Bootstrapper Notes

Time to Organize Keywords

I did not create any new content for my sites today, but I did spend the lunch hour doing something productive.

I started organizing keyword lists for my eLance project I have running right now.  I am going to round out the trailer hitch site, and the cellulite site so they each have at least 100 articles.  While I have not closed the bidding yet, I think I have found the person I am going to hire.

BTW - Adsense was amazing today!

Settling into a groove

I feel like I am really settling into a groove.  Today I wrote three more articles for my pet site.  Tonight I added them to the site, then updated the sitemap for Google.  Google has been grabbing the sitemaps I have created, but I don't see any changes in the index yet.

I posted a project tonight for 100 articles over at eLance.  By early August I hope to have all three sites up to at least 100 pages each.  Then I have 2 more sites flushed out to get started on.  One will be in the real estate area and one will be in the home improvement area. 

I already have a small site that has been online for about 8 months on real estate.  It only has about 6 pages, but is getting 10 to 20 visitors a day.  I figure I can start adding content and it will hopefully be indexed pretty quick.

Cubicle Escape Podcast

While doing some surfing last night I stumbled across another site that is run by a couple guys taking a similar path to mine.  I am halfway thru listening to their first podcast in iTunes, and I have downloaded the rest to my iPod to listen to during drive time.

If you like listening to stories of guys starting a business, and the trials and tribulations that go along with it you should really check them out.

Here is the link: http://www.cubicleescape.com/v2/

I feel good about today

Wow, when I look back I feel really good about what I got done today, both at work, and my internet business.

I added 2 more articles to my pet site tonight.  It now has a total of 66 pages, so I need to still add 34 more to make this site round out at 100 pages.  I will hopefully be there within 10 days or so.

I am also excited to see the results of my two experiments that I reported on earlier.  I will keep you posted.

Article Marketer Experiment

**NOTE**:  Be sure and read the comments that have been posted here.  Chris Ellington, the CEO of Article Marketer wrote me a nice follow-up explaining why my article probably did not fair well.  I had submitted the article to a few article distribution sites previously.  Then I submitted the same article thru his service, not thinking it could be posted to the same sites again.  Be sure and read his entire post after reading this article.

I have been trying to find a way to distribute articles for publication easily and cheaply.  While reading AssociatePrograms.com today, I stumbled across a link to Article Marketer - so I went to check it out.  After reading the site, I decided to give it a try.

I paid $8.95 for the "Complete Distribution" package as described "Your article is submitted to over 29,307 people on 60 article announcement forums/groups, 74 targeted content web sites, and is listed at 27 article directories."

My title for this article is really unique, so I will be able to track where it goes easily.  I will report back with results after a week or two so that we can all see how it works.

For those of you who don't understand why I would want to distribute articles here is the quick synopsis.  At the end of the article there is a resource box with a couple of links back to my site.  As this article is picked up by hopefully hundreds of sites across the internet, these links should stay intact - and therefore give me a free back link - which will help to improve my search engine rankings.

You can read all about Article Marketer HERE.

Google Sitemaps Experiment

I have been reading for several weeks about the new Google Site Maps utility.  The hype is that you can now submit an XML file to Google that is basically a site map and all of your pages will get indexed.

So this morning I went and picked up a slick php script that crawls your site and generates a sitemap in the format that Google requires.  Here is the script if you want it - click here.  If you have half a brain it should be easy to install.

I installed it on all three of my content sites.  The cellulite site has 4 pages in Google right now, but only 3 of them have descriptions.  The pet site is fully indexed already so no problem there (except the new content I have been adding this week).  The trailer hitch site only has 21 pages in the index, and only a handful of these have descriptions.

It will be interesting to see if these sitemaps actually help to get pages into the index.  I will keep you posted.

Still Adding Content

I have really been working on adding new content the last few weeks.  I just placed 3 new articles on my Pet site tonight - that always feels good.  It is a good feeling to know that these articles will get indexed and earn me money for many years to come all maintenance free!

My three main content sites are really rocking this month with mostly Adsense earnings.  I will be outsourcing a batch of 100 articles sometime this week to one of my authors that I use from eLance.

I really need to round these 3 sites out with at least 100 articles each before I move onto starting a new site.  Several weeks ago I wrote 16 articles while sitting on airplanes during a business trip.  I should have several more trips during the next month, so I hope to use the "airport time" to write a bunch of content.

It is really looking like $500 per month for each of these sites is realistic with enough content.  I was reading Niche Site Confessions (an ebook I purchased a while ago), and they profiled a guy that builds 300 page content sites, that earn much more than that.  I like reading this type of thing as it gives me inspiration to continue!

June Content Site Review

Once again I experienced tremendous growth with my 3 content affiliate sites.

Adsense and Affiliate Sales earnings:  $76.22

I almost doubled my earnings from May!  Sure it is still pocket change, but these sites are still continuing to grow, and the revenue should as well.  I am going to be adding content to at a steady basis across these 3 sites, until they are all over 100 pages each.