A few days ago it was my birthday and I announced the half price Wordpress theme sale. But I didn’t tell you what I got for my birthday… an iPhone :). My wife and I both picked up black 16 GB iPhone’s after switching over from Verizon. The service in our house was terrible and Verizon recommended we try phone calls outside! Hah hah! Needless to say I don’t see all of my neighbor’s standing outside to make phone calls so we decided to switch providers. Because we both got iPhone and our birthdays are relatively close we only spent $50 on other gifts. I am so glad we went for the iPhone over something else. I am a PC user now but if Macs are anywhere close to how rad (yes I said it) the iPhone is I may consider buying one.

This post is a primarily a test but I will do more and I will end all iPhone posts with the location I was when I wrote it.

Blogged from my iPhone while waiting at the DMV

In any case here are the posts last week that really got me thinking:

Let’s start things off with a great post from Scott over at Self Made Minds about a mini site case study update. This is a one year follow up post about a site he purchased that requires absolutely no upkeep. He’s making $20 a day off a site he doesn’t even have to touch anymore! As you may have read before I’m working on some mini sites of my own, but I don’t have a $600 a month target like that site is bringing in… yet.

Brian from Breaking Free (he seems to be a regular attendee on my link love posts these days) wrote about how to make your business more passive. He uses an example from his tutoring site, yet the principles still apply. It’s important to automate menial tasks like looking for spam - I just wish I had the coding skills to implement more of these ideas into my own websites

Elijah from the At Home Couple writes about Blogging Naked. Now part of me thinks he was just using this post as link bait (hey worked on me) but I just had to post this. Has anyone tried blogging naked? I certainly haven’t and if I do I’m not sure if I’ll post pictures about it hah hah. This guy’s writing is hilarious in most of his posts though so be sure to check out his blog.

Alan from Affiliate Confession wrote a great post that claims Making Money on the Internet is a Big Fat Scam. Don’t let the post title fool you as this is primarily just focused on letting people know that you can’t get anywhere online if you don’t put in some work and I certainly agree. Part of why I love to write about case studies is because of the fact that I believe it can truly help people learn if something is best for them. That’s what I’m trying to do with my $100 monthly mini site case study series and my ongoing site flipping case study.

While on the topic of scams I have to also link to another similiar post written last week that matches up well with what Alan has said. Seth Godin talks about things that are too good to be true.

Lastly Jim Karter writes about staying focused and not getting bored. This is great advice to me, because I am constantly reminded of projects I planned to start and didn’t because I lost focus. While I currently can’t just take a vacation when I get bored of diversifying my work I can at the very least make my web work a larger priority in my life by cutting out other tasks that take up too much of my time.

Alright, that’s it for me and if you have a great blog post that you’d like me to mention in my Sunday Link Love series than please contact me. If I believe it will benefit my readers I’ll post it. Also a brief update on the site flipping case study - I have listed the site for auction. I only posted it for 10 days as I want to try and wrap up the case study by the end of the month. Be sure to subscribe to my RSS feed to read future updates about my progress.

I will never sell them for less than this price.

So if you’re looking for a very unique Wordpress theme check them out.

Or just click to buy Guthrie-Red for $19.95

Guthrie Romantic for $19.95

Guthrie Vibrant for $19.95

Or all three for $49.95

View your cart before you check out here:

You can demo all of the themes by clicking the theme switcher on the right hand side column or by going to my Wordpress Themes page.

Also - the Sunday Link love series will be delayed a few days. My birthday just happened to fall on a Sunday.

Amazon has a deal going on right now where if you purchase the Flip MinoHD the Flip Tripod comes for free (just make sure you add it to the cart). As of now the price is $234.99. It shoots HD video and stores up to 60 minutes, which is just like the past iterations of the Flip but in HD

I’ve seen numerous bloggers use the Flip for video blog posts and I’ve decided to do the same. I also want to use this for snowboarding as well. Because it uses flash based memory it would be less likely to break it if I fell hard in the snowboard park or something. In any case, I’ll post impressions of the camera once it comes in next week. I find it funny that for how long I’ve been making Halo videos I’ve never owned a camera but then again I’ve always used a capture card for that.

What do you think? Will you pick up the Flip Mino HD? If you already own one of the other versions is the addition of HD film capture worth it to upgrade?

Case Study

I will be documenting this whole process over the rest of this week and into next week (however I will not publish the posts until after the sale is complete - see below for explanation). I have Nov 17th off as a vacation day so I will be building the site that day and posting it for sale the following day on SitePoint or Digital Point forums (most likely SitePoint). For those of you that are on the fence about site flipping be sure to subscribe to my blog’s RSS feed. I will be documenting the process on my blog over the course of November.

My Perspective (Pre Flip)

In my opinion (again as a pre flipper) site flipping seems like it’s just a substitute for a real 9 - 5 job. You spend most of your day researching a niche to build a site around, creating the content, launching the site only to put it on auction soon after. So you’re constantly working on creating a website that you will ultimately sell before it can begin to generate any residual income. If you take all this time to build a site the least you can do is have some faith that the work you put in will pay off in the form of a nice chunk of residual income as opposed to a one time (small) lump sum. If I do like the site flipping process what makes the most sense to me is to take a laddered approach to site flipping. In other words, I would build sites on a consistent basis (perhaps once a month) but give each site at least 30 days or more to generate some decent traffic before selling them. Then when the next month rolls around I have another site that has had 30 days to generate traffic before selling. The other problem I see with site flipping is that you could possible use up a lot of your great niche ideas on sites you flip instead of sites you keep around but I suppose this could be countered with dedicated time towards research.

So that is where I stand right now and I’m sure you may agree or disagree with some of the points I’ve made. I believe what makes the most sense when it comes to site flipping is to build a site targeting a specific niche or long tail keyword and wait until the site starts to rank well for that term before flipping it; however, in this case study I will fight my urge to hold onto my website and instead flip it the day after I build it. If you like the posts that follow during this case study I will certainly consider doing this again, but most likely I will try the build - wait for rankings - then sell approach.

Case Study Details

As I mentioned earlier, to help reduce the variables in this case study I will hold off on posting the URL of the site (as well as the steps I took to select the niche and build the site) until after the sale is complete. Most case studies I read from top bloggers are swayed by the fact that they post the URL to a site they’re building as a “case study” but if you’ve taken 7th grade chemistry you’ll remember that it’s important to limit variables as much as possible when performing a case study. Now how can you do that if you tell every one the URL to the site and drive traffic that the site would have otherwise not received? I also recognize that there are other variables that can affect this case study. The perfect example is that the sale price range could be determined by the niche I choose to build a site in and these are topics I will certainly address in future posts.

I expect all aspects of the case study to be completed by the end of November at the latest, so if you like to learn by example than I highly recommend you subscribe to my RSS feed. It’s going to be a lot of fun and I expect we’ll all learn something.

What do you think?

I want to start this off with a post from someone you no doubt have heard of - Shoemoney. He had originally sent this off in his newsletter but decided to post it again on his blog. This is a post about how much money you can make with local affiliate marketing. I think the best part about it is that there is a ton of opportunity out there as I doubt many people are doing this and besides - let’s face it there are plenty of businesses that could stand to benefit from this.

Another great one from Al over at SelfMadeMinds. He wrote about leaving the comfort zone. I bet it would be certainly hard to leave a six figure job to focus on the web full time. Either way, I’m steadily working towards that as well (the leaving the job for the web full time - not the six figure job :D)

Lastly (hey I said this was a short one) SuiteJ makes a return by giving 5 reasons why flipping new sites is better than keeping them. I’ve heard so much about site flipping over the past few months that I’ve decided to give it a go as well. First I want to write about site flipping from the perspective of someone that hasn’t done it (calling upon what others have written about from time to time). Then I’m going to build a site and flip it and write a follow up post. Hopefully this will help some of you that are on the fence about the idea figure out if it’s worth the effort. Either way it’s sure to be a lot of fun so make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed to see how it turns out.

Ok that’s it for me and if you have a great blog post that you’d like me to mention in my Sunday Link Love series than please contact me. If I believe it will benefit my readers I’ll post it.

Shane from AskShane.org in my Who is your critic? post he wrote:

Great post, Chris. We all need someone that challenges our beliefs.

Mine is my wife. In a series about Frank Schilling I wrote:

The second relationship that stood out to me was the one with his wife, Michele — probably because my own wife has played such a key role in my success over the years. Because we’re so different, she’s a great sounding board for me. Instead of just telling me what I want to hear, or what I’m telling myself, she comes at things from a completely different angle. She still doesn’t really understand what I do, but that ends up being good because she asks questions that I would never think to ask.

Like with Michele being “thoroughly alarmed as Frank sank all of their savings in domains,” relationships like these provide checks and balances that are absolutely essential. Frank ended up being right in that case, but if they’re anything like us I guarantee you that Michele’s concerns have been beneficial all along the way. I help my wife be more willing to take risks, and she helps me remember that I need to look before I leap.

There’s no way I would be where I am today without her.

I appreciate the comment and the posts you linked to were great as well. So please contact me within the next 48 hours and I’ll send you over the free theme.

If you’re interested in my theme head on over to my WordPress Themes page where you can test out three different color schemes based on this design. I’ve received a lot of good feedback and know there are a lot of people out there looking for a WordPress theme that’s unique and inexpensive.

Lastly, as you may remember I also pledged another free Wordpress theme to a random RSS email subscriber if I don’t reach 20 posts this month. So if you want to read some great posts (:D) and have a chance at winning a free theme then subscribe to my RSS feed via email now.

Check out the earnings break down here:

Private Ad Sales: $105
Sponsored Reviews: $100
Affiliate Sales: $25
(From OIOPublisher and Pepperjam Networks)

Grand Total: $230 (Back to Back Records! )

Earnings Analysis:

My 468 x 60 banner ad was renewed three times for $35 a month by the same advertiser; however, it is now finally open this month. This has been one of my most popular ad slots so I highly suggest you snag it now while it’s available. Click here to purchase.

Also, one of the banners that was popular when I first started offering advertising is the 300 x 250 inline ad which is available for $75. When this slot is filled it is not rotated, in fact only one banner will be featured there and it is the only advertisement in the RSS feed as well. For several months it was sold out from the time I first began offering advertising so I am surprised I haven’t sold it recently. Click here to buy it.

Finally people are taking advantage of my sidebar 125 x 125 sidebar ads for only $15 a month! I knew my banners weren’t overpriced so it’s nice to see three advertisers taking advantage of them now. Motive Interactive purchased a three month package but have spread the income over the next three months of reports. There are only 3 slots left so be sure to purchase a sidebar banner ad ASAP if you want a spot.

Now for text links there are only a few spots left, so click here to purchase a $10 site wide text link ad. This is a good price for a PR3 blog.

Lastly, if you like the WordPress theme you see here, than be sure to check out my WordPress themes page where you can see and demo three other color variations of this unique custom theme. If you like all three you can purchase the group for $99.95 or buy them for $39.95 individually.

For more ways to earn money on your blog or to read about the companies I work with check out my recommendations.

October Wrap Up and Goal Assessment

I’ll kick off the closing comments with my wrap up and goal assessment. Here are my Top Posts of October. If you haven’t read my blog before than I highly recommend you check out these posts as they are the best for the month.

Top Posts of October:

Never Pay for Stumble Upon traffic
How much money is an RSS subscriber worth?
World’s Largest Digg button
Who is your Critic?

Assessing October’s Goals:

Setting specific and measurable goals is incredibly important if you wish to see improvements in your blog or website revenue, subscriber count, number of visitors, and a wealth of other factors.

Post Count:

I only wrote 14 posts in October which was 6 again short of my previous goal of the month. I am going to try and post at least 20 times next month to see how that has effect on my RSS subscription numbers. Also - for those of you that remember last month I said I would give away one of my unique Wordpress themes for free to the best comment of the month in case I don’t hit 20 posts in October. As you know I did not reach that goal so the winner of the free theme will be announced Thursday morning. You will have 24 hours to claim your prize. I am going to do this challenge for myself again this month; however, this time I will give it to an RSS email subscriber. So if you want a chance at a free theme be sure to subscribe to my full email RSS feed by clicking here.

RSS Subscribers:

Again I fell short of my 170 RSS subscribers goal. While I did hit a high of 167 subscribers the other day I didn’t break the 170 mark. However, because I’m already very close to 170 I’ve decided to set a new goal of 185 RSS subscribers which is about a 15% increase over my month ending total. If you are currently visiting my blog on even a semi-regular basis I would encourage you to please subscribe to my RSS feed or via email RSS subscription.

Income Expectations:

Although I didn’t hit my 20 post goal or RSS subscription goal, I did reach manage to break last month’s income record. I did want to hit $250 in October but because I’m spreading the three month banner deal from Motive Interactive over the next three income reports I fell just shy at $230 for the month.

Lastly, if you’re interested in advertising please see my advertise page for rates and info. The winner of the free Wordpress theme will be announced Thursday so be sure to subscribe to my RSS feed so that you don’t miss out on any future posts.