What I Did For My Internet Business Today

The Pips Power Group Summer Competition Is Back!

2009-07-01T09:37:00.000-07:00

After a couple of hectic (and disorganized...?) months in which I've been treading water on the Internet marketing front, the PipsPowerGroup has launched its second annual Summer Competition, which is like an hobnailed boot being applied with some celerity to my hind quarters.

Is it possible to be kicked up the backside while treading water?

Well, anyway, it is time to resurrect this blog and start reporting on my activities.

Actually, I am building a second affiliate marketing and mentoring website, but I'll keep it under wraps until it launches in September...

In the meantime, I'll focus on what I'm doing to promote and improve Grasp-the-Nettle.com over the six weeks of the Pips Power Group Internet Marketing competition.

Today's Activity:

3 x blog posts:

1. http://legitimate-work-at-home-busin...affiliate.html

2. http://www.grasp-the-nettle.com/blog...-it-works.html

3. http://whatididformyinternetbusinesstoday.blogspot.com/

(I bookmarked them on Google, and Mr Wong)

Posted 2 comments on digitalpoint forum:

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showt...8#post11837765

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showt...9#post11796372

Posted 5 x comments on EvanCarmichael:

http://www.evancarmichael.com/Forums...p=22624#p22624

http://www.evancarmichael.com/Forums...p=22625#p22625

http://www.evancarmichael.com/Forums...p=22623#p22623

http://www.evancarmichael.com/Forums...p=22621#p22621

http://www.evancarmichael.com/Forums...p=22619#p22619

Commented on these blogs:

Tim Stokes
http://www.netbusinessdirect.com/blo...er#comment-208

Truby
http://www.trubyshomebiz.com/blog/re...nk#comment-142

Ros
http://www.wealth-city.com/blog/inte.../#comment-1792

Mark's Extra Money Ideas
http://www.cmbwealth.com/blog/2009/0...22696414582088

Leon
http://www.honestlyfreehomebiz.com/blog/

And one not on the list:

http://www.evancarmichael.com/blog/2...eo-university/

and retweeted the latter.

David Hurley
Best Internet Marketing Strategies

Online Article Marketing Newsletter Series Under Way...

2009-04-26T07:10:00.000-07:00

Hooray,

At last, I began to write a series of article marketing messages for an auto-responder series that I've been meaning to get set up for several months now. The messages are designed to quietly promote my Online Article Marketing service.

I wrote seven messages today and that is enough to be able to start promoting the latest version of my sales page (with a sign up form included) on the traffic exchanges.

Apart from that I have posted a couple of blogs today, and bookmarked them:

1. http://www.grasp-the-nettle.com/blog/2009/04/how-to-for-stuff-on-twitter.html

2. http://legitimate-work-at-home-business.blogspot.com/2009/04/best-internet-marketing-strategies-for.html

David Hurley

What's been happening? Online Business Holiday Report

2009-04-21T16:22:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm back from my holidays! Actually I've been back for over a month now!!

I'm still awaiting (with some trepidation) delivery of 26 boxes of books... I've cleared some space for them but still need to buy a couple of big bookshelves...

While I was away my online business ticked over.

1. SubmitYourArticle.com trickled out my article to keep new links pointing at my website and giving it fresh publicity.

2. The several hundred credits on various article exchanges kept traffic coming to my webpages and I made some sales off those.

3. Jeff Casmer's SFI coop did not get underway until after I returned, but that sent new leads into my online business funnel on my return, while I was still trying to catch up with other stuff.

4. I did not get so much opportunity to updated my blogs while I was away even though I had set up some articles for speedy publication.

5. Not so many people commented on my blogs while I was away either and I did not have much time to do any of the short and quick marketing stuff I mentioned in my previous post.

So, thank goodness for SubmitYourArticles.com and the traffic exchanges.

Finally, despite posting "Gone Away On Holiday" notices on my games shop site, I still got some orders. The customers were very patient and willing to wait for me to return and get back into the swing of things.

On my return I also had a lot of articles to write or modify for my "DPH-PLR article service" and that has kept my nose to the grindstone right up until now...

Holidays can be very disruptive... But we had a great time in England.

Now I have caught up, it is time to build momentum back into my online business...

David Hurley
Best Internet Marketing Strategies

Keeping My Internet Business Alive While On Holiday

2009-02-13T22:40:00.000-08:00

I'm taking my daughter to England for a couple of weeks and while we are away I won't have so much access to the Internet.

We'll be staying at my mother's place. One of my jobs is to clear her attic of my books and other stuff. 26 boxes of books, many of them hardbacks collected over the last 30 years, will be on their way to Japan. At last, after ten years, my library will be all in one place. Just hope I can find enough shelf space!

The following week, we are going to stay in at Blore Hall, an old house in the Peak District. The main hall of the house dates back to the 1400s. My daughter is excited at the thought of sleeping in a four-poster bed!

After that, off to Kent to see more relatives.

Did I call it a holiday??

===

Here's what I'm doing to keep my biz juiced up while I'm away...

1. Posted a couple of articles on Submit Your Article to be published over 30 days using "article trickle".

2. I have just assigned several hundred credits on various article exchanges to point at key webpages.

3. I just bought 6 shares in Jeff Casmer's SFI coop.

4. I have loaded one of my blogs with some plr articles that I can quickly modify and post any time I have 30 mins access to the Internet while away.

5. I'm going to head over to the PPG blog comment coop and post some comments.

===
While on holiday... any time I get on a computer will be spent doing the following:

1. Short blog posts.

2. Post (useful and relevant) comments on other people's blogs.

3. Occasional forum posts.

4. Twitter! <== the perfect 30 second marketing tool! (If you use Twitter, here's something that will get you followers without having to follow first! - http://tweetergetter.com/hirohurl

5. Placate games shop customers who didn't notice the holiday notices I posted on the site!!

===
David Hurley
Internet Marketing Success Strategies

Sweating Towards Non-IM Deadlines!

2009-02-09T00:07:00.000-08:00

How long is it since I last updated this blog?

Here I am working towards a deadline (15th Feb) to get various work-from-home contracts finished or up to date...

Very nice, but it takes time away from active promotion of my Internet business.

However, the year has started pretty well! Recruiting is up on one of my affiliate programmes (Empowerism.com) and four people have signed up to my article marketing service in the last week - that is even before I put out a proper sales page. Not bad.

I have managed to put out a couple of articles on Submit Your Article, and a little bit of blogging and forum participation.

Today I updated the front page of my website and blogged about changes to the Plug-In Profit Site now that budget web hosting is being offered through HostGator.

Oh, I have signed up to another webhost where I plan to move my other websites and set up a new affiliate website...

Also, I am planning a new affiliate support business with two of my Internet marketing colleagues, one based in America, the other in the UK. We are discussing it behind the closed doors of a forum website that they recently set up. Hush hush for now!

I'll be off on my holidays, taking my daughter to visit family in the UK from 15th Feb until early March. So there won't be much opportunity for Internet marketing during that period.

However, with "ArticleTrickle" loaded with a few articles, my online business should be fed and watered with new original content hitting the Internet on a regular basis while I'm away.

Not bad!

David Hurley
P. S. Check out the Plug-In Profit Site.

What I haven't been doing for my Internet Business recently...

2009-01-20T07:29:00.000-08:00

I've not been able to do much for my main Internet business just lately... I've been up to my eyes with "other stuff" such as:

* An unexpectedly large number of January orders over at Japanese-Games-Shop.com. This is despite the fact that I make hardly any effort to promote the site these days... Buying, packing, shipping, contacting clients etc all hoovers up precious time! I'm not complaining, though - honest!

* I'm right in the middle of a big "transcription" job for one of my colleagues at one of the colleges where I teach. I am wading through 12 90 minute interviews. My keyboard gets so hot under the pressure of extended speed typing that it starts to smoke and the keys begin to melt!

* Looking after my daughter while the Mrs disappears on echo technology conferences study conferences and stuff (at least that's what she says she's doing!)... Hanging out with my daughter is fun - I'm not one of those people who finds it easy to promote my website while entertaining my daughter!

* The usual round of teaching and consulting here in Hiroshima... Thank goodness the winter university term is drawing to a close. That will free up some time for me to get more done, although I'll be spending a couple of weeks of my free time holidaying in England and with only restricted access to the Internet!

* I have a lot of articles to write and modify for my long-suffering Internet marketing clients!

But, as MacArthur said in 1942... "I'll be back"!

Actually, I have managed to post a couple of articles to a couple of blogs, notably today's post about a book called How Obama Won

The other article was about modifying PLR articles: http://article-marketing-research.blogspot.com/2009/01/abc-of-modifying-plr-articles.html

David Hurley
Grasp-The-Nettle.com

SFI-TripleClicks.Blogspot.com Blog Launch!

2009-01-06T07:15:00.000-08:00

Three or four short term contracts have been cutting into my Internet marketing efforts over the last few days...

Yesterday I took advantage of a cheap traffic exchange credits offer that came my way when somebody signed up to one of the traffic exchanges I promote. I pointed all the credits to four different pages on my main website: a splash page, front page, article writing services, and a splash page giving away Clickbank letter sets.

Apart from that I posted a few comments on the evancarmichael.com forum.

Today I have made a new blog, http://sfi-tripleclicks.blogspot.com/ and a new Squidoo lens, http://www.squidoo.com/tripleclicks.

I bookmarked the first blog post on about eight different social bookmarking sites and posted a note about it on the Pipspowergroup forum plus linked to it from a post on my main blog, http://grasp-the-nettle.com/blog.

David Hurley
Best Internet Marketing Strategies

Updating My Website

2009-01-02T08:33:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!

To kick it off, why don't you treat yourself to a deluxe edition of Napoleon Hill's self-help motivational classic, Think And Grow Rich, leather bound and available on Amazon, new, at bargain basement prices?

Over the last few days I have been slowly updating my website, SubmitYourArticle.com, using the basic submission service but spreading the distribution over seven days. For a time-sensitive article, 30 or 60 days is too much, but it is still nice to spread out the submission process over more than just 48 hours.

The benefit of having articles automatically trickle out with SubmitYourArticle.com is that during holiday periods or other times when one cannot do much work on one's site, the publicity effort goes on on autopilot. I have been receiving notifications that one or two of my recent articles have been accepted by various directories, for example, How to Attract More Traffic to Your Blog With Blog Graphics was accepted by EzineArticles.com long after I had forgotten that I had even submitted it!

Today I posted an article about Alexa.com on one of my blogs, but later realized I had posted the exact same article on my main website. Anyway, here is the link: http://legitimate-work-at-home-business.blogspot.com/2009/01/ten-ways-to-get-better-alexa-rankings.html.

I also posted five comments on evancarmichael.com and a similar number on the ppg forum.

And to wrap things up tonight, I posted a quick comment from Napoleon Hill here:

http://www.grasp-the-nettle.com/blog/2009/01/thought-from-napoleon-hill-for-2009.html.

David Hurley
Quality PLR Work-From-Home Niche Articles

At Last! A Productive Day!!

2008-12-21T17:25:00.000-08:00

I didn't think I'd get anything done for my Internet marketing website this weekend. I spent much of Saturday packing and shipping orders that came in from my Japanese-Games-Shop.com site.

I had to take one shipment to the only post office open in town on a Saturday evening - an hour away from home by tram and Shank's Pony!

The Return of Endaka!

The yen/dollar rate is killing the profitability of that site! When I set it up the dollar was worth 120 yen. Now it is worth just over 85 yen. I will be revamping it in the New Year and adjusting prices to suit the return of "endaka" (high yen).

Kids Christmas Show

I didn't think I'd get anything done yesterday either as I was attending my daughter's Christmas "happyoukai" (Christmas "show") and in the evening we were supposed to go and look at some fairy lights in a botanical garden. However, it was raining and my daughter wanted to go and play at her friend's house, so back home I scooted and got the following done:

1 x article posted on SubmitYourArticle.com using both the "article leverage" and "article trickle" services.
Four blog posts on each of my Internet marketing blogs.
I posted a couple of header ads for my new HeaderAds.com account.
I corrected one broken link on my home page.
I posted a few comments on the PPG, NPG (beta test), and Evancarmichael.com forums.
1 x blog comment on http://ardle.wordpress.com/, and added the blog to my blog roll over on http://grasp-the-nettle.com/TigersCave.
Spent much of the afternoon wrestling with my new articlefriendly.com article directory. I can't get the page links to point to the pages and ended up posting a help request on the support forum... :-(
I pulled my subuilder.com ads from various traffic exchanges because, well SuBuilder was failing to build! I cancelled my subscription. I'm a big Success University fan, but SuBuilder didn't cut the mustard for me.
While on the Soaring4Traffic TE I applied my credits to the banners, webpages and text ads that I put up a while back. One of the "Traffic Exchange Tragedies" that many people commit is never to apply their credits!

All together, not a bad day!

David Hurley
Multiple Streams Of Income Start Here!

Packing and Shipping... Packing and Shipping...

2008-12-17T08:47:00.000-08:00

Another few days have gone by without my updating this blog!

This time I have been preoccupied with getting Christmas orders from http://japanese-games-shop.com packed and shipped. I thought the recession would dent pre-Christmas demand, but it turns out not to have been the case at all!

The only thing that has been dented is the profit margin as the dollar has lost 25% against the yen over the last few months. Yikes! The UK pound has done even worse, so I am less keen on the idea of cutting back on my teaching work here in Hiroshima... seems crazy NOT to earn yen when the yen is SO HIGH!

On the other hand, it does make advertising and other investments in my online business feel a lot cheaper. Today, for example, I immediately bought into a membership upgrade on this neat website ads technique.

Tonight I also posted comments on some PPG members' blogs and joined Matt and Carol's forum over at http://www.networkmarketingadvance.com.

Yesterday I had a one hour slot free and I managed to post two blogs:

1. http://legitimate-work-at-home-business.blogspot.com/2008/12/5-success-rules-for-writing-ebooks.html

2. http://article-marketing-research.blogspot.com/2008/12/six-ways-for-internet-marketers-to.html

David Hurley
Grasp-The-Nettle.com

Wow, What DID I Do For My Internet Business...?

2008-12-09T07:03:00.000-08:00

Wow, what have I been doing these last ten days or so?

Must've been doing something right because I hit my year end target more than three weeks ahead of schedule when my Alexa ranking broke through into the 400,000s (498,768).

I guess that was the work of the directory submission people, though, to be honest, but I have yet to receive their submission report and so I'm not sure...

Another good development is the ArticleTrickle system that Submit Your Article recently introduced. Instead of posting your article to all their outlets as soon as you submit it, SYA now "trickles" it out over a period of several days (you can choose how long you want the process to take). That makes your article distribution process seem more natural and also means that even if you don't do much to promote your website for a couple of days, things will be happening behind the scenes, which is great to know!

Some time last week I bought and uploaded the Articlefriendly.com article directory. I have yet to customize it fully to suit my needs, but at least I have finally got around to buying it and getting it on my site.

The other day I ordered the Dragon speech recognition software package to speed up my article writing and other writing tasks. When the package arrived in Hiroshima a few days later I discovered that I couldn't plug the microphone jack into my Mac... Mac 10.5.5, I hasten to add, with Windows on a separate hard drive in the same computer.

On Monday I had a few minutes to spare as I was passing Deodeo so I popped in and bought a headset for Mac. It works a treat! Best of all, I can use it for a transcription job I'm working through and simply dictate what I hear, and watch in wonder as it appears more or less accurately in the Notepad file... :-)

I plan to use it to churn out blogs and articles as well as write email at much greater speed, although I have to admit that right now I am typing this on the Mac keyboard!

I won 100,000 visitors for my website from the Evancarmichael.com forum competition in November. Only problem is that I need a 200x200 banner and don't have one. I also don't have time or inclination to make one so I've been looking for a good banner designer. Thought I'd found one, but never heard back from them... This is proving more difficult than I'd expected!

Jeff Casmer reviewed my website for me and gave me a few good hints about how to improve the look of the front page. That is one of the free bonuses you get as a member of the Pips Power Group.

Since last Friday I've been listening to a couple of Success University downloads on my iPod:

1. Jim Cathcart - All Leadership Begins With Self Leadership.

2. Marcus DeMaria - Eight Steps To Creating Wealth.

I also played a DVD on presentation skills by Karl George and Arti Halai to my two women's college "English Presentation" classes. Some of the girls even took notes!

So stuff has been going on, even if not so much hands on promotion as before. Sure, I've done some traffic exchange clicking and forum posting, some blog commenting and a couple of blog posts, but not as much as I should be doing.

This is my fourth blog article for tonight. Here are the other three:

1. http://article-marketing-research.blogspot.com/2008/12/how-to-inrease-website-traffic-by.html

2. http://legitimate-work-at-home-business.blogspot.com/2008/10/why-you-need-to-use-landing-pages-to.html

3. http://legitimate-work-at-home-business.blogspot.com/2008/12/follow-these-six-steps-that-experts.html

David Hurley
Grasp-The-Nettle.com

Banana Drama And Link Outsourcing

2008-11-27T20:04:00.000-08:00

On Tuesday I sat down and wrote a blog post for my Tiger's Cave blog that has been on my mind for a while - the banana diet fad that hit Japan in September. The post took a while to put together and transmogrified into a look at the top three Japanese language sites on the subject: http://www.grasp-the-nettle.com/TigersCave/2008/11/25/internet-marketing-and-the-madness-of-the-japanese-asa-banana-fad/.

I also stumbled a few PPG members' blog posts, left comments on a few posts and bookmarked them and posted a link to a couple of pages I wanted to promote.

I had no time at all to do anything to promote my website on Wednesday.

On Thursday I decided to go ahead and see how effective it was to outsource the linking of my site to 1,000 directories. This was in response to an enquiry on the Pips Power Group Forum about whether or not a certain company's linking service was any good or not... I am acting as the guinea pig...

That is about it, I think, apart from a little bit of forum posting and traffic exchange clicking.

David Hurley
Best Internet Marketing Strategies

Earn Multiple Streams of Internet Income With Robert G. Allen and Rosalind Gardner

2008-11-24T18:30:00.000-08:00

I spent much of Monday researching and writing articles for my Limited Membership Internet Marketing PLR Article Club. I edited one, and wrote three more.

Research takes up time, but I enjoy it... perhaps I enjoy it too much! While researching stuff I left comments on various people's blogs. My researches took me back to an excellent book by Robert G. Allen, Multiple Streams of Internet Income: How Ordinary People Make Extraordinary Money Online, 2nd Edition.

After that I posted an article to my Legitimate work at home blog here: http://legitimate-work-at-home-business.blogspot.com/2008/11/what-is-your-home-based-internet.html

I posted a couple of comments on the Evancarmichael.com and 5Star Affiliate Marketing forum as well as the PPG forum.

Jeff Casmer posted a notice on the PPG forum about Rosalind Gardner's recent video in which she proves how lucrative affiliate marketing can be by opening up her accounts live on screen... It is pretty convincing stuff. View the video here.

I made a page dedicated to Rosalind Gardner and affiliate marketing here: http://grasp-the-nettle.com/super-affiliate-handbook.html, which includes Rosalind's list of 15 advantages of affiliate marketing.

In the background, I kept a TrafficSwarm window open and occasionally clicked for credits.

Why I Joined Hi5.com And Orkut... (Not Really for Chess, but...)

2008-11-23T16:26:00.000-08:00

Last night I completely forgot to mention that I had also joined two more social networking sites - Hi5.com and Orkut.com.

Hi5.com has a high profile in Australia and is one of the 25 most visited sites on the Internet among people who have installed the Alexa toolbar on their browser, so if you want to improve your Alexa ranking it is a good idea to raise your profile on this site.

Orkut.com is owned by Google and is the second most visited site in India.

It has a good chess widget which I installed and had a break from marketing duties to beat the chess computer in a fun game... If "Deeper Blue" is Orkut's answer to the Deep Blue chess computer that beat Kasparov, well, it is a much more forgiving animal! And kinder than my Mac chess game too!

David Hurley
http://grasp-the-nettle.com

The Benefits of the Alexa toolbar, and of Finding Top Wholsesalers for eBay Sellers...

2008-11-23T08:51:00.000-08:00

This afternoon I added an Alexa.com widget to the front page of my website and also added a "free download" button for the Alexa toolbar.

Posted a list of benefits of downloading the Alexa toolbar on my blog: http://www.grasp-the-nettle.com/blog/2008/11/benefits-of-using-alexa-toolbar.html.

Also added a similar list to scribd.com: http://www.scribd.com/doc/8326207/Benefits-of-Downloading-the-Alexa-Toolbar

Updated another page on my website, one dedicated to the subject of how to make money on ebay, and the benefits of finding good wholesalers for eBay sellers: http://grasp-the-nettle.com/ebay.html

I also researched and wrote a couple of articles for the DPH-PLR article club December series.

Oh yes, I posted my URL to about five website directories and did a little bit of traffic exchange clicking.

David Hurley

Just A Little Bit Is Better Than Nowt!

2008-11-22T05:02:00.000-08:00

I didn't have much time to promote my business online today, but it is important to make sure that you do do SOMETHING every working day.

So here's what I did:

A bit of traffic exchange clicking on several exchanges.
Posted an article to one of my blogs: http://legitimate-work-at-home-business.blogspot.com/2008/11/how-does-residual-income-opportunity.html

Blogging in the library and posting to Scribd...

2008-11-21T00:41:00.000-08:00

Ah, Friday afternoon and Mrs W has cancelled yet another lesson, which means that I do not have to go charging off campus and have a solid 6 hours in which to lounge at a computer in the college library and merrily promote my business!

Here's what I did:

The first thing I did was to check my email. I see that I have another subscriber for my plr article marketing service who signed up via my plr-2 link (I'm running a basic split test over on Traffic Swarm).

I also received notice from the PPG that they have uploaded 10 x plr articles for the members to modify and use, so I went straight over there and downloaded a handful of them...

I caught up with yesterday's action on this blog!
I picked up a plr article from the PPG and posted a modified version of it on my Legitimate Work At Home Business blog: http://legitimate-work-at-home-business.blogspot.com/2008/11/five-ways-to-avoid-losing-money-with.html and then posted a note to that effect on the PPG forum.

I then had a breather from promoting and wrote a blog report about last Friday's mahjong game and popped over to the canteen for a bowl of noodles!

Back at the coal face, I signed up to http://scribd.com and posted a couple of articles, one about Squidoo and the other a book review of Johnny Wimbrey's From The Hood To Doing Good.

Interestingly, the Squidoo article was showing up on Google within a couple of hours of my posting it on Scribd.com...

So I just posted a note about that on my Grasp-The-Nettle.com blog, here: http://www.grasp-the-nettle.com/blog/2008/11/scribd-is-google-magnet.html
And now here I am posting this report just before rushing off to teach my evening TOEFL class before tonight's game of mahjong!

Articles and blogging... blogging...

2008-11-20T20:28:00.000-08:00

Thursday 20th November

I spent the afternoon packing and shipping orders for Japanese-Games-Shop.com customers.

After that I got on with promoting Grasp-The-Nettle.com, concentrating on articles and blogging...

I submitted another article via SubmitYourArticle.com
I posted an article on my Tigers Cave blog: http://www.grasp-the-nettle.com/TigersCave/2008/11/20/grow-your-online-business-like-bamboo/
I posted an article on my Article Marketing Research blog: http://article-marketing-research.blogspot.com/2008/11/submit-articles-related-to-your-website.html
I posted an article on my Legitimate Work At Home Business blog: http://legitimate-work-at-home-business.blogspot.com/2008/11/finding-best-combination-for-online.html
I improved the look of my Article Marketing Research blog and Legitimate Work At Home Business blog by adding some extra widgets to the right column and the footer.
I did some traffic exchange clicking while chilling out with a game of chess on my Mac...
I posted a few comments on two or three forums and read some useful tips and so forth.

I just received notice that one of the articles I recently submitted via SYA has been accepted by ArticlesFactory.com. This kind of notice is a regular occurrence, but here is a link to the result of my handiwork!

http://www.articlesfactory.com/articles/ecommerce/how-to-create-a-market-niche-on-chris-andersons-long-tail.html

David Hurley

http://grasp-the-nettle.com/

Another busy Wednesday NOT marketing my site...

2008-11-19T08:38:00.000-08:00

Another busy Wednesday with little time to promote my business...

I bought supplies in response to orders on Japanese-Games-Shop.com.

For Grasp-The-Nettle.com, I...

Posted 5 x comments on http://affiliate-marketing-forums.5staraffiliateprograms.com/
Published an article on SYA, using Article Trickle but not Article Leverage - I wanted to get an article out asap.
Posted 2 x comments on the evancarmichael.com forum.
Posted a comment or two on the ppg forum.
Upgraded 1 x webpage.

That's it!

David Hurley
http://grasp-the-nettle.com

Seth Godin: Tribes - We Need You to Lead Us

2008-11-18T08:18:00.000-08:00

Today I wrote a review of Seth Godin's latest book, Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us complete with detailed notes of the key points with page refs for the subscribers of my plr membership site.

Then I sent the members a broadcast announcing that the review was up and also offering a free copy of the book to one lucky member at the end of the month. The winner will be drawn out of a hat, and to get into the hat all I required was some feedback about my service.

I then rewrote the review (without the key points) and posted it on Amazon.

I rewrote it yet again and posted that version on Qassia.

I joined the 5 Star Affiliate Programs forum, which has do-follow linking for the sig file urls, so is reputedly good for building backlinks to my site.

I posted 5 comments on the forum, which, incidentally, looks like a very informative place to hang out.

One post gave me sufficient inspiration to update my recently neglected blog, http://grasp-the-nettle.com/TigersCave

I posted a couple of comments on evancarmichael.com.

Oh yes, I did a bit of traffic surfing on several traffic exchanges using the Firefox tabs to speed up my clicking rate. I did that for 15 minutes while listening to a Success University audio presentation on SUCCESS by Doug Firebaugh. I think it is the third time I've listened.

While on the traffic exchanges I set the click allocation on soaring4hits.com to share clicks 40%-40% between my home page and http://Grasp-The-Nettle.subuilder.com

One other thing I did was to update my three classified ads over at Exactseek.com. I found that one was pointing at a dead link :-O

David Hurley
http://grasp-the-nettle.com

New Prices, New Products, New Pages...

2008-11-17T05:41:00.000-08:00

After a hectic social round at the weekend, I returned to my Internet business duties this morning...

How has Japanese-Games-Shop.com been affected by the Global financial crisis?

So far, the answer to that has been, "Not very much." Orders have continued to come in at a pace that I can just about handle during a hectic week.

However, with the decline of the US dollar and UK pound stirling against the yen, profitability has become a serious issue on some products. When I first set my prices the exchange rate was something like 120 yen to the dollar. The current rate on Paypal is around 95 yen to the dollar.

I especially notice the effect of that on bulk orders of Japanese manga comics. Why? Because the Paypal system can't handle the various weight/price ratios of all the products I offer on my site, so on large orders some shipping rates end up much too high (such as on bulk orders of mahjong sets), or much too low (as with manga orders).

With bulk manga orders, I often end up cutting into my profit margin just to get the boxes shipped. It turns into a lot of work with little to show for it.

So I spent the early afternoon revising the prices of my manga listings.

I also added a new shogi set to my Japanese chess page, removed some of the items that are no longer available.

Earlier, I packed forty manga comics and a few other orders and hauled them off to the post office.

This evening I posted a news bulletin on my Japanese Games Shop blog about the Hanayama Honkaku Shogi set.

Grasp-The-Nettle.com

1. I published an article about niche marketing using the concept of the "long tail" on SYA using the new "article trickle" technology as well as the "article leverage" feature.

"Article trickle" means that instead of submitting my article to all the directories on their list on one go, SYA will distribute it over a period of 30 days.

"Article leverage is a service which allows me to make several key variations to several parts of the original text. The SYA system will then randomly pick some of the variations and replace the original sentences with them so as to produce numerous original pieces instead of sending out the identical article to all the article directories. Find out more about how to automatically submit your articles to thousands of publishers

2. I posted a news item on my blog about search engine optimization specialist Suzanne Morrison's new ebook, 3 Steps To Search Engine Success.

3. I renewed this page on my website: http://grasp-the-nettle.com/Customer-Before-Product.html

4. I posted some "intel" on my Quassia page, http://hirohurl.qassia.com/ about my PLR article club.

5. I posted a couple of comments on the evancarmichael.com forum.

David Hurley
http://grasp-the-nettle.com

Super Tactics Of Time Management Experts... Help!

2008-11-13T22:39:00.000-08:00

Half way through November and this is my first post. Incredible! It is not as if I have not been doing anything for my Internet business yesterday and yesterday and yesterday.

I did find it difficult to set any clear objectives though. Sometimes it seems as if I am wading through sand trying to hit targets that are forever on the move...

I have done a fair amount of forum commenting...

I've published a few blog posts.

I've set up several new traffic exchange accounts and started developing them so as to get more traffic and more leads. Hint: you can surf multiple traffic exchanges during moments when you can't be bothered to do anything else simply by opening about 10 browser tabs and flitting from one to the other. It is a very efficient way to work, especially when YOU are feeling anything but efficient.

The other night I sat down and turned an ebook into my very own product, complete with my own free-bonus offer and my own signature appended to the letter. Appropriately enough for me an my rather hap-hazard performance so far this month, the ebook is titled

Super Tactics Of Time Management Experts

The good news is that I have hardly begun to market it yet and have already sold a copy. A similar thing happened with one of my other recent appropriations, Squidoo Basics

This month I have been concentrating on getting the inner pages of my website looking better. It is the nature of basic HTML sites that when you make a change to the design on one page you have to go through every page and make the change on each of them. At the same time as I update the look of the page I have also been trying to improve the content. In the process of doing this I have added about ten new pages of stuff to my website.

Meanwhile, since I have been doing less marketing stuff of my own this month, I am experimenting with a cheap "targeted traffic" service offered by my webhost. It is doing wonders for my site ranking but as ever with cheap leads, the conversion rates are very low. If you have factored that into your ROI calculations it need not be a problem.

For example, on traffic exhanges, the vast majority of hits that you earn will be non converting, but you only need about ten or twenty converters out of several thousand hits per month to be in the money if you set everything up correctly.

I've also signed up to a Success University team building system run by somone in my upline. Once I get going with it, it is going to provide excellent support and speed up a lot of repetitive operations such as sending out email to prospects and so on. The squeeze pages are excellent and you can also track your campaigns very easily.

Something I need to get on with this month is article publishing as I have not even published one yet.

I'm pressed for time on several fronts and I now have a backlog of orders from my Japanese-Games-Shop.com business that I will have to clear before getting on with any serious publicity campaigning.

I wish I had some free time in which to read my book about Super Tactics Of Time Management Experts!

David Hurley
http://grasp-the-nettle.com

Efficient Wednesday...

2008-10-31T00:05:00.000-07:00

I have read that highly efficient people get up early in the morning and have churned out a report, an article, a sales letter or a chapter of their book before breakfast.

My Wednesday was a bit like that! By the time I went downstairs for breakfast I had done a large chunk of transcription work for a freelance job I recently took on.

Another thing that highly efficient people are reputed to be good at is using time efficiently. My Wednesday saw me using the time between classes with more efficiency than usual. I left my morning class quite promptly and was able to catch an earlier train than usual to my next stop. That brought forward lunch by about twenty minutes and I arrived on campus with half an hour to spare before the first of two nursing classes. (I teach English to Japanese trainee nurses on a Wednesday afternoon.)

That gave me time to sit at the computer and blast out a few forum posts or something.

I was back on the computer during the ten minute break between classes...

Back at home for an hour I managed to do a bit more, and then in the evening I upgraded some of the pages of my website and didn't get to bed until 2:30am.

Thursday, however, was a totally lost cause as far as Internet marketing is concerned. I indulged in a nice long snooze before heading out for an evening of mahjong...

Today I have got quite a bit done while in the library on a long break between classes:

Modified 1 x article for a PLR article club client

Posted two or three comments on evancarmichael.com

Improved the appearance of my homepage

Updated the appearance of my blog

Posted a couple of comments on Truby's blog

David Hurley

Best Internet Marketing Strategies

Weekend Football And Recession Proof Internet Marketing Businesses!

2008-10-28T20:18:00.001-07:00

Since my last post was on 23rd October it doesn't look as if I have done very much for my business recently. Certain it is that I have not done as much as I would have liked and it is just as certain that I have forgotten much of what I did.

However, over the last few days I have...

posted several comments on various forums,
clicked for credits on various traffic exchanges,
prepared about five articles for my Internet marketing PLR article club,
posted a report on my Tigers Cave blog titled "What Japanese Sunday Football Can Teach Us About Internet Marketing...",
updated and improved (again) the homepage of Grasp-The-Nettle.com,
updated two other pages,
published an article titled "Set Up a Recession Proof Business Working at Home on the Internet".

David Hurley
http://grasp-the-nettle.com

Squeeze Pages and Landing Pages

2008-10-24T01:10:00.000-07:00

Thursday 23rd October

Tonight I made a thank-you page with links to a set of free downloads - articles and ebooks - and began to work on making a squeeze page to capture leads for my plr article membership club.

Apart from that I also posted some comments on the evancarmichael and ppg forums and did a little bit of clicking on Trafficswarm between jobs.

Crystal Clear Goals and Income Pathway...

2008-10-22T08:54:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday, I...

Bought a year's subscription to ezminisites.com, which gives me 48 mini site templates to play with...
Posted a couple of comments on the evancarmichael forum.
Posted a comment on Warrior Forum.
Posted a few comments on the PPG forum.
Posted a comment on one of Seth Godin's Squidoo lenses...
Replied to a comment on GT's blog about article marketing.
Introduced myself and posted a second comment on the ezminisite.com forum.

Today, I...

Posted several comments on the evancarmichael forum.
Posted several comments on the PPG forum.
Added two ezminisites.com banners to my PLR article members' page and improved the look of it.
Did a bit of traffic exchange clicking on Trafficswarm, Hit2Hit and Traffic G.

Apart from that I finished reading Seth Godin's Tribes and jotted down the beginnings of a "crystal clear" goals-and-income pathway, one of the short-term ones being to...

"teach only Wednesdays to Fridays from April 2009" so that I can dedicate more time to building my Internet business...

David Hurley
http://grasp-the-nettle.com

Monday Was Reasonably Productive...

2008-10-20T20:07:00.000-07:00

Published an article on SYA with "article leverage": Finding A Better Way To Promote Your Niche Affiliate Marketing Business
Posted a notice on one of my blogs about the results of Suzanne Morrison's article backlink test.
Posted an announcement on my main blog about my PLR article membership club.
Blogged about how to write and publish an article.
Wrote 1 x plr membership club article
Stumbled, onlywired and commented on Ina's blog post as part of a reciprocal promotional support group on the PPG
Posted a comment on Suzanne Morrison's blog about her article marketing test
Posted a comment on GT's blog post about the duplicate content controversy.

Apart from this regular round of activity, I also checked out the new Success University Learning Centre.

It is such a massive improvement on the old version. It is a real pleasure to log in to. Now you get a much smoother interface with audio courses, video courses, reading courses, and ebook downloads. You can seek out lessons from faculty members, post feedback and take the mini tests.

I find it an excellent way to chill out! I put on an audio course, and lie back and relax! There is nothing like an audio course for inducing a pleasant light slumber! After I wake up, I listen again and take notes.

Doug Firebaugh

So far I have taken SU faculty member Doug Firebaugh's 15 minute audio series, "7 Secrets Of Success" and "Money Secrets". I must admit I did not have time to take notes for the latter and fell into a very peaceful snooze indeed during the talk... I did pick up the key theme that money stands for Management Of Negative Emotions - Yours!

Seth Godin: Tribes

The other day I received a surprise bonus copy of Seth Godin's latest book, Tribes. I'm a big fan of Seth Godin's and when he set up the Triiibes.com forum, I was in like a shot!

There was just one requirement to join Triiibes.com, which was that you had to buy Seth's latest book sight unseen.

Now, because I did that I get rewarded with a second copy. I am going to give it away to one of the members of my PLR article club in a mini competition in November. :-)

David Hurley
High Quality, Low Cost PLR Articles Club

Thanks to Seth Godin, I Joined The Semi-Redneck Tribe...

2008-10-19T18:01:00.000-07:00

Here's what I got done over the weekend:

On Saturday 18th October I...

Finally got around to recovering my password AND username for my Wordpress blog and posted a report on the said blog about how I did it!
Posted some comments on the evancarmichael.com forum
Posted on the pipspowergroup.com forum.

Sunday 19th October was a lovely bright sunny day, so I spent much of it with my family at a children's park. I got sunburnt on the left side of my neck while reading Seth Godin's latest book, Tribes... I guess I now belong to the Semi Redneck tribe... Thanks Seth!

Published an article via SubmitYourArticle.com on "How To Choose The Best Affiliate Program For You."
Wrote 2 x articles for my PLR article club.
Placed a classified ad for my PLR article club on the ConquerYourNiche forum.
Set up a basic split test on Trafficswarm to test two ads and two headlines.
Set my browser page to open on Trafficswarm.
Surfed Trafficswarm for about 50 extra credits.
3 x forum posts on ConquerYourNiche.
3 x forum posts on EvanCarmichael.
3 x forum posts on Warrior Forum.
Posted 3 or 4 blog comments on various blogs.
Checked out the Success University's Learning Center - still in Beta but looking great!

David Hurley

http://grasp-the-nettle.com

Thursday 16th October: PLR Club Goes Live On Warrior Forum!

2008-10-16T09:06:00.001-07:00

I had a couple of hours this afternoon in which to pack the first part of a big mahjong order and haul it off to the post office: 5 x mahjong sets weighing in at a total of 15KG!

The client wisely requested surface mail to keep shipping costs down! I have another four to send him on Monday.

While I was preparing that and one other parcel I listened to Gary Coxe's excellent presentation on The Ultimate Life, which I received from Success University as part of my monthly membership package.

Internet business development duties were once again squeezed into the late evening. Here's what I managed to get done:

Posted a couple of comments on the evancarmichael.com forum
Improved the sales page for my Limited Membership PLR Article Club
Posted a classified ad on http://warriorforum.com advertising my PLR Club
Posted a couple of comments on the Warrior Forum.
Posted a link on Matt Helphrey's blog post about article marketing
Popped into the Pips Power Group forum from time to time.
Dealt with some issues relating to my Squidoo article on SYA and republished it.

Not a lot, but better than nowt and I have at last gone public with my PLR service!

Busy day teaching and playing mahjong tomorrow, so I doubt that I will post here for a couple of days.

David Hurley

http://grasp-the-nettle.com

15th and 16th October: Preparing To Go Fully Publich With My PLR Service...

2008-10-15T09:21:00.000-07:00

15th October

One thing I did was to write and post a classified ad for my limited membership plr articles club on http://www.web-market-place.com, a site run by Cheri La Velle, a fellow member of the PIPS Power Group forum.
I have been updating the look and improving on the content of my site; unifying the appearance of the pages, strengthening their appeal to the search engines and visitors via keyword optimization.
I printed off Justin Harrison's Split Test Master Guide (a $2, 55 page ebook) and read it while travelling around Hiroshima on the trams and trains. I am intending to do some split testing but this ebook really gets into the meat of the subject. What to successful Internet marketers do that the others don't do? Market and test, market and test, market and test... Continual testing improves conversion.
In the late afternoon I was back at home with just an hour to spare, so I got stuck into ironing my shirts while watching a Success University DVD by Karl George and Arti Halai in which they give a presentation on presentation skills. I have not yet done any presentations about Internet marketing and the mentality of success... but the day will come! This sort of low-intensity reinforcement is excellent for keeping you positive, motivated and focused on your goals. Karl George gave a good account of how what you think about yourself defines your reality... so many people are afraid of giving presentations because they focus on failure.
In the afternoon I set up a GetResponse autoresponder campaign for my PLR article service and fellow PPG forum member Ina Smit helped me test it to make sure the process from the "thank you page" via the opt-in form to the members' page works smoothly.

16th October

Wednesday is my busiest day, with five classes in three different parts of town, but I have managed to get a couple of important jobs done today to move my Internet business forward.

Contacted all my current plr article club subscribers to invite them to register themselves on my mailing list.
Published an article about Squidoo.com via SubmitYourArticle.com. Only SEVEN more articles to write and publish this month to hit my SYA article publishing target for October.
To deal with that target during a hectic month, I scheduled 8 slots including todays to write and publish the articles. I must also schedule in time to write 10 x plr club articles...
I also did some forum posting on evancarmichael.com, pipspowergroup.com, and also posted a comment on the mydailyfix.com blog and on Carol Aston's lens: http://www.squidoo.com/pipsters

David Hurley

How To Make Money On Squidoo

What Got In The Way Of My Internet Business Last Week?

2008-10-13T05:30:00.000-07:00

Last week I was hit by the double-whammy of college teaching schedules and a freelance editing deadline!

The Shock Of Having To Teach!

Early October is always a shock to the system of the freelance English language university teacher in Japan! The summer holidays last for about two and a half months. Some teachers who rely completely on freelance university classes for their livelihood have an even worse time of October than I do because they go from a glorious 10-11 weeks of no work at all to the sudden shock of having several 90 minute classes per day, each packed with anything up to 50 students!

For my part, I work the year through, and only do six college classes per week during term time - and one of those, an evening class - will be eradicated from my schedule at the end of this term.

Still, while not complaining about the extra moolah, the sudden injection of 9 extra hours of teaching into the weekly schedule, plus the extra travel involved, suddenly puts a premium on my time.

Truncated Translation And Editing Schedules

Last Monday I received word from my Japanese translation colleague that we were expected to turn this month's regional newspaper assignment around before the end of the week. It looked as if I would not be sleeping very much!

In those circumstances there was little time to promote my Internet business or work on improving it.

The Beauty Of Internet Marketing

Despite doing sweet nothing for my online businesses, the Japanese-Games-Shop.com order book is full up with mahjong and shogi orders that saw me trying to schedule trips to my supplier between teaching and editing stints.

Even sweeter for me is the fact that Grasp-The-Nettle.com is also beginning to pull its weight. The beauty of a totally online online business such as G-T-N is that the ordering AND delivery process are totally automated. Orders came in, goods went out (or rather, were downloaded) and the moolah turned up in my account.

The point is that if you put in the work over a period of a few months to a year, depending how hard and how well you work, you will see results, and they will continue even during the times when you do nothing to promote your online business.

Just about the last thing I did for each business was to post a blog about shogi (Japanese Chess) pieces for Japanese-Games-Shop, and upload an ebook about Squidoo.com plus a review of it. Shogi orders are up and Squidoo Basics is being downloaded.

In the meantime, I am running around like a squid on roller skates trying to escape from a nasty pincer movement of Work and More Work...

... Only until next April, I tell myself. From then on, English teaching work will be strictly Wednesday to Friday (unless people ask nicely and pay through the nose...) and the rest of my time will be dedicated to making a fortune on the Internet and teaching (er, what was that?) others how to succeed online.

David Hurley

http://grasp-the-nettle.com

Day 9 - Squidoo Basics Uploaded! My FIRST Really Productive Day!

2008-10-06T09:19:00.000-07:00

Today was my first really productive day since I started this blog. I might have done quite a few things up until now but none was very productive. Most of my actions were basic promotional activities, really nothing more than holding the line.

Today I actually did something more creative. I uploaded an ebook called Squidoo Basics and its accompanying sales page. Then I wrote and uploaded a review of Squidoo Basics to my website and linked it to the sales page. I also wrote an article about the potential of Squidoo.com for Internet marketers and loaded it into my Submit Your Article dashboard ready to blast out tomorrow.

I was prompted to complete that project, which has been on my To Do list for the last couple of months at least, after publishing my "Goals for October" on a thread on the PPG forum started by PPG mentor Suzanne Morrison.

By making our goals known to fellow PPG forum members, we will all be more motivated to achieve them and will focus on doing so.

Incidentally, here are my goals for October (posted a little late, but better late than never!):

Products: Add four $5 ebooks to my front page.
Website: Update all the main pages so that they match the appearance of the front page.
Promotion: Post 8 articles with SYA, linked to different pages on my website; 40 blog posts; promote my plr articles club on Warrior classifieds.
Sales & Commissions: Break my monthly sales record.
Alexa Ranking: Back below 700,000! (It has gone into reverse since I went on my hols!)
Buy a new computer!

I am going to need to be focused this month because college term has started and one of my other clients wants me to take on more classes too... and Japanese-games-shop sales pick up at this time of year too... Beginning of October is always a shock after the summer!!

One thing I learnt today was how quick and easy to use is the Mac version of WinZip. I was able to Zip and upload the Squidoo Basics package to my website in no time at all on the Mac I was working on. If you are a Mac user and don't know how to do that - although I'm sure most do as it is pretty basic - you can find out here: http://www.apple.com/pro/tips/zip.html.

The process of linking the Squidoo Basics review into my website allowed me the convenience of quickly updating the appearance of my articles directory page at the same time.

During the course of the day I also:

Posted a comment on Graham Madison's blog.
Posted a comment on the Real-WAH-Jobs.com forum about Squidoo.
Sent one of my affiliates an email replying to several questions.

David Hurley

http://grasp-the-nettle.com

Day 8 - Sleeping Off A Cold...

2008-10-05T06:04:00.001-07:00

I spent most of today in bed trying to catch up on some sleep and shake off the cold that has dogged me since Monday.

However, I did get a few elementary tasks done.

1 x post on evancarmichael.com forum.
Posted on the PPG forum a couple of times.
Contacted a new TrafficG sign-up.
Fixed a link and improved the appearance of one of my membership pages.
Edited and uploaded 2 articles to my PLR Articles membership site.
Added Bravenet banner and wordcounttool.com links to the free resources page of my website.
Updated the appearance of the Resources page.
Fixed a couple of broken links which fellow PPG forum member Leon alerted me to.
Posted a short note on my article writing research blog about wordcounttool.com.
Added my url to the links page of wordcounttool.com

David Hurley

http://grasp-the-nettle.com

Day 7 - Marketing with Clickbank: Free eBook

2008-10-04T08:31:00.000-07:00

Posted a comment on Dave Early's forum first thing this morning.
Edited and uploaded a couple more articles to my PLR article club members' site.
Posted some comments on the evancarmichael forum. G. T. Bulmer started an interesting thread about affiliate marketing.
Posted a few comments on the PPG forum and noticed that Cynthia Minnaar was recommending a free ebook by Justin Harrison about Clickbank marketing techniques so...
I posted another thread linking to Cyn's Squidoo lens about Clickbank and...
Posted a quick note about it on my primary blog, here.
Downloaded Justin Harrison's book - and posted a quick report back on the thread I'd started on the evancarmichael.com forum. If you are interested in Clickbank, Justin's book will be a rewarding read.
Dealt with a double subscription error by one of my PLR article club subscribers, who thought did not realize that he had purchased a subscription. Hmm. I should make that clearer!
Contacted my SFI EAs (upgraded members of SFI) with details about my PLR article club.
Corrected a broken link on my website.

David Hurley

Best Internet Marketing Strategies

Day 6 - Amazed I got any thing done at all!

2008-10-03T09:32:00.000-07:00

Friday is one of my busiest teaching days during term time. Two morning classes on campus in the morning, a private class off campus in the afternoon, and then back onto campus for an evening exam prep class. After that I usually head into town and play mahjong late into the night.

Today was a little different in that my private student cancelled her class and I cancelled mahjong because I'm still under the weather, and anyway, I had a post exam prep consultation job to do back in town.

I did have some free time in the afternoon, but dedicated most of that to researching a Shakespeare paper on A Midsummer Night's Dream that I want to get written by the end of the year.

I was therefore expecting to report that I did nothing today for my online business. However, back at home I found some energy from somewhere to do the following:

Posted five comments on the evancarmichael.com forum.
Edited and uploaded one more article to my PLR site.
Posted a couple of comments on the PPG forum.
Posted a couple of comments on http://www.init-2-winit.org/forum

David Hurley

http://grasp-the-nettle.com

Day 5 - Article Polishing

2008-10-02T08:11:00.000-07:00

At the beginning of last month I started a PLR article club for the "home based Internet marketing" niche. Subscribers get ten well written articles per month targeted to that niche market for just $10 per month, limited to just 100 members and only available on my site for one month.

I got quite a few subscriptions via Paypal, and now that October has rolled around, the renewals are coming in. I decided to roll out October's articles over several days, adding one or two per day for the first few days of the month, and removing one of last month's articles each time I post a fresh article. So that is what I have been doing this evening.

GRASP-THE-NETTLE.COM

This evening, I proof-read, edited and posted two articles on my PLR membership site.
Tweaked the PLR members' site.
Posted 7 comments on evancarmichael.com
Checked in to the Pipspowergroup forum.

JAPANESE-GAMES-SHOP.COM

Spent quite a bit of the afternoon packing and shipping orders.

From now on I will only report on this site if I do anything to promote it online, or if anything of particular interest occurs. This site pretty much runs itself.

http://grasp-the-nettle.com

Day 4 - Teaching Under The Weather!

2008-10-01T06:49:00.000-07:00

I did very little for my Internet business today as Wednesday is a busy teaching day once college term kicks in after the long summer break.

Teaching 2 x 90 minute classes of 40 nursing students each was a killer today as I went in with a mild cold and came out with a lost voice and raging sore throat!

All I did was:

GRASP-THE-NETTLE.COM

Corresponded with one of my affiliates via email.
Read some blog posts on http://www.ianfernando.com/ and posted a comment.
Read a few posts on the evancarmichael.com and pipspowergroup.com forums.

JAPANESE-GAMES-SHOP.COM

Paid a supplier.
Updated order book (a backlog threatens to develop...).
Contacted customers about their orders.

http://grasp-the-nettle.com

Day 3 - A Lot Done But Not Exactly According To Plan...

2008-09-30T07:28:00.000-07:00

Today did not turn out exactly as planned (see previous post), but I did end up accomplishing quite a bit. In fact, Items 1 and 2 below are an improvement on my original plan.

However, some important tasks did not get done... but I am not staying up until 5am tonight - not with four classes to teach in three different locations tomorrow...

GRASP-THE-NETTLE.COM

Made a new webpage on different types of Affiliate Marketing Programs.
Published an article on SubmitYourArticle.com, using "article leverage". The article was about "5 types of affiliate marketing program" and linked via the sig file to the new webpage (item 1 above). This is an Internet marketing strategy that Jeff Schuman discusses on the PPG forum.
Modified and updated Grasp-The-Nettle.com front page. I have reduced the number of links at the top, removed several graphics from the left column. (I will add different products there over the course of the next month... I hope!) I also shortened an ad for my article writing services and added an html feed to my articleI think I strengthened its impact.
Posted an article on http://www.grasp-the-nettle.com/blog.
Posted an article on http://legitimate-work-at-home-business.blogspot.com.
Listened to Nikki Leigh talking to Winton Churchill about email marketing techniques, and...
...clocked up 200 credits on Trafficswarm.com while I did so!
Signed up to the DNSnoop.com forum, but seems difficult to post on...
I optimized and monetized this "What I Did..." blog on Feedburner.com.
Posted 8-9 x forum comments on evancarmichael.com and Jeff Casmer's forum: http://24hourwealth.com/work-at-home-forum/index.php.

JAPANESE-GAMES-SHOP.COM

Today was a wash out on the Japanese-Games-Shop front. I was going to pay a supplier but forgot how much I owed him! Then it poured with rain so I stayed at home and worked exclusively on grasp-the-nettle.com!

In the meantime, new orders are rolling in - good news of course, but lots more work for U No Hoo!

Best Internet Marketing Strategies

Day 3 - Aims

2008-09-29T18:18:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was so unfocused that today I am going to state my aims first:

GRASP-THE-NETTLE.COM

Publish one article on SubmitYourArticle.com, using "article leverage".
Prepare two articles for my PLR service.
Advertise my PLR service on Warriorforum.com
Make a Facebook business page.
Register my articles with evancarmichael.com
Modify and update Grasp-The-Nettle.com front page.
Post items on two of my blogs.
Upload a Squidoo ebook and landing page.
Post 5 x forum comments.
Clock up 200 Trafficswarm clicks.

JAPANESE-GAMES-SHOP.COM

Pack and post 3 x parcels.
Send a supplier some cash!

O.K.... on 3 and a half hours sleep... let's do it!

http://grasp-the-nettle.com

Day 2: Still Jet-Lagged And Out Of Focus...

2008-09-29T11:57:00.000-07:00

Still suffering from jetlag so my sleep cycle is messed up and that is affecting my ability to focus. At least, that is my excuse.

Here's what I did today, which is not exactly what I planned to do...

JAPANESE-GAMES-SHOP.COM

1. Replied to an enquiry about Shogi (Japanese chess) sets and then...

2. Added the enquirer to my mailing list (with his permission), and...

3. Turned the enquiry into a short blog post here: http://japanese-games-shop.blogspot.com/2008/09/how-many-shogi-koma-make-up-single-set.html

4. Later in the day I bought/ordered supplies in response to orders for 3 customers.

GRASP-THE-NETTLE.COM

1. Added 4 new SFI affiliates to my SFI list on GetResponse.com. (All four were generated by EyeEarn.com.)

2. Because I was not feeling so dynamic, instead of getting on and creating something like an article or a webpage, I opened the latest International Association of Home Business Entrepreneurs email and actually browsed around the IAHBE site! I printed off three articles about Facebook and Social Networking sites and...

3. Read the articles on the tram into town later in the afternoon. I realize that I have been neglecting a very useful resource. Two useful resources - IAHBE and Facebook! Oh, plus all the other social networking sites that I ought to be utilizing...

4. Added some feedburner features to my article-marketing-research blog.

5. Corrected some glitches on my plr site and improved its appearance...

6. I posted maybe 10 comments or even mini essays on the evancarmichael.com forum, including a foray into Japanese toilet culture - in response to a post by a toilet designer, I hasten to add!

7. Popped into the PPG forum and posted a couple of comments.

8. Reactivated my EyeEarn.com membership for the next month. Apart from the initial $20 membership fee, EyeEarn is completely free - you just have to do a 10-minute task once a month to reactivate. Today, that simple task took me closer to 20 minutes...

9. Posted a comment on Dayo Olomu's blog (see next section).

10. This is hardly worth mentioning, but I did generate a few credits on the Trafficswarm.com traffic exchange by clicking about five or six ads!

AUXILIARY ACTIVITY

The most satisfying part of today was the couple of hours I spent offline before, during and after lunch!

1. Inspired by Brendan Reen, the inventor of boxer balls, and also by a former colleague, who writes on his Facebook wall that at the ripe old age of 46 he is still doing rugby practice, I decided to start a 30 minute or so fitness session... stretches, 100 skips, a few press-ups... and stuff... Then, best of all, I improvised a "one ball" target for some boxing practice! Er, it was a bag of coffee that I had bought earlier in the day, hung up in a carrier bag on a peg on the curtain rail, with the curtain drawn to dampen the movement of the bag! It worked! I punched away at it until the bag flew off the peg!

2. All through my improvised work-out, I was listening to one of the latest Success University CDs, You Got The Power by Dayo Olomu (London's best looking Nigerian bloke, according to his website!)

I cannot emphasize enough the value of listening to successful people giving their testimonies. It really refocuses and re-motivates you to achieve your goals. Also, many of the best motivational speakers have been through far more difficult tests and faced far greater challenges than many a quitter. Dayo Olomu is one of those people who never quitted long after most other people would have given up.

3. After lunch, I lay down and listend to Dayo Olomu all over again - when I wasn't enjoying a blissful snooze!

It is now nearly 5am so i doubt I will be very focused tomorrow, either! But I am looking forward to punching the coffee bag while listening to another SU CD!

David Hurley
Best Internet Marketing Strategies

Day 1: Not Bad For A Lazy Day, I Suppose

2008-09-28T07:57:00.000-07:00

This is my first day back on the Internet after a family holiday deep in the Austrian countryside. I put on my walking boots and spent ten days without even touching a keyboard.

One of the great advantages of an online business is that you can make money from it even while away on holiday for days on end! Another great advantage is that you can also choose to take your laptop with you and keep on building and maintaining your business while away from home if you wish.

Anyway, now that I am back at home and picking up the pieces, it seems like a good moment to start yet another blog. This one is going to be a diary of what I do each day to build or maintain my online businesses. The idea for this blog was suggested by Matt Belock on the PipsPowerGroup.com forum.

I hope it will help anyone wanting to start an online business by showing them what to do, or at least what I do, on a day to day basis.

MY INTERNET BUSINESSES

I run two very different online business sites.

1. http://grasp-the-nettle.com This is an affiliate marketing site that offers Internet business training advice and resources. It will be the main focus of my attention on this blog because most of my online work is dedicated to building up this site. It is the kind of affiliate-marketing business that offers the owner total flexibility, with no need to stock goods or to be located in any particular place.

2. http://japanese-games-shop.com This business more or less runs itself on the Internet, but it requires a lot more offline work because I have to process the orders, buy, pack and ship the goods myself. It is a good example of a niche site, and is a great little earner.

MY FIRST DAY BACK ONLINE

1. The first thing I did was to catch up with my email and contacted the customers who had purchased goods from japanese-games-shop.com while I was away.

2. Noted down all the orders in my orders book.

3. I removed the "away on holiday" notices from japanese-games-shop.com.

4. I posted a notice on my Japanese-games-shop blog informing customers that I'm back! http://japanese-games-shop.blogspot.com/2008/09/im-back-from-my-holidays.html

5. Posted about five comments on the evancarmichael.com forum.

6. Commented on posts by three different bloggers, G. T. Bulmer, Carol Aston, and Brendan Reen. GT and Carol are Internet marketers and fellow moderators on the evancarmichael.com forum. Brendan is a boxing trainer who has invented a "multi target" boxing practice device. He posted some information on the evancarmichael.com forum recently and we have been in contact ever since.

7. Brendan's recent blog posts gave me some material for a short post on one of my other blogs, my one and only Wordpress blog: http://www.grasp-the-nettle.com/TigersCave/2008/09/28/you-gotta-get-better-at-multi-targeting/

8. One of the emails I read was a notice from SubmitYourArticle.com about an improvement in their already excellent article submission service. I used the information in that email to put together a blog post for my article marketing blog here: http://article-marketing-research.blogspot.com/2008/09/submityourarticlecom-introduces.html

9. I then submitted an article to SubmitYourArticle.com about why an online affiliate marketing business is better than a traditional offline business. I will provide a link when it has been distributed by SYA.

10. Throughout the day I popped in and out of the PipsPowerGroup.com forum. I am a lifetime member and it is one of my key sources of information and inspiration. The PPG was set up by Ken Troyer and is run by six mentors exclusively for affiliates of the Plug-In Profit Site. I got some great ideas from it today... in particular, I learnt about a great resource to help speed up article writing productivity and also turn the articles into sound files. The resource is called Dragon Naturally Speaking and you can read about it on Wikipedia, here.

11. I set up this blog!

Not bad for a lazy day, I suppose.

See you tomorrow!

David Hurley
Best Internet Marketing Strategies