So what happens? I would call it everyday happenings. Maybe your spouse’s schedule gets busy with work or community volunteer events. Your own work schedule can get extremely busy as you push out your latest product launch. The kids’ baseball/softball/football/soccer schedules can be extremely unfriendly to your night-time work schedule.  Between all the driving, working and parenting, it is very easy to spend little (no?) attention on our blogs, whether it be online research, promotion or writing.

So as I am now committed to building an income from my online blogging & affiliate sites, I spent a little time this weekend  trying to figure out what I could do to resolve this issue to a) either have it not happen, or b) if it does happen, to keep the “down-time” as short as possible. Here’s what I came up with:

1. Determine what my “Regular” posting schedule is for each of my blogs
   Not every blog needs to have daily postings, let alone multiple daily postings. I am still trying to determine what a proper schedule will be for each of my blogs, trying to be realistic with what I can actually achieve. As I add new blogs to my schedule, I try to set realistic weekly goals. This gives me some flexibility in when I post, and lets me feel good about meeting my goals. With new blogs, I usually shoot for a two to three post per week schedule, and then adjust my schedule accordingly after a 4-5 week starting period.
2. Spend dedicated chunks of time writing
   Unless you are a professional copywriter (and even then), writing can be a bit of a chore. Writing good content can be even more difficult. I’ve found two things to help me with my writing – spending dedicated chunks of time writing content, and writing about related subjects during this time. This is especially handy if you have a number of blogs that have varied content. Don’t forget to get everything setup prior to starting and try to avoid all distractions during this.
3. Write for posts 3 days from now
   Don’t feel pressured to get posts up “right now”, unless it is related to a breaking news story. Many of your blog posts can probably be considered “evergreen”, and as such would be as effective 3 days from now as it would be today. If you aim to have daily posts, write five posts in one day (See #2 above) and then use your blogging platform to schedule the publishing of these posts over the course of a week.
4. Write shorter posts, followup later if needed
   Not every one of your posts needs to be a literary tome. Quick updates, 50-word tips, a short review and link to a site of interest can all be ways to shorten your required “posting time” when you find yourself in a time-crunch. If a post warrants a follow-up, you can always write it and reference your original post at a future date.
5. Use Article sites to combat writer’s block
   If you’re stuck for what to write about, take a look at one of the many e-zine article repositories to serve as inspiration when your idea tank has run empty.
6. Review Press Releases for latest company information
   Press Release websites exist for many paid release services that companies use when launching new products or when they have news or information to reach the public. You can review these press releases and search for terms relevant to your blog for ideas or to find news relevant to your readers. PRNewswire, PRWeb and BusinessWire three of my regular stops.

It’s easy. Setup a blog about your favorite hobby. Write a couple of pages and watch thousands of visitors start coming to your site.

Wrong! Starting a blog is all about consistently writing quality content that your (potential) audience is interested in and, more importantly, searching for! But how do you know about what users are searching for, and what you should write?

You could look at your log reports (Google Analytics offers a great free tool) and see the most popular Search Engine keywords or keyword phrases resulting in hits to your site. Google’s Webmaster Tools also offer more detailed information on the phrases people use to find your site, but it’s limited to Google’s search engine.

But there is also an online SEO Software tool – HitTail - which is a must have for creating quality content around subjects your readers are looking for. Even better, it helps generate ideas for new posts when you hit the inevitable writers block on your blog.

How does HitTail work? As their founder states, “HitTail is a writing suggestion tool for bloggers and website owners of all sorts — to help you grow your natural search traffic.” To start getting information from the service, you place a small piece of tracking code on your website. The code works quietly on the background and records search hits and keyword information. The software then analyzes these phrases to give you suggested topics based on the underperforming keywords that you can use to improve your results in search engines. By using the suggestions in new website content, blog posts, or PPC campaigns, you can improve your search results to attract qualified visitors to your site. By using Google’s free Keyword Tool, you can also prioritize these suggestions by seeing which topics may have the potential to generate the most traffic.

When I first signed up in 2007, HitTail had both a free and paid service (ranging from $9.99/m to $99.99/m). and the free service was plenty for most bloggers starting out or for those bloggers who have hit a creative wall or traffic plateau. While they no longer offer this free account, their starter “Plus” account is only $9.99 per month, and comes with a free 60-day trial. This trial is a great offer for bloggers or small business sites who are currently already receiving some level of Search Engine Traffic, but are working to increase their number of visitors.

I have personally used HitTail while writing content for one of my business sites that grew the percentage of our “Long-tail” hits from 20% of our overall Search Engine traffic to over 75% over a 5-month period.

If you are serious about building your audience(s) for your blog or small business website, I believe HitTail is a must-have tool in your SEO arsenal.

For the most part, these blogs were set up sometime over the last 1-2.5 years as experiments in different niche markets, were never fully developed, and haven’t been touched in some time.  But they are receiving visitors and converting these visitors into adsense and/or affiliate revenue for me.

Adsense Revenue: $86.64
Affiliate Program Revenue: $66.46
Total YtD: $153.10

The amount, admittedly, is small and only projects out to about $215 for total annual earnings (not even $20/month!).  But we all have to start somewhere, and I’m currently just happy that these earnings are able to support the hosting costs and some of the domain registration fees for my sites.

I’ve realized that these same questions (and undoubtedly many more) may arise from potential readers of this blog as well. While future posts will detail a bit more of my background and my current financial position, I want to give you more of an idea of what this journey is and is not.

This is a part-time effort.
I will be approaching this journey as a part-time effort. I want to show that you can earn good money online without dedicating every waking moment to your effort.  I will be dedicating a maximum of 15 hours each week as I build out this model, and hope to demonstrate that with focused effort, you can achieve success in short order.

I will not just be creating a blog about how to create a blog.
I will be using this blog to chronicle my online activities, and certainly hope that I will be able to generate some income from it. However, I will be building out other blogs/sites around certain areas of interest that will take up the majority of my efforts. I am not sure exactly how much detail I will get into the actual content niches I target with these other sites, but I will use them as case studies and learning experiences in building out the strategies and success/failures I profile on this site.  I’m sure I’ll figure out more as we go along.

This is not a short-term experiment.
My intention is to make this a life-changing event. After having spent the last 12 years building 3 businesses, I’ve realized that I’ve missed much (most?) of my family’s development. My marriage has certainly taken it’s hits as well. While I certainly expect much of the rest of this year to be a whirlwind of activity (starting new businesses usually are), my hope is that my kids will shortly be able to experience their father without a laptop on his lap during most moments of the day!

I don’t have a huge nest egg or savings to support the start of this journey.
I would not wish my current financial position on anyone. Credit Cards all maxed out, and collecting 30% to 35% on a five-figure balance. Over $200K in friends & family loans from the last 10 years of building businesses. To top it off, I’m sure my credit score is in the tank (This will be another post), so any traditional business loans are pretty much out of the question.Make no mistake, I need to start generating income from Day 1 in order to make this work. I estimate my current monthly “nut” to be in the neighborhood of $5,000 to $6,000.

This will be a learning experience for me.
Yes, I have a background in PR and Marketing. Yes, I have owned and operated an Internet consulting firm that has built and deployed large e-commerce solutions for large corporations, and advised non-profits on their Internet Marketing efforts. However, I will be learning much as I move forward, and getting my hands dirty in the areas of Search Engine Optimization, Affiliate Marketing and Social Networking. I will document it all through this blog in the hopes that I can show others a path to success.

I will post more about why I have made this decision now, but I have long held the belief that with dedication, passion and follow-through, you can use existing online business opportunities to replace your current income and create financial freedom for yourself and your family. After 12 years of building my own online businesses and consulting for other online businesses, I am excited to stake out my personal space on the web, take the plunge and prove this belief to myself. I imagine this will be a slow process, as I already have enough going on most days & nights.

I am already making some money through “pure” online business opportunities (as I define as generating revenue through online advertising or affiliate revenue), but not much.  My small and under-developed network of blogs (2) and affiliate sites (also 2) have never generated more than $100/month through my up-to-now half-hearted and on-again/off-again efforts.  Meanwhile my yearly renewal of 35-40 domains I’ve registered over the years continue to haunt me as “Ideas I’ve had but never followed through on”.

But you have to start somewhere.  My main goal with this site is to be able to track money-making opportunities as they exist on the web today, experiment with what is available on my other niche blogs and affiliate sites, and hopefully create a community of like-minded people who are exploring achieving financial freedom through the Internet.  Only time will tell whether this experiment is successful.

For the time being, this will not be a full-time endeavor.  I hope to be able to track this process online through this site to provide a blueprint on how people who currently have a job can replace or supplement their income through online publishing. I will hold myself to a strict 12 to 15 hour/week time limit for this activity.  My other companies – StashSpace (and to a much lesser extent, Online Video Service) take up most of my waking hours, especially as we have been experiencing tremendous growth and opportunity over the last six months.