Watching the Traffic Fall

I have these phases that I go through where I blog a lot, everyday, sometimes more then one post per blog per day. Then shortly after that I have a large phase where I struggle to blog. I try to do it, at least every now and again. Sometimes it is apathy that makes it happen. Illness, exhaustion, and maybe a little bit of defeat. It is true that I think blogging can be a huge part of our future and that I think it is important for what I hope to accomplish, but since it is slow work and takes a lot of time, I often think...eh, it's not helping anything any way. This last dry spell (the month of January) had more to do with feeling overwhelmed. With the Helium Reward-athon, I am trying to cram too much into a very short day full of other things. I haven't felt much like blogging and other things seem so important. This has led me to leaving my blogging duties behind.

I know I have said it before, but it is one thing that makes me sad. I struggle with traffic on most of my blogs. Some of them make a great deal of sense. After all I often wonder if I have anything of value that makes people want to read my blogs, link to them, and come back. But usually I watch my traffic grow and feel that maybe, just maybe I do. Then I watch it fall dramatically with a slow month and feel like I have to start over from scratch. Not quite scratch, but almost. I then usually work hard, build it up to a few hundred, and then slip back into the quite phase bringing it down to just over fifty.

It is sad that three hundred visitors excite me. There are some who are disappointed by three hundred visitors a day and here I am excited by three hundred a month. I know that I need to figure out how to work on improving my blogs, networking them, bringing in traffic, and building them up so that they are indeed making money. I just don't often feel like doing that and that gets me down.

I enjoy the writing part. I love writing entries, posts, even the sponsored posts, and am not much for the promoting and marketing part. This is part of why I enjoy writing on other websites. They promote my articles for me because it benefits them as well.

Anyway...that is today's ramble.

Busy Busy Bee

Last week had a lot of interuptions taking my mom here and there and Marcus to his grandma's on Wednesday. Peter worked on Saturday. All in all, I feel like one busy bee. I have been cleaning the house and preparing to pack. I have been working on making money and taking my mom where she needs to go. I have been taking care of Marcus and I am feeling really tired. Of course I have said that before. I think tonight needs to be a read books and write night instead of a movie night. Maybe I even need to take a nice hot bubble bath with lovely scented bath oil. Do something just for me for a change.

I started a new book and it is good, but since then I haven't had the chance to read it. I must say, this blog feels as scrambled as I have been lately. I am just one scrambled and busy bee.

Blogging

There are times when I look at my monthly statistics and I see a correlation between how much I write and how many visitors I have. Usually, instead of encouraging me, it bums me out. After all, I wish that no matter what, my blogs were growing with traffic. Instead they stay in the pathetic numbers range and I am not completely sure what to do about it. I know that I need to work on promoting them using bookmarking and blogging sites. I just haven't taken the time to do that.

This is my plan. From now till April 14th most of my energy is going to the Reward-athon on Helium. This is doing two things. First it will pay directly and then it will increase my monthly passive income from them. This should help me out a great deal.

Then the rest of April I will work on increasing my blogs traffic. I am working on a number of blog plans and changing some of the ones that I have. This will make it easier to keep up with them and to have something to say on all of them. But I can work on increasing traffic on all of them.

Then I want to work on writing for Associated Content. Three months is a long time (I am already sick of working on Helium). So, there I will write May and June. I want to get as many articles out there on Associated Content (any that are denied for upfront payment will also be published on Triond and maybe Helium increasing the income from both sources while also helping out Associated Content).

After that I want to work on Squidoo and Hubpages for July and August. This should break up the monotony of life some since each of these does things differently then the others. September will be dedicated to promoting my writing and other works as well as working on increasing traffic to the blogs.

October and November will be dedicated to how to articles at the couple of websites that I write for how to's.

December will rap up the year with a variety of things for all the websites and some additional promotion.

While it seems crazy, to have a whole year planned out like this, it also seems to be a good idea.

On top of that, I would like to open up and advertise for my own Cafe press shop in August or September of this year. However, to do this I need to get to work making designs to sell! I have a handful of ones I really like, but that certainly isn't enough.

Well, I guess I have to go an update my other blogs now. Plus do a design for CafePress, and of course write an article or two for Helium! :-D Good thing it is only 10:45!

A New Day

It's a new day and while I have a ton of things to do today, I am trying to get back in the habit of blogging every day. Of course, I have changed some blogs and cut some down. I have picked out the ones that are best for me and easiest to maintain. This is helping me out a lot since I don't feel overwhelmed by the situations at hand.

I am still writing gobs and gobs for Helium as I try to hurry up and make money with the reward-athon. I have also started my work as the craft sub-categories steward. Helium has started working with some people to make their site better and I have become of those people. On top of it all I am working my Pay-to-click programs, something that excites me as I have watched the pennies turn to dollars. And I am blogging. Lots of blogs for the future and lots of money coming in from passive incomes and I am all good.

Valentine's Day

Often the question of the ages comes down to are you ready for...Right now that question is, are you ready for Valentine's Day. This is a day when you are supposed to go buy that special someone something...special. It is a day that is steeped in commercialism, but that doesn't change the desire to get a great gift, both for your loved one and from your loved one. With that in mind, you should start looking for great coupons. I have the perfect place to find just that! Buy a great gift for your man using Best Buy Coupons, or treat your lady to something special while taking advantage of Diamond.com Deals. It is always great to give (and receive) a great gift, but why not take advantage of deals, coupons, and sales while doing it?

Disclosure

Today

Today has been a very successful day in my mind. I stayed up through nap time and got a few articles written for the Reward-athon. I am currently at at least 120 dollars for the month. Which isn't too bad. I would like to make a lot more money then that though, but it means I need to write a lot more articles, like ten a day and right now I am averaging around seven.

I have also been working with pay to click programs and starting to bring in money with them which excites me. I think that it is a great way to add a touch of money to my income generating machine.

I have also done a few sponsored posts which is great. I really haven't gotten much money from this avenue in the past couple of months and it has made it look rather pathetic on my earnings for the month of December and January. Of course, other programs are slowly coming together to make me more money and I am working hard to build my passive incomes.

Well thanks for listening.

Site Wide Disclosure

I am not sure if this counts the way that I am hoping that it does. I don't want to leave any of my readers in the dark about one very straight forward fact. I make money through sponsored posts. I refuse to lie about products, so if I don't know I won't write about it. However, I will provide with the information provided to me when a sponsored post is assigned to me.

I may not know that a company is the best car insurance, but I will tell you how I was told. There are many sponsored posts on my blogs. This is primarily how I make money right now, though that is beginning to change. I apologize if you come here and you feel that I have taken sponsored posts too far, or that I shouldn't do sponsored posts at all. I enjoy writing them and definitely enjoy having the income come in.

Webmasters on Spock.com

I joined Spock.com awhile back now and have enjoyed using it immensely. Spock is a great people search. They have an ever growing list of people. They include things that they find out about them, where you can get their information online, and even more things. It can be used to search everyday people such as myself, and even more famous people.

I once checked out Harry Houdini for the fun of it. Because it can be a lot of fun. Members can add things to the base of information found there. So, if you know something you can add it. For Harry Houdini I knew that he was from Appleton, Wisconsin. I added it.

Of course that isn't what today is about. Today is about finding a webmaster. You can search the term webmaster and get a huge list. Of course I wanted something a little closer to home. I first searched Midland, Texas webmaster. There was no one here that was listed as a webmaster. Still I pressed on and searched Texas webmaster. I came up with a sizable list of 212 choices.

Spock really lets you find whatever you are looking for. I now have a large list of webmasters who aren't that far from me that I can get a hold of to find out more information about what they can do and if they can help me. Of course, it might not work that way, since I suppose that I could list myself as a webmaster. After all, I do work on the web a lot and have a few websites. I don't know if that makes me a "master" or not, but I suppose if I wanted to be!

So whether you are looking for a webmaster or your buddy Jim, Spock is a great place to go. You can go there for a serious people search or just to have a little fun. Just be warned, it is so much fun it is addicting!

Making Money

So, I have been working hard at making money since about August. Some months I have worked harder then other months. I mostly write to make money. I tried the paid to read e-mails thing, but going and checking my e-mail account which was full of e-mail ads as well as a ton of spam was hard to do. It took a lot of time and was really boring.

I finally decided to join a pay to click site. I thought I might be able to do it while writing. I was right. You click on the link. You have to have that page up for 30 seconds. But you don't have to be on that page. I joined Daily Clicks, upgraded for $12 and paid the $15 for 10 referrals. In three days I have made $5. This means I am still in the whole, but it looks like I will be catching up really quickly.

They pay:
1-2 cents per click.
.05 cents for each referral's clicks as long as you haven't upgraded
1 cent per referral click if you do upgrade
Payout is $10

Upgrading is also supposed to get you more links to click on each day

If you are interested I would love to have you as a referral, just go and sign up today and start making money while doing the other things that you do!

Work

It seems that every couple of months I just have a hard time working. I don't want to blog, or to write articles or to spend hours on the internet trying to make a living. I did horrible in October. I just didn't put much work into trying to make a living. But I did great in November and then again in December. Now January is here and I am struggling.

I am having a hard time blogging, staying focused and working through the difficult patches that keep popping up. But I guess that is what working for oneself is all about. It isn't easy to work through these hard patches, but it is important.

I am trying to work for Helium a lot right now. They are having a reward-athon and you could make up to three dollars an article for writing. Plus you get the regular rewards of page views, and building a passive income. So, now I am working hard there. I wanted to have a thousand articles done in the three months, but it just doesn't look like I will make it. So, now I am hoping for five hundred, which might be more reasonable.

Anyway, that's what I am mostly doing right now. Working hard trying to make a living.

EyeGlasses

Eye Glasses are expensive. It is just that way. You want frames that are quality, comfort, and style, but that usually costs you an arm and a leg in the process, especially if your insurance doesn't cover any of it. But it doesn't have to be that way. There are other options. Here is a Great Discovery: www.ZenniOptical.com. They have really inexpensive eye glasses. This is because they sell only their own frames. This means you can't have the latest star's personal frames (or the frames with their name on it), but you can have quality, comfort, and style. Just for a lot less!

Blogging

I am really having a hard time blogging lately. Top it all off, I have a great oppertunity to make a lot of money with Helium's Reward-athon. They will pay you $1-3 for each article submitted depending on your writing stars and if you have three rating stars (I am still working on both). However, I am hoping to get at least five hundred new articles up there in the three months. So far I have added 27.

I am really working hard to have a great series of passive incomes. However, I am having a hard time with some of my work. Such as blogging in particular. I don't know. I just haven't felt like it. And it hasn't really made me much money. PayPerPost and such have, though not lately. The hope is that we can build great blogs that make a fair amount of money with Google Adsense, but that hasn't happened so far. Of course the more I work it the more likely it is to happen...

Shame on me for having such a hard time remembering that!

Moving

The truth is I am really feeling like crap. My head is killing me, and I am just blah. But I can't sleep even though I should. We found out yesterday that we have to move and it really bums me out. Okay, so we are paying a lot for our apartment (760 for 1000 sq ft), and it isn't the greatest of apartments. I feel a little like a whine baby, but...

Fall 2003 moved out of mom's and into dorms
Spring 2004 moved into my first apartment
Spring 2005 moved back in with mom when I could no longer afford to live on own
Fall 2005 married and moved into new apartment
Fall 2006 moved in with husbands cousins briefly (from Michigan to Wisconsin)
Fall 2006 moved into apartment
June 2007 moved (from Wisconsin to Texas)
now we will be moving May 2008

I know it is five months away, but now I don't want to buy anything more we will have to move and I don't want to settle in here any more then we have already done. I hate moving and feel like that is all I have been doing lately. Packing, unpacking, just to pack up again. However, this is how it all began. I had no idea how our apartment complex determined new rent rates, so yesterday while paying rent I asked. Well, it is a complicated process as to how they decide what the new rate will be, but the manager said it will be $80 to $120 more, at least. Um...that would mean $840 or more to live here. We just don't have that kind of money. Our windows here stink and it has been costing us about $200 a month to heat and cool the place...we just can't add that kind of expense to our budget. So, we have to find a cheaper place to live. Which we can do. We can find a cheaper, better, bigger place to live. I am just tired of moving. Suck it up I suppose...

We chose this apartment because we were in Wisconsin looking for an apartment over the phone and the internet. Additionally it was a time crunch and an apartment crunch. There just weren't many apartments open at the time. So, in desperation we grabbed the first apartment that was available. I just want to stay somewhere three or four years! We can't buy yet. We have no down payment, the housing market here is such that we are afraid if we buy now we might end up with a house not worth as much when we are done (it is booming big), and we haven't paid our bills on time this entire past year. There were times when things were crazy and bills had to be shifted around.

Wow, that was a lot of complaining. I really do know I am whining and I have to get over it and do what I need to do. Thanks for listening though!

Security is Important

We can talk about national security, but it isn't a discussion that will touch most of us at home. However, security in our computing will! We all want the most secure way to do things and when retrieving information across your network infrastructure this can be of utmost importance, especially when you are an enterprise network. Telnet has a variety of solutions that can make your network, computer systems, and files safe and secure. They make your world a peaceful place by providing the worlds best protection!

This has been a sponsored post brought to you with security in mind. If you need security, Telnet is your company!

I Hope Your Holidays Were Good Ones...

My holidays were great. I haven't blogged since the 20th of December, which isn't good for my blogging, but it was good for me. Now I am back and hoping your holidays were as good as mine. I didn't get a ton of gifts. Actually I got a beautiful butterfly necklace from my husband, a $50 from his grandpa and a $5 from his grandma (on different sides of his family), and a $10 gift card to Hobby Lobby. All in all it wasn't a huge Christmas, but it was a good one. I had fun shopping and actually went to Goodwill and found a lot of clothes on sale. I love finding good things and paying a dollar for them.

Additionally my son got a lot of toys. This was wonderful. His toy selection isn't that large and this helped out a lot. It made it so that there are lots of play options and has kept him busy for a few days. I love when he's busy. It makes things easier for me!

Well, while I haven't been blogging I have been doing other things. I have been writing articles. Last month I made about 211.70, which wasn't as good as November with 311.54, but it was nice. Hopefully this month I make even more then that! Time will tell...