Once again I find myself apologising here for the lack of activity. It’s been another full six months since the last post.

One thing is for sure though, it I haven’t been sitting around doing nothing – quite the opposite in fact.

Offline activities, including the day job, have consumed so much time and energy, it’s been difficult to find the time to just sit down in front on the computer and write.

But this week is different.

I have a week off work and away from the madness.

And to make me feel even more reflective, it will be my 46th birthday on Wednesday… gosh I’m beginning to feel old!

So, what’s been going on over the last few months?

First of all, I’ve become a Macintosh convert. I was lucky enough to get a hold of a little Macbook and I have to say, I’ve never looked back. I have invested in Windows 7 for my main PC, and it’s pretty good – but nothing really compares to the complete package that Apple provide. From day one, everything has just connected up and worked flawlessly. I’m an iPhone owner too (that’s where it all really started I guess) and I’m desperately trying to find a way to both afford and justify an iPad – the jury is still out on the iPad in my case, but if I can find the means and a good enough reason to get one, I will once they appear here in the UK.

Online I’ve actually been winding things down a fair bit. I’ve let a number of domains go. The ones that were just not doing anything for me. I’ve had to be quite ruthless here. But this has allowed me to focus and concentrate on the couple of sites and services that do generate some income and (I believe) provide a great value for money service, especially for those who are still finding their way.

Talking of cutting down ruthlessly, I’ve been unsubscribing A LOT from all the lists I found myself on. Doing this alone has no doubt both saved me money and given me back some time. Think about how much time you waste opening and reading the same emails pushing the same products over and over again and do something about it – even if it means I lose you from my list!

I still have one eye firmly on the “physical product” affiliate marketing model I have posted about before. I do continue to try and find the most efficient and cost effective way to direct internet users who are searching for their next big purchase online on to one of my affiliate links and I’m slowly making progress here. But there’s actually no substituting time effort and hard work in the market research, content generation and traffic production required in this arena. And since I’ve been severely lacking in time, my results laterally have not been too spectacular.

Music has returned in my life. It was never away, I always liked to listen. But many many years ago I was on the creative side of music. As life passed, this interest faded in the onslaught of trying to get a career underway and providing for my family. That journey continues, but at a less hectic pace these days.

So I invested in some software that simply replaces a ton of the old hardware I would have used in the past to produce sounds, and I’m trying to learn how to get the best out of this software as well as trying to reawaken the creative side of my brain after it’s been conditioned to switch off for so long.

I feel I’ve got a long way to go here too

It’s been a LONG time since I last posted here, but there’s a good reason for that. In fact two good reasons.

The first reason is that all the internet marketing tips and advice that I used to publish here is now being published over at the “updates blog” for Profit-Tools.com

That’s where all the latest news on any releases or information that may help you become more focussed and successful with your internet marketing. The blog you are reading will become more “personal” as time goes by, but I’ll still share any highs or lows I experience with my attempts to generate the extra cash I’m looking for to help pay for a few little extras for the family.

The second reason is I’ve been so busy.

I’ve been busy focussing on the continued shift in emphasis from promoting products and services in the “make money online” niche to other niches.

I have to say, the learning curve continues to be quite steep, but I do feel (after more than three years at this) that I am making progress. I’m beginning to understand market research better, and not just jumping off the deep end into a niche product just because I happen to like it. I’m starting to see some of the science that runs behind the gloss of product promotion on line, and it’s beginning to make more sense (and a little more money too). As an example of a niche site I tackled all wrong, I put together on about the Acer Aspire One Netbook simply because at one point I was thinking about buying one – I didn’t in the end

In the creation of this site I didn’t do the keyword research properly, so it wasn’t attracting to much attention. But I’ve recently revisited the site and began to apply some sound keyword optimisation to that site, and the statistics are beginning to show an improvement. I’m sure the backlink from this site will help generate some extra interest too.

So, my plan is to continue on two fronts :

• help and advice via the Profit-Tools.com site, Marketing Software via the Software4Marketers.com site, content for your articles, blogposts and websites via the YourMonthlyPLR.com site as well as a few other product specific sites
• my own niche marketing campaigns with products and services outside the “make money online” niche

I’ll keep you posted! (promise)

Just before Christmas last year, I embarked on a new venture where I decided to almost “turn back the clock” and return to where it usually starts when you are new to on line marketing.

Affiliate Marketing.

You know… the one the Guru’s go on about… no product, no website, no customer support etc. etc….

The trap I’ve fallen into is of course that my affiliate marketing efforts are mainly based on internet marketing itself.  This  has been relatively successful for me. I have made some money promoting Internet Marketing products, after all there is a hungry market out there looking to make money on line (maybe you are one of them?).

But promoting Internet Marketing products is actually quite difficult to succeed at. Again the topic is saturated with conflicting information, is dominated by the “Gurus”, and has a “major launch” every couple of days. It’s nearly impossible to keep up, never mind compete in the marketplace.

So, I, like many have gone down the “reseller” route. Again I’ve had success reselling rather than just promoting – but it comes with it’s own price (customer support for one). My software reseller site does quite well, and my Fantasos system does most of the hard work for me, so it is something I will continue with – but it is pretty “hands on” and does take up a fair bit of my free time.

However, as I said, back in December I started a new effort with affiliate marketing, but this time, completely away from the Internet Marketing niche.

The result was a very simple site that promoted a small portable games console just leading up to Christmas. To my genuine surprise, my site hit page one on Google in a few days, and to my even greater surprise, I was credited with 3 sales of these consoles a couple of days before Christmas.

The actual site took about an hour to put together (using the very clear video instructions provided here) and I used a couple of link submission sites to get the site indexed.

The rest was totally hands-off on my part. The best part was, I was also credited with a number of other product sales on the Amazon site. The customers had obviously continued to shop on Amazon after they’d ordered their console, and I got credited and paid for ALL of those sales with no effort on my part. Amazon are just brilliant at upselling and cross selling once they have a customer

This experiment has continued and I have created another site (away from Internet Marketing and Christmas toys) which, again took just over an hour to build, I’m now looking for the search engines to find. I have to admit that’s partially why I’ve written this post with a link to it

I will update this topic again soon with some results I hope I can share with you. In the meantime, if you are looking to get back into affiliate marketing, but away from the IM niche, then you may want to follow the formula I came across here

Do you get frustrated with the Internet Marketing niche?

Have you found a way into a lucrative niche that you have had some success with?

Share your experiences with us by leaving your comments below (don’t be shy!) and remember to include a link to your site so that you can gain some of my traffic

The last couple days have seen the launch on JP Schoeffel’s Adsense Firesale 4 and it looks very much like it’s going to sell out way ahead of it’s planned date.

I’m not really surprised.

Despite what seems like a really high priced item, the value is incredible. Best of all, the one off price is a LIFETIME one time payment into the Creative Niche Manager system – something that’s going to cost $197 a month when it goes out to full launch later.

I have taken the plunge and I have to say the Creative Niche Manager looks like something that anyone who is serious about building an online empire of Niche websites and monetize them effectively is going to really enjoy.

It takes one of my main beliefs that to be really effective on line, you need to both automate and centralize as much of your work. That way, your actual amount of effor required is much reduced, and you only need to log into a few websites to run your whole business. (My Fantasos ® is a great example of this for me).

I’ve already started to centralise my blogs into Creative Niche Manager so that I can log in to one site and control, update and monetize them (sometime automatically). I’ve also set up my first niche site provided though the Firesale and you can see how this site is going to be LOVED by the search engines, there are just tons and tons of CONTENT in the site, and the way it is structured it has many CONNECTED subjects through out. This is designed to help with getting hits on the search engines. I has a lot of monetization build in, including the very high quality ebook on sale, as well as the optimised opt in squeeze page to generate subscribers. Not to mention the Adsense, Amazon and Clickbak opportunities throughout the site. You can see this site here for yourself. The best bit is this site was built, optimised and uploaded ready to use in about 1 hour, including the autoresponder preparation.

But, here comes the bad news, the last I checked, JP only had 30 slots left for Founder Members.

So if you are serious this year about actually MAKING MONEY from the internet, then this opportunity should not be missed. Used properly, this service will allow you to build many many sites all optimized to collect money for you passively all year round, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Isn’t this the real reason you are on the internet?

Don’t wait any longer, use the link below and read the full story for yourself.

Go get your Firesale 4 now before it’s pulled off the market.