November Earnings Report
Thursday, December 2, 2010 13:01This month my goal was to earn $1600, which I’m happy to say I met! Actually, that was last month’s goal too, but my earnings last month were down and I didn’t even come close. Here’s a summary of this month’s earnings and last month’s earnings for a comparison:
AdSense: $739.13 (Last month = $455.25) +$283.91
ClickBank: $616.52 (Last month = $490.58) +$125.94
Amazon: $199.97 (Last month = $115.87) +$84.10
Other Affiliate Programs: $122.19 (Last month = $14.70) +$107.49
Gross Earnings: $1,677.81 (Last month = $1,076.40) +$601.41
As you can see, earnings were up across the board. I was expecting an increase with Amazon this month, given the holiday season, and a redo of my main performing ClickBank site helped too, but the surge in AdSense earnings were somewhat of a surprise. However, this increase is mostly coming from an increase in the rankings of many of my older AdSense sites, which I believe is largely a result of the new backlinking plan I now have in full swing.
Here’s a brief summary of what’s happening with each of the different programs.
AdSense: Currently I have about fifteen AdSense sites, although only seven or eight are bringing in $1 or more a day. Most of this income is still coming from one main AdSense site, which brought in a total of $558.68 for the month. I’m currently targeting even more high paying keywords for this site (there are lots, fortunately). My daily earnings average for AdSense last month was nearly $25 a day ($24.64 to be exact), and I’m hoping that with continued backlink building this month I can get my daily average to around $30 a day. Here is a screen shot showing my earnings for last month:
ClickBank: Last month was pretty horrible for ClickBank sales, and this month started off slow as well. Like AdSense, I have one main site that generates most of my earnings, and a check of the keyword trends shows that October and November are two of the slowest months for searches for my targeted keywords. Still, I decided that I would revamp my main site with the hopes of improving conversions, and it seems to have worked. I immediately saw a boost in my conversion rates (within hours) of doing the changes. I am often reluctant to touch sites that are doing well (or have done well in the very recent past), because I’m afraid of doing something to harm them in the rankings, but I think I need to get past this fear.
However, there are other good things in the ClickBank frontier as well. Mainly, I’m seeing more sites produce sales now. In the past four or five months, I will generally have only four or five sites produce sales, but this month I had sales from seven different sites in total – plus there are two others that produced sales last month but not this one (I have close to twenty ClickBank sites built right now). Most of these sites have keywords ranking low on page one, and I’m hoping with just a little more effort I’ll see a big boost in my monthly ClickBank income (and hopefully by next month!). If I can just get one or two sites performing like my main performer, I will see a nice increase in income.
All in all, I had 36 ClickBank sales this month and four refunds. I’m getting around 115 hops a day, and my overall conversion rate for the month was 1 sale for every 98 hops – although for the past two weeks it has been 1 in 63. Here is a screen shot of my sales for this month. The first two products you see listed are from the same site – it’s in a review style format, reviewing three products, and two of them regularly produce sales. (You’ll probably have to click it to make it larger if you actually want to see any of the numbers):
Although December is traditionally a slow ClickBank month, I am hoping that sales will continue to be at or near the level they have been for the past few weeks since I redid my main site. My goal is to earn around $800 in ClickBank sales for December.
Amazon – I was just a few cents short of hitting my goal for $200 this month. I’m very happy with the increase in Amazon, and hoping it will continue for months to come. Much of my site building effort in the past three or four months has been focused on Amazon, and right now I have around 28 Amazon sites built. Unfortunately, few of the Christmas sites are ranking well right now – although I do have one that is performing surprisingly well. Many of my Amazon sales are coming from older sites that I used to have AdSense on, but recently converted over to Amazon products to see if I can earn more, and this strategy seems to be working for the lower CPC earning sites.
Amazon sales exceeded $3000 last month and I hit the 6.5% conversion rate for the first time as well, with 63 products shipped. The average price of a product being shipped is $52 – a huge increase over a couple of months ago when most of the products I was targeting were in the $20 to $30 range (now most of the new sites I’m building target products over $100). Here is a screenshot:
For the month of December, I’m hoping to double my Amazon earnings, and setting a target of $400.
Other Income: I’m starting to earn a bit more from some other miscellaneous affiliate programs I’m promoting – mainly from Plimus and e-junkie. I have yet to make a sale from Commission Junction, although I’ve been an affiliate there for several months (which they keep on reminding me by email about as well). I received a $50 commission from a hosting commissions I received a few months ago. However, in general my “other” income is quite erratic and hard to predict, but I’m setting a goal of $100 for this month.
My Total Earnings Goal for December: $2200.
That will be $500 more than my earnings for this month, but I think it is achievable if all goes well.
Expenses: Although I saw my earnings increase by over $600 this month, I also saw my expenses increase a bit as well. Mainly the increases came from two sources:
- Decaptcher fees. With my new VPS setup plus Sick Submitter, I’m able to create as many as several thousand forum profile and similar types of links a day. However, with the increased submissions comes the need for more captcha credits. (I also use decaptcher for SEO Link Robot as well).
- Domain purchases and hosting of those domains. Right now I’m working on creating my own private blog network, and this month I purchased another three PR3 domains at auction (averaging around $35 a domain) plus other domain renewals and purchases. I also got a new hosting package from aseohosting.com to host my new high PR blog network (so that each site has its own IP address as well as its own nameservers).
Here is a break down of my expenses this month:
Sick Membership and Link Packages: $42.99
Decaptcher Credits: $110
Virtual Assistant: $400
Domain Purchases and Renewals: $232.34
Hosting: $51.08
Aweber: $19.00
VPS: $26.96
Total Expenses: $882.37 (Last month=$624.74) +257.26
Still, despite the increased expenses, my net profit this month increased to $795.44 (last month it was $451.66), which is an increase of $343.78.
Reflections and Goals for December:
Although a “take home” pay of $800 (or so) a month still is not where I want or need to be right now, I’m feeling pretty optimistic about the future. I’m very encouraged by the movement I’ve been seeing in the SERPs the past month or two. My new “lean, mean backlinking routine” seems to be working.
This month I plan on adding some PR4 blogs to my private blog network. I’ve now completed the first “tier” of blogs for this network, consisting of five PR3 blogs, and I will be adding a total of four PR4 blogs to this network next. I will also continue building backlinks using Sick Submitter and SEOLinkRobot.
I also want to grow my private indexing network to 20 blogs (right now I have 15 indexing blogs, five each for three different indexing blog “clusters). My VA will continue building Amazon sites, and I have a few AdSense sites as well that I’m trying to finish by the end of the year – which I can hardly believe is less than a month away. I’m working hard to meet my end of the year goals, and I’m also already thinking about and starting to formulate some new goals for next year.
| $739.13 |
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Carrie says:
December 2nd, 2010 at 2:40 pm
Congrats on a great month!
Carrie recently posted..Progress Update – What Day Is It
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Michelle Reply:
December 2nd, 2010 at 3:41 pm
Thanks Carrie.
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Bristolboy says:
December 2nd, 2010 at 3:13 pm
Those are some massive figures and a great inspiration to many people just starting out trying to make an income online. Well done! I am pretty new to this blog – does all the income come from your own sites or do you also write articles on sites like Hubpages, eHow, Squidoo etc?
Bristolboy recently posted..Monthly Updates – August- September and October 2010
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Michelle Reply:
December 2nd, 2010 at 3:45 pm
Hi Bristolboy – are you new? I’m sure you’ve commented here several times here in the past!. Thanks! To answer your question, nearly all my income comes from my own sites (check out the FAQ above for some details). I do use web 2.0′s like Hubs and Lenses for backlinking purposes and as buffer sites, but I like to have ownership of my main money sites.
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kidgas says:
December 2nd, 2010 at 4:18 pm
Congratulations on the marked improvement in your monthly results and making your goal. I read about all these sites and think that the amount of work you put in to all of this must be incredible. I have to keep reminding myself to go at my own pace. Best of luck with your goal for December.
kidgas recently posted..Made First Amazon Affiliate Payment
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Michelle Reply:
December 2nd, 2010 at 8:02 pm
Hi Kidgas – there is a lot of work, although my time is limited to usually only a few hours a day (after my son’s asleep & I might get some work time in during naps too), but having a full time VA is what makes the difference for me. But you are right that we all have to go at our own pace. You’ve got a great start and foundation, and I’m sure you will see good earnings to come in the future!
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JamestheJust on Elance says:
December 2nd, 2010 at 5:26 pm
Nice. I’m officially jealous.
$700+ AdSense…nice! Especially the one site you mention that’s bringing in the loot – I’m wondering how many pages that took for the site in question?
What about your CPC – is it north of $10 a click, which is as specific as I’d feel comfortable asking…?
That’s an awesome increase, Michelle! Re: the CJ thing, I’m sure if you look at what’s selling on Amazon (in your network) you can find an aff program for in CJ and make some CJ pages and some Amazon pages (I’ve been doing that and noticing CJ is outselling, but only because the rankings on my reviews are better for CJ than the Amazon products).
Anyhow – NICE. Scared of calling you out to a contest, but I think that needs to happen. Next year. MAYBE.
JamestheJust on Elance recently posted..Passive Income for November 2010
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Michelle Reply:
December 2nd, 2010 at 8:09 pm
You have NOTHING to be jealous of, James – your earnings were amazing this month! (I’m jealous of you, no question about it!). Regarding the AdSense site, though, the CPC for the site is above $20 a click, but actual payout is probably about 1/4 of that (I think my highest click ever paid around the $7-8 range). I’m actually going to start promoting a CJ product this month (hopefully that will stop the email telling me they are going to close my account for inactivity). It’s actually an offer I’m pretty excited about, so hopefully there will be some CJ numbers to report soon – although nothing like your numbers!
I’ve thought about promoting CJ products on some of my sites, but I’m also a bit reluctant too because I get so many “side” sales from Amazon (people who don’t actually purchase the product I’m promoting, but buy a Kindle or something else). Still, I need to take a more serious look at CJ.
A contest? Hmmm… well, I have a healthy competitive spirit, so it might be fun to have some kind of contest down the road. I find competition motivating.
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Michelle Reply:
December 2nd, 2010 at 8:49 pm
Oh, and the Adsense site in question has about twenty pages – it is one of my larger sites.
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JamestheJust on Elance says:
December 2nd, 2010 at 5:26 pm
Actually, no contest. you win. I don’t think I could compete.
JamestheJust on Elance recently posted..Passive Income for November 2010
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Michelle Reply:
December 2nd, 2010 at 8:10 pm
Loser.
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JamestheJust on Elance Reply:
December 2nd, 2010 at 10:13 pm
You misspelled chicken.
JamestheJust on Elance recently posted..Passive Income for November 2010
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Michelle Reply:
December 2nd, 2010 at 10:19 pm
So I did. Bwaak.
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Tiffany says:
December 2nd, 2010 at 6:23 pm
Congrats on the great month. if you can keep increasing like that every month you may just be making 6 figures soon!
It definitely sounds like you are the right track with your sites and it’s just a matter of time (and your backlink plan) before you really start making the profits you want.
I’m not sure if you want to publicly release the info, but where do you buy your auction domains from. I have tried to look around for domains with PR, but could never find them for that cheap. Good luck in December!
Tiffany recently posted..Passive Income Earnings for November
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Michelle Reply:
December 2nd, 2010 at 8:13 pm
Thanks Tiffany! Right now I’m using freshdrop.net to find the sites, but I don’t have a membership. I’m planning to post on this topic at some point (once I’m not quite so busy, but hopefully in the next few weeks). It’s a pretty complicated process, because you need to make sure they have valid PR, preferably never been “dropped”, have backlinks that will stick around for a while and so forth. But there are quite a few. GoDaddy auctions and Dynadot are where I actually purchase most of them, although PR4′s and 5′s are going to be a lot harder to find than the PR3′s.
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Joseph Archibald says:
December 2nd, 2010 at 8:11 pm
Hi Michelle, really great leap up from last month! Obviously your techniques are working wonders here!
Are you seeing good sales so far this month? For me, a bit of a better start than last month, but then it could hardly be worse.
Good luck with meeting your targets for December!
Joseph
Joseph Archibald recently posted..Joseph Archibald’s Internet Marketing Income for November 2010
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Michelle Reply:
December 2nd, 2010 at 8:17 pm
Thanks Joseph! Well, things seem good so far — Amazon is producing 3-5 sales a day for me right now, CB has at least a sale a day, while AdSense is at the same level it’s been for a few weeks. I’m hoping that Amazon sales get stronger over the next couple of weeks, but I guess I’ll have to wait and see… I’m glad to hear you are seeing some good sales. You’ll hit 4K for December, maybe?
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Joseph Archibald Reply:
December 2nd, 2010 at 8:56 pm
I think there is little doubt that you’ll be seeing stronger Amazon sales up to around about the 22nd of this month Michelle. Thereafter and throughout January, it will mostly be down to the folks that get Amazon vouchers for Christmas who’ll be doing the spending.
$4k in December? Who really knows for sure, but its nice to think so
Joseph Archibald recently posted..Joseph Archibald’s Internet Marketing Income for November 2010
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Anton says:
December 3rd, 2010 at 5:39 am
Hi Michelle!
Incredible results – I’m really impressed, seems in several months you’ll be making 3000$+ and more, 700$+ from adsense is amazing! Even with my 100$ a month from adsense I see a difference, so adsense is still coming to my mind again and again, since thse sites are making money without us lifting a finger.
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Michelle Reply:
December 3rd, 2010 at 7:02 am
Thanks Anton. Your right about how “passive” AdSense income feels. Earlier this year, I was feeling pretty frustrated about my AdSense earnings, which seem to grow real slowly. But now I’m starting to get excited about the program again, and I’m feeling more motivated about building AdSense sites. Thanks for stopping by!
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Rachel @ Pen Meets Wallet says:
December 3rd, 2010 at 7:24 am
Congrats on a terrific month and on meeting your goal! You are doing great – gives me inspiration to keep plugging along!
Rachel @ Pen Meets Wallet recently posted..November Earnings Update!
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Michelle Reply:
December 4th, 2010 at 12:19 pm
Thanks Rachel, and welcome to my blog!
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Meka says:
December 3rd, 2010 at 9:07 am
Michelle you are really doing well and I am always shocked at how much you make in earnings each week. I know you have been working on this for a while and it just shows that with the right amount of work and patience, results will come. Congrats on the new records and wish you many more record breaking weeks.
Meka recently posted..December Plans
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Michelle Reply:
December 4th, 2010 at 12:19 pm
Thanks Meka. Sorry, your comments ended up in my spam filter – not sure why – but I appreciate them. Congratulations on having a good November as well – I’m looking forward to seeing how December pans out for you.
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Devin Elder says:
December 3rd, 2010 at 9:21 am
Hey Michelle, AWESOME work!
I really like how diversified you are, I think December should be really good for you given that Amazon is a nice part of your mix.
Looking forward to more updates!
Devin Elder recently posted..Monthly Income Report – November 2010
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Michelle Reply:
December 4th, 2010 at 12:18 pm
Thanks Devin. The diversity definitely helps balance things out – if one program goes down, another one might go up. I’m excited about watching your progress too!
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Ben @ Dried Herbs says:
December 3rd, 2010 at 9:23 am
I love the way your posts are so comprehensive and packed full with information.
First off, congrats on the income increase and with hitting (and breaking) your targets.
Don’t be scared of making changes just incase it damages you in the SERPs. If you make a change, and you drop for certain keywords, either ramp up your effort for that particular keyword/s, or undo the changes.
At the end of the day you’re creating content/sites for your end-user. If the improvements are beneficial to your end-user and improve their experience on your site…it’ll only be a matter of time before Google puts you back at the top again (basically after the Big.G has reasessed your changes).
Ben @ The Dried Herbs Co.
Ben @ Dried Herbs recently posted..Guestbook………
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Michelle Reply:
December 4th, 2010 at 12:17 pm
Thanks Ben – I sometimes think they might be a bit too detailed, possibly exhausting to read, but I also do it for my benefit too. It is good to take the time each month to clearly evaluate my programs, and having these monthly updates makes sure I get it done!
Yeah, you are right about t SERPs, Google and the end user’s experience. Thanks for the reminder! There are several sites of mine that I build a year ago that are still in need of a revamp. There is so much you learn in a year about all of those things. I just wish there were more time in the day (or that I had another VA!).
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Tiptopcat says:
December 3rd, 2010 at 5:14 pm
Congrats on hitting the targets that you set for yourself. These numbers are great. I also love the fact that you have been able to outsource some of the work and you are still turning a profit. I hope to look at working with a VA in the future, once I feel like I know what I am doing.
Good luck for December.
Tiptopcat recently posted..Earnings For November 2010
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Michelle Reply:
December 4th, 2010 at 12:13 pm
Thanks TipTopCat. It seems like you are at a similar level that I am as well and I wish the best for you for December too!
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taking steps says:
December 4th, 2010 at 12:02 am
congrats on achieving your goal!
I have 2 questions if you don’t mind answering:
1) are you making the CB sites with lots of pages or just a few pages targeting your keywords? do you keep updating them like once a week?
2) when you buy an high PR domain, does the PR remains few weeks later? I’m asking because I read that the PR usually drops..
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Michelle Reply:
December 4th, 2010 at 12:12 pm
Hi Taking Steps. Good questions:
1) My CB sites generally target 10 or more keywords, with one page targeting each keyword. I don’t update them much after I have completed a site – maybe one page every few months or so.
2) In my experience, PR hasn’t dropped. I first read about this in Terry Kyles’ ebook Backlinks Hydra, and he sets out a pretty good system for purchasing domains and there’s a lot of discussion about this on the backlinks forum. In general, from I can tell, it’s pretty rare if you take a few steps to make sure the backlinks are still there after you purchase the domain (otherwise, yes, it would drop) and make the domain registry private.
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Ben @ Dried Herbs says:
December 4th, 2010 at 11:25 am
I also thought Googled dropped the PR of a domain if it was renewed/re-registered to somebody else (ie, a new customer). Is this not true?
Ben @ Dried Herbs recently posted..Guestbook………
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Michelle Reply:
December 4th, 2010 at 12:09 pm
No, not generally. However, you should slap privacy protection on the domain as soon as possible. I haven’t had any of the blogs lose PR yet (although I’ve only had the oldest for about a month). Sometimes it happens, but I would say that if you have a good strong source of backlinks coming to the domain, and you make the domain private, you will likely be OK.
I did have some of my internal pages lose PR, however. These were generally PR1 and 2 pages that had no links coming to them. Some of them retained PR, and some didn’t, so there is no question Google is checking the site.
I might add that some people at the backlinks forum say that PR will occasionally drop for a few weeks upon transfer and then come back. I personally haven’t had that problem – but I’ve been quick to set up the sites and make them private as quickly as possible after I purchased them, which might help.
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Ben @ Dried Herbs Reply:
December 5th, 2010 at 8:11 am
Thanks for the reply. Interesting stuff.
I currently use GoDaddy to register domains, however I’m changing to a new company shortly as GoDaddy don’t let me make the domains private.
What service do you use for your domains?
As for hiring another VA, I’m sure it won’t be long before you can afford it hun
Ben @ The Dried Herbs Co.
Ben @ Dried Herbs recently posted..Guestbook………
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Michelle Reply:
December 5th, 2010 at 8:35 am
Hi Ben,
I use GoDaddy for nearly all of my domains and I don’t have any trouble making my domains private with them – why the problems (is it a UK thing?)? But other than GoDaddy, I have a few domains registered with NameCheap and with Dynadot as well (all private). If I hit my goals for this month, I’m hiring another VA right away…
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Ben @ Dried Herbs Reply:
December 5th, 2010 at 9:59 am
It might be a UK thing. I’ll have to look into that. Cheers.
Ben.
Ben @ Dried Herbs recently posted..Guestbook………
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neil says:
December 4th, 2010 at 6:16 pm
Congrats on your great earnings. You really inspire me. What I admire most is your meticulous planning and the detailed reports on your blog. Keep it up.
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Michelle Reply:
December 5th, 2010 at 8:36 am
Thanks for your comments, Neil!
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Mary says:
December 5th, 2010 at 2:40 pm
I am planning to buy Sicksbmitter, can u tell me how many sites they have in their network and how many links i can build max?
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Michelle Reply:
December 5th, 2010 at 2:47 pm
Hi Mary – Sick is a tool to submit links to various forum platforms, article directories and blogs, but they don’t have their own network to post to. Each month they do give you something like 30 forums you can post to, but in general you either purchase link packets made by other users (ranging from a few hundred of links to thousands, usually costing around $10-20 a pack), or make your own. In terms of how many you can build – as many as your computer can handle. Using my VPS, I can build 5000+ links a day. Hope that helps!
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Mary Reply:
December 5th, 2010 at 2:53 pm
Thanks for quick reply, can you tell me which all forum packets do u use? Also please tell me the cost of VPS and what is main benefit of using VPA?, i would like to buy that as well.
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Michelle Reply:
December 5th, 2010 at 3:02 pm
I use a VPS because my home computer is really slow, and also I don’t want to expose it to any viruses. If you have a decent computer and virus protection, you probably won’t need a VPS setup. The company I use is https://www.websiteserviceplus.com/ – but they aren’t accepting new clients right now, but you might want to send them an email to see when they will open again if you are really interested. Regarding packets, I generally purchase “limited packets” – ones that are only sold to 10 people or so, so those wouldn’t likely be available. I suggest you visit the forum buy section at: http://sickmarketing.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=15 and take a look at the packets available. In general, go for those with a high rating/good feedback. One packet that I do like a lot is the ELGG template/packet package, because you can use it to submit spun articles to a variety of different blogs. However, there’s lots to choose from, and I suggest you spend some time browsing the forum to get a better idea of the program and what you can do with it.
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Mary Reply:
December 5th, 2010 at 3:13 pm
I will check them out in couple of days. I am not that good with technical stuff, so i may hire someone to set up everything for me.
I got decent computer but i would prefer VPS.
I was wondering if you offer 1 on 1 coaching?If not, then what will be your fee if i need to chat with you for 1 hour?
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Michelle Reply:
December 6th, 2010 at 10:52 am
Hi Mary – Sick submitter isn’t that hard to get a handle on, but it is pretty “hands on” – so if that isn’t something you are comfortable, you might want to look into a service like dripfeedblasts.com – which is more expensive, but super easy to use (I haven’t tried it myself, since it is out of my price range, but a lot of people swear by it). I don’t really have the time to do 1on1 coaching at this point, but if you get stuck, shoot me an email and I’ll try to help. Otherwise, asking questions on the Sick Forum will help, and they also have some good training videos you can watch. I’m thinking about putting together a short guide outlining my Sick practices early next month for my readers, but that will still be a few weeks away…
Rahul Reply:
December 7th, 2010 at 5:51 am
Try to learn it. When i used first time. I thought it is waste of time. But when you learn it. It is easy to use.
Rahul recently posted..How To Acheive Success In Life – What i want in my life
Ben @ Dried Herbs Reply:
December 7th, 2010 at 2:21 pm
I’m looking forward to those posts on SickSubmitter. I to am looking to try it out.
Ben.
Ben @ Dried Herbs recently posted..Hello and Welcome to The Dried Herb Company!!
JamestheJust says:
December 7th, 2010 at 4:07 am
The blog…it needs something.
I know! SNOWMEN!
JamestheJust recently posted..MaxBlogPress Discount Christmas 2010 Sale
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