The recent success of Tyler in his weight-loss challenge with his mate Paul inspired me to write the following post about ways to increase your chances of achieving your goals.

Reaching a goal usually means you’ll get some kind of reward – you’ll be able to wear that bikini or you’ll be able to take that dream vacation or you’ll feel better because you stopped smoking or because you lost weight.

Everyone has goals but very few people actually reach them. Here are some things you can do to increase your chances of achieving your goals.

Clearly state your goal:

The best way to achieve any goal is to plot a course for success. Before you can do that, you need to know your exact destination. You wouldn’t start off on a vacation by saying ‘I’m going to visit Ohio’. You’d pick a specific city so you could map out your route.

The same holds true for your goal. It’s not enough to say ‘I want to make more money.’ How much more do you want to make? If you only want to make $100 more each month then it might just take a couple of extra hours of work. But if you want to make an additional $1,000 per month, it’s going to take more planning and effort to reach your goal.

Set a time limit:

Give yourself a specific amount of time to achieve your goal. Otherwise you’ll dawdle along the way and eventually you’ll become completely distracted. Anyone can eventually make an extra $1000 per month. You want to make it by this time next year so you can finally take that vacation you’ve been dreaming of.

Be reasonable:

Setting goals is one thing, but setting lofty goals just means you’re setting yourself up for failure. It’s impossible to lose 100 pounds in a month and still be healthy. Just like it’s impossible to earn $1 million in a weekend. If you always set your goals impossibly high then you’ll always feel like a failure.

Have a plan:

It doesn’t matter what your goal is, if you don’t have a plan for reaching it, you’re destined for failure. Don’t forget – you need to plot a course for success. If you weigh 150 pounds and your goal is to reach 120, how do you plan to lose those 30 pounds? You can’t just wish them away. And you can’t set a reasonable goal unless you know how you plan to accomplish it. If the diet you’re going to follow promises you’ll lose 5 pounds per week, then you know it’s going to take at least 6 weeks to achieve your goal.

Break it down:

Break your goals down into manageable pieces. For example, if you want to increase your income by $1000 per month, start by increasing it by $25 per week. Once you’ve reached that goal, bump it up to $50 per week. When you break your goals down into smaller objectives, you’ll see gradual, steady progress toward your final goal which will help you stay motivated to succeed.

Chart your progress:

One way to visually break your goals into smaller pieces and help keep yourself motivated at the same time, is to chart your progress. Visualization helps you stay focused.

Let’s say you want to increase your monthly earnings by $1,000.00. Just looking at your bank balance once a month isn’t going to help you stay focused. Create a chart you can hang on the wall, right over your desk and start charting your weekly progress. As you see those numbers start to climb you’ll be motivated to step up your efforts even more.

Be prepared for detours:

Even the best laid plans are sometimes subject to detours. You’ve lost 20 of those 30 pounds you wanted to lose and here comes your neighbor with a plate full of cupcakes or here comes your buddy to tempt you with cigarettes. Maybe you’ve just about hit your $1000 a month mark and one of your websites crashes. Suffering a set-back or giving in to a little temptation does not mean you failed. However, if you don’t correct your course after these detours you’ll miss your goal by miles.

Be prepared for small bumps in the road and you’ll increase your chances of achieving your goals. Look at your chart, look at what you’ve already accomplished, look at the next little piece you have to work on and keep the big picture in mind. The hardest part about achieving goals is overcoming those little obstacles that pop up in your path. Stay focused on your destination instead of those obstacles and you’ll soon be 30 pounds lighter or $1000 a month richer or a non-smoker, or whatever your goal may be!

This post was written by Sté Kerwer, the guy behind Dukeo.com. He blogs about affiliate marketing, making money online, email marketing, SEO, mindset for success, WordPress and a lot more. To read more about Sté you can either grab his RSS feed or follow him on Twitter @dukeo.

The following is a guest post by my friend and well-known blogger Zac Johnson. Be sure to watch a fantastic replay of a webinar on buying and selling websites in which we were both panelists.

So you’ve been thinking about selling your web site or blog?

Before you do, there are a few things you need to do to make sure you can get top dollar for your web site.

Follow these simple steps and receive top dollar for your web site properties.

Gather All of Your Web Stats and Earnings

This is crucial! No one is going to buy a web site and put out good money without numbers to back them up.

Being organized and having an auction listing that is in order and easy to understand will make you site sale go a long way. Use Google Analytics for your web traffic and backlink reports, while also providing screenshots of all revenue generated from the web site.

The further you can go back, the better.

Don’t Sell Your Web Site Until It’s Generating Money

Would you rather have a web site that is getting thousands of visitors per day with no revenue, or a few hundred visits a day with some revenue?

There are always more ways to get traffic to a web site, but the ability to make money from a web site goes a long way. When you have a revenue model, buyers are willing to pay a larger multiple for a web site.

Know What Your Web Site is Worth

As the owner of a web site, house or anything… we are always going to want top dollar for what we have, and usually over value everything. Selling a web site can not be personable, especially when factoring a value on your web site.

The best way to break down the value of your web site is to take the monthly revenue of your site (profit or revenue times 12-20 months). The multiple can vary heavily depending on your niche, type of web site and quality of visitors and content.

What’s Next and How to Sell Your Web Site

Selling your web site or blog is actually easier than you think. Through the use of Flippa.com you can post a listing for your site which will only take a few minutes to setup. With over a thousand active daily listings, you will have exposure to many buyers who might be interested in purchasing your site.

I’ve personally bought and sold over six figures worth of web sites over the past several years. To be successful at flipping web sites, it’s all about creating killer listings and finding gems for sale that are under monetized.

Today I released my new book called "Flip This Web Site: How to Buy, Improve and Sell Web Sites on Flippa", a 150+ page guide that will walk you through the process of buying and selling web sites, while also showing you how to make flipping under monetized web sites.

Kevin Muldoon is a webmaster and blogger who lives in Central Scotland. His current project is WordPress Mods; a blog which focuses on WordPress Themes, Plugins, Tutorials, News and Modifications.

I was speaking with Tyler the other day and advised that I have a bit of free time to write some guest posts over the next few weeks. I’ve did a lot of travelling over the last 8 years so one of the topics he suggested was ‘The Pros & Cons Of A Travelling Entrepreneur’.

I’ve never felt comfortable using the term ‘Entrepreneur’ about myself. I’ve built hundreds of websites over the last 11 years but very few have been unique, therefore I don’t feel very entrepreneurial. There is a myth that has been going round for years around those who don’t work online that you need to reinvent the wheel to make money on the web. Nothing could be further from the truth.

True – those who do come up with something unique sometimes make a lot of money, however the vast majority of people making money online are doing something that has been done many times before. The way I see it; all we are looking for is a slice of the pie.

That being said, the title ”The Pros & Cons Of Making A Living Through The Internet And Using That Money To Travel Around The World’ just doesn’t have the same ring to it. Therefore I will have to concede that the title Tyler suggested is perhaps a little better

I don’t profess to be an export on travelling or travelling whilst working online therefore I don’t want to preach to all of you. What I do want to do is talk about about my experiences with travelling over the last 8 years and share with you some of the problems that you will come across and give what I think is good advice.

Thailand 2003 – On the boat to Koh Samui the day after arriving in Asia

Philippines 2003 – Visiting Mayon Volcano

Poor Internet Connections – My Experiences

I had been abroad many times in Europe before with friends and family however my first real venture travelling was back in 2003. I had been working full time in the Financial Sector before myself and 3 other friends set off for Asia and then onto Australia for our working holiday visas. When I left I had been working online for about 3-4 years, though that was definitely a time of learning for me. I mostly made money at this time by flipping domain names and building websites and then selling them on. It wasn’t as competitive back then so it was a quick way of making money.

I did make some money with the websites I ran though it was erratic at best. Some months I’d make $300, the next month I’d make $600, and then next month it would be back down to $250. I was making money but when I look back at the time now I realise didn’t really understand how to grow this income. I was working a lot on the web but I didn’t know how to capitalise on sites that did make money.

Most of my websites back in 2003 were static. I had used a lot of CMS scripts before (like PHP Nuke, Post Nuke etc.) but the majority of my sites were static websites; PHP files that were hand coded in notepad or TextPad. So updating my sites required me to manually edit core files, which wasn’t a major problem as I wasn’t updating my websites regularly, I was merely answering queries from advertisers and changing banners and text links over when ads expired.

Thailand 2004 – Acting the fool at a snake show in Chang Mai

The main issue travelling Asia back then was the poor standard of internet connections. Notebooks were still very expensive back then; though even if I had the cash to buy one it wouldn’t have been very practical to take it with me as they were so big; plus nowhere offered wi-fi anyway. To say it was frustrating working when I was travelling at that time would be an understatement. I remember one time in Bangkok I went to the internet cafe to do some work. There were about 15-20 of us in one cafe trying to access the web by dial up; yes that’s right, all of us were sharing the one dial up connection! Most people used Hotmail back then to check email and that was very image intensive so it was not uncommon for it to take 20 minutes to send one email. Unfortunately, this happened quite frequently.

Thankfully, things were better in Australia. An internet cafe next to our hostel charged $10 for a full day of usage so I’d spend most of my date there working on my websites. Over time, things got better when travelling abroad. When I travelled Australia again a few years later the connections were much better though when I lived in New Zealand I noticed a huge difference between connection speeds between there and the UK. The service I paid for at the time was about 10-20% as fast as the connection I had in the UK but it cost 3 times as well. It was still usable though, which is the main issue when working on the road.

Asia has also improved over the last few years. I’ve been back to Asia in 2004, 2006, 2007, 2009 and 2011. Every time I went back there were less internet cafes and more and more places with wi-fi. A few weeks ago I got back from a 5 week trip in Vietnam, stopping off in Thailand on the way back to the UK. I didn’t come across one hotel that didn’t offer wi-fi (though the quality of connection speed still varied greatly).

There really has never been as good a time to travel for those of you who make money. The internet is everywhere and netbooks can be bought for as little as $200. It’s the perfect time to work on the road

Cambodia 2004 – The day I found out I’m more lethal with a paper aeroplane than a M4 Carbine Assault Rifle

Working Whilst Travelling – The Smart Way

With internet connections now of a decent standard in most places around the world, there is nothing to stop you working when you are away. All you need is a cheap netbook or notebook and a wi-fi connection at the place you’re staying. If you don’t have wi-fi access at your hotel/hostel, you should be able to work at an internet cafe very cheaply.

Note, there is a difference between travelling and living abroad. When someone is living abroad they are usually in the same hotel or apartment and have some sort of routine in their lives. As such, their regular working routine isn’t disrupted too much.

Travelling is very different. When you’re travelling you’re constantly on the move, sometimes moving to a new destination every 2 to 3 days. When you’ve planned a trip to travel somewhere extensively you are trying to see as many things as possible, experience lots of new things, meet new people and generally have a great time. All of this makes it very difficult to get into any sort of routine therefore you need to learn to adapt and be flexible about how you work online.

Vietnam 2004 – Visiting the War Remnants Museum in Saigon

Firstly, you need to plan ahead of your trip. This will be different, depending on what you do. For example, if you are a blogger you will probably want to write a few weeks of articles in advance or arrange several guest posts when you are away. If you are the owner of a forum or content website, you will need to make sure that the people you liaise with on a regular basis know that you are going away. If possible, delegate all of the work you normally do to people you trust and outsource everything else you can (writing gigs, marketing work etc.). It’s also prudent to put an auto-reply on all of your emails advising that you are travelling and you may take a few days longer to reply.

Bottom line, the more work and planning you do before you go, the easier your life will be the first few weeks you are away. You want to enjoy yourself on your trip, particularly in the first week or so when you are in a new country and finding your feet; so do yourself a favour and get ahead of the game

New Zealand 2007 – Chilling out in the north of New Zealand on a farm

As I mentioned earlier, you need to be flexible about how you work online when you are on the road. I try and plan my work around my travelling schedule rather than the other way around. Therefore, if I have two days free before I go on a scheduled trip somewhere, I do my best to get a lot of work done before I go; be it writing, organising writers or answering emails. Likewise, I try and do as much work as I can when I get a good internet connection. Internet connections are available everywhere but the standard does vary greatly. I find that I can work with even the poorest internet connections available however it can be much more time consuming. A slow internet connection can turn a 15 minute task into a 60 minute one, particularly if, like me, you are writing an article that requires a lot of images etc. So it makes sense to put in a few extra hours when you get a good connection so that you don’t have to stress when your next hotel has a terrible connection.

A fantastic resource for working whilst travelling is ‘The Four Hour WorkWeek‘ by Tim Ferriss. It’s been out for years though I only recently read the book whilst in Vietnam. A lot of the book didn’t apply to me as he speaks a lot about why you should work less and enjoy life more (which I agree with 100%); it was clearly targeted to those unhappy in their jobs etc. I was however surprised at how useful the book was. Tim packs a huge amount of information about outsourcing into the book and lists dozens of great services that help you outsource your work and automate your life. Even those of you who have worked online for years will find something useful in the book.

Japan 2007 – An excuse to take a picture with Tokyo Tower in the background

The Pros

& Cons Of A Travelling Entrepreneur

There are obviously opportunity costs of travelling abroad. When you are travelling you are undoubtedly working less online, therefore your income from working online may drop, either directly as a result of not updating your website enough or from your site stagnating and not maintaining its current growth. If you plan ahead, delegate and outsource key tasks this can be avoided.

I’ve sold a lot of websites that were making me money over the years in order to finance travelling so I have no doubt that I would be making 3-4 times more money from working online if I had stayed at home and worked online. However, I have never been motivated by money. For me, money is a means to an end, a way of funding the lifestyle I want. I place more value on experiences and connections with people than inanimate objects. When I am old I know that the fondest memories I will have will be the times I spent with loved ones and the great times I had travelling; I doubt I will give a second thought to the LCD television I bought.

I appreciate many people do not feel the same way. I would be happier with a small house and more disposable income though some of my friends with children quite rightly want to work harder to provide a better life for their kids (I’m sure my own priorities will change once I have kids).

If you have very few ties and are willing to take some risks, I encourage you to book that trip you always wanted to go on. And as I mentioned before, if you automate a lot of the tasks you do and just ensure that everything ticks over nicely, there is no reason why your website cannot continue growing whilst you travel the world enjoying yourself.

Thailand 2009 – After tearing my calk muscle during Muay Thai training, I chilled for 2 months on the beach

Conclusion

Travelling is not for everyone. A lot of people need stability in their lives and travelling for months on end can be tiring. For me, not knowing where I’ll go next and being in random situations every week with great people from around the world is what makes travelling fun.

I’m not sure how helpful this article will be for a lot of readers however I hope at the very least that I have given those of you who are considering that first trip away some food for thought.

Thanks for reading

Kevin

The following is a guest post by Glen Allsopp:

I’ve been serious about making money online now for the past three years. For the three years before that, I’m pretty sure I spent more time reading about ideas to make money, rather than actually doing anything with those ideas. Something I’m sure quite a few people can relate to.

Unsurprisingly, as soon as I did start taking action and decided to focus on just one project until it was successful, I started to make a good income online. Based on this, I would go so far as to say that most people aren’t making money online not because they’re lacking an idea, but because they’re lacking action.

Some of these same people can spend over 12 hours per day on the internet, so what’s going wrong?

I’ve tried a number of different productivity and procrastination cure methods, all working with varying degrees of success. The following advice shares some of the best strategies that have worked for me, which should help you use your time effectively.

Work Out Regularly

If you’re thinking, "Did he really just say that?" then bear with me. I had always noticed that on days I went to the gym, it just seemed so much easier to concentrate on my work and get more done. After seeing this phenomenon happen all too often, I decided to do some research into it to see if I was alone. Sure enough, there was some scientific evidence relating to what I had found.

"Researchers at England’s Leeds Metropolitan University found that on days when men worked out, they did eight hours of office work in what would normally take them almost 9 and a half hours on a non-workout day."

So not only will you get the benefit of feeling healthier and looking better, but exercising can also help you to get a lot more done.

Clear Your Inbox

Our email accounts are probably one of the biggest sources of distraction out there. At times we are a slave to our inboxes. Often they’re the first thing we check in the morning, and the last thing we check before we sign off at night. Spending so much time on emails can also bring your mood down quite a lot, especially when they’re coming in faster than you can process them.

To truly tidy up your inbox and save you some time, here are a few tips:

• Only leave emails on your home inbox screen that need to be replied to. If you’ve responded to it, then archive it.
• Unsubscribe from any emailing list that you don’t read. Just the few seconds it takes to delete their emails can quickly add up, so make sure you don’t have to do it again.
• Create reply templates. Often I’ll receive a lot of emails with the same question, so I use templates in Gmail that I can insert with just two clicks.
• Feel free to ignore some emails. Your time is valuable. I have to ignore some emails simply because I receive too many, but justify it by realising that I can write a blog post which helps 14,000 people, or reply to an email which helps one.

Put these steps into action, and you no longer have to dread opening your emails each day.

Give Yourself a Reality Check

One of the biggest things that spurred me into positive action was seeing how unproductive I was really being. Unless you personally find that you’re not being as effective as you could be with your time, it’s unlikely that you’ll take any advice from this post to heart.

The best way to give yourself a reality check is to just record all of the activities you get up to today, or the things you’ve already done (if your day is ending). Try to gauge how much time you spend on work related and non-work related tasks while at your computer.

Don’t do it tomorrow, because knowing that you are "watching" yourself will spur you into productivity. This isn’t a bad thing, but you need to see where you’re going wrong for it to have a long lasting effect.

Control Then Prioritise

If you don’t think you can use will power to stop yourself from getting things done, then LeechBlock and Self Control may be for you. Leechblock is a browser plugin for Firefox (there are alternatives for Chrome) that allows you to block certain websites at certain times of day. I personally use it for forums and news sites, where I can spend hours of my time without even realising it.

Self Control is a program for Mac which allows you to block websites for a set period of time. The beauty of the software is that you can’t actually turn it off. Well you can, but that’s a secret I’m not going to share with you .

Now we’ve got that out of the way, take 10 minutes to list all of the tasks you know you need to finish. It may be registering a domain, tweaking your WordPress theme, writing a blog post or whatever else you have to deal with.

With the remaining list, simply give your task a number which represents their priority. Some will be obvious, like registering a domain before you can install WordPress, while others will come down to you simply having to make a decision. Try to decide which task is the most important to get out of the way.

If you put all of these steps into action, I have no doubt that you can start making a lot more money. I should know…

Glen Allsopp writes for ViperChill on the topic of Viral Marketing.

The following is a guest post by James Adams.

Millions of people are gradually turning to the Internet as their number one news, social, and entertainment medium of choice. And this shift is made possible because digital media in all of its shapes and forms is more accessible than ever before. People are simply more connected than they were five years ago in ways previously unimagined.

Along those lines, podcasting is an often under-appreciated, under-utilised way to connect people with the information they want. And this fact is especially true in the world of business and marketing strategies. Some marketing gurus compare regular podcasting to other forms of engaging, audience-centered social media like Twitter and Facebook.

Engaging a wide audience is certainly the name of the game when it comes to marketing and podcasting. And the beauty of it all is that anyone can create a podcast – just as anyone can start their own blog or website. All it takes is a simple download, the right computer hardware, and ideas that simply have to be shared with the world.

According to the most recent estimates, there are tens of thousands of podcasts uploaded daily to the Internet. Podcasters come from all walks of life and come with differing intentions too. You can find news podcasts alongside music specials and comedy acts all using the same platform.

Marketing and entrepreneur podcasts in particular hold a wealth of information for those interested in marketing news, business advice, and the latest upfront ideas. And the best part about these podcasts is that they are free of charge too. So, below is a list of 15 podcasts you simply cannot afford to miss if you are in the marketing industry:

1. I Love Marketing – Dean Jackson and Joe Polish give marketing talk their own spin of comedy and substance. Not only is this podcast informative, it is an absolute pleasure to listen to as well. Dean and Joe have been discussing new marketing ideas, lead generation, and even marketing psychology for more than 15 years and have recently taken their act online.

2. Marketing over Coffee – Hosted by John J. Wall and Christopher Penn, the podcast Marketing Over Coffee is among the best marketing podcasts on the Internet. You might even describe it as charming since the show takes place every Wednesday at a donuts shop outside of Boston, MA. But don’t let the fun tone fool you, John and Christopher are marketing gurus in their own right and have a wealth of information to share with their loyal audience.

3. Managing the Gray – Users rave about the content of C.C. Chapman’s podcast Managing the Gray. C.C. has worked with some of the heavy hitters in the marketing industry. And he takes that expertise and applies it to his podcasts, which aim to educate listeners on the latest trends in social media and the Internet in general.

4. The Hobson and Holtz Report – Twice a week, Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz host their podcast dedicated to business-related content with a particular emphasis on communications. The show also covers PR matters and often reviews the latest business literature available.

5. Telephone Tuesday Internet Marketing – Charles KnNell operates the successful marketing blog Ethical Marketing and works as an Internet marketing consultant. His podcast Telephone Tuesday Internet Marketing is hosted via http://www.blogtalkradio.com.

6. Internet Marketing Tools – Hosted by Steven Hill, the podcast Internet Marketing Tools covers the do’s and don’ts of purchasing Internet marketing products. Steven aims to tell you what works and what is a waste of your investment dollars.

7. Tech in Twenty – Tech in Twenty gives it to you short and sweet. This podcast is less about strategy and more about the marketing implications of the increasing pace of technological advancement. This podcast is for you if you are into the “geeky” side of Internet marketing.

8. Market Edge – Market Edge falls into the category of tech related marketing podcasts. But nonetheless, Larry Weber delivers the goods on social media marketing and analysis on the future prospects of Internet marketing.

9. Marketing Nirvana – Also hosted via webmasterradio.fm, Marketing Nirvana’s host Brad Geddes dedicates his show to engaging, informative interviews with some of the leaders in the marketing industry. Brad’s podcasts seek to help fledgling business owners maximise their revenue streams by giving real-time, real-world marketing tips.

10. Weapons of Mass Marketing – Jon Henshaw and Taylor Pratt deliver their own brand of do-it-yourself Internet marketing advice. This podcast has a particular emphasis on SEO strategies and domain monetization tools.

11. Duct Tape Marketing – John Jantsch’s podcast Duct Tape Marketing covers pretty much all the bases. Specifically, John holds his audience’s attention with practical advice for the small business owner and well-coordinated interviews and specials.

12. The Bean Cast – The Bean Cast is hosted by Bob Knorpp provides the latest perspective on marketing trends in the United States and abroad too. Bob himself describes his program as a weekly roundtable with notable guests from the marketing community.

13. Geekcast – This website is indispensable for those interested in social media and Internet marketing. The makers of Geekcast keep their platform open to newcomers and add fresh, up-to-date content regularly.

14. E-marketing Talk Show – The hosts of the e-marketing talk show Cindy Turrietta, Brooke Schumacher, and Todd Sarouhan bring a bit of traditional radio flair to the online world. The shows run every week and reach a small yet fiercely loyal audience.

15. The Marketing Edge – The Marketing Edge, hosted by Albert Maruggi, claims to be one of the longest running marketing podcasts on the Internet. And this claim holds water. Maruggi gives listeners a unique blend of professional insight and personal commentary which is unparalleled.

James Adams is employed as a blogger, writer and editor at CartridgeSave, an online shop where consumers can shop for discount printer ink cartridges in the United Kingdom.

This is a guest post by Thomas who writes about entry level mining jobs.

One of the topics that seems to be draw the biggest conflict of opinions between internet entrepreneurs is the debate between single blog owners and those who own multiple blogs – and today we are going to take a look at which side of the argument is right.

Is it better to build one website with a determined, tunnel-visioned focus, or would you make more money spreading your time and effort between 2, 5, 10 or even 100 blogs?

What I wanted to do was look at both sides, listing the benefits that I see (and have experienced) for each estrategy.

One Blog, One Focus

I remember when I first started looking into online businesses, I couldn’t imagine how anyone could run more than one blog. The effort that I was putting in to my site, I would have needed a lot more than 24 hours in a day to even entertain the thought of a second one.

So, What Are The Benefits Of Running A Single Blog?

1. You Can Laser Target Your Focus

   Spreading your focus between multiple sites means that your attention is constantly shifting from one site to another. Think about the effort that it takes to launch and run a successful blog and then try multiplying that by 5. You are sharing your content creation, your networking, your link building – you are going to end up with 5 sites that are taking forever to gain momentum, and most likely you will start to give up on them before they have a chance to succeed.

   By focusing on one blog, all that energy is compressed and you start seeing results much earlier – providing motivation to continue.

2. You Can Build Community

   Community requires interaction. And unless you are in the thick of the action, connecting with other people in your niche and taking the time to reply to every comment, then building a large and influential blog is extremely hard ( not impossible – just incredibly hard). If you are dividing your time between a few different blogs, then keeping your finger on the pulse of your niche is almost impossible. Try even running multiple Twitter accounts, soon enough you will most likely pull back to just one.

   By having a single blog you are able to take the time get to know your readers, build community and relationships – resulting in a growing blog with raving fans.

Load Me Up With Websites!

But doesn’t more websites mean more profit? I started off with one and decided to branch out to a portfolio of website and these are a couple of reasons why.

1. Eggs & Baskets

   One of the most commonly touted investing tips to hedge your risk is ‘don’t put all your eggs in one basket’. What this means is don’t invest all your money (or hope) on one single method, because if you build one website or one income stream online – what happens if your traffic suddenly takes a hit, or your niche suddenly becomes unpopular? (It can happen)

   Having multiple sites that all earn you money means that if one of your blogs takes a hit, then you are not going to lose everything you have worked on.

2. Target Multiple Buying Communities

   I don’t like to think that I am greedy – just opportunistic. There are plenty of markets (niches) that are desperate for information and products and by focusing on just one site, there is no way that you can target all these different pools of buyers. While I am not at all endorsing an effort of trying to tap into every single buying community out there – why not dip your hand into a couple of different pies?

3. Forces You To Work Smarter

   The one thing that running multiple blogs taught me was that I if I was going to handle these blogs (and make them all profitable), then I needed to work a lot smarter. This meant:

   • Outsourcing the little jobs that are time consuming
   • Fine-tuning my content creation skills
   • Work out how to get new blogs up and running as quick as possible
   • Cutting back on time wasting tasks

So Which Strategy Is Best For You?

Now this may seem like a bit of a cop out, but the truth is that only you will know which strategy is right for you.

I know people who successfully use both of these strategies to build full-time online incomes and it basically comes back to your goals and which of these strategies will help you achieve these goals.

Thomas Sinfield blogs at Mining Jobs No Experience, where he shares how you can find work in the booming Australian mining industry.

The following is a guest blog post:

Do you wish that you were able to make money online? While it would be great to have a $25,000 monthly income; most people would be happy just making a couple extra grand a month online.

Making money online is not an easy task. It takes perseverance, passion, and having a plan. If you aren’t making at least $75 a day online, then you are doing something wrong. If you are relying solely on ad income to make money online then you are fighting a losing battle. Selling ads was a great way to make money in the 90’s but the game has changed since then. There is a lot more competition for ad income today. You need a battle tested plan that will help you make money online.

In my first few months of blogging I was making very little at all in the form of online income. I didn’t have any companies advertising on my site. My blog traffic was nonexistent and ad networks were paying me about $2 to $3 bucks a day. It took me about three months to figure out how to start making money online. It shouldn’t take you that long. I am going to show you a few ways that you can give a quick boost to your daily earnings.

Freelance Writing Gigs

I am sure that you already know about the power of guest posts. They can get your name out there and help bring traffic to your website. There are some posts that are better than guest posts. Those are paid posts. You get all of the benefits of a guest post and you get paid too.

You might be surprised to know that you can make a ton of dough writing online when you have a new blog. Major and minor sites alike both crave content on a day to day basis. They need someone to provide them with interesting posts that their readers would enjoy. Writing for other sites is great because:

(1) you can generate a cashflow while your blog is still young.

(2) you can get links to your site which brings in more traffic.

(3) you can increase your site’s ranking with high PR back links.

Writing on other websites quickly built my authority in my niche. My site started to get a lot more traffic from published articles in the New York Times, Forbes, Investopedia. I was then able to build a readership and start selling ad space directly to advertisers. My site Buy Like Buffett grew to become a very popular website where people would come to learn all about stocks and bonds. This gave me a market for my ebooks, newsletters and other products that my site’s readers would enjoy. A consistent blogging income quickly grew from a couple of writing jobs.

Now I have one site exclusively devoted to teaching people how to make money online.

Affiliate Marketing

Another great money making avenue is affiliate marketing. If you are reading Tyler Cruz’s blog, then you must know something about marketing and affiliate marketing is a great way to make cash on the Internet.  Affiliate marketing is all about traffic. New blogs have a difficult time in the affiliate marketing game because they have so little traffic.

You can be a successful affiliate marketer with a small blog if you build up a large email list, Twitter account, and Facebook Group. You don’t have to add 100 new people a day to your list to have success. You can add 5 to 10 a day as long as you are consistently growing your list.

The biggest mistake that most new bloggers make is waiting to build an email list, start a Facebook Page or have a Twitter account. I let more than 2 years go by before I realized the potency of these products. I finally set up my email list and Twitter account just a few months ago and have been able to consistently grow them. I launched a Facebook Page with my newest site just a little while ago. Sometimes I think about all of the lost revenue potential by not capturing those readers emails.

You can learn from my mistake and start building up these lists from Day One. That way you will save yourself the trouble of scrambling to do it later. Imagine the power of your affiliate offers if you had an email list of 5,000 and a Twitter list of 10,000 targeted followers. If you just convert 4% of those users, you would have 600 affiliate sales. Social media allows you to be a successful affiliate marketer even with a new blog.

Blog Network

Who says that you should only build one blog at a time when you start your blogging career? Forget that advice. You can multiply your earnings power by starting a blog network from day one. Instead of waiting for one site to become a giant money making machine, you could develop 3 or 4 mini money makers at the same time.

One blog could cover a specific niche like pet training and another blog could cover a totally different niche like childcare. Your third blog could deal with SEO tips for new bloggers. All three blogs are completely unrelated so there is no overlap and they all increase your chances of finding a winning niche. You could start off each blog with 50 posts and spend the rest of your time promoting the sites.

You could build a nice chunk of income by compiling the income of all your sites into one big revenue stream. This way you can devote the majority of your time to your biggest moneymaker and have the other sites adding to your passive income.

Final Thoughts

These are just a few of the ways that you can make money online. My money strategy is that the first 180 days you should be making most of your money outside of your blog. After that your blog should be generating the majority of your income.

This is a post written by Mark Riddix. Mark is a blogger who specializes in Making Money Online and Investing. He blogs at Mark Riddix dot com and has recently written the ebook, How To Make $2,000 A Month Online.

The following is a guest post:

At this point, moving your business online isn’t a trend. It is a channel that is here to stay, and if you’re not participating, your chances of success are probably quite grim. Businesses, including financial, retail, and other services are all making their way into the online world. Some, like Amazon.com, Zappos.com and INGDirect, are primarily or exclusively online-based. There are many reasons for this shift, such as less overhead costs and the consumer trend towards online researching, decision-making and purchasing.

When you go online, or incorporate online strategy into your business, it may seem like a pretty simple thing to do; however, it may not be as simple as you think. Below are five tips we think every online entrepreneur should know before diving in:

1)   Whatever your idea, make sure your online presence reflects your brand. And to that, make sure you have a solid brand and idea first. Many online companies tend to find themselves going in many different directions with their online presence, which can be confusing to your consumer, so before you start, spend some time developing a mission, business goal, messaging document, etc. Start with the basics so you don’t find yourself confusing your customers.

2)   No matter what your business is, clear and simple navigation is something that is 100% necessary. I’m sure you can probably think of at least 5 sites just off the top of your head that you have been to recently that have confused you and that you spent way more time than you would have liked to looking for what you need. Most people, if they are new to your site and don’t find what they need within just a few seconds, will leave. Make sure your site is clear, easy to navigate and has all the main components (e.g. login, logout, and all other important navigation) very prominently and clearly displayed.

3)   SEO your site! It’s astonishing how many sites we go to daily that are not properly SEO’d. As an online business, you want to be easily and quickly found by your potential consumer. Do your homework. There are sites like Google AdWords that help you find great keywords for your site and analyze the competition so you can help get yourself found. Metadata, tags and keywords are essential to getting your business found!

4)   Besides just the navigation, make sure that all the important components of your business are displayed on your site in an organized manner. The more you can share with your potential customer on your website, the better shape you are in, and the fewer questions you have to answer. Make sure all of your offered services are clearly stated, and any other relevant information that a consumer might ask, are on your site. It might be a good idea to brainstorm with friends and colleagues any anticipated questions or issues that a customer might ask or have. That way, you can address those on the website and ensure a clearer, more attractive presence.

5)   All businesses, whether online or otherwise, need to involve social media. Make sure you have a social media plan, and a good one at that. Many businesses try to incorporate social media into their online strategy, but don’t get the most out of it that they can because it either takes a back seat to other matters or they hire an intern to take it over.

Once you begin social media networking, dedicate yourself to it. Many companies that do it successfully hire a full-time person to do it, just because there is so much potential for what can be done and how much it can contribute to a company. If you do not have the ability to have a full-time employee dedicated to social media, take a look and see what you can truly commit to.

If you choose Twitter, make sure you can commit to at least five meaningful tweets daily (including RTs). If it is Facebook, make sure you can commit to communicating with your fans/friends, and that you can post one to two meaningful posts per day. If it is a blog that you choose to incorporate, make sure you can commit to a steady and ongoing schedule. Fluctuation doesn’t work and will ultimately do more harm than good.

To learn more about how to act like an entrepreneur, as well as to find out more about how to use a new entrepreneurial formula called CreAction to work for your online business goals, please go to www.actiontrumpseverything.com for a free copy of the Action Trumps Everything online book.