My Second Ever Income Report - February 2011



February came and went and all without a sale but definitely with some changes (and these changes cost some money!).  The theme for me in February was frustration.

Mounting frustration.

It's to be expected, I guess, especially for a new internet marketer.  In my last post I wrote about my backlinking hell and since then I have taken steps to climb the depths of Google rankings from the dungeons to at least the cellar.

It required me to make some investments.

I had to lay out some cash.

Something I said I wasn't going to do (sorry honey, remember I love you!)

But I think I was being shortsighted.  I realized that I needed to treat this endeavor more like a business and less like a hobby.  And business requires investment.  Investment which will show a return (hopefully).  So I made three purchases during the month of February to increase my efficiencies and mentally get me in a better place.

The first purchase was to help with article marketing.  I purchased The Best Spinner to spin articles that I can distribute to various article directories and gain backlinks.  The marketers I admire most all use this product so I have no doubt in my mind that it is a good product.  I am still figuring the software out (and right now it seems that it takes me longer to spin an article than actually write one!) but I can see that it is a very handy tool.

Next purchase was Market Samurai.  This was more of an emotional purchase for me rather one that is completely necessary for me at this time.  If you don't know, Market Samurai is the premier keyword research tool available.  It not only does in depth keyword research, but evaluates competition, manages the ranking of your sites, and a whole lot of other things I need to figure out.  It was more an emotional purchase because I was getting so frustrated with my niche site, I started to look for new keywords to monetize.  I needed this break.

The final purchase was Blog Blueprint.  This is a tool that gets you contextual backlinks from high PR domains.  It's real easy to use and lots of people can attest to its success (Pat Flynn uses it as part of his backlinking strategy that works, and Moon Hussain is experimenting with Blog Blueprint for her niche sites as well).  All you do is write a 100-word posts and include an anchor text backlink and Blog Blueprint does the rest.  I started using this two days ago and built 8 backlinks so far.  We shall see.

So lets get to the numbers.

Amazon Affiliates....$0

The Best Spinner...$77/year

Market Samurai....$147

Blog Blueprint....$57/month

February Income...-$281.00


As you can see, Blog Blueprint and The Best Spinner have recurring charges.  The downside to that is, I can really get myself into a financial hole if I don't start generating some income.  But the upside is that I can use these tools on an infinite amount of sites, so this should pay for itself eventually.

Eventually.

4 comments:

Randy Johnson said...

Keep hanging in there man. I feel like I'm in the same boat as you. As long as we keep making progress, we will surely find success. I love Market Samurai and The Best Spinner is pretty good. I hope to hear more good things from you about Blog Blueprint.

On a side note, it's a little difficult to post comments on here. Definitely not able to do from my iPhone. Had to try a couple things to figure out how to do it from my computer.

Cheers!

Shipping Container Homes said...

Hiya Lonnie!!

Congrats on making the investment in MArket Samurai, The Best Spinner, and Blog Blueprint!

I'm trying the whole IM thing myself...but I'm not fortunate enough to be able to invest like that. After my bills are paid (just rent and electric and water rates) I have £5 a day to live off (which has to buy food, toilet roll, and new socks when I need them, lol). So yeah, all I have is a couple of domain names and a hosting package...and SickSubmitter. Talk to Michelle about that...she got me into it.

Also, for you buying Blog Blueprint, I would reccommend Pat Flynn's post on backlinking and how he uses Blog Blueprint and gets results from it - http://www.smartpassiveincome.com/the-backlinking-strategy-that-works/

And if you've got the cash...look into getting Unique Article Wizard ;)

I wish you the very best on your journey, and I hope you manage to do better than I'm doing... I've made a single sale of £4.50, and a couple of clicks on adsense totalling £8.

I'm not sure what that is in $USD, I'm sorry.

Ben.

Lonnie said...

Hey Ben

Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment! Luckily you don't need any other investment other than domain and hosting, it's just a lot more time consuming to do everything. But it can be done!

I first heard of Blog Blueprint from Pat Flynn's site; his backlinking post is like a bible to me. I've heard of Sick Submitter too, from Michelle's site, so I'm thinking about that one. For now, I plan on using Fiverr to do forum profile blasts.

Good luck on your endeavors, your single sale is 1 more than I ever did! But I checked your shipping container site and didn't see a link to purchase anything or any adsense ads. Do you have any other niche sites?

Moon Hussain said...

Hey Lonnie,
That's a fair amount of spending but I honestly believe these tools will give you a massive advantage over someone who doesn't have them. The key is to make proper use of them. DOn't be too excited and build links only the first week and nothing the next two.

Create, create, create. You'll see your hard work pay off sooner or later!

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