We finally pulled off to the side of the runway and the captain told us the flight tower could not give us the go ahead to take off. I’m not sure how long we sat there (I fell asleep a couple of times) but it had to be close to an hour. Oh well, we eventually got off the ground and it was a short flight into LGA.

Nothing to interesting happened on our way into downtown. We just grabbed a bus suggested by our sister and road it to Grand Central Station. Day one in New York City has officially began - but I’m tired so more later…

I popped up out of bed - oh crap why didn’t my alarm go off. As soon as I said it I knew I had set it for 5:45 instead of 4:45. Luckily, for some reason I just woke up at about 5:10. With my eyes still half way swollen from a heavy dream-filled sleep, I grabbed my clothes and stumbled up the stairs to the shower. Unfortunately, my brother was already in the shower so I turn to step 2 of getting ready and grabbed a bowl a cereal - the generic brand of fruity pebbles.

After inhaling about 3/4 of it, I put it down and took my turn in the shower. I had to make it a quick as I was running behind. In and out and back down to my room to finish getting dressed and grab my bags.

With no worries of being late we jumped in the car and took off for the airport.

The fresh morning air felt good as we got into the car - but I knew I was in for a long first half of the day filled with stale chilly airport air - better than driving 14 hours. (I’m freezing cold riding in a airplane typing this out on my new iPhone)

This is our first flight - we have a connecting flight from Philadelphia to LGA in New York. So far it’s been a normal flight. I was kind of worried for a bit - a lady and her two young children took their seats across and up one from us. There have been a few squeals and screams but they have been short and inconsistent. The other family members are a bit annoying - they keep getting up and coming over to the mother and one of the children (the youngest one) even took a different seat after the girl in front of us moved over to the window seat. Oh well, all is good so far and I’m getting some practice typing on my iPhone.

Time for some tunes and some sleep.

I walked out through the heat into the air conditioned building. Once I entered the doorway I was quickly greeted by your typical salesperson.

“I can I help you sir?” he said.

And out it spilled with no hesitation, “Do you guys have the iPhone…”

I was interrupted before I could finish.

“Yes we do” the salesperson told me.

I continued on not skipping a beat - “3GS?”

He let out an “Oh” and I thought dang it if they don’t have it I’m going to be so pissed.

“We only have the 32 gigabyte version.”

Shew! But for the first time I hesitated… I came expecting to get the 16 gigabyte version but I couldn’t leave empty handed - so I asked for one.

After a few minutes in the back the salesperson appeared with a sleek black box in shrink wrapped plastic. There it was - my very own iPhone 3GS.

So, one we went with the activation process, applying one of the screen protectors that I bought and 5 minutes of him trying to transfer my contacts from my old Samsung Blackjack to my new iPhone (which he was unsuccessful at). Then after running my debit card through, he finally handed the phone over to me and with a smile I slipped it into my pocket. I was happy.

I asked for my old phone back and walked out the door with my head held high. Once I got into my car I quickly pulled out my brand new glossy black iPhone 3GS and my fingers danced across the screen with grace. I have never really used an iPhone, or iPod Touch, for more than a minute or two, but it was like my fingers already new what they were doing. Regretfully, I locked the phone and put it down so I could safely drive home. After about a year and a half of waiting I finally had my iPhone.

I enjoy watching Man vs Wild anyway - but Will just made it even better.

I’m sure it was just done in an attempt to do some more promotion for his new movie Land of the Lost. They sure are spending a ton of money promoting this movie and to be honest it looks pretty stupid. I’ll probably see it on DVD, but I highly doubt I’ll be spending movie theater amounts of money to see it. Then again, if a bunch of friends want to go watch it I’ll probably go.

Anyway, I really enjoyed watching Men vs Wild with Bear Grylls and Will Farrell – watch it. Great marketing student by the way.

I told you I was going to need to write out some goals to get this niche store / niche blog going. Here is a quick list of my goals and steps to take to get the site up and running. I’m not going to break them down or explain them much - but here they are.

1. Figure out what software options are available and decide which to use

   - WordPress? - BANS? - StoreStacker? - phpBay?

2. Start writing articles, or posts, to have content ready to publish.

   - have 10 posts ready to go by launch

3. Work on quick theme for the site

   - I want it to be unique but I don’t plan on spending too much time on it

   - I have experience in web design and creating WordPress themes so I can do this myself

4. Setup affiliate network accounts

   - I have an eBay affiliate account

   - Might just start with ebay don’t want to create too much competition on the site by using multiple affiliate programs

5. Setup niche store software

   - Whether its BANS, StoreStacker, or phpBay there will be some intial setup involved

6. Publish site

   - Might do this earlier with a few articles posted to get it indexed in the search engines quicker

7. Advertise the site - gotta have traffic

   - I don’t plan on spending too much money starting out.

   - Post in forums (free)

   - Post comments (free)

   - Directory submissions (free/cost)

   I could do it myself or pay someone to submit the site

   - Submitting articles to article sites (maybe - that’s more writing) (free)

   - CPC (cost per click) campaign - adwords, msn adcenter, yahoo ad network (cost)

   I have some free adwords and msn adcenter coupons

8. Hopefully repeat with another domain and niche site / niche store

Just a quick look into what I have in mind for the setup of my niche site or store - I keep going back and forth with that. I’m sure other things will creep up that I’ve forgotten. If anyone has any suggestions please leave a comment.

Getting Motivated
So, I am finally getting motivated. It might be a little late to get in on the initial holiday shopping season, but after the new year people will be looking to buy again. Whether it be to help them with their new years resolution or to purchase a game or two to play on the new video game console they got for christmas. It’s time to stop reading and start doing.

Follow Along
I plan on documenting my process here at hargism.com - whether it is a success or a huge failure. Like I said, I’m new to the whole building a niche store thing. I’ll be doing some research and weighing my options on what software to use and how to gain traffic. There are a plentiful amount of resources out there that should be able to help me with my niche site.

Initial Planning
My idea is to take at least one domain I have that is just sitting there doing nothing and turn it into, not just a niche store, but more a niche site with the store built in. I’ll be going with more of a blogging setup for the site with integrated niche store elements like the eBay - seems to be the most popular option. I think setting it up like a blog will really help with the natural (free) search engine traffic, and will be more Google friendly (hopefully). This will allow me to create unique keyword friendly content to not only help drive traffic but also to hopefully provide the readers with something [of value] worth visiting the site for - and hopefully get them to come back another time.

I know the creation of content will be the hardest part for me. I can be a bit of a procrastinator when it comes to writting. But I am going to try my best to stay motivated. I know I’m going to have to create a list of daily goals in order to keep on task. It would be great to have a little be of extra income coming in each day/month.

Stay tuned for future post and feel free to give me any advice you have as I journey through building a niche blog store thing…

PPC Success or Failure
I told you I would talk about my results whether they were good or bad. Well, they weren’t good - as I expected. Out of the three campaigns I had up and running I converted one click for $1.58 - ouch. I’m still new to the game and learning - maybe my offers weren’t the best. I decided to start simple and just try to convert leads instead of actually getting people to buy something.

PPC Leads
Leads can be as simple as having someone fill out a form to submit their email address or they can be as involved as having people fill out 7 or 8 fields of a form. I thought driving traffic and converting an email lead would be easier than a sale. It didn’t quite workout this time - but I have to say I was pretty excited to see my first conversion - even though it was my only one.

My PPC Campaigns
Like I said I only ran 3 campaigns and only for a few days. So, maybe if I would have let them run longer I would have seen better results (but I doubt it). With the second campaign I ran I got 11,587 impressions and 334 clicks for a click through rate (CTR) of 2.88% - my average cost per click (CPC) was $0.17. This is the campaign that I received my conversion of $1.58 from. My third campaign I ran for a shorter amount of time than the first. I got 5,724 impressions and 136 clicks for 2.38% CTR with an average CPC of $0.15. Both of these campaigns were based off of events in the news and only ran for a couple of days. The first campaign I rand was a dud. I’ll talk about it in a second.

So, I was glad to see that my ads were getting clicked - but I need to work on getting better conversions (or getting conversions period). Most of the people clicked through to the page with the email submit - but only one actually went through with it. Maybe I need more enticing offers or maybe I should try sales. Really, I just need to put more time and effort into it if I want to make any money with affiliate and pay per click marketing.

My Findings

• Google AdWords - not a good idea for newer sites (or mine anyway).
  The site I was sending people to is fairly new - though it has plenty of content on it. This is where my 1st campaign comes in. I got a few impressions and then nothing, nothing, nothing. My quality score was too low and my ads weren’t running - and if they did they were probably on the 10th page or something like that.
• MSN AdCenter - I had a coupon for $50 for MSN AdCenter so I started using them for my 2nd and 3rd campaigns. It was simple to use and though MSN’s search probably isn’t nearly as popular as Google’s - I was able to get my ads seen by a descent amount of people.
• Tracking - I should have made a better effort to track what keywords and ads were doing better. Though I only let my ads run for a couple of days - it is very important to keep track of which keywords and which ads are getting clicks or getting conversions. Tracking is important.

So, there is an update on my venture in to PPC marketing. So far not so good, but I’m still learning and I haven’t given up on the idea that I can make money doing this. As a matter of fact I am working on a different way to promote affiliates (it’s nothing crazy new) and I’ll be talking about it as I build it and make it live.

Michael Hargis

For all you beginner bloggers (including myself for this blog)
It’s tough when you’re just starting a blog - when your blog is in its infancy - to stay motivated to keep writing posts. It might feel pretty lonely when you first start your blog - it’s like you are blogging without an audience. Once again it comes back to setting your goals and keeping your incentives in mind.

Write and they will come
Don’t stop writing - keep posting. Try to make it fresh and interesting content - content is king. If you stopped now all that time you have put in was wasted. Keep chugging away. Continue to read and follow the blogging tips of those that are already successful - they too had to start at the beginning. Some blogs grow faster than others - it depends a lot on the amount of time you put into it.

Keep promoting
Even if it doesn’t seem to be working - keep leaving quality comments on related blogs and get the word out about your content. Make this part of your routine - it can be hard to get motivated to do the promoting - add it your daily list of blogging tasks and just do it.

It takes time
Rome wasn’t built in a day - or some other catchy cliché. It takes time and effort to grow a blog - especially if you don’t have a high traffic site to promote through. It may seem like you are getting nowhere - stay with it. The first few months can be difficult - stay motivated and remember your end goals and incentives. If you want it you’ve got to put the work in.

So, don’t give up even if you feel like you are blogging without an audience - I’m there with this new blog, but I’m going to keep writing and keep promoting.

Michael Hargis

If you have ever taken an Economics class you probably know that incentives are the cornerstone of modern life. These days ‘modern life’ includes blogging and making money online. So, to keep up your blogging motivation you are going to need incentives. This is not exactly the same as setting goals (sometimes goals and incentives can intertwine). We all understand setting goals - you have something you want to accomplish and you work towards reaching it. Incentives are more like prizes. You’ve worked hard and met your goals - now what do you get out of it? Basically, incentives are the things that motivate you to reach your blogging goals. So, when you are working towards your goals, or especially if you are procrastinating, keep your incentives in mind - it will help motivate you.

Having incentives makes completing those little daunting tasks a little easier. Growing a blog, or making money online, is time consuming and even with all the organization and goal setting techniques out there the best motivation is realizing what you will be getting out of all your hard work. Whether it be making enough money to quit your day job, or making a little extra cash to add to your income - maybe you just want the recognition that the big bloggers get or a chance to network with a great group of people and grow a community around your blog. These are all incentives - they are things that make you work hard to met your goals and become successful.

So, if you are feeling sluggish, or lazy, remember what you want to get out of blogging and use that as motivation to work towards your goals. Use it to get you excited again - pumped up - it helps, I do it.

Michael Hargis

What is Pay Per Click Marketing
Here is what pay per click marketing means to me: You know when you see those ads in search results on Google, Yahoo, MSN, or other search engines? People are paying to put those ads there and most all are paying Per Click which is where pay per click comes from. The marketing idea is to get people to see your ppc ad when the search, or in an adsense ad on some other site, click on it to visit your site, and complete some kind of action that makes you money. These actions can range from buying a product, submitting information, or just gaining page views to help increase your popularity and get advertiser for your site.

So, you want to make sure that your ppc costs are less than your products profit margin - in other words you make more from your product than you spend on your ppc campaign. Say you are paying $0.25 every time someone clicks on your ad and your product, or action, nets you $2.00 profit for each sale or action completed. Well, the ideal outcome would be that you complete a sale or action before the 8th click (the 8th click breaks even: $0.25 * 8 = $2.00) - these are just example numbers that I randomly came up with. Hopefully, you won’t have to pay $0.25 per click - that just depends on how much competition there is for your keywords. And you never know - you might convert on 3 or 4 clicks in a row and then get nothing for the next 8 clicks.

Of course, I wouldn’t jump into anything completely blind. I am new to ppc and affiliate marketing in general, but I have been doing some research - picking up some techniques and tips along the way. Hopefully I will be able to put them to use and make money online using pay per click marketing.

I’ll keep you up to date with my progress - good or bad - and let you in on any tips or techniques I find useful. You can learn as I learn. Hopefully I will be making money online using pay per click marketing withing the next few weeks (depending on how much time I can devote to it).

Michael Hargis