Tell me this video does not make you think!  Stumble on to this video on Metacafe (sometimes I find some good inspiration for topics to blog about) and it kindda got me thinking …  Is it another bubble?   

If it is another bubble, how will we (the bloggers) be effected?  Let me think about this overnight, and I’ll give you my thoughts. 

I hope everyone had a great New Year celebration.  I know this post is kind of late, but I was away for most of Christmas and New Year and just got back in town.  Since I’m not (..not yet) a hard core blogger I don’t have the luxury of ‘mobile blogging’ capability.

So did I spend all my riches earned this year on a New Years eve party?  NOPE!  I actually had a pretty quite New Years Eve!  I spend most of the night planing for 2008, pausing the last 10 second count down and kiss and hug the ones I love and then it was back to work!

Well it’s almost 10 days into the new year, have you made your plans yet?  One thing I’m planing on changing is to increase my monthly income from this blog from ‘covering weekend bar tabs’ to something more!  My girlfriend said my blog tag line makes me sound like an alcoholic anyways.  So the challenge to myself this year is to make this blog break at least the 5 digit mark in monthly revenue (yes $10,000).

Here are some summarised report of my top 5 money in 2007 (numbers are for the whole year.

1. Adsense $747.85
2. Private Ads $375.00
3. Affiliate Programs $242.29
4. ClickBank $172.92
5. Text Link Ads $112.82

I know it’s nothing to brag about, but keep in mind I started this to make a few extra bucks for my weekend outings, with minimum efforts.  Now it’s time to put in some efforts!!

What’s on the agenda for 2008?

1. More organized ad sale (working on it)
2. Increase efforts on what I’ve tried and made money: (BANS, SEO, New affiliate programs to try such as TTZ Media, DealDotCom)
3. Try some new strategies: Google Time (just read that the other day), Free Google Ads (which I read the past few days and seem promising, will update with a review next week)

What’s on your agenda?  Drop a comment and share what work for you (put in your ref code if you like to recommend a product/program!

Good luck in 2008!

2 weeks ago Shoemoney blogged about Build a Niche Store (or BANS as the die hard fan of the script calls it).  I was very impressed with the site and what the script had to offer. But sinceI had so many eBooks to go through I just didn’t want to think about it at all!  Besides spending another $97 right before Christmas just wasn’t an option!

Well 2 week passed and as I was going through the first few chapters of Day Job Killer, one of the described methods by Chris sparked an idea!

Without going through the details, the basic PPC idea was to go after some micro niche keywords that is less competitive, or a specific product name or model numbers.  Well, as I continue to read, I kept thinking that would be a great idea for a starter like me who doesn’t have a large PPC budget…  But where do I find an affiliate program for or these micro niche products that I can send these highly targeted traffic to?  and BAM!  Thanks to Shoemoney,  I thought of BANS (as I will call it from now on).

So what’s the cliff notes on this?  1st, you’ll have to go and read up on how Build a Niche Store works.  If you already know what it does, then using the micro niche technique you run a campaign with link to your store for that very specific product!

How long does it take to get it up and running?  I did these 2 store, each took about 30 mins (that includes the header design and template editing) 

Using AuctionYap.com as an example, rather then me running a campaign that will make my budget ‘gone in 60 seconds’  What I tried was creating PPC campaigns specifically with just the model number of the product.  Impressions and click troughs were low, BUT! the click troughs are landing on a page specifically for that product built by Build A Niche Store script.

So what’s the result?  Initial testing of my campaign  through AdCenter (and it was VERY small) for a specific model of a smart phone.

• 5 specific keywords bought
• 823 impressions and 27 click troughs
• cost $8.10
• Earned $25 Commission

I will bump up my campaign a little more and see if the trend continues or I just got lucky.  Meanwhile I’ve planed to build a few more niche stores and give it a try in other micro niches.

You can get more details about Build A Niche Store here, and if you want to check out the stores I build so far  Auction Yap and Kidazy Store (for my girlfriend’s blog) check them out and make sure you buy something, it’s Christmas!!

I’m not kidding about getting serious!  I’ve been out of school since 1992, and I think this weekend I’m planing on the most reading I’ve done since then. 

MY Rule #1 of making money online – It’s NOT as easy as the $49.95 ebook has promised, if the sales page tells you that.. Walk Away!

This is what it takes (and even then it’s not guarantee!) but it’s worth it.

MY Rule #2 of making money online – Invest in YOURSELF!  After all most business (yes, this is a business) you need ‘investment’.  So take the time and INVEST IN YOURSELF by educating yourself.

So I’ll see you all later, I’m going to invest in myself now!