Thirty Day Goal
Set And Accomplish Your Goals In Thirty Days

At the beginning of last month I decided to focus my efforts on one project: my blog about raising a Guide Dog Puppy In Training.  The plan is to report income numbers and the website statistics using Google Analytics.

Here are the statistics on my Puppy In Training blog as of February 28th 2010.

• Web Address: http://puppyintraining.com
• First Blog Post: August 2007
• Number of Blog Posts: 343 + 10
• Number of Comments: 1,500 +31
• Number of RSS Subscribers: 2,028 +69
• Twitter Followers: 38 +3
• Facebook Fanpage Fans: 13 +5.

I accomplished my goals of getting a minimum of two blog posts  a week up on my site.  I had a few additional posts on some of the weeks while others I just met the minimum of 2.  I haven’t really been tracking comments, but 31 new comments sounds low to me.  That’s just over 1 comment a day.  I’ll have to look into getting more community involvement.  My new RSS Subscribers mostly come from the light box newsletter form.  I was getting upwards of 200 new subscribers a month.  I need to revisit my RSS and newsletter to find different ways to increase my subscriber numbers.  I don’t actively promote my Twitter or Facebook pages and will not do much in terms of promotion for those pages in the next couple months.

Google Analytics Report February 2010

Traffic numbers have dipped since last month.  One cause is the number of days in February.  There are only 28 days in February versus 31 in January.  However, there was still a significant average visitor/pageview per day drop.

Avg Visitors Feb 2010 = 899; Jan 2010 = 973

Avg Pageviews Feb 2010 = 1,501; Jan 2010 = 1,674

I’m not too sure what the caused the change in traffic.  My guess would be slight shuffling in my Google SERPS because as you can see the majority of my traffic comes from the Search Engines/Google.

Income Report – February 2010

Google AdSense: $197.19 - 54.43
Amazon Associates: $59.99 + 33.08
TOTAL: $257.18 – 21.35

Google AdSense is fairly consistent based on my search traffic. I didn’t really make any change to try and increase my Google AdSense revenue. Likewise, I did not make changes to increase my Amazon Associates revenue, but it doubled. I have no answer for that one.  If you read this months monthly goal you will see that I’m working to release my own internet marketing information product.  It’s a lofty goal and I’m already going to concede and soon write up a revised goal.  I’m changing my thirty day goal mainly because I’m selling my condo this month and looking for a new place to live.  Therefore some of my online activities need to be put on the back burner.

Conclusions

What did I do to try and increase traffic and income this past month?

• I worked a bit on my comment marketing – I see comment marketing as not only a way to get small trickles of traffic, but as a way to start new relationships with other bloggers in my niche.
• I made sure to follow my posting schedule.  10 articles with a minimum of 2 a week.  I intend to stay on this schedule throughout March.
• Changes to my design.  I made some small changes to my design to focus more on getting subscriptions.
• Besides working on building traffic I didn’t do anything to try and change my monthly revenue.

One of the main reasons I’m writing to this blog is accountability.  I want to spell out my monthly goals (plan), make them public (accountability), execute those goals (execution), and then check the results (statistical analysis).  This will hopefully give me a clearer picture of what I’m trying to accomplish.

Enough rambling.  How did you do this past month?

By the way, I cheated and back dated this post to March 1st.  It’s actually March 4th today.

After last months accomplishments I feel like I steadied the ship and got the Puppy In Training website sailing back on course.  I’m proud of my accomplishments and thought you would be interested in the recap of last month and how I did accomplishing my Thirty Day Goal for February.  Check out the entire article on last months goals at How To Focus Your Blogging Goals.  If you’d like the short version then here is the recap:

1. Write a minimum of two posts a week released once on Tuesday and once on Thursday.
2. Read through and update all the pages.
3. Write a My Story post that covers my entire life with dogs.
4. Update the design on the Puppy In Training site.
5. Create a newsletter sequence to run once a month for 6 months.

And the results are in:

How To Create Your First Internet Marketing Product

Last months post on Focusing Your Blogging Goals really helped me identify exactly what I want to do with the Puppy In Training blog.  Up until this point I’ve really only monetized using Google AdSense and nothing else.  I’ve received several calls from companies asking about advertising on the site, but until recently I didn’t really have an answer or an idea on whether or not direct advertising was something I wanted to do.  Google AdSense makes me a few hundred a month and I’m sure I can increase that income by another few hundred accepting advertisers on my site.  However, I’ve really been looking forward to sharing my knowledge of training puppies as guide dogs  in a more structured format.

Fast forward to today.  As I mentioend  I want to create a product for PuppyInTraining.com.  This one probably can’t be accomplished in Thirty Days, but as we mentioned in How To Focus Your Blogging Goals we’re going to break it out into bite-sized chunks.  So, what are we going to do for the month of March?  Well, first lets start off by giving the short summary of exactly what I’d like to do for the Puppy In Training Website.

The Puppy In Training Product Mission

Puppy In Training Product Mission: Using my knowledge and the relationships I’ve built with other Guide Dog and Service Dog Puppy raisers I’d like to create an online training program designed to teach others how to train their puppies using the same positive reinforcement training methods used to train  guide dogs, service dogs, Hollywood dogs, and therapy dogs.

• The Puppy In Training Online Pre-Course – The Pre-Course covers everything you need to know before getting your puppy.
• The Puppy In Training Online Email Course (8 week program) – Sign up for the Puppy In Training newsletter and receive for FREE the Puppy In Training Online via Aweber autoresponder.
• The Puppy In Training Online E-Book (8 week course) – Can’t wait for each sequence of the newsletter?  Then order the Puppy In Training Online E-Book.
• The Puppy In Training Online Membership (Ongoing) – Need the full package?  The Puppy In Training Online Membership site not only includes the E-Book and Autoresponder, but you also get Video Training of all the lessons, Membership forum, Ask The Trainer, Members Only Articles, and discounts from your favorite retailers.
• The Puppy In Training Online Membership Pre-Pay (Ongoing) – Pre-pay your first 3 months of the Puppy in Training Online Membership site and gain access to the entire 8 week Puppy In Training Online course all at one time (rather than trickle).
• The Puppy In Training Online Videos on DVD (8 week course) – Don’t have access to the internet?  Order the Puppy In Training Online Videos on DVD.
• The Puppy In Training Online Bundle (Membership site + DVD) – Get the entire package including all your videos on DVD.

As you might be thinking this looks like a monstrous task and how do you plan on creating all this information in the span of thirty days.  While I’m sure it’s possible as I mentioned earlier it’s time to break it down into items I think I can accomplish in thirty days.

My Thirty Day Goal For March

My Thirty Day Goal For March is to accomplish the first two steps in the Puppy In Training Online Product.  Lets break this down even further into yet smaller chunks then add deadlines.

• Write the lessons for the Pre-Course – 2 weeks 3 lessons per week = 6 total lessons – due date 3/7
• Write the lessons for all 8 weeks 3 lessons per week = 24 total lessons - due date 3/14
• Setup Autoresponder.  Break each week up into 3 chunks.  Although we won’t know exactly when an email goes out (a person can register and start their course on Tuesday or Saturday) in a hypothetical week starting on Monday here’s what the sequence would look like: – due date 3/21
  • Week 1 Day 1 Email goes out Monday
  • Week 1 Day 2 Email goes out Wednesday
  • Week 1 Day 3 Email goes out Friday
  • Week 2 Day 1 Email goes out Monday
  • Week 2 Day 2 Email goes out Wednesday
  • Week 2 Day 3 Email goes out Friday
  • etc…
• Take all 24 lessons and format and get into a nice format e-book.  Take a look at the Smart Passive Income eBooks the Smart Way. – due date 3/31

It’s a daunting task getting the free products together, but they will build upon the paid products and make that part of this project much easier.  The majority of you will be reading this post long after I hopefully finish this project so please check out my progress at http://puppyintraining.com.

Are you in the midst of creating a product for your website or blog?  Have you thought about product creation and haven’t started yet?  If so, what’s stopping you?  Did you finish creating an online product?  If so, tell us your story in the comments below.

Early on, there was a time when I had no aspirations for making money with my blog.  However, I did have a thirst to find more traffic, visitors, relationships, and community for my blog.  My aspirations quickly changed as I searched for more knowledge on how to improve my blog.  During the search for information on how to get better results I remember coming across several blogs about blogging and making money online including Darren Rowse’s Problogger and Yaro Starak’s Entrepreneur’s Journey (those are the first two I remember).

After reading through those two blogs and many others I decided that blogging could be a significant source of income.  I devoured heaps of content and even though I never wrote it down I always had several money goals floating around in my head.

My Money Goals Timeline

In late 2007 I decided to monetize my blog with some simple goals in mind.  Those goals were:

Goal #1 – Make enough money to buy a cup of coffee (from Starbucks) – make your first $5 – GOAL ACHIEVED 1/15/2008

• I made my first pennies on October 27th, 2007 with Google AdSense.  I made 8 cents just 4 days after installing AdSense code on my blog.  I was well on my way!
• By the end of 2007 I racked up a whopping $1.48 total through Google AdSense and in addition started using some Amazon Associate Affiliate links, sold my first book,  received a commission of 41 cents from Amazon (I wouldn’t receive another Amazon commission until April 2008), and finishing 2007 with a grand total of $1.89.
• On Januray 14th, 2008 I had my first $1+ day with Google AdSense and on January 15th I’d achieve my goal by accumulating $5.36.  However, Google does not make a payment to you until you clear $100.  I believe Amazon makes a payment after you clear $10

Goal #2 – Make your first $100 – GOAL ACHIEVED 4/22/2008

• It wasn’t long after I made enough money for my first cup of coffee that I would clear the $100 mark.  In mid February 2008 I wrote two landmark articles (for me) that would cause a landslide of traffic.  The first article (with the help of StumbleUpon) pushed me from an average of 100-200 page views a day to over 7000 page views in one day and trickled down over the next couple weeks.  At the end of February, I wrote a second article that found the front page of Fark.com.  The first day on Fark I received over 5000 page views and the second day over 25,000!  Throughout the rest of March my total daily page views fluctuated between 1K and 5K.  March was the first month I cleared $100 in Google AdSense earnings and I’d receive my first Google AdSense check on April 22nd, 2008 for $168.52

Goal #3 - Make enough money in a month to pay for gas ~$150 - GOAL ACHIEVED! 9/31/2009

• I cleared the $100 mark per month in February 2008.  However, there would be a drop off in my blogging efforts for a good part of 2008.  I slowed on my social marketing efforts and my content production was not as regular.  My statistics for the first time started to decrease rather than increase.  By June 2008 I rededicated myself and started producing more content however I concentrated more on SEO and less on social marketing.  My numbers started increasing and by January 2009 my AdSense total for the month was regularly over $100.
• In early September 2009 I decided to rethink my Google AdSense placement and reviewed my entire blog.  I noticed I was not utilizing AdSense on all my pages and received a decent amount of traffic on category pages and tag pages.  I added AdSense to these pages made a few other changes including adding a link unit and removing AdSense from the sidebar and the end of articles.   All these changes resulted in my first month over $150.  My September 2009 monthly total was $158.51.

Goal #4 - Make enough money in a month to make car payments ~$500 – NOT YET ACHIEVED est. 4/30/2010

As of today (2/16/2010) my monthly average is around $250.  My traffic is steadily increasing, but at the current rate I’d have to double my traffic to clear the $500.  I’m pretty sure I can do this much quicker with current traffic levels and I’m just under monetizing my blog.  I think a few changes might get me over the hump without an increase in traffic. Here are a few things I plan on doing this month.

• Add the Ninja Affiliate Plugin to my blog – This will add affiliate links to my blog based on keywords.
• Revisit Commission Junction for better affiliate programs then Amazon Affiliates.
• Try adding Chitika Advertisements to the blog.
• Optimize the placement of Google AdSense on my blog
• Update my theme with Advertising as a key element of the theme

Goal #5 – Make enough money in a month to make mortgage payments ~$2000 – NOT YET ACHIEVED est. 6/30/2010

This a more long term goal, but I already have an idea on how I will achieve this number.

• The idea of a product has been bouncing around my head for quite sometime now.  If I can summon the will power to launch a product by the beginning of June 2010 I believe I can clear the $2000 mark with the help of a good product launch.  As time goes on I’ll share my ideas, experiences, and results.

Goal #6 – Make enough money in a month to quit your day job ~$5,000 – NOT YET ACHIEVED est. 12/31/2010

A second long term goal that I have some ideas about.

• While multiple product launches this year are not out of the question I have some ideas on marketing my product to bring in more customers using a hybrid online/offline approach.  As time goes on I’ll expand upon these ideas.

Focus On Your Blogging Goals

So that’s it!  That’s my money timeline.  It’s been bouncing around in my head since the first day I monetized my site and today is the first day I laid it all down on paper (or typed it to the monitor).  Hopefully this helps you set your own money goals.  As I’ve mentioned before in my February 2010 goal article, it’s a good idea to break your goals down into smaller chunks and that is exactly what I did by creating an initial more achievable goal of $5 and finishing with the enormous end goal of $5K a month.  I also set deadlines and charted a few short ideas on how I might be able to achieve my unfinished goals.

Well, if you read through my money timeline then you can see that I’m half way there and hopefully I’ve accomplished Goal #6 by the end of 2010.

How about you?  Do you have money goals?  Have you set yourself a timeline?

Just a couple months ago I had a sudden revelation on how I set my website goals.  I posted my first Statistics and Income Report for 2010 a few days ago.  I plan on posting a statistics and income report at the beginning of every month revealing my numbers on my Puppy In Training website.

Image by Seaners4real

I’m sure you’ve seen these reports on many other blogs across the web.  I find them interesting because they allow me to compare my results (both income and web analytics) with blogs in different niches.

However, one thing I often notice at the end of these reports are statistical goals for next month.  For instance I often read things like (these are just examples I made up, but very similar to to income reports I see every day online):

“I was happy to make $85.33 this month and next month my goal is to make $100.00″

“This month we surpassed a huge milestone of 10,000 visitors and next month we’d like to increase that total by 20% to 12,000 visitors a month”

“We had 99,127 page views down from 122,324 last month.  We’d like to get our numbers back over 120,000 page views next month”

Do those statements sound familiar?  They sound familiar to me and not only because I’ve seen them across the internet, but because I’ve also written similar statistical  and income goals in my journal.

How I Set My Website Goals

Okay, so what is the problem with posting a goal like “Our goal for February is 34,000 unique visitors and 56,000 page views on the Puppy In Training blog”?  Honestly…there’s nothing wrong with stating a goal like that…why not?  It’s reachable.  Afterall it’s only about a 10% increase over last numbers. Also,  I’m revealing the number to the world which makes me accountable.

The problem (and this is something I usually see on most statistics and income reports) is not the goal to reach a specific number, but we have not planned a way to reach that goal.

If your goal is to increase traffic then be sure to implement some traffic building tactics into your goal setting.

“I’d like to reach 34K visitors in February and I plan on increasing traffic by…

• Guest Posting
• Working on my website SEO
• Increasing my average number posts
• Article Marketing
• Comment Marketing
• Increase my Twitter Presence
• Increase my Facebook Presence

I’d even suggest breaking these goals down even further and adding due dates like I did for my February Thirty Day Goals.

After January’s goal setting debacle I’ve learned a little bit about myself and lofty goals.

• Don’t set to high an expectation or you may not want to even start on your monthly goal.
• Break down larger goals into smaller, achievable pieces.
• Set due dates.
• And today’s lesson: Don’t just set the destination goal.  Analyze and determine ways (goals) to reach that final destination.

My goals this month are inline with increasing traffic and income on the Puppy In Training blog without stating that I’d like to increase traffic to xxxxx number of visitors or make xxx dollars.

Nuff said about how I set my website goals.   What about you?  Do you just put a number out there and hope you can somehow reach it?  or do you setup a plan on how to achieve your statistical goals?

Wow! those last 11 days went by fast and let me tell you I was a complete failure…not only in my Thirty Day Goal, but also in my Eleven Day Goal.  If you want to see my goals take a look at last months two posts:

Goals For 2010
Article Creation Goal Update #1

Should I even recount my results over the past month?  Why not…The goal was to output 72 total articles between my blogs (way, way too lofty a goal).  After the first twenty days we revised the goal to only output 15 articles in the last 11 days.  Here were my results:

First 20 days: 10 articles
Last 11 days:  5 articles

Eeeek!!! Not even close.

image by Anders V

Focus Your Blogging Goals

Last months exercise helped me realize that I need to focus my blogging goals.  In particular only concentrate on one thing at a time (one blog in this case).  I gave myself such a lofty task that the mere thought of starting was enough to make me procrastinate.  Another possible solution could be to break down these large items into smaller chunks.  Maybe 72 total articles is achievable for me, but I need to think of it more as writing 2.5 articles a day (that’s a high expectation considering I have a full time job to worry about).  Finally, I didn’t create any due dates, besides the final date.  It kind of reminds of the procrastination in college…do nothing all semester then write a 20 page paper from 5pm till 8am the next day…not the smartest way to accomplish a goal.  What I need are intermediate goals, not just the big final…more like high school where most teachers break your work out into homework assignments, pop quizzes, regular exams, midterms, and finals.

Here are a few things I noticed.  The day I set my goals I was very productive probably outputting two or three articles in one sitting.  As time moved forward my productivity declined.  I was having motivation or procrastination problems.

This months goal is to just focus on one blog.  Concentrate all my efforts to get everything done on that one blog.

Focusing on PuppyInTraining.com

This months goal is to focus all of my efforts on the PuppyInTraining.com blog.  The Puppy In Training blog is basically about my journey as a Guide Dog puppy raiser.  I like to give out tips and hints on dog training (stuff I learn during my puppy training classes), information about upcoming dog events, dog product reviews, and a bunch of other dog and puppy related rants and writings.

I guess the million dollar question is what do I want to do to the Puppy In Training website?  So lets get started…

1. Write a minimum of two posts a week released once on Tuesday and once on Thursday.
2. Read through and update all the pages.
3. Write a My Story post that covers my entire life with dogs.
4. Update the design on the Puppy In Training site.
5. Create a newsletter sequence to run once a month for 6 months.

That’s the list I want to accomplish in the month of February 2010.  Lets break it down even further into smaller more bite sized chunks.

Write a minimum of two posts a week released once on Tuesday and once on Thursday (due date February 14th)
I released my first article of the month Tuesday, Feb 2nd called Top 5 Reasons Why A Dog Sticks His Head Out The Car Window.  That’s one down only 7 more to go.  In order to accomplish this goal I’m going to work on writing my Tuesday and Thursday posts the weekend before.  In fact I might try writing six articles on Saturday that I can schedule for the rest of the month.  On a side note, I would really like to get 3-5 total articles out in any given week and will work towards that goal if time permits.

Read through and update all pages (due date February 7th)
This shouldn’t be to difficult a task and can probably be done in one or two sittings.  As I look at the current Puppy In Training site I need to update the information on the About Page, make the Contact Page a little neater, add information to the Advertise Page (this could lead to another source of revenue), and maybe do some brainstorming on what I could add to the Resources Page.  One final thought…should I add another page to include a store front?

Write a My Story post that covers my entire life with dogs (due date February 7th)
This should be an easy one.  Sit down and write my life with dogs.  Break the article up into 4 separate 500+ page articles.  Release in a series and link to from my about page.  This micro-goal dovetails with the first two micro-goals.

Update the design on the Puppy In Training site (due date February 28th)
This is probably the biggest micro-goal.  I probably won’t opt for a custom designed template for my website, but may choose a premium template.  I’ll probably outline a post here at the Thirty Day Goal website and do my best to identify exactly what I’m looking for in a template and see what I can find.

Create a newsletter sequence to run once a month for 6 months (due date February 28th)
This is another daunting task.  I have approximately 2000 subscribers to my Puppy In Training newsletter and don’t have a proper sequence of newsletters in place.  My first step in this process is to send a quick newsletter to all my subscribers and update them on my upcoming goals, any puppy news etc.   Then create the newsletter sequence and try to follow the format Darren Rowse is using at Digital Photography School.  Check out his newsletter sequence article.

In order to document this months journey here’s a look at the current state (as of 2/1/2010) of the PuppyInTraining.com website:

Puppy In Training Home Page

Puppy In Training Post Page

Okay, so I think I got it for this month.  I focused my goals.  I broke them down into smaller chunks.  I assigned due dates.  Now lets get rocking!

Do you have a Thirty Day Goal this month?  Do you have trouble focusing or accomplishing goals?  Please tell us your story in the comment section below.

At the beginning of this month I decided to focus my efforts on one project: my blog about raising a Guide Dog Puppy In Training.  The plan is to report income numbers and the website statistics using Google Analytics.

Here are the statistics on my Puppy In Training blog as of January 31st 2010.

• Web Address: http://puppyintraining.com
• First Blog Post: August 2007
• Number of Blog Posts: 333
• Number of Comments: 1,469
• Number of RSS Subscribers: 1,959
• Twitter Followers: 35
• Facebook Fanpage Fans: 8

Google Analytics Report January 2010

Traffic has increased since December 2009, but as you can see from the graph day to day it is very flat.  When I am active in creating traffic channels to my blog you would normally see spikes whether from a guest post, stumbleupon spike, or Digg front page.  I’d like to see at least one such spike a month.  Unfortunately, as you can tell I haven’t been to active outside of creating content for my Puppy In Training blog.

Income Report – January 2010

Google AdSense: $251.62
Amazon Associates: $26.91
TOTAL: $278.53

Compared to last month AdSense has increased only slightly (approximately $2) and Amazon Associates has decreased approximately $8.

It’s difficult to determine when Google AdSense will increase and decrease.  It usually goes up and down with traffic, but not always.  This past month I did make a few changes by removing several Ad blocks from the website and could be the cause of the slight decrease in relationship to the increase in traffic.

I usually include Amazon Associates links in posts when appropriate in an article.  On occasion I produce dog product reviews and include amazon associate links.  Thus far my most successful posts have been a series on dog bowls.

Conclusions

As you can tell there’s really not much going on with my Puppy In Trainin blog.  That needs to change.  If you haven’t already read my Thirty Day Goal for February then check out How To Focus Your Blogging Goals.  My Thirty Day Goal for February will hopefully help increase traffic and bring new visitors and subscribers to the site.  However, I have not implemented any way to produce the traffic spikes I mentioned in Google Analytics section of this report.

I’ll tack on one more goal for the month…join a social traffic group to help gain the traffic spikes mentioned earlier.

That’s it for the month.  I plan to get a Statistics and Income Report together every month to track and review my progress.  It will give me a chance to analyze my blog, make decisions on how to increase traffic and income, find out what’s working and what is not, and aid in determining my Thirty Day Goal for the month.

Houston we have a problem!  The January 2010 Thirty Day Goal was slightly over aggressive.  Actually I was so overwhelmed thinking about getting as many articles together as possible guess how many I actually produced up to this point?  I think maybe 5 total…   Yep, this month has been almost a complete failure.  However, today a light bulb went on in my head.  I’m trying to do too much in too little time.

Problem #1 – The first weekend of the month was a holiday.  January 1st is a big time to celebrate in my family and so what did I get done that weekend…a big fat 0.

Problem #2 – Fast forward to weekend number 2…I had a snowboarding trip planned that ate up four days and to top things off the two days before vacation I was scrambling around buying new stuff for my trip and packing my bags.  That’s a total of 6 days no-work.

Problems 1 and 2 (kind of reminds me of thing 1 and thing 2 from Cat in the Hat) put me way behind.  So, what happened next?  I was so overwhelmed I was like a chicken with his head cut off.  I started several articles, but didn’t finish because my mind got side tracked and started thinking about 7 things at once…not good.

So, now that we only have eleven days left in the month I’m calming myself down and revising my goals.

Eleven Day Goal

I want to work on three of my blogs and therefore would like to put at least an article every other day for these three blogs and here is the plan of attack.

• Between today (Wednesday) and Friday write two articles per blog = 6 articles.  That’s totally doable.
• Saturday and Sunday are non-publishing days, but heavy writing days.  Write 2 pillar articles per blog (to be released on Tuesday and Thursday) – total 6 articles this weekend.
• During the week write a minimum of 1 short article per blog (300 – 500 word).  3 articles.

That there my friends will be the new writing schedule.  Write 2 pillar articles per blog on the weekend and a minimum of 1 short article during the week.  Also, I did mention using alternative methods to produce more content and while I haven’t received any guest articles I did join a site that supplies content as long as you include a link back to their sponsors.  We’ll see how that goes over with my audience.

So, to recap:

• By January 31st I will have a total of 15 articles written for my three sites.
• I will not lose my head anymore.
• All will be well at the end of the month.

Since this month revolved around content creation.  What shall we do for next months “Thirty Day Goal?”  I’m thinking time to promote!

This blog has layed dormant for quite some time now.  However, now that new year is upon (and many of us are writing down our goals for the year) I decided to revive the Thirty Day Goal.

What do I have in store for this blog?  Well, it’s been almost a year and a half since my last entry and at that time I was updating my progress on the Thirty Day Challenge 2008.  Unfortunately, I did not complete that years challenge.  However, in 2009 I finished all of the lessons, but did not make my first $1.  However, the blog I created in 2009 is still averaging about 20 visitors a day and approximately 40 page views.  I guess I just did not choose a profitable niche.

Back to the question…what do I have in store for this blog?  First off I did notice that I have 12 subscribers to the blog…Thanks guys and please give me a shout in the comments section if you’re still following.  If any of you would like me to talk about a specific topic then please let me know.  Second, I plan on using this blog for monthly and yearly goal setting, tracking my progress, and hopefully giving you insight on what works for me and my internet business.

image by Dan4th

I’m not talking about hockey goals.  However, I love playing hockey and one of my personal goals would be to become a better hockey player…

What I’ve Accomplished Through 2009

A quick update on my progress at the beginning of 2010.

• Including this blog I have 6 active blogs.
• Collectively these 6 blogs pull in about 30K visitors and 50K pageviews.
• I make about $300 a month from these blogs mostly from Google AdSense and Amazon Affiliates

Goals For 2010

I’m going to try and keep this list short which hopefully makes it easier to accomplish.

1. 10 websites each receiving 100+ visitors a day.  In 2009 I only had 1 that produced at that traffic level.
2. 1 million page views in 2010. This is related to goal #1.  In 2009 we had 486,060 page views.
3. Average $150 a day in revenue from these 10 websites directly or indirectly.  In 2009 my highest month grossed $10 a day.
4. Launch my first membership website. In 2009 I began the process…establishing preeminence, starting an email list, partially building the site.

Okay…so that’s a short tidy list.  As we move throughout the year I will establish ONE Thirty Day Goal on the first of each month that will help me accomplish one of these 3 major goals for 2010.

January’s Thirty Day Goal

That brings me to this months Thirty Day Goal.  Drum roll please…

• I mentioned that I have established 6 blogs in total.  I’d like to start this month off right and produce a minimum of 3 articles a week between all six blogs.  A steep request I know, but content is king and before we start drawing traffic to our sites and getting loyal subscribers it’s a good idea to get a base of pillar articles.  So…6 blogs x 3 articles x 4 weeks = 72 total articles!  By the way, this months goal helps by not only generating content and hopefully traffic, but also creates good writing habits.

I better start thinking about ways to produce articles and fast.  Hmmm…Guest Posts, Paid Posts, Hire a Blogger, Ask Friends To Write To My Blogs…Who knows…Are any of you interested in contributing guest posts let me know in the comment section below.

1 article down for the month of January 71 more to go.

If anyone is still following this blog I apologize for not getting posts done last week.  As you all know I’m very behind on my thirty day challenge.   This past week has been tough with several fires at work and trying to finish off a contract project that I’ve been working on for the past month.

I’ll do my best to try and get back on track, but next week I’ll be on vacation in Alaska for the next 8 days.  I’m going to try and get some work done, but I’m not too sure if our cabin will have internet.

If you don’t hear from me for the next week then you’ll know I don’t have internet.  I’ll do my best to catch some halibut and salmon and avoid the grizzlies.  I’ll speak to everyone real soon!