoBarrel. I promised myself that I would make $1,000 a month from InfoBarrel so that is what I am going to do before getting into Squidoo. It's hard to hold myself back from posting on there though.
Alright, I have a few small chores to do and then I'm off to write 8 articles and 17 intro/conclusions. I'll post an update tonight.
As far as the contest goes, I don't know what's going on. Dj deleted all of the articles he posted in the past two weeks and then posted in the forum asking where is most recent articles were. Later, he thanked Admin for figuring out the situation out but I still don't see his articles on the site and he has dropped to 4th in the contest. I'm not sure if he is planning on re-publishing those articles or what. Right now, the leader of the contest has 175 points. I should have 260 points after I post all of my articles. I'm hoping the leader doesn't have that many articles saved up. I guess I'll have to wait and see. I'm definitely going to win the contest next month, especially if I can hit my goal of 400 articles a month.
Squidoo still calls to me but I'm going to hold off until I have reached my monthly goal next month. I'm itching to put something on there to see how much I can make. There's a woman on the InfoBarrel forum who only has 200 lenses and says she made $2,000 last month and that was sharing her earnings with Squidoo. Her lenses are almost exactly like my InfoBarrel articles. I always have an intro, write about five different products found on Amazon and then have a conclusion. Her Squidoo articles have an intro, she highlights a few different Amazon products, has a conclusion and then has an Amazon search box. She says she gets a lot of her sales from the search box. I think my InfoBarrel articles would transfer well to the Squidoo format and I think they would make more money there than on InfoBarrel. I promised myself that I would make $1,000 a month from InfoBarrel so that is what I am going to do before getting into Squidoo. It's hard to hold myself back from posting on there though.
Alright, I have a few small chores to do and then I'm off to write 8 articles and 17 intro/conclusions. I'll post an update tonight.
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Daily Update 07/26
Today went better than yesterday but not by much. I wrote 3 and 1/2 articles. I woke up nice and early and was planning to write 3 articles, take a break, write 3 more articles, take a lunch break, write 3 articles, take a break, write 3 articles, take a super break and write 3 more articles for a total of 15 articles. I wrote 3 articles and then got really tired so I took a nap. After my nap, I just felt blah. These articles are really boring and I'm starting to find it hard to come up with new things to say about the same type of products. How many different ways can you describe a dry erase board? Ugh. I tried to write another article but, combined with my sleepiness and how boring the topic was, I just couldn't do it. Tonight I have the house to myself so I am going to take a relaxing bubble bath. Watch a good movie (this movie about the Nazi's that I'm watching right now is kind of depressing) and then read a book. Tomorrow I will, hopefully, wake up refreshed and ready to write. I'll have the house to myself all day so I can turn up some good music, such as Bob Dylan, and get to writing.
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Daily Update 07/25
Today was all about motivation and distractions. Those are the two main reasons for failure in the internet world and I battled both of them today.
Distraction
Distraction isn't just about real world distractions like phone calls, television or taking a nap instead of working. Distraction is also about other ways to make money online. Some people call it shiny object syndrome. I have been battling that since I started. In fact, this isn't the first experiment I started this month. I have another blog and I started an experiment related to my niche website. I got bored after a week, gave up and started this experiment. I'm not bored of this experiment or am planning on quitting but I've found other places to make money that I'm itching to try. For example, last week, I read an article about how Squidoo is a good place to get backlinks to your niche sites. I then remembered that I have two lenses on Squidoo that I made a year ago so I decided to check them out. They were both WIP (work in progress) and weren't published but it got me thinking about how much money you could make on Squidoo. I found the SquidU forum and started reading and got really into it. I found some people making thousands of dollars a month on Squidoo with less than 500 lenses. I would love to try to make some money with Squidoo as it looks like a lot of fun to make lenses and the lenses work better for the type of articles I'm doing on InfoBarrel. Today, someone on the InfoBarrel forum was asking about Squidoo and it made me want to completely abandon this experiment and switch over to Squidoo. I'm not going to do that because this experiment is specifically aimed at InfoBarrel (even the name of the blog has InfoBarrel in it). I am not going to give up on this experiment. I will write 1,000 articles and I will make $1,000 a month. After I reach $1,000 a month, I will switch over to Squidoo.
Motivation
The second thing I had to deal with today was motivation. I woke up pretty late this morning - actually it was after noon. I did a bunch of chores around the house that I was neglecting, ate some lunch, put some stuff on eBay and when I sat down to write my InfoBarrel articles for today, I just had no motivation. I ended up writing one article and giving up. I hope I have more motivation tomorrow. I need to get these articles written. My parents are going to be out of town tomorrow night and all day Friday so I will have peace and quiet. I will get all of these articles written by Friday because I need to get them earning money. I want my own house and the only way I'm going to get that is by being successful online. I put a deferment (I think that's what it's called) on my student loans and if it's approved, I won't have to pay my student loans until December 7, which means I need to get these articles earning money by then. That's my motivation and I need to constantly tell myself what will happen if I don't write these articles. I also need to think about life would be like making $1,000 a month. It doesn't sound like a lot but that's enough to pay off my car, pay my student loans each month, pay back my parents and have something leftover each month to save. I can live on my own when I'm making $2500 a month which is my ultimate goal.
So that was my day today, battling motivation and distraction. I wrote 1 article. I didn't even post the draft on InfoBarrel. Tomorrow I will write 15 articles no matter what. All I will do tomorrow is write. I will set my alarm and get up early. I'm going to go to bed shortly and, hopefully, I can fall asleep right away so I won't be tired tomorrow. I will get the other 15 articles written on Friday.
Distraction
Distraction isn't just about real world distractions like phone calls, television or taking a nap instead of working. Distraction is also about other ways to make money online. Some people call it shiny object syndrome. I have been battling that since I started. In fact, this isn't the first experiment I started this month. I have another blog and I started an experiment related to my niche website. I got bored after a week, gave up and started this experiment. I'm not bored of this experiment or am planning on quitting but I've found other places to make money that I'm itching to try. For example, last week, I read an article about how Squidoo is a good place to get backlinks to your niche sites. I then remembered that I have two lenses on Squidoo that I made a year ago so I decided to check them out. They were both WIP (work in progress) and weren't published but it got me thinking about how much money you could make on Squidoo. I found the SquidU forum and started reading and got really into it. I found some people making thousands of dollars a month on Squidoo with less than 500 lenses. I would love to try to make some money with Squidoo as it looks like a lot of fun to make lenses and the lenses work better for the type of articles I'm doing on InfoBarrel. Today, someone on the InfoBarrel forum was asking about Squidoo and it made me want to completely abandon this experiment and switch over to Squidoo. I'm not going to do that because this experiment is specifically aimed at InfoBarrel (even the name of the blog has InfoBarrel in it). I am not going to give up on this experiment. I will write 1,000 articles and I will make $1,000 a month. After I reach $1,000 a month, I will switch over to Squidoo.
Motivation
The second thing I had to deal with today was motivation. I woke up pretty late this morning - actually it was after noon. I did a bunch of chores around the house that I was neglecting, ate some lunch, put some stuff on eBay and when I sat down to write my InfoBarrel articles for today, I just had no motivation. I ended up writing one article and giving up. I hope I have more motivation tomorrow. I need to get these articles written. My parents are going to be out of town tomorrow night and all day Friday so I will have peace and quiet. I will get all of these articles written by Friday because I need to get them earning money. I want my own house and the only way I'm going to get that is by being successful online. I put a deferment (I think that's what it's called) on my student loans and if it's approved, I won't have to pay my student loans until December 7, which means I need to get these articles earning money by then. That's my motivation and I need to constantly tell myself what will happen if I don't write these articles. I also need to think about life would be like making $1,000 a month. It doesn't sound like a lot but that's enough to pay off my car, pay my student loans each month, pay back my parents and have something leftover each month to save. I can live on my own when I'm making $2500 a month which is my ultimate goal.
So that was my day today, battling motivation and distraction. I wrote 1 article. I didn't even post the draft on InfoBarrel. Tomorrow I will write 15 articles no matter what. All I will do tomorrow is write. I will set my alarm and get up early. I'm going to go to bed shortly and, hopefully, I can fall asleep right away so I won't be tired tomorrow. I will get the other 15 articles written on Friday.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Daily Update 07/24
I wasn't feeling very well today. I have a headache and I'm very tired. Other members of my family were sick last week. I hope I'm not coming down with anything. I was able to find pictures and Amazon links for all 30 articles. I wrote 1 article and posted the rough draft on InfoBarrel. All I need to do is hit publish and I will be done with it. I'm going to wait until I have a couple more articles saved up and publish them all at once. I don't think I'm going to hit my Wednesday deadline for getting all of these articles done. I should have them all completed by Thursday. I'm going to take the rest of the month off so I can come up with some money for my car and student loan payments. I'm hoping that I'll have enough articles written to win the contest.
I think I'm going to change up the experiment a little bit. I'm still going to have a goal of 1,000 articles by November but instead of writing 10 articles a day, I'm going to write 100 articles a week. That's 400 articles a month. It will take me two and a half months, or mid-October, to get to 1,000 articles. I think I would have better luck doing a batch of 100 articles in a week than I would trying to do 10 articles a day. I can get the folders ready to go on Sunday, find the pictures and Amazon links on Monday and Tuesday, get the intros written on Wednesday, get the article bodies written on Thursday and Friday and publish them on Saturday. I think that's a good time frame for getting those tasks done. If I get a little bit behind, there's still a couple extra days at the beginning or end of the month to get caught back up.
I think I'm going to change up the experiment a little bit. I'm still going to have a goal of 1,000 articles by November but instead of writing 10 articles a day, I'm going to write 100 articles a week. That's 400 articles a month. It will take me two and a half months, or mid-October, to get to 1,000 articles. I think I would have better luck doing a batch of 100 articles in a week than I would trying to do 10 articles a day. I can get the folders ready to go on Sunday, find the pictures and Amazon links on Monday and Tuesday, get the intros written on Wednesday, get the article bodies written on Thursday and Friday and publish them on Saturday. I think that's a good time frame for getting those tasks done. If I get a little bit behind, there's still a couple extra days at the beginning or end of the month to get caught back up.
Monday, July 23, 2012
Daily Update 07/23
Things are chugging along - maybe a bit slower than I would like but it's going. I got an Adsense click on one of the articles I posted on Saturday and made $1.30! I didn't expect those articles to make money so quickly. I hope that's a good sign of what's to come.
I decided that I really want to win the contest this month. I think my best bet to win is a sneak attack. The current leader is dj who won the contest last month. Whenever anyone gets close to him in points, he posts 10 or so more articles to get ahead. The articles he posts are "reviews" but they are all quotes from other people. I don't know where he's getting these quotes from as they don't show up in the search engines so either he's making them up, which is just plain wrong, or he has a survey on a private message board where he asks people what they think of these products. His articles aren't very helpful - they are mostly quotes like "I would never buy that laptop computer. I hate the color. I would spend my money on a laptop that looks good." Anyways, I'm not here to flame dj but I'm just saying that anyone can crank out hundreds of those type of articles a day - which is what he is doing. That's why the sneak attack will work best. I will save all of my articles as drafts and then post them an hour or two before the contest ends. He won't expect it and won't have enough time to get more articles posted (I hope). Last month, he won the contest with 311 points. If I can get to around 350 points, that should be enough to beat him - as long as he doesn't expect it. If he realizes what I'm doing, he might post 50 of those bad review articles to try to counteract me. I think I'm going to post just enough articles this week to get me into third place and then save the rest of the articles for July 31 at 11 PDT. Some people on InfoBarrel get mad when people use the sneak attack to win the contest. Yes, it is sneaky but dj won the contest last month. He should give others a chance to win. I probably wouldn't do the sneak attack if dj's articles weren't so, uh, thin. When the entire article is quotes and he hasn't written a word in the article that is his, it seems like he is cheating even though I don't think he's breaking any rules. So, yeah, that's my plan for winning the contest. Shhh...don't tell anyone!
As far as my progress for the experiment, I didn't write any new articles today but I spent all day finding pictures and Amazon links for the articles. I'm almost done with this task and then I can write the articles. I'm hoping to have all pictures and Amazon links saved before I go to bed tonight. Tomorrow I will try to get as many articles as possible written. I wanted to get all 30 articles saved as drafts on Infobarrel by Wednesday but I don't think that will happen. Maybe by Thursday.
I think I've covered everything. I'm off to Amazon to find some pictures.
I decided that I really want to win the contest this month. I think my best bet to win is a sneak attack. The current leader is dj who won the contest last month. Whenever anyone gets close to him in points, he posts 10 or so more articles to get ahead. The articles he posts are "reviews" but they are all quotes from other people. I don't know where he's getting these quotes from as they don't show up in the search engines so either he's making them up, which is just plain wrong, or he has a survey on a private message board where he asks people what they think of these products. His articles aren't very helpful - they are mostly quotes like "I would never buy that laptop computer. I hate the color. I would spend my money on a laptop that looks good." Anyways, I'm not here to flame dj but I'm just saying that anyone can crank out hundreds of those type of articles a day - which is what he is doing. That's why the sneak attack will work best. I will save all of my articles as drafts and then post them an hour or two before the contest ends. He won't expect it and won't have enough time to get more articles posted (I hope). Last month, he won the contest with 311 points. If I can get to around 350 points, that should be enough to beat him - as long as he doesn't expect it. If he realizes what I'm doing, he might post 50 of those bad review articles to try to counteract me. I think I'm going to post just enough articles this week to get me into third place and then save the rest of the articles for July 31 at 11 PDT. Some people on InfoBarrel get mad when people use the sneak attack to win the contest. Yes, it is sneaky but dj won the contest last month. He should give others a chance to win. I probably wouldn't do the sneak attack if dj's articles weren't so, uh, thin. When the entire article is quotes and he hasn't written a word in the article that is his, it seems like he is cheating even though I don't think he's breaking any rules. So, yeah, that's my plan for winning the contest. Shhh...don't tell anyone!
As far as my progress for the experiment, I didn't write any new articles today but I spent all day finding pictures and Amazon links for the articles. I'm almost done with this task and then I can write the articles. I'm hoping to have all pictures and Amazon links saved before I go to bed tonight. Tomorrow I will try to get as many articles as possible written. I wanted to get all 30 articles saved as drafts on Infobarrel by Wednesday but I don't think that will happen. Maybe by Thursday.
I think I've covered everything. I'm off to Amazon to find some pictures.
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Daily Update 07/22
I didn't get much done today. I hope this isn't TMI but AF (short for aunt flow - you ladies know what I'm taking about) came today and I felt horrible. I slept until noon but was still wiped out all day. I got one rough draft posted - I just need to add links before I publish it. I got pictures collected for another 7 articles. So much for getting pictures and intros done for all 30 articles. My goal for tomorrow (if I have time - I promised a friend I would help them with something) is to write 14 articles and get a start on the intros for the other 15 articles. I hope I feel better tomorrow.
Daily Update 07/21
I'm going to make this a quick update because I'm really tired and need to go to bed. I got all 18 articles posted today. This gives me a total of 20 articles posted since I started this experiment and I moved into 4th place in the contest - 1 point out of 3rd place. I am 30 articles behind my goal. I made folders for all 30 articles and saved a Word template into each folder. I would like to write 15 of those articles tomorrow but I don't think that's going to happen. I think I will focus on writing the intros and conclusions for all 30 articles and add an outline to the body of the articles. I may also try to find pictures to go with each of the articles. I would like to have all 30 articles written and posted by Wednesday. We'll see if I can do it. Here's an outline of this week's plan:
Sunday:
Total Articles Posted: 20
Articles I Will Post: 0
Total Articles I Should Have Posted: 60
Articles I'm Behind: -40
Tuesday:
Total Articles Posted: 20
Articles I Will Post: 0
Total Articles I Should Have Posted: 70
Articles I'm Behind: -50
Wednesday:
Total Articles Posted: 20
Articles I Will Post: 30
Total Articles I Should Have Posted: 80
Articles I'm Behind: -60
Thursday:
Total Articles Posted: 50
Articles I Will Post: 15
Total Articles I Should Have Posted: 90
Articles I'm Behind: -40
Friday:
Total Articles Posted: 65
Articles I Will Post: 15
Total Articles I Should Have Posted: 100 (yeah!)
Articles I'm Behind: -35
Saturday:
Total Articles Posted: 80
Articles I Will Post: 15
Total Articles I Should Have Posted: 110
Articles I'm Behind: -30
Sunday:
Total Articles Posted:95
Articles I Will Post: 15
Total Articles I Should Have Posted: 120
Articles I'm Behind: -25
Monday:
Total Articles Posted: 110
Articles I Will Post: 15
Total Articles I Should Have Posted: 130
Articles I'm Behind: -20
Tuesday:
Total Articles Posted: 125
Articles I Will Post: 15
Total Articles I Should Have Posted: 140
Articles I'm Behind: -15
Wednesday:
Total Articles Posted: 140
Articles I Will Post:15
Total Articles I Should Have Posted: 150
Articles I'm Behind: -10
Thursday:
Total Articles Posted: 155
Articles I Will Post: 15
Total Articles I Should Have Posted: 160
Articles I'm Behind: -5
Friday:
Total Articles Posted: 170
Articles I Will Post: 15
Total Articles I Should Have Posted: 170
Articles I'm Behind: 0
Okay, so that 'outline' was actually for two weeks. I just wanted to see how long it's going to take me to get caught back up. It's seems like it is going to take a while. It'll be nice to get caught up though. Maybe I can get this next 30 done before Wednesday.
Sunday:
Total Articles Posted: 20
Articles I Will Post: 0
Total Articles I Should Have Posted: 60
Articles I'm Behind: -40
Tuesday:
Total Articles Posted: 20
Articles I Will Post: 0
Total Articles I Should Have Posted: 70
Articles I'm Behind: -50
Wednesday:
Total Articles Posted: 20
Articles I Will Post: 30
Total Articles I Should Have Posted: 80
Articles I'm Behind: -60
Thursday:
Total Articles Posted: 50
Articles I Will Post: 15
Total Articles I Should Have Posted: 90
Articles I'm Behind: -40
Friday:
Total Articles Posted: 65
Articles I Will Post: 15
Total Articles I Should Have Posted: 100 (yeah!)
Articles I'm Behind: -35
Saturday:
Total Articles Posted: 80
Articles I Will Post: 15
Total Articles I Should Have Posted: 110
Articles I'm Behind: -30
Sunday:
Total Articles Posted:95
Articles I Will Post: 15
Total Articles I Should Have Posted: 120
Articles I'm Behind: -25
Monday:
Total Articles Posted: 110
Articles I Will Post: 15
Total Articles I Should Have Posted: 130
Articles I'm Behind: -20
Tuesday:
Total Articles Posted: 125
Articles I Will Post: 15
Total Articles I Should Have Posted: 140
Articles I'm Behind: -15
Wednesday:
Total Articles Posted: 140
Articles I Will Post:15
Total Articles I Should Have Posted: 150
Articles I'm Behind: -10
Thursday:
Total Articles Posted: 155
Articles I Will Post: 15
Total Articles I Should Have Posted: 160
Articles I'm Behind: -5
Friday:
Total Articles Posted: 170
Articles I Will Post: 15
Total Articles I Should Have Posted: 170
Articles I'm Behind: 0
Okay, so that 'outline' was actually for two weeks. I just wanted to see how long it's going to take me to get caught back up. It's seems like it is going to take a while. It'll be nice to get caught up though. Maybe I can get this next 30 done before Wednesday.
Friday, July 20, 2012
Daily Update 07/20
I had a very busy day today and only got 5 articles written. I now have 17 articles that I need to post to InfoBarrel. I have 1 article that is almost done. After tomorrow, I should be at 50 articles posted. When I post those 18 articles, I will be at 20 articles total so I will be 30 articles short. The plan for tomorrow is to make 30 folders, find pictures for all of the articles, gather Amazon referral links for the articles and save the product pages. I am going to try to write all 30 intros and all 30 conclusions. On Sunday, I can get to work on writing the articles. Hopefully I can get 15 articles written on Sunday and 15 articles written on Monday. Then I will post them Monday evening. I will do the same thing on Tuesday and Wednesday with 30 more articles. I should be caught back up by that point. Then I will try to get ahead with my articles so I can take a day or two off at the beginning of August. I really don't want to burn myself out. I'm already sick of writing articles. I just need to keep up this pace until the end of October or beginning of November. It seems like a long ways away but the time will go by quickly and before I know it, it will be October.
Another thing I need to start thinking about is how to pay my bills next month. I have a car payment due August 5, a student loan payment due August 7 and my favorite band is coming to town on August 21 and I would like to buy tickets to see them. I need to come up with a total of $600 and quickly. I'll be getting around $110 from Adsense and $25 from Amazon at the end of this month. Where am I going to get the other $500? I suppose I should be working Mturk but I hate doing those boring hits. I could also write articles for iWriter or Textbroker but after writing all of these articles for InfoBarrel I'm not going to feel like writing. I could probably come up with something to sell on eBay. I'll have to see what I can scrounge up. In less than 6 months, I shouldn't have this problem anymore. I'll be making at least $800 a month from InfoBarrel - hopefully more. I'll have money to pay all my bills and maybe I'll even have enough money to save. This is my motivation and I have to keep reminding myself this to keep me going.
Another thing I need to start thinking about is how to pay my bills next month. I have a car payment due August 5, a student loan payment due August 7 and my favorite band is coming to town on August 21 and I would like to buy tickets to see them. I need to come up with a total of $600 and quickly. I'll be getting around $110 from Adsense and $25 from Amazon at the end of this month. Where am I going to get the other $500? I suppose I should be working Mturk but I hate doing those boring hits. I could also write articles for iWriter or Textbroker but after writing all of these articles for InfoBarrel I'm not going to feel like writing. I could probably come up with something to sell on eBay. I'll have to see what I can scrounge up. In less than 6 months, I shouldn't have this problem anymore. I'll be making at least $800 a month from InfoBarrel - hopefully more. I'll have money to pay all my bills and maybe I'll even have enough money to save. This is my motivation and I have to keep reminding myself this to keep me going.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Keeping Up
I am having a hard time figuring out how many article I should have written and posted by now. I started this new experiment on Tuesday, July 17. This means that I have been doing my experiment for the past 3 days. Here is what I should have done and what I really have done:
Articles I Should Have Posted: 30
Articles I Have Actually Posted: 2
Articles I Have Written But Not Posted: 10
Articles That Are Almost Done: 8
With that being said, I need to have 40 articles done by tomorrow night. I should get the 18 articles written and posted by lunchtime tomorrow. Then I will be behind by 20 articles. I think I will write and post 12 articles a day for the next 5 days instead of struggling to do the 10 extra articles all at once tomorrow. I think 12 articles a day is doable. I've written 10 and a half articles already today and am planning on writing another one and a half articles before I go to bed.
Now, back to work!
Articles I Should Have Posted: 30
Articles I Have Actually Posted: 2
Articles I Have Written But Not Posted: 10
Articles That Are Almost Done: 8
With that being said, I need to have 40 articles done by tomorrow night. I should get the 18 articles written and posted by lunchtime tomorrow. Then I will be behind by 20 articles. I think I will write and post 12 articles a day for the next 5 days instead of struggling to do the 10 extra articles all at once tomorrow. I think 12 articles a day is doable. I've written 10 and a half articles already today and am planning on writing another one and a half articles before I go to bed.
Now, back to work!
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Pushing Through
Well, this is hard. I got 1 article fully written today but I didn't get it posted. I have 17 articles that have the intros done and some of the articles have pictures. I am going to write my butt off tomorrow. I have to get caught back up. I am going to write 4 more articles before I go to bed. Even if I have to stay up until 5 in the morning. This is like life or death here. If I don't make money, I'm going to be stuck in my parent's basement for the rest of my life. It would be a slow and horrible death. I need to get some money so I can move out and get a life. That's why I need to write these articles. I need to get all 17 articles written and posted by supper time tomorrow and then I will immediately get started on the next 10. I CAN DO THIS!!!
Two.
Two. That's how many articles I got written today. This 1,000 article challenge going to be harder than I thought. For the other 8 articles I was planning on writing today, I got the intros and conclusions written and I found pictures for all the articles. I also have all of the affiliate links gathered. All I need to do is fill in the middle of the articles which shouldn't take too long. Then I have to post the articles which is what takes the most time. InfoBarrel was very buggy today and I kept having to log out and log back in again, just so I could get my article published.
The plan for tomorrow morning is to create folders for 10 more articles, write the intros and conclusions for each of the articles, find pictures and affiliate links and then, in the afternoon, I will write all 18 articles. I won't post them tomorrow but I want to get them all written. I will post them on Thursday morning. I would like to say all the articles I'm writing are good quality but they are not. They are pretty bad articles (a lot of repetition and fluff) but I want to get them written and posted. After I reach my goal of $2,000 a month, I will go back and redo the articles and make them better. For now, I have what I have. It's all about quantity right now and less about quality.
I guess I have a lot to do tomorrow. I'll post another update tomorrow night (or Thursday morning :) ).
The plan for tomorrow morning is to create folders for 10 more articles, write the intros and conclusions for each of the articles, find pictures and affiliate links and then, in the afternoon, I will write all 18 articles. I won't post them tomorrow but I want to get them all written. I will post them on Thursday morning. I would like to say all the articles I'm writing are good quality but they are not. They are pretty bad articles (a lot of repetition and fluff) but I want to get them written and posted. After I reach my goal of $2,000 a month, I will go back and redo the articles and make them better. For now, I have what I have. It's all about quantity right now and less about quality.
I guess I have a lot to do tomorrow. I'll post another update tomorrow night (or Thursday morning :) ).
Monday, July 16, 2012
I'm Baaaaaaack!!!
I haven't posted in a long time - over a year - but my InfoBarrel income remains steady. I've tried to make money with niche sites but it's not consistent each month like my InfoBarrel income. This is why I've decided to once again turn my attention to InfoBarrel. If I had completed the experiment like I should have, I would be making $2,000 a month right now without having to do anything at all.
I am starting a new experiment. It will be 1,000 articles at 1,000 words each before the holiday season. I will make it to $2,000 a month but I need to focus on producing articles. I want to write as many articles as I can and hope that the money comes eventually. If I write 10 articles a day, I will have 1,070 articles on October 31.
If I were to focus on $2,000 a month, let's break it down. Last month, I made $38 from Adsense, $25 from Amazon and $1.17 from Chikita for a grand total of $64.17. I have 91 articles but 3 of those are earnings reports and about 10-15 articles were just posted to promote my niche websites. Minus those non-earning articles, I have a total of 71 articles that are well-researched. This means that I earned $0.90 per article. I would need 2,222 articles to make $2,000 a month. If I work hard enough, I can have that many articles posted by the end of the year. That means I would need to write 14 articles per day. While it's possible, I would most likely get burnt out. I'm pretty worried about getting burnt out during the 1,000 articles experiment.
I'm really sick of being poor and that is my main motivation. I'm tired of missing my favorite bands in concert because I don't have money for a ticket or skipping a family vacation because of a lack of funds. I want my own house and I want to be able to go out and have fun without worrying about paying for it. I am going to try my hardest to stick to this plan. I have to because I need the money and I just can't get a job working outside the home. The gap on my resume is too big and I'm not used to someone bossing me around. Okay, enough rambling. I've got to get some sleep so I can get up early in the morning and start cranking out those articles.
I am starting a new experiment. It will be 1,000 articles at 1,000 words each before the holiday season. I will make it to $2,000 a month but I need to focus on producing articles. I want to write as many articles as I can and hope that the money comes eventually. If I write 10 articles a day, I will have 1,070 articles on October 31.
If I were to focus on $2,000 a month, let's break it down. Last month, I made $38 from Adsense, $25 from Amazon and $1.17 from Chikita for a grand total of $64.17. I have 91 articles but 3 of those are earnings reports and about 10-15 articles were just posted to promote my niche websites. Minus those non-earning articles, I have a total of 71 articles that are well-researched. This means that I earned $0.90 per article. I would need 2,222 articles to make $2,000 a month. If I work hard enough, I can have that many articles posted by the end of the year. That means I would need to write 14 articles per day. While it's possible, I would most likely get burnt out. I'm pretty worried about getting burnt out during the 1,000 articles experiment.
I'm really sick of being poor and that is my main motivation. I'm tired of missing my favorite bands in concert because I don't have money for a ticket or skipping a family vacation because of a lack of funds. I want my own house and I want to be able to go out and have fun without worrying about paying for it. I am going to try my hardest to stick to this plan. I have to because I need the money and I just can't get a job working outside the home. The gap on my resume is too big and I'm not used to someone bossing me around. Okay, enough rambling. I've got to get some sleep so I can get up early in the morning and start cranking out those articles.
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