OK we are third of the way through the year – lets see where Lis Sowerbutts is doing , original goals in italic from January for the first half of 2009:
Progress Against Original Goals
Get more organised and focused on the important stuff so that I can achieve the following:
Yes I think I’ve improved a lot in this area – my time management has even improved – give my self a tick on this one
Develop at least 10 more niche sites developed and promoted and ranking in the top 10 for my keywords
OK the count as of today is: 10 developed anyway – but with few backlinks built because I decided to focus on building the sites first so that a) they started aging and b) if they were pre-owned they didn’t lose any Google love they already had.
Develop at least 1 e-book out a month – to be also promoted via my own website which involves learning a few technical bits and a hard thing – how to write a sales letter!
Canned that one! I really don’t like writing that much – and certainly not longer pieces, wasted a fair bit of time doing this but finally published the material here and on hubpages: see my guide to making online income with HubPages
Maintain this blog, Passive Income on a regular basis – sorry can’t promise better than that – I try not to post unless I have something to say – or a question to answer – so if you want more posts ask more questions 
Big tick on that one – though I refocussed the blog on some keywords and now I even get some search engine traffic thanks to some links from a whole lot of friends!
Maintain my two today.com blogs – trying to blend social blog with trends to get a lot more search traffic to them – and do some entrecard dropping at least in the short-term.
Dropped entrecard – complete waste of space, in fact subsequently Today dropped entrecard too. Still maintain these blogs – but not very regularly – I have some issues with Today.com – maybe for another post.
Use AMA more frequently to support my money sites and other blogs.
Haven’t really – and they are pissing me off with their late affiliate payments. There are other options which I am considering.
Maintain and diversify my freelance writing income – probably to replace the part-time, real-world job I have, which is looking very shaky at the moment – mineral exploration anyone?
Part-time job became a victim of the global recession the end of January. The freelance writing has been up and down – some of it too is a victim of the global recession. Focussing on my money sites – they are recession proof!
Business Plan For the Next Quarter
- Get those 10 sites up and running with backlinks built and starting their run up the SERPS. I have a bunch more sites which I have bought but not yet developed.
- Build more backlinks to the hubs which make me money- after all they are hosted for free!
- Continue to review sites as they come up for renewal. If they have been up for a while and are not producing I drop them, if I haven’t got around to developing them and they were a 99c info I drop them – the renewal costs nearly as much as a com. If they’ve made $10 I keep them – that doesn’t sound like much but it covers direct costs and usually its my poor choice of keywords which is the problem not the site itself.
- Looking to develop another website which will be more focusing on small real world business owners and micro-preneurs who don’t know where to start with ranking a site in the SERPS.
- Not unrelated to #4 looking to develop a “real world” business of my own. I am considering starting doing some SEO consulting if/when we move back to New Zealand. I need to start making some moves to get myself established in this niche before I return home so I need a new site where I don’t swear too much LOL and avoid TLA’s!
- Continue to believe in myself and my business – after my little light bulb moment its been doing quite well on this – but I forgot to have a specific image to dream about – so I now leave you with this one: I thought it looked nice 🙂
Voted as having one of the best pool views in the world
Hotel Cap Eden Rock if you are interested ..
10 replies on “End of Month Update on Progress and a Business Plan”
Hah, I feel your struggle with time here. I am on an all out crusade to get as many niches under my belt as possible. However, time is really biting my rear here. The past month, I’ve got about 20 niche sites up (thanks in part to shelling out $$ for the articles), and I am hoping to put up about another 150 niche sites the next two months (got the content ready to fire away!).
But, like you, I pretty much only have time to put the sites up without doing any backlink work. Ah well, only so much you can do. I guess it’s better to age em the worry about backlinks anyways. New domain + traffic = sandbox.
Well that’s this month’s job -the backlinks – I find doing it assembly line style is more efficient anyways
Are you still finding decent sites to buy? I’ve noticed a lack of quality and quantity over the last couple of months. It’s puzzling given the global recession. I expected more people to unload their sites to raise money.
I exclusively buy from the closeout bin – but the quality varies a great deal -sometimes there’s good stuff, sometimes for days nothing
Hi Lissie,
Thanks for sharing the results of your first third of the year. And congratulations on all your successes. You are a real inspiration for me as I strive to sh*tcan my day job and build an internet business.
Thanks for all the great information you provide here and everywhere else you contribute.
agrande with low carb meals’s last blog post..A Diet With Low Carb Meals Works
Hi Lissa, I follow your blog, and I’m curious how many niches do you own? I have over 200 sites, but mainly what I do is outsource almost 100% of the content creation.
I’m glad to see you trying some different approaches… and I understand the issues with the 100 info domain names. I was one of many who register the .info and then find the issues with BANS.
Best of luck
Gabriel
(yep, one of the guys VIC kickout of the academy – and still have access… go figure)
I’m up to around 20 give or take – my record keeping isn’t keeping up very well! Yeah I decided to with my strength – my ability to hop from one thing to the next – keeps me interested. I am finally starting to make some $ so I am heavily investing in content at the moment – its the slowest bit and the easiest to outsource. Hows the SEO for small businesses market? I am thinking about doing the same thing when I go back to NZ – I have more contacts there but I have been struggling with what to charge…
Lis, the SEO market is ok, if you can explain him easily to them… ranking sites for NZ google is pretty easy… you just need to know how to sell your product.
Yeah that was what I was thinking – small pond all that stuff 🙂 I am pretty good at explaining technical stuff to non techies – I used to be a business analyst – its the selling bit which is a little intimidating but I’ve learned how to do it online so face to face can’t be that much harder can it?
[…] Back in May I had some new goals – so lets report against though shall we – well it amuses me – sorry if you find it boring! […]