In February 2010  I challenged myself to increase traffic for this site by 75% and fell short by just a little bit. But, for the second part of last year I was majorly distracted, and was very inconsistent with adding content, stopped guest posting, and even got sloppy with one of the main attractions to my blog: the free niche research.

So, in April I am planning to increase traffic by 25%. Here is a screen-shot of the the traffic as of today, March 31, 2011:

So, in April I need to come up with 948 more unique visitors, for a total of 4740. Now, in order to achieve this, I’ll do the following:

- go back to weekly free niche research

- guest post at least twice, and find at least 2 people to guest post for me

-create 2 how-to articles (these seem to attract traffic). Do you have suggestions? I’m all ears: please post below in the comments and I’ll either write it myself, or find someone qualified to we rite it for me.

Now the other site in this challenge is a niche site I challenged myself on last year as well (it was actually my April challenge for last year).

Here is a screen shot of my stats from that post last year:

And here is a screen shot from the first 3 months this year:

Big difference, right? My plan is to double traffic to this site in April, as well as double income (which is pitiful right now, at $122.60 for this month). It’s an ambitious plan, but I think I can do it. Here is what I am planning to do for this site:

- add content every day for the month of April (luckily, I already have all the content needed, so I just need to take a few hours to add images, links, etc., and upload them to the site

- guest post at least once (last year I wasn’t able to find a place to guest post, but this year I’ll try harder)

- build some links. Not exactly sure which route I’ll take for this. I may submit a couple of articles to article directories, send a press release, tweet, bookmark, etc.

- I’ll create and distribute at least 2 videos. I’ve tried creating videos myself in the past, but I am not cut out for it, so this will be outsourced.

- I’ll create a FaceBook page for this site (probably I’ll outsource this as well)

- create a list for the site, so I don’t have to always rely on just the search engines to bring in traffic. I already have my give-away for it (had it for more than a year and never took the time to create a list: shame on me!)

- pick 2 products, create detailed reviews, and work on ranking those 2 pages: shooting for top 5, but will be content if I reach page 1

- monetize the site better: I am using AdSense and Amazon for now, but I need to tweak it for better performance.

What are YOUR plans for the month of April? Wouldn’t you love some more traffic? Please join me in this challenge to increase traffic: just comment below.

I have about 30 domains (probably more), and I promised myself I won’t buy anymore until I have a site on each one of them, so, since I found some really good domains related to the holidays, I am going to compromise: I’ll get these domains (I don’t want to lose them), but for each new domain I get, I promise to build a site for the new domain, and 2 sites for domains I already own.

I am off to buy 2 domains now: they are .com domains related to the holidays (I may end up building sites and flipping them), so by the end of the month I’ll have at least 6 new sites.

Here is waht I’ll do:

• upload WP on each of the domains
• outsource 5 articles for each site & upload them as soon as I get them back
• outsource 2 more articles for each site & submit to article directories
• add monetization (most likely Amazon, AdSense, SAS and/or CJ)
• bookmark each site in at least 5 bookmarking sites
• acquire at least 5 links for each site

My intention is to have all 6 sites built and indexed by the end of this month. I’ve never created 6 sites in one month, so this is a big challenge for me.

Do you have any domains that are just sitting there doing nothing for you? Join me in this challenge and let’s make these domains work for us. Let me know below if you decide to build some sites on your existing domains. And if you have any questions about my method, or anything related to building a site, just let me know: I’ll do my best to help.

The challenge was from April 13th until May 12th, and while I did some of the things I planned to do, I didn’t do all of them.

I added several pages to the site: 5 new blog posts, and 3 new pages to the main site. I also submitted 5 articles to article directories, and worked on some back-links. But, I didn’t get a chance to guest post.

The results were not want I wanted, and I am a little bit baffled: my traffic actually went down by 96 unique visitors, even though I added content to both the site and blog, I submitted articles to directories,  and added some links back to the site.

This doesn’t mean my efforts were in vain. I am sure in time they add up and will eventually help my site. While I am temporarily disappointed, life goes on and next month I’ll start a new challenge.

How are your efforts going? Are you achieving your goals? And if you get setbacks, what measures do you take to insure it won’t happen again?

I am going to continue to work on this site and not give up, even if my progress is smaller than wanted.

This challenge will go on for an entire month, until May 12th, 2010. I am looking to get 2904 unique visitors between now and then.

Here is what I’ll do:

- add at least 20 pages to the site (products pages, as well as blog posts, as the site has both)

- guest post once (this is not in the IM niche and guest posting is not popular, but I’ll do my best to find a spot to guest post)

- submit 5 articles to several article directories

- build some incoming links

Now, that’s what I’ll do for my niche site, but I will also submit 5 guest posts for this site: I’d really like to get to a consistent 5K monthly visitors by the end of this year.

What are YOU doing this month to grow your business? Public challenges are amazing: you’ll automatically be more productive, since there are others following your success or failure. Would you join me this month in growing your traffic? Post below and I promise I’ll check with you to see how you are doing.

Here is to SUCCESS!

Today is the last day of the PPC challenge over at Matt Levenhagen’s forum and my last update. It’s going to be a short, one, as I haven’t been able to add any more campaigns this past week.

Taking a look at the image to the right, you’ll see :

Impressions: 87,922
Clicks: 889
CTR: 1.01%
Cost: $182.17
Commission: $115.82
Profit: - $66.35

So, I ended up spending more than I made, but that’s OK: now it’s time to go back and analyze things and make adjustments. As a matter of fact, I already paused a few ad groups.

During this challenge I found some amazing merchants that I want to explore/promote further: some I realized would do better with video promotion, some with bum marketing, and some by even creating sites around some of the products. In the end, that is the reason I blasted in the first place: to find merchants and/or products to promote.

Am I disappointed I didn’t reach my goal of 50? Yes, a little. But honestly, my first inclination was to set a goal of 20 blasts (one for each business day of the month), knowing I was going on vacation, and would miss some time. And I ended the challenge with 23 blasts.

Now it’s time to pick a challenge for the month of April, and I am not sure what to do. Here are my options:

- create sites for my existing domains just sitting there (probably 25 or so). This would be intense, but the results would probably be awesome!

- organize some of my PLR and use it to update several sites I have but really neglected for the past several months

- work on creating links and revenue for 2 sites I have and would love to flip, but not in their current state, as I want as much as possible for them.

Any thoughts? What would you like to see me do? Please comment below.

It’s now been 4 weeks since the beginning of the PPC challenge, and the end is in sight. While the month is almost over, the challenge will go on for another week.

Let’s see: blasting new campaigns is not hard, but finding the time to sit down and do it, is another matter.

Last week I said I was going for 15 new blasts, and I ended up doing 7. My total count as of now is

- 2 to  landing pages

- 12 direct to a merchant on CJ

- 9 direct to merchants on SAS

And here are my stats:

Impressions: 72,301
Clicks: 631
CTR: 0.87% (it  went up a little more again. BTW, some of my ad groups are getting as high as 4.85$, but some are not getting any clicks))
Cost: $129.90
Commission: $115.82
Profit: - $14.08 I am still in deficit, but I am confident that once the blasting phase is over, and I go into the account and remove those keywords and phrases taht are getting lots of clicks and no sales, I will be in profit.

I made a total of 6 sales from 4 campaigns, and that is pretty good.

This week I went back and got reacquainted with the AdWords Editor, which I’ve used a lot in the past, but forgot how to use it, since I haven’t done much PPC in the past year or so.

My FaceBook campaign is also getting some action, after I increased my bid amount. No sales yet, but I am seeing clicks from there.

Nest week I’ll wrap up this challenge, and will probably give a follow up update in a month or two.

Do you need help stating new campaigns? Do you have questions? Post below and I’ll be happy to help you. Here is to PPC success!

It’s time for another update on my PPC challenge. Last week I was on vacation in Jamaica, so no I made no progress in adding more campaigns, but my existing campaigns continued to run.

So, let’s see how I am doing.

So far, I started 15 campaigns

- 1 to  a landing page

- 8 direct to a merchant on CJ

- 6 direct to merchants on SAS

Here are my starts as of now:

Impressions: 56,342
Clicks: 435
CTR: 0.77% (this went up a little bit since my first week, but it’s still to low)
Cost: $99.68
Commission: $72.34
Profit: - $27.37 Yep! I am in the red, but that’s normal during the blasting. As I learn more about what my market is looking for, I’ll add more negative keywords, remove key phrases that are not performing, etc.

What is important is that out of 15 campaigns, I had 4 sales: 2 from the same campaigns, and one each from two other campaigns. this means I have 3 winning campaigns, which I can tweak and improve once my blasting is done.

My 3 FaceBook ads are yet to get a click, but I received an email from them, with suggestions for improvement. I didn’t have time to apply their suggestions yet, but it’s on my list for this week.

Also for this week: I need to step up my blasting, or I won’t be able to do 50 campaigns. I am going to try 15 campaigns this week, and I’ll be back next Monday with another update.

If you’d like to learn how to successfully learn PPC marketing, check out Matt’s Campaigns blast report.

The View From Our Room

This will be a quick post, as I am in Jamaica for a short vacation with the family.

This past week I started a few more AdWords campaigns (I think 7), and tried FaceBook advertising (I did 3 campaigns there). So far, I didn’t even get a click from my FB advertising, so I need to work on that.

I had one more sale with a commission of $7.57 and overall, I am about break even between spending and commissions made. I’ll have a much better update next week,when I can actually check all my stats and get a better picture as of how I am doing.

That’s all for today, as you can probably tell I am quite distracted: I am off to  get a fruit smoothie.

As promised in my original post about this PPC challenge, this is an update on what I’ve been doing to meet my challenge goals.

Just as  a reminder, I am shooting for 50 PPC campaigns before March is over: that means 2 campaigns a day, 5 days a week, and this past week, I haven’t met that goal. I did 7 campaigns:

- 1 to  a landing page (I purchased some domains a while ago for specific products, and never did anything with them, so built one small site and I am directing some traffic to it with PPC). This page is monetized with a specific product from Amazon.com

- 1 direct to a merchant on CJ

- 5 direct to merchants on SAS

My ads are getting too many impressions, and not so many clicks, which makes for a very low CTR (see image above). That’s not good, and it means I probably have to tweak my ads.

Here are my starts as of now:

Impressions: 19,427
Clicks: 96
CTR: 0.49%
Cost: $34.52
Commission: $61.18
Profit: $26.66

This week, I need to get more serious, and start even more campaigns, as next Sunday I’ll be heading to Jamaica for a few days, and the following week I won’t be adding any campaigns.

I’ll let you know how I am doing next week.

If you’d like to join me and others in this challenge, there is still time: check out Matt’s Campaigns blast report before you get started: it will save you from making many mistakes.

First, I was going got post at least 5 times a week, and since the day of the challenge (February 7th) I posted 19 posts, so I met that challenge.

Second, I was going to submit one article a week to a few article directories, and only submitted one, so I fell short on that one.

Third, I was going to guest post at least once, and I did 5 guest posts, so I exceeded that.

So, did all that help me increase my visitors 75%? Unfortunately, no. I fell short by a couple of hundred visitors. Here is a snapshot of my February visitors.

What I learned form this month’s challenge? I can guest post! And if I can, so can anyone else. Yes, it takes me a long time to come up with a good guest post, but the rewards are incredible!

Here are my guest posts for February:

Keyword Research with Shopping.com

How to Select Keywords for a Pay Per Click Campaign

5 Online Business Models You Can Start Right Now

Follow Me Buttons on Sidebar

How To Do Keyword Research With EBay

I also learned that posting daily on my blog is too much for me: I’d rather write quality content than try to push lots of content that doesn’t meet my quality standards.

In the end, I am happy with what I accomplished this past month, and I will continue to come up with monthly challenges to grow my business.

How about you?

Edited to add: I actually did one more guest post, so a total of 6. Not sure how I forgot it. Here it is: Plus Size Wedding Dress Niche, a guest post similar to my own free niche research.