First Taste of Outsourcing

I had my first taste of outsourcing this week. Overall it was a brilliant experience. I needed some articles rewriting so I advertised the job on Digital point, and within minutes I had about a million PM's in my inbox, (ok that was an exaggeration, but it was a lot lol).

Some people were claiming to do the job for really cheap and saying they were able to have it done in a few hours, some people said they would take longer than a week and wanted an extortionate amount for the job (pfttt). In the end I went with a lady that was charging a reasonable amount, not too cheap and not too expensive and said she would have them with me within 24-48 hours.

I couldn't of picked a better choice. The quality was awesome and I had the articles back right on time. So my overall first experience of outsourcing has been a good one:).

The thing I have found so far with digital point marketplace is that there are way more people there looking to make money than spend money.

Anyway on to some other news :).

So far this month has been a busy one (hence my need for outsourcing). I have managed to get my games website up and running, although it still needs a lot of work doing to it.

If you want to check it out here it is:

http://www.battlestargames.com

I have not started promoting it yet, I want it perfect before I do.

I have been making and selling a few websites, and all has been going well there :).

I have made a start promoting one site that I have made, I want to see if I can get it earning. This one is a bit of a slow process, but I will get there.

Anyway there are still 9 days left till the end of the month and still plenty of time for me to get lots more work done.

My Plans For August 2008

I have a lot of plans for August, my only worry is that I have too many plans :). There are always new ideas whirring around in my head and sometimes I can't keep up with them. So here are my plans in no particular order.

Plan number 1- Site Flipping

I will continue to build a few websites to sell, as this keeps my income topped up for the time being. In fact I am working on a site right now, I bought a domain name last month and have not done anything with it so that's going to be made into a website and sold.

Plan number 2 - Sprucing Up this blog

I really need to buy a domain name for this blog and move it over to a self hosted wordpress blog. I love wordpress they have so much more to offer than blogger.

Plan number 3- Building a site to keep

Well I say building a site to keep, but in fact it's already near enough built. I just need to add a few more articles to it. I will be keeping this site, and seeing if I can get it to the top of the search engines using some simple SEO. This site is an affiliate site, and I really want to see if I can get it earning. I am even considering showing you my site on this blog and kind of doing a case study to see how long it takes me to get decent traffic and making me money. I could show you what I am doing step by step.

Plan number 4 - Writing an Ebook

I plan on starting writing my own ebook this month. I doesn't have to be finished by the end of the month, but I want to at least start it. This ebook will be aimed at complete beginners to buying and selling websites. It won't be another ebook about how I made $xxx.xxx selling sites, but it will be more focused on the practical issues of site flipping. Some of the things I plan on including are, how to set up a site, registering a domain name, and transferring the site etc..

Plan number 5 - Building a games arcade site

This is something I am really excited about. Actually I am so excited about this it deserves it's own blog post.

I know I know this is quite a largish list for just one month, but as long as I can get started on some of them I will be happy. As you can see this month is not about how much money I can make in one month, it's more about starting some of my long term goals.

How Time Flies

I can't believe it's the end of July already, it's nearly been a whole month since I wrote my last blog post!

Just a little update on my 7 websites in 7 weeks challenge, in case anyone was wondering - I failed miserably. I didn't make not even close to as much money as last month this month. In fact I think I actually spent more than I made. Let's have a little breakdown of income and expenses.

Income

selling websites - $155
bum marketing - $0
Adsense - $4.57

Total - $159.57

Outgoings

Hosting - $9.99
Domain names - $34.52
Sitepoint fees - $20
Paypal fees - $6.95

Total - $71.46

Total profit - $88.11

Ok so I did make a profit this month, but not quite as much as last month. That just took me about 30 minutes to calculate just that measly bit of income, I am so unorganized. I had to trawl through emails and my paypal account just to find out my incomings and outgoings. I should really find some kind of software or something that I can use to keep track of all this.

You may be wondering where the adsense income has come from, I have no idea. I have some adsense on this blog, and I also put adsense on the sites that I sell. I should really start setting up some adsense channels and then I would see where the clicks are coming from.

You may also be wondering what the hell happened to my 7 websites in 7 days challenge. If you are wondering what I am talking about you can view the details here. Well my first website sold on sitepoint for $75, I then put up another 2 websites for sale, and they didn't sell. I guess I kind of got discouraged.

Well this month I have a few goals, but they are not money orientated goals. Keep tuned and I will fill you in in a short while.

Site Number 1 Went On Sale Last Night (very late)

OK site number one out of the seven sites went on sale late last night. I was going to write this post yesterday but I was so tired after working all day on the site.

http://marketplace.sitepoint.com/auctions/39578

I'm kind of scared of starting a new one today without knowing if the first one will sell. I am taking a massive risk by pushing out 7 websites in a row each day for 7 days.

How do I know if any of them will sell?

Then I will be $170 out of pocket.

It is scary but I gotta press on, if I don't take risks how will I ever know.

Keeping my fingers crossed.

The 7 websites in 7 days Challenge

I am setting myself a challenge this week. I am going to make 7 websites and sell them on Sitepoint. Timeframe for this challenge is 7 days, so I'm calling this my 7 websites in 7 days challenge.

I am quite scared I have overchallenged myself here, but if I never keep challenging myself and pushing myself further I will not get to where I want to be.

I have worked out this will cost me roughly $170, so it's going to be a big risk to take. Having just worked that out actualy makes me even more scared.

I know I have successfuly sold 2 websites over on Sitepoint last month, but that doesn't mean that all 7 websites will sell.

I have to put my all into this and I have a funny feeling by the end of the week, I will need to be catching up on some housework (and some sleep).

So wish me luck, I think I'm going to need it.

Little Update And Monthly Earnings Report

Yippee I sold my 2nd website over on sitepoint this week for the buy it now price of $299. I think I'm a little more excited about the 2nd site selling than I was about the first.

As it's coming to the end of the month I thought I would do a little earnings report. Now I know that this isn't going to be as big as some other peoples earning reports on their blogs, but it's big for me. I have been studying Internet marketing and making money online for more than a year, but this is the first month I have ever taking any real action, and this month I have made more money than the whole of the year online.

Most other "make money online" blogs only report their incomings but rarely report their outgoings, but I thought I would try something a little different. I am going to show you how much money I have made, where I made it, and exactly what I have spent money on so you can see exactly how much profit I have made. OK here goes:

IM Incomings

Site selling $424
Bum marketing $0

Total $424

IM Outgoings

Sitepoint listing fees $20
paypal fees $16
Hosting (Hostgator) $9.99
PLR articles $25
Domain names (Namecheap) $8.41

Total $79.40

Total profit $344.60

As you can see that's not a bad little profit for my first month of taking action.

Let's see if I can top this next month :).

I feel like I'm wasting time

Well that's how I'm feeling at the moment.

Mind you this month I have made more money online than any other month since I started one year ago. I know I know I have only made $120 dollars (£60), but it's the first month I have really taken any kind of action.

I have another website up for sale on Sitepoint. I listed it for sale two days ago and at the moment the current bid is $145. I spent a lot of time on this website and it will be kind of hard to let it go. But initially I made the site to sell it, so I musn't get too attached. If you would like to check it out here is the URL:

http://marketplace.sitepoint.com/auctions/38919

I am hoping to get a little more for this website, but I will still be happy to let it go for $145. That will take this months earnings up to $265.

So why do I feel like I'm wasting time?

For the last two days I have done nothing but watch the auction. I still realise that making and selling websites is not going to make the the kind of money I want.

But I love the whole process of doing it. I love having the initial idea for a site, then making it. I love the feeling of achievement once the site is completed. I also love putting the site up for sale and seeing it sell.

It is common knowledge that a website will sell for significantly more if you have some traffic and revenue, and if the website is a little older. So maybe that's the road I need to go down next.

It's still all about the instant cash though to keep me motivated. So I think for every brand new turnkey website I make to sell, I Will make one to keep for myself.

I will then get them earning a little money and getting some traffic. Then after a few months I can sell them for more.