I love reading magazines, they’re more suited for someone with a shorter attention span like me. I can get into books, but it much be something that really interests me. Magazines are nice because the articles aren’t long and there’s lots of pictures.

I currently subscribe to 4 different magazines. Thanks to Delta, you can actually use skymiles to buy magazines instead of airline miles. So I took them up on that offer and subscribed to Inc, Forbes, Wired, and Entrepreneur all for free. The problem with getting 4 new magazines every month is finding time to read them!

I usually save Wired for toilet reading material. The articles in that magazine aren’t as in depth. I mostly read this one to check out the cool gadgets and stuff. Entrepreneur is probably my favorite because I enjoy reading the success stories and ideas that so many people have.

It’s hard to believe that I’ve had about 10 days of vacation and haven’t found any time to read a magazine. I haven’t even flipped through Forbes yet. I’ll probably bring it to work with me to read during my lunch break. It’s the only way I’ll find time.

 

Today is the 27th, and Christmas is officially over in my house. We took down all the decorations, threw out the tree and cleaned the house. You might say ‘wow that was fast’, but in my house, we like to keep things organized and clean and that means throwing out a dead Christmas Tree.

I know I haven’t blogged in like a week. It’s been a nice vacation away from the harsh demands of blogging. While I am still on vacation from my real job (our offices are closed until January 2…. nice huh?), I am trying to get back into the swing of things with my websites. I haven’t done any work online in quite a few days. I sorta feel bad or guilty for not working.

If any of you were wondering how my Christmas went, it was very good! One of the best ever. I got a lot of awesome gifts including a new iPhone. I can’t believe I’ve been living the past few months without one. I literally haven’t put this thing down. I almost wrote this blog post from my iPhone. It’s the best device I’ve ever had. The Wifi connection it gets is about as fast as my computer. It makes browsing the web very convient. Even the EDGE network is pretty fast. Just the other night I was at dinner and we decided to go to a movie, so I pulled up some movie times on my phone in about a minute. It’s great.

I also got a lot of clothes, and a couple of Xbox 360 video games…including Guitar Hero 3 and Assassin’s Creed. I haven’t opened Assassin’s Creed yet, but will probably jump into that game tonight.

Like I said, it was a great Christmas. I pretty much got everything I could have asked for. But now it’s over. The big family feasts and fun days are over. It’s back to work for me.

I decided that in 2008 I will be switching my making money online focus from CPC to Affiliate Programs. I won’t stop running Adsense on YPN on my sites, but I will work diligently to optimize my sites with affiliate offers and remove and non-performing CPC ads. I will also limit the creation of new websites with CPC ads on them. Instead of trying to grow my Adsense earnings, I will be trying to maintain them so I can focus more on increasing my earnings through Affiliate Programs like Azoogle, NeverBlueAds, CJ, and CPAEmpire.

I currently make just a couple hundred dollars a month through affiliate programs, with most of that money coming from ringtone offers. Blogs like Shoemoney and Zac Johnson have really turned me on to Affiliate marketing. The potential to make money is so much greater when you’re making money from commissions and leads versus the 3 cents you get someone clicks an ad on your website.

Making money from affiliate programs can be a lot more difficult though, that’s why not as many people do it. It’s so easy to build a content website and slap some Google ads on it, but if you’re trying to drive traffic to your website so people purchase products or fill out leads it will take a lot more work. Zac Johnson wrote a very good article on PPC Marketing, which is pretty much spending money in Adwords to drive traffic to your affiliate landing pages, hoping that the lead/sale commission pays more then what you spend. After reading his article, I swear you’ll want to kick start a campaign yourself.

2008 is going to be a very interesting year for me. It’s going to be a make or break year. I’ve been sitting idle for so long now, something’s got to give. I’m hoping that getting into affiliate marketing will be that push I need to get over the hump and start making serious money.

When it comes to making money online, I hate this time of the year. Why? Because college football is over. Sure there are bowl games in a couple of weeks, but that’s pretty much it. Some of my biggest websites, such as Gator Envy, Tim Tebow Fan Site, and Fight Song Lyrics all revolved around the world of college football. Once football season ends, I see big drops in traffic and revenue. It’s not fun!

That’s the downside to having a lot of sites in your network in the same niche. If something happens, or the season ends, then you’re screwed until it starts back up again.

It’s important to spread your websites across different areas. It’s something I’ve been meaning to do for awhile now, but for some reason every time I start a new website, it’s always about sports. On one hand you want to build websites around your interests, but on the other you need to spread your risks. Finding the perfect balance is key.

In 2008, I’m going to concentrate on buying/building websites that don’t have time constraints. Websites that won’t ever become obsolete (such as Myspace sites or video game specific sites). You don’t want everything you’ve worked for to come crashing down because of an outside source.

I haven’t explored the reasoning behind my recent RSS drop, but it has to do with the new theme I launched on this blog. Ever since the new theme went up, my RSS numbers dropped by about 40-50 subscribers. So, I’m not sure if the previous theme somehow inflated RSS numbers or if this one screwed something up. Either way, I’ll check it out.

Recently though my traffic numbers have also been decreasing. I used to get 120-140 uniques/day consistently, but now I rarely get over 100 uniques. Most of the time it’s like 70 uniques or so a day.

One reason why my traffic has dropped is because I’m not putting myself out in the “community” like I used to. I’ve lost some interest in reading blogs. I still read the blogs of my friends, but I never go out of my way to find new blogs to read. I just get sick of going to blogs now and only seeing Paid Reviews. I don’t care if people do them (I’ve even done a few myself), but you can’t expect everyone to read them. The ‘Make Money Online’ blogs were just better 2 years ago then they are today. Maybe because there is really only so much you can say before you start repeating yourself.

When I do visit blogs, I never comment anymore either. I used to make a habit of commenting on like 10 blogs every single day. Not only would that get your name out there, but it gives you a free link back in the comment and on the Top Commentators lists.  Commenting is very beneficial to new blogs and established ones. I think not commenting has really hurt me the most.

Another reason why my traffic has dropped off some, is because the content I do post just isn’t that interesting to read. People come back to read fun and helpful posts. Mine are usually just ramblings about something.

I’ve got a lot of thinking to do, ya know? Like, what to do with this blog? Keep it? Revamp it? Let it die? I don’t know, but I need to figure it out soon. This blog just isn’t cutting it anymore.

A lot of webmasters run affiliate links on their websites. I use Azoogle a lot, and when I put up their offers on my sites I just hate seeing their URLs. They often look something like this: http://x.azjmp.com/15StUb34FgCVtdsY?sub=lithman

How ugly!

And not only is it unappealing on the eye… seeing all those random numbers and letters in a URL… but visitors to your website will be turned off by it. Before they click a link that says “Free Razr Phone” or something, they will probably hover over it to see where the URL destination is. If you leave the original affiliate URL in there, some visitors won’t click it because it looks scammy.

You will notice on my blog, I have changed all the affiliate links to be more personalized. Now if you hover over that $1.99 Godaddy offer in my sidebar, instead of seeing the long ass affiliate link, you will see http://www.lithman.net/go/godaddy.php. Much more appealing isn’t it!

It is very simple to do this. First, create a directory in your root called “go” or “links”. You will then create new php files in that directory for every offer you have. So for the godaddy offer above, I created a new blank file in notepad and named it godaddy.php. The next step is to place a simple line of code in that php file.

<meta HTTP-EQUIV=”REFRESH” content=”0; http://www.youraffiliateurlgoeshere.com”>

That is it! Just enter that one line of code and be sure to add your affiliate link in it and click save. The new link will take the person to the php page you created and the code will automatically forward them to the affiliate link you entered. I encourage everyone to do this to their affiliate links.It makes your site look more professional and it makes your outbound links look more trustworthy.

If you still have problems getting this to work, shoot me an email or a comment and I’d be glad to help.