Winding up week two of the latest Blast Challenge, so another productive week is in the books. Not quite as productive as last week — which puts me ever so slightly behind my overall Blast challenge — but still a good week overall:

1. Seven more eBay mini sites. I just love these things, and that Terapeak subscription keeps revealing all sorts o’ fun alleyways to stumble down. I’ve got this process pretty well systemized, so if I just continued to build these, I could easily handle the challenge’s goal of 20 per week without really even breaking a sweat. Nonetheless, diversity’s a good thing.
2. Four direct-to-merchant blasts. Another broad group, but this time around the merchants are definitely more evergreen than last week’s more seasonals.
3. Put together three more custom landing pages. Struggled with these quite a bit this week. Not so much because of the process itself, but because of a persistent flaky internet connection at home. I do a lot of tweaking as I build this things, and when I lose connection along with some extensive changes to my setup, gets a lil’ frustrating! Hoping things work their way out this week!
4. Nanoblog updating continues. Almost forgot about ‘em…

With that, I count 14 blasts, bringing me six shy of being on track to meet my challenge. A couple extra per week for the remaining three weeks, and I’d be fine, but I think I may tackle them all this week. Maybe even go all mini site just to cheat a little… I’ve got a ton of potentials sitting in my ideadump folder anyway!

[What is this all about?]

As expected, participating in the latest Blast Challenge just about guaranteed that I’d have a productive week. I’d almost make the challenge a permanent sort o’ thing, but keeping up that pace can be a little stressful. And, quite honestly, I just don’t want to work that damn hard — I’m shooting for something a little more passive! But at a third of that pace? Hmmm, that probably is quite doable!

Anyway, this week’s progress:

1. Seven eBay mini sites, taken from idea to full blast. In that vein, grabbed a month-to-month subscription to Terapeak and found several niches that I would have never thought of. Definitely a service to at least try for a month or two if you’re doing product research, even if you don’t do the eBay thing.
2. Seven direct-to-merchant test balloons released. Very wide range of niches here, don’t believe any of them relate to another unless you really stretch the ol’ noggin!
3. Six custom landing pages created for yet another batch of merchants. This one is more of a loose cluster of seasonal products.

And that looks like 20 blasts to me. Just have to accomplish as much over the next four weeks, and I’ll meet my blast challenge!

Yeah, maybe a third is more my speed…

[What is this all about?]

Like I said last week, I wasn’t sure how much would get accomplished this week as we wound up a particularly busy portion of the ol’ day job. And it was a slower week on my goal front for sure.

1. Killed off a few campaigns that were holiday-centric, and that have finally would down to the point that they were only barely borderline profitable. I could probably keep them going a few weeks more with some more intense attention, but the cost/benefit ratio of doing so with these particular campaigns would be exceedingly low. We’ll just let ‘em idle until the next time around!
2. Continued my nanoblogging tasks, with some fairly major tweaking on one of them.

And that’s about it. The ol’ brain just wasn’t up to focusing, and so it didn’t.

That said, Blast Challenge XI went live today, and I intend to get as many of my 100 done as possible over the next few weeks. Next week should be a little more lively on the goal front…

[What is this all about?]

The Winter Olympics were quite the Siren call for me this week, but resisted just enough to manage to get at least few things done:

1. Seven new niche minisites blasted. What can I say? I tend to stick with what has been working! The last week has shown a nice jump up in my profit per click, so that’s always a good thing…
2. Continue doing what you do with a couple of my nanoblogs. Huge earners? Not yet, but like I said, I see the potential. Also, for some reason one of those sites has been having a few technical issues that I just haven’t found the time to track down, so it’s just sitting in the pits right for now. Once I get past a few things at work, I’ll track it down and get that one going again as well.
3. More campaign tweaking, dropping a few marginal-at-best ad groups, while expanding a few that have shown some real promise. Which is probably why I’m seeing a decent jump in that profit per click in #1 above!

Oh, and I finalized around, oh, eighty tax returns or so. But that ain’t part of this goal! This week will see my heavily in those as well until we get through most of our ag clients. Which is almost certain to fry my brain just a bit, so we’ll have to see what I manage to accomplish this next week.

But after that, it looks like another Blast Challenge is about to start up on the 1st over at Campaign Blasts, and tax season or not, I’ll be playing along. Even if I only accomplish half what I set out to do, just doing the challenge should kick me a fair ways down the path!

[What's this all about?]

Oops, another bout of this winter’s crazy weather has me trapped at home, and my days all messed up. And I let this out initially unadulterated. Despite what it might have said a few hours ago, as a matter of fact, I did accomplish a thing or two towards my goal this week!

1. Blasted away with another six new mini sites while trapped here in the countryside.
2. Quite a bit of stats trolling, ending up with me killing off a handful of fairly high traffic, low-converting mini sites. Already seeing a pretty substantial uptick in per-click earnings from those changes!
3. Continuing my nanoblogging projects. I still overthink this process, but I’m getting better. Plus, I’m learning a fair amount on a few niches I’m interested in anyway!

Not altogether bad for suffering through the continuing doldrums of Winter 2010 with a massive head cold! ‘cept for that losing-track-of-a-day thing…

[What is this all about?]

Week four already? Really? Wow, time really does fly…

So, what got done this week:

1. Got all my corporation tax info gathered up, and made sure everything was closed out for 2009. Pretty sure all my 1099s are now in hand, so I’ll just have to spit out a few reports in Quickbooks and actually do the return one of these days. Not in a huge hurry or anything to do so since I know that instead of getting a refund, this year I’ll be cutting a few pretty hefty checks instead. The pain of that is pretty much balanced by the realization that it just means I had a very good year!
2. Another seven minisites exist in the world, and another three direct-to-merchant campaigns are alive and clicking.
3. Having a little fun with one of my converted Nanoblogs, though probably getting a little too controversial in the tone of my postings. Might have to tweak the monetization method because of that, but I’m just going to let it ride for the time being.
4. Finished Sam Carpenter’s wonderful book Work The System, and began to implement some of his ideas. Highly recommended reading!

29 to go!

[What is this all about?]

Another week, another what-have-I-done-lately status report.

The day job was leaving me a little fried at the end of the day all week. And with tax season about to ramp up, likely even more so ahead. But I was left home alone this weekend as my wife & son went north with the in-laws to see her brother, so I had a chance to really plug away at a few things without my normal distractions.

Of course, I’m imminently distractable, so I did manage to waste a fair amount of time doing things like, oh, clearing out clothes I don’t wear from my closet. Or shopping to fill a little of that newly empty space in said closet. Or finalizing last years data for my little corporation in order to prepare for doing it’s tax return. Or a few dozen games of table tennis in Wii Sports Resort. You get my drift…

Nevertheless, I did manage to get a ton done:

1. Nanoblogging: Did some tweaking on a few details I had overlooked on the site I set up last week. Also converted a sorely neglected personal site into a Nanoblog. I have a handful that could use this treatment if the process pans out like I think it will! And started applying the system to the three I have set up. I see some real potential with nanoblogging, and plus, I enjoy doing the research involved in applying it!
2. MMS: Set up another five mini money sites, all blasted away and waiting for stats to come rolling in…
3. Just for a change of pace, set up a few direct link campaign blasts. Been a while since I’ve done things that way, but in researching niches for the Nanoblogs, came across a few interesting merchants that allowed direct linking. Might as well run with it!

30 weeks to go. Wish me luck!

[What is this all about? What the Weekly Kick in the Ass is...]

Per my promise to myself, here’s what I accomplished this week towards my :

1. Took a little action with my latest purchase. New Nanoblog set up. Meaning that I researched a handful niches, took the most promising and fleshed out a new site, and set up all the minutiae surrounding it.
2. Three new mini money sites set up. Then let lose a few blasts at them…
3. Started work on optimizing my current PPC campaigns. I’ve let this go for some time, so there is almost certainly a ton of waste in here.

One week down, just 31 to go…

What is this all about? What the Weekly Kick in the Ass is…

Unless you’ve been living under a particularly remote rock, you have been following news concerning the ongoing tragedy in Haiti. Even with my general distaste for the major 24-hour news channels, I’ve found myself watching as the disaster unfolds, trying to decide what I can do. Like all things I focus my attention on, I’ve over-analyzed the whole thing. As my skill set doesn’t encompass anything that I could do on the ground there, I’ve instead been trying to find that perfect charity.

The thing is, there are no perfect charity for this situation. Instead, there are likely dozens of efficient ones doing what they can. So I finally broke the mental stalemate and picked these three:

• UNICEF USA
• Doctors Without Borders
• AmeriCares

CNN set up a page where you can find a ton more…

Really, no need to over think this folks. Just do what you can.

This year I have set a single, fairly aggressive goal to accomplish before I roll into another decade. The decade that starts with the number four. While it is only tangentially related to a particular amount of money, there definitely is a financial component to it. In order to comfortably accomplish what I want, I look to increase my current side income in the neighborhood of three-fold before I’m 40, exactly 39 weeks from today. Certainly not impossible — after all, nothing truly is with appropriate motivation — but certainly not achievable merely by coasting.

The problem is, almost three weeks into the new year I have taken, at best, minor steps forward. Certainly continuing to earn — the system I use is by design as passive as possible — but not really expanding. In other words, I am coasting. Like I said, coasting won’t get me there. And just to make it fun, if I don’t get there, not only will I not reach my goal, I set up a trigger that will cost me a not insubstantial chunk o’ cash should I not accomplish it.

So I thought, why not go a little medieval, use what little traffic I have here as my public square, and put myself in virtual stocks for some public humiliation should I continue to slack off. Every Monday until then, a new Weekly Kick in the Ass post is set to automagically get posted with a brief rundown of any progress towards my goal done during the week. Or, should I continue coasting, a post that instead read:

Sean didn’t accomplish a damn thing towards meeting his goal this week. Feel free to berate him…

If the mood strikes you, go right ahead! =)

And once again:

Reminder: If you can read this message, almost by default you are wealthier and better off than most of the world. The recent earthquake in Haiti is a glaring example of how little you have to complain about. Please consider donating some of your bounty to those far less fortunate than yourself!