What a way to kick off the new year right? Go a whole week without posting…

I’ve been slacking a lot lately. Want to hear my excuses?

• I’ve been remodeling my house lately. We got a new TV and furniture in the living room. Got a whole new bedroom set, so I had to move the old one to the guest room, and then sell all the left over crap on craigslist.
• The Jaguars were in the playoffs so I’ve spent a lot of time reading up on them and watching football.
•  I went out of town the other day. Thursday after work I went out of town and was unable to work on anything.

So, while those aren’t awesome excuses… I do have some.

Really though, there should be no excuse for not working on my sites. I think the fact that my earnings still are down and my lost Google rankings still haven’t returned really just killed all motivation I had to work on websites. It’s like what’s the point right? If Google is just going to ban you, then why work on anything? I also noticed the PR of this blog just dropped again to 3 now. I went from 5 to 4 to now 3. Not that PR really means anything though…

But that’s not the attitude of a winner is it? Nope. A winner will work 10x harder when the going gets tough… not sit back and slack off. So let’s see what kind of person I am… a winner or a quitter?

It’s been one month since I started the Jim Karter Strategy for building a website. If you don’t remember, my test site is Golfing Tips 101. The first step was to create a site with about 500 words of content on it, give around 3 to 4 links to Wiki pages, and get one backlink (which I gave from this blog).

After Day 30, Kramer says to:

Expand the website to 5 pages of content and get 4 more links, one each from a directory, a blog post, a social networking site and a regular site. Then again forget this site for a month.

This shouldn’t be too hard. I’m guessing that each of the new 5 pages needs to have 500 or so words on it? I plan on expanding Golfing Tips 101 to have a page on putting, driving, chipping, iron play, and mental preparation. Those are 5 aspects of the game of golf and should be easy enough for me to write about. I plan on having the 5 new pages created within the next 2-3 days.

After that, you’re supposed to wait another month before doing anything.

So far Golfing Tips 101 is indexed in Google and Yahoo (but not MSN) and receives minimal traffic. I’ll be sure to keep you updated on how it grows over the next month.

I know I said that in 2008 I want to concentrate more on affiliate marketing and less on sites for Adsense revenue, but I’ve had some domains for a couple of weeks now that I wanted to put to use. Some of them will be for affiliate marketing, but the two I wanted to introduce today are simply blogs with adsense but may also make money through merchandise sales.

Fred Taylor Fans

The first site I wanted to tell you about is kind of a tribute to my favorite football player ever, Fred Taylor. Fred Taylor is the running back for the Jacksonville Jaguars. He is a super stud and probably the most under-rated player in NFL history. He’s just now getting the respect he’s deserved for the last 10 years. Making a fan site for Fred Taylor was very easy and posting on it comes natural to me since I’m such a huge Jaguars fan.

Right now I only have 2 posts on it, but I will try to post daily. I have loaded some pictures and videos, as well as a bio and quotes. Typical stuff for a fan site. This site probably won’t get a lot of traffic since Fred Taylor isn’t really popular among people outside of Florida, but I’m not in this one for the money. I’m in it to promote and honor my favorite player (with adsense helping pay the bills).

Sports Highlight Flix

I sued to own a site just like this called MVPFlix. I sold that site for a couple hundred bucks like a year ago and really started to miss it. Sports Highlights is another simple site where I just upload highlight videos from super star athletes and write some commentary about it. This site is easy because I can timestamp all my posts for a week in just a few minutes and be done with it.

You’ll notice it’s using the same wordpress theme as the Fred Taylor site. I really like that theme a lot. This site isn’t intended to be a big money maker either. $1/day would be just fine with me.

More sites in the coming weeks

I have like 15 more domains sitting in my account that are just itching to get turned into websites. If I want to increase my earnings then I need to expand my network. You will be seeing me launch several new sites in the coming weeks. I may not post about them like I did today, but check my network list in the sidebar for the updates.

2007 is officially over and done with. Some of my goals for the year were met, while others were not. I felt like I grew a lot in terms of internet business and marketing knowledge. You can’t even compare where I was in December 2006 to December 2007. It’s night and day. I can only hope I continue to see the same transformation in 2008.

To help give me some guidance in the new year, I thought I’d post a couple of goals.

Make More Money - Anyone in this business should have ‘make more money’ at the top of their list. I’d like to be in the $150-200 a day range by the end of 2008. For someone who does this only part time, that’s serious extra cash. Of course when I get to that point, I’ll surely consider making it a full time gig. Right now, I currently fluxuate in the $50-60 a day range, so I’m not too far off.

Be More Productive - There are so many days when I’m completely bored, but just don’t feel like working on my websites. I’ll purposely try to find other things to do. That needs to stop. You don’t get far in life by avoiding projects. You need to face them and tackle them head on.

Get Involved in Affiliate Marketing - I’ve mentioned this in past posts. I feel like it’s the next step for me. I’ve hardly experimented at all in this area, but really feel there is money to be made. I need to continue to read up on it and make educated decisions on how to move forward. Ideally, I’d like to be making $50/day in affiliate marketing by the end of 2008.

Save My Online Earnings - I was VERY bad with this in 2007. I hardly saved or reinvested anything I made online. In the beginning I wasn’t even saving anything for taxes, which has left me struggling the past month or two to make up for lost time. I can expect to pay a couple thousand in taxes. To better prepare myself for next year, I’m setting aside 25% of all my earnings in a high interest savings account for taxe only.

Start an LLC - I’ve been saying this for a year probably. I need to sign the freakin papers and form a legit business for my websites and online work. Not only will it help with taxes, but it will help me separate my online earnings from my job earnings. Right now everything goes into my personal bank account. If I set up a business, I can then set up a business bank account. Having the money in two different places will help me stay organized and reinvest properly.

Be Famous - I want to become more well-known in our community of online earners. Usually it’s the guys making all the money that are well known, so I’ll either need a surge in my earnings or do something drastic that gains the attention of everyone. I have a close nit of people I talk to online and we all read each other’s blogs, but I’d like to expand my network and meet more people. I’d also like to get a mention in a magazine or something.

Well a better stop now before I overload myself. Those definitely are some lofty goals, but certainly attainable if I put in the work. Obviously the $150-200/day goal is the most important to me and the one I will work my hardest to achieve. Wish me luck!