How to create a successful blog - my own journey

How to create a successful blog is no longer a mystery to me.  I can safely say that because after returning to blogging - I gave myself 3 months to start showing sales.  It occurred to me that blogging is not a sprint but a marathon.  In 2 weeks time,  it will be my blog's 3-month anniversary, and I have met my goals.  The blog has started to make money!

In a hurry? Click on the image below to find out how I do it.

I've always known that blogging is a lucrative online business venture, but would get cold feet along the way.  

I decided to get out of my comfort zone and follow Robin and Lesley,  and learn how to create a successful blog and earn an income from it. After-all, it is the only way to succeed i.e follow the successful people.  

==========>Learn more about Pajama Affiliates

The journey has been and still is exciting for me because I learn every day from these ladies - as well as the other bloggers in the group. Amazon sales are starting to trickle in, my Google Adsense is making tremendous progress because I receive good traffic to my niche blog, all thanks to following the instructions of the blogging course.

I got moved today when I saw a blog post that was plastered with Google Ads and had the thinnest content I've ever seen.  I realized how lucky I was that I got myself into one of the blogging courses from Pajama Affiliates. One can easily dismiss this as an exaggeration, but believe me, it is not.

Receiving proper mentorship and training is the first step to creating a successful blog.  Skipping this part is just delaying your own success.

Robin likes to talk about one's inner game. This normally comes in the form of live videos posted on our Facebook group.  Together with the training, your mental attitude becomes just as important in building a thriving business.

Despite giving myself a 3-month period for signs of blogging success, I became quite despondent when I realized that the blog was actually approaching my cut-off period - but I knew better not to throw in the towel.  In that same week,  I recorded my first Amazon sale as a Pajama Affiliate.

I'm nowhere near my financial goals for my blogging business, but I now know what works so I'll relax,  rinse and repeat - while still benefiting immensely from the ongoing and lifetime mentorship.

I am not mentioning social media or SEO because,  in my opinion, all these are part and parcel of a training program.  The blogging training one receives will definetly cover these topics. 

UPDATE

It's been 7 months since I wrote this blog post.  I have made sales repetitively and benefited immensley during this holiday season. The Master-mind group at Pajama Affiliates is still going strong, with some of the courses having been updated and upgraded (at no extra charge), to keep up with the trends in SEO and blogosphere

Wishing you success!

Working hard to get found on Google

I am quite frustrated right now as I do not seem to update this blogging diary of mine as frequently as I'd love to.  My self-hosted Wordpress site is really keeping me on my toes. I'm very busy figuring out how to get found on Google a.k.a that painful process called Search Engine Optimization.

I've been hard at work with the Pajama Affiliates' SEO and Keyword Course for beginners.  I keep wondering though why it is referred to as "for beginners" because anyone who needs to polish their site's SEO would benefit tremendously from the site.

=======>Get Keyword Training From Pajama Affiliates

I've been busy for the whole of last week and this one - going through the course. So far my blog has 17 blog posts which I've managed to pull together within a space of a month. My initial reaction to the course was to go back to each post and align it with the lessons learned.   That did not work well for me and got me more confused and frustrated.

My solution then was to write a brand new post (post no. 18) and apply everything I've learned there about blog post SEO, image optimization, interlinking etc.

The process went smoothly, with even a thumbs up from the trainers (quite a huge deal for me).  This helped me to put everything into perspective.  I will go back and clean out the posts as well once I know all that is required off by heart.

I'm also busy working on the analytics on Google Search Console. This is one of those things that I tripped  over and fell on while fiddling and searching the net.

I am jumping for joy because my month-old niche blog is already ranking for 100 keywords (I was not even targeting most of them). One of them is already on Page 1 so yeah!!! I'll jump for joy for this one.  The thing is, I'm not new to keyword research and can only thank what I preceive to be the best keyword tool i.e Jaaxy

=====>Read my Jaaxy Review

Pajama Affiliates is helping me a lot to put everything I mine from Jaaxy into perspective. Getting found on Google is one thing, the question Robin keeps asking her students is "what kind of quality will your readers find when they land on your blog?". Google has become clever and sprinkling and throwing keywords all over one's blog does not work anymore - it is because of these developments that I realized that I will need coaching on SEO and Keyword Research.

I will make an effort to post weekly updates with updates on my traffic stats as well as my affiliate marketing journey in general!

Till next time!

Affiliate Marketing.....The Journey continues......

It's been a while since I posted my low cost internet marketing journey on this blog. There are a number of reasons why this is the case. After my first sale on Amazon, almost 2 years ago....I lost focus and put most of my energy into another business venture.

=======>Fast forward to the present time.........

It seems like while I was in hibernation, I had managed to earn my first check on Amazon...and surprise surprise, also got my associate account closed because I failed to respond to an email that needed confirmation that my niche site was not for children under 13.

The good news is that the helpful members of staff at Amazon advised me to open another account as  well as that I was to be paid for my old efforts.

==========>Which brings me here...........

How Am I doing Affiliate Marketing Now?

Nothing much has changed. Upon resuming, my first instinct was to find a person that I've always looked up to online...i.e Robin.  Her methods have always resonated with me. There's no "shiny object" syndrome with Robin and that gives me peace of mind that with her I can build a long term business.

I was using as many free resources as possible in the past...with a huge success on Hubpages BUT as it turns out all my hubs were deleted eventually. It seems like all web 2.0 sites always act in this predictable manner. One minute writers are earning good incomes with them and then, boom!..with no notification whatsoever, their webpages are offline.

Robin started her affiliate marketing career using free pages as well. I was relieved  to find out that she now teaches that one must own their content by writing for their own self-hosted Wordpress sites.

Getting your own Wordpress site is not expensive at all. It is a worthy investment considering the risk of writing on a free platform like Hubpages. 

Needless to say, I am done with Hubpages and now write on my niche site which I've paid hosting for.

I still swear by the Jaaxy Keyword Tool and also apply what I learn at Pajama Affiliates (Robin's group).

This blog will keep me focused and will also help me to collect my thoughts, diarize my affiliate marketing journey and just sharing the tools that I use along the way.

Besides paying for the training that I will need now and then, I still plan to do this business on a low budget, combined with discipline and sweat.

I will share where I am with my first WordPress blog soon. Till then.....

An Amazon sale...yippee!!

It has been a while since I updated this blog.  Funny how life just gets on the way when we plan to achieve something!  I was so busy with my self improvement blog that I sort of abandoned my niche site.  I use the niche site to test the Jaaxy membership tool.

Despite the recent Google changes, all keyword focused posts and hubs that I did using Jaaxy continued getting consistent traffic, with no hitches whatsoever.  One of the things I've been thought by Kyle and Carson (Jaaxy owners) is not to game Google by plastering my keywords all over my blog posts.  This may be one of the reasons why none of my sites have been penalized.

Read my Jaaxy review.

Anyway, I decided to stop by at Amazon today, and lo and behold! I had actually made a sale.  I've sold Clickbank items before, however this is the first time I made sales with Amazon.  The conversion rate is quite high (12,75%) too.

The Amazon niche that I'm promoting is an evergreen type yet laser  targeted.  It does not bring much monthly traffic, however the traffic inflow to my niche site is consistent.

Now that I know what is working with Amazon, the only thing left is to rinse and repeat. I'll be applying the same strategies I learned from Jaaxy to my other blog that is more focused on Clickbank and Adsense.

While I'm at it; I'm more than thrilled to report an increase in my Adsense earnings as well.  I do not qualify for the first check yet, however I am getting closer by the day.

Coming to Squidoo...I'm officially throwing in the towel on that one! 8 of my lenses have been locked...despite them giving him 100 points for conformance.  Some of these are actually old lenses that have been there for almost 2 years.  I won't be bothering with them from now on, and will throwing my energy publishing on my own sites.

After seeing their point system, I was more than convinced that such incidents will be a thing of the past.  My niche site has proven over and over again that Google has no issues with my content therefore I won't allow Squidoo to drive me to doubt myself.

Without wasting time...let me go back and rinse and repeat what is already working!

Till next time.

My Jaaxy review

Today I decided to write my own Jaaxy review.  I'm quite excited with using Jaaxy.  In actual fact, this tool is so easy to use they should have called it "Keywords for dummies". Last year I tested another very good tool, however I realized that it was too detailed and maybe only suitable for pro's.

The huge plus for me is that this tool is not as intimidating as many tools I've seen before.  It is actually much more simplified. Even the  Google Keyword Planner is not as simplified as Jaaxy.

It basically assumes that you are new to keyword research and SEO.

========>Get free 30 searches from Jaaxy

How does Jaaxy work?

Jaaxy is so easy to use, I'm certain that my 9 year old daughter can use the tool just as easily if I showed her how.  There are only so many factors that you need to understand with the tool.  Jaaxy's results are based on exact matches only and does not use broad phrase matches.  I'll use the below image to explain how to do keyword research on Jaaxy.

After logging in into your Jaaxy account, you will see a form where you populate the niche or article idea that you want to do keyword research for, in this case "best keyword tool".  Once you press "search", the tool gathers low competition keywords that are close to your enquiry.

As you can see on the results, the first keyword to show on the report will be the same as  your enquiry and will be highlighted in yellow.

Let us assume that you want to write an article, Hubpage or even a Squidoo lens about the "best keyword tools".

The main stats you need to bother yourself with to determine the viability of your keyword idea are only 2 i.e monthly searches and QSR (different blog coaches will give you different opinions on this, I use the information given by the Jaaxy owners)

Needless to say, monthly searches represent the number of times surfers searched for a phrase or word on search engines e.g "best keyword tools" received an estimated traffic of 160 a month.

The QSR (Quoted Search Results) represens your competition.  This is basically the number of websites competing for the same keyword on Google.  Jaaxy has this innate ability to deliver this statistics directly to you in the shortest time possible (click of a button).

What I've learned is that I need to target keywords with a QSR of less than 400. (Again Jaaxy training advises as such - but we aim for a much lower figure at our Master-Mind group)

Coupled to the QSR tool is KQI i.e  "Keyword Quality Index".  It basically interprets your monthly searches, traffic and QSR and indicates whether you stand a chance of ranking on page 1 of Google with the keyword.  The color indicator green means that you are good to go and can use the keyword, the yellow indicates that the keyword is good although it will need a bit of work from your side. Red is really a no go keyword as it is too competitive.

In fact, the KQI is the only column you need to bother yourself with if you are a visual person.

Kyle (co-owner of Jaaxy) stresses the fact that a keyword need not have 1000s of searches in order for you to benefit. Low search volume almost always means low competition. If you build lenses, or a niche site targeting these low volume/low competition keywords the traffic will add up eventually as you will be ranking for most of your targeted keywords.

This is the tool that I use for my blogging, and I would be completely lost without it.  I enjoy organic traffic to my blog without having to worry about paid advertising.

Another nifty feature that I love about Jaaxy is that it lets you take a view on your competitors (these would be the top 10 ranking sites on Google -for the particular keyword). I don't use it that much but it does have good to know info:

I started with Jaaxy using their free trial. You get the same features as the paid membership, however you are limited to 30 searches.  That is actually a lot of articles.  If you refer other free members you will get more search credits, therefore you can remain a free member for longer

Try Jaaxy today for free

How I use Hubpages for traffic generation

I am on my third week of my experiment and journey and I must say that I have achieved quite a lot, all thanks to Jaaxy, Hubpages, Blogger and Squidoo.

When I started this,  I was mainly exploring the viability of Hubpages as a Squidoo alternative.  After 30 of my lenses were locked, I had to abandon my account and I focused on my offline business.

It occured after a while that Squidoo has been through this locking and warning lensmasters before and surely it will continue existing still, so I decided to give the Web 2.0 sites another go.  Instead of going directly to Squidoo,  I decided to start with Hubpages.

With everything I've learned about keyword research with Jaaxy,  I decided that this time I will go for less competitive keywords as well as niches that are not very crowded.  As we speak, I only have 2 hubs on my targeted niche as well as 3 others that are not niche focused.

My first step though was to build a Blogger blog for my chosen niche.  With the help of the Jaaxy keyword tool I optimized the blog for search engines as well as put in a few keyword focused posts as a start.

I also looked up the competition analysis results on Jaaxy and I realized that no one is using the high ranking free sites to target the keyword i.e Hubpages, Squidoo, Youtube etc. Needless to say that I dived in and created my first keyword focused hub, squidoo lens as well as a blog post.

Try Jaaxy for free

It has been 3 weeks and I get daily traffic to my niche hubs, with 50% of the traffic coming from Google, 30% from pinterest and about 10% from other Hubpages users. My hubs are already ranking on the first page of Google.

The cool thing about Hubpages is that they already rank well with Google, hence I managed to do so well with my hubs within a week  or so.  What I learned from +Jennifer Ledbetter is that, your own website or blog takes longer to rank compared to these free sites.

Initially, I was confused as to whether I must spend more time on Hubpages and engage with other users.  I've decided against it because my main aim is to generate search engine traffic to my hubs and then point it to my Blogger niche blog.

The blog is getting some organic traffic already, however Hubpages is still the main traffic source so far.

I've realized though that Hubpages does not allow your own affiliate links in hubs, hence I am focusing on them as a traffic generation method rather than an income generating site.  They do have Amazon and Ebay modules though, as well as Adsense.


Instead of putting my own affiliate links, I used their Amazon modules for product recommendation.  It will be an added benefit if I earn income through those, but right now they are not the main focus.

I'm also starting to see some daily activity on my Adsense account although it is not amounts worth writing home about.  I may share these figures on a monthly basis as well.

To recap, this is what I've done so far (3 weeks):

• Performed a keyword search on Jaaxy
• Created keyword focused posts on Hubpages, blog and Squidoo.
• Pointed Hubpages and Squidoo to my blog.

Beyond sharing the hubs and lenses on social media, I haven't done much promoting on them.
I also intend to look further into Jaaxy's competition analysis and create more posts for my niche keywords.

As for Squidoo, I will write separately about the progress there.  After such a bad experience as having 30 pages of content being deleted, it becomes difficult for me to make a decision to put an effort on the platform.

Try Jaaxy keyword tool for free (no credit card is required)

Low cost internet marketing for the frugal affiliate marketer

Low cost internet marketing is a blog that will be documenting my own journey, experiences and thoughts on frugal affiliate marketing and making money online through free websites.

Unfortunately, during the last few weeks I had to quit a very good program that was assisting me to build niche sites.  It was going very well, however I realized that it is not what I need at this point.

Upon that realization, I cancelled my membership and instead invested on their low cost keyword research tool which I found to be a breeze to use.

Over the years I've attempted affiliate marketing several times but I must say that I learnt a lot more when I was with SBI (Site Build It).  I, however felt that one thing was off judging by the amount of time one had to spend on keyword research and balancing out those numbers.  Despite the detailed explanation on why those numbers were important, I simply did not get it.  I am not implying that they were not important, I just felt like it was too much information for me.

I've also worked a lot using Potpiegirl's One Week Marketing guide.  I must say that I love this woman to bits and has thought me a lot about taking action and getting almost instant results.

Basically, this blog will be dedicated to sharing with you, my ups and downs, experiments and what is currently working for me at the moment...and hopefully show some earnings as well.

So, what have I done so far in my low cost internet marketing journey?

Like I said, I invested in Jaaxy. Jaaxy is a keyword research tool that is owned by the Wealthy Affiliate team.  I was introduced to this tool through their free searches offer.  After testing it for free,  I decided there and then that it is a valuable tool for anyone who wants to rank on Google.

You can signup for free and perform up to 30 searches with no obligation to buy (no credit card required)

What I like the most about Jaaxy is that it will even indicate for you which of the search results are worth pursuing as well as a full analysis of your competition on the site.

After selecting and saving my desired keywords, I headed over to Hubpages.  you see, I've always been a Squidoo person BUT after 30 of lenses were deleted last year let's just say that I still had a sour taste on my mouth about Squidoo.

I have so far written two hubs on this particular niche and I decided to go check how things are over at Squidoo and I also wrote another article there.

I must say though that I like the revamp over at Squidoo.  They have a point system that they use as you buid your lens.  By the time you hit the "publish" button, you already have an idea whether your lens is of acceptable quality or not.  If not, there is a checklist that guides you on what to do.

I also started a Blogger blog like this one on the niche.  I know quite well that I need to use my own site..and I will when the time is right.  For now I plan to push this journey with as many free and cheap resources as possible.

I'll be discussing these platforms and tools as I go along this blog.  As of writing this post, everything is still new but promising.

My next post will be focusing on Hubpages as it is where I started with testing my keywords.

Till the next post!