Anyways, when I wasn’t laying around my house I was on the golf course, playing at least 18 holes every single day. I posted a while back about how terrible I was at golf, but this year I got things straightened out a little bit by taking a few lessons and playing/practicing a ton. My best rounds of the year were shooting even par at our easy 9-hole course and shooting 74 in a practice round for a tournament at a tougher 18-hole local course. Right now I’m hovering in the low-mid 80s for an average round at a decent course, and golf is finally fun again. Next year I wanna get down around par consistently, but we’ll see.

Right now I’m back in my office in State College, and I honestly got more done this week then I did for the past four months. It feels good to be productive again. Anyways, I’d rather work on my sites than post on this blog, so it’ll probably be a while ’til I post again. Later.

“Premium” Domains

First… what is going on in the PAL marketplace? Has anyone else noticed the enormous number of domain sales, all of which are listed as “premiums” but are (for the most part) total garbage? I think all of the talk about exact match domains in the past few months has driven people to snatch up as many domains as they can with the intention to flip, but it’s getting a little late for that game. Nothing is left for reg. fees, and even finding a good domain for a fair price is getting pretty tricky too. If you’re in the market for a domain, be wary and skeptical because a lot of people are trying to move mediocre domains for premium prices. There are a few good sales going at PAL, but for the most part the domains being sold are all but worthless.

Change of Pace

I sold my gambling network. That’s about all I can say about that

I’m already working on new projects (like Best Poker Sites and non-gaming stuff), but it’s certainly different to wake up with nothing to do, as opposed to having a blown up inbox, Skype, and huge to-do list. I like it though.

Tampa

Hollowtips and I are going down to a search/social conference down in Tampa next week, so if anyone is down there and wants to golf or just get dinner, hit me up.

Travel

I decided to sit Spring Break out this year because of all the work stuff I’ve got going on in the next month or two. Taking a week or longer off to go party would set me way back, so I’m gonna hold off on that for a while. That being said, next week I’m going to Stratton in Vermont to snowboard for a couple days. I went there like five years ago and it was pretty cool… way better than our local ski resort so I’m pumped to get up there.

I’m also headed down to North Carolina with my family some time in April, but besides those two trips I don’t have anything big on the horizon. Just enjoying myself in State College and hopefully getting a lot done.

Business

I stretched myself pretty thin business-wise in February, but I’m pumped for all the new projects I’ve got in the pipeline. I bought HoldemReview.com from one of my buddies, which is an awesome site that I’m hoping to push over the top in the next year or so. I also just re-launched InternetPoker.org and have been working on PokerRules.net, both of which are fairly new projects that probably need another month or two before they’ll be earners. The Internet Poker site isn’t really complete at the moment, but I wanted to get the new template up and start sorting out the redirects before I add a bunch of pages. The poker rules site is getting good traffic already, but I’m a little concerned with how the site will convert. If I can’t just push people to a poker site I’ve got a few other ideas to monetize the site that I’ll try out.

Besides new stuff, I’ve also been working on fine-tuning my main poker site a little bit as far as conversions go. I use CrazyEgg to do this stuff, and it seriously is the best $9 I spend every month. The original landing page I had set up was converting traffic to “money clicks” at a pretty low percentage, and after trying out five or six different ones I’ve found one that’s 200% better than the original. Obviously that is a significant increase in earnings for just a little bit of work and testing.

Moral of the story is test your pages because you’re probably “leaking” money somewhere

I’ll definitely be making an “impression” tonight lol.

I haven’t really been up to anything exciting lately, just working on my sites, boxing, and sporadically learning the guitar. The PokerSite.org redesign is taking longer than I thought, but I should have it up before Christmas. I’m really excited to get it up and running because the site hasn’t had any attention in like six months and has been slipping up a bit lately.

I also am moving into an office sometime this week which I’m looking forward to. The last few weeks I’ve been working either at my apartment or at the local library, which isn’t bad but still isn’t great. The office is only a block or two down the street too, so pretty convenient.

Friday I’m headed home for Christmas, and then am off to Puerta Vallerta for a vacation with a few friends. Should be fun.

I got a 15″ MacBook Pro, and am adding Dreamweaver CS4 (for Mac), Microsoft Office 2008 (for Mac), and Parallels, Windows 7, and Expression Web 3 (for Windows) so I can work on my sites on the Mac while I start transferring stuff over to Dreamweaver. Once that’s done, I should only need Windows to run online poker rooms/casinos when I’m writing a review. I also got the Magic Mouse, which seems like a really cool product.

Anyways, I’m excited for it to come in so I can start playing around with it. I randomly bought an electric guitar like two weeks ago, and GarageBand has guitar lessons built right into it, which should be way easier than using the cheap “Learn to Play Guitar” DVD I have now. Basically I’m going to spend the next few days watching Mac tutorial videos instead of working

PokerSite.org

I’ve got a pretty big update/expansion coming out for my main site, PokerSite.org. I’m switching everything over from .dwt to .php files, which will let me do some really cool stuff with the site, but also requires that I manually switch over hundreds of pages, which is no fun at all. The nice thing about it is that I’m forced to look at every page, and a lot of them were pretty poorly done when I originally built the site. Now I’m re-writing a lot of stuff, adding new info, new sections, and when it is done it should be a much better site overall. I highly recommend doing a major update of your site at least once every year or two, simply because you will know more as a webmaster, and you can fix all of the stuff you did wrong initially. The new site should be done in another week or two.

Have a good Thanksgiving everyone.

Patience is Tough

Anyways, let’s get down to it. Patience is such an important trait in any Internet business, because the work you are doing right now probably won’t bring you any financial gains for at least a few months (minus a few things like conversion testing and negotiating better deals). The majority of our work, such as content development, domain acquisition, and link building, usually don’t make you any money for a while because they have to “kick in” with Google. This waiting period seems to be longer for new sites, and shorter for established sites where your work pays off quicker. All of this waiting around can be tough on any affiliate, but especially on a new affiliate who is waiting seemingly forever to make their first dollar.

In my experience, affiliating has always been a very cyclical business. I go through periods of expansion (where I improve my sites, start new sites, etc), followed by periods of financial growth (where I actually make more money and see the expansion pay off). I don’t know why, but for some reason I don’t really see the consistent month to month improvements. It’s always as if I make a jump, maintain that income for a few months, make a jump, then maintain again for a few months. I don’t really see a problem in this as it always results in me making more money, but it can be very hard to stay focused during the months where my income stays stable even though I’m working hard.

Whenever I get into a rut during these “stable months” I like to think about how my sites looked one month or two months ago, and then realize how much they have improved since then. Since I don’t see any financial gains to motivate me during these time periods, I can at least take solace in knowing that my sites are better off than before, and should make more money soon. It’s still tough though.

Boxing Classes

Ever since I read Roger’s posts about boxing I’ve wanted to try it out. Unfortunately, the gym at my school didn’t offer it and I wasn’t sure where or how I could even get involved. After I left school though, I had to find a new gym and it happened that the new gym I found offered boxing classes.

Anyways, I’ve taken five-ish classes now and still don’t know that much, but it’s a lot of fun. I’ve always been a pretty fit guy, but boxing is a whole new level of physical training that is unlike anything I’ve done before. Every time I leave the gym I’m completely spent. I don’t know if I would ever want to be in a real boxing match (I’ve read too much about concussions and stuff) but it’s fun to learn the sport and get in better shape.

End the Fed

This is Ron Paul’s new book about the Federal Reserve System and why it is leading our country on a downward spiral. I definitely recommend it to anyone who doesn’t really understand the Fed or how our money actually works, but understands that something is wrong with the rate at which our country spends money. He discusses why the Fed itself is economically flawed, and why it doesn’t matter who is running the show – it still can’t work. I’ve always been a big Ron Paul supporter and this is a book I would recommend to anyone. I just ordered a few more of his books as well as Atlas Shrugged and some of Murray N Rothbard’s books on the economy and the US dollar. Definitely not light reading but should be worth the time.

• I left Penn State
• I had back to back best months of my career
• I saw Jerry Seinfeld perform

Strangely, the third item on the list is what got me the most excited.

Leaving School

Anyone who has talked to me over the last two years knows that I really wasn’t happy at school. Whenever I was in class my head was always elsewhere, and I saw learning as an obligation instead of something that was exciting and interesting. I think this was due to a few things: me not really having an interest in my major (Economics), and me not wanting to follow the typical “go to school, get an internship, get a job” approach. Although I only needed to stay for three more semesters to finish my Economics degree, I decided to leave and figure out what I really want to do before considering going back.

I’m not opposed to going back eventually, but right now I want to enjoy myself in the affiliate market and take my business as far as it can go.

Anyways, since I dropped out I’ve gotten a ton of work done and feel reinvigorated. Affiliate marketing is my sole income, so I have a new “back to the wall” mentality that is helping me to achieve more instead of being satisfied with my current income. Plus I get to sleep in every day

Personal Bests

As I mentioned before, I hit personal bests in August and then again in September. I’m feeling confident about my business right now, because all the work I’ve been doing lately really seems to be paying off in a tangible way. I plan on continuing to pound the casino stuff, while also testing PokerSite.org to really optimize it for conversions and income. I have a huge number in mind for how much I want to make per month in 2010, and I fully expect to reach my goal.

I think the next barrier I’m going to have to overcome is the issue of scalability. I have always been a bit obsessed with making my sites exactly how I want them, which makes outsourcing extremely hard as I’m often going back to change things that other people did. My sites always end up exactly how I want them, but it also limits how many sites I can produce/market per year. I have a few ideas for how I can turn my business into a true “business” where I don’t have to oversee every task, and thus can accomplish much more. That’s for another post though…

Jerry Seinfeld…

was amazing. I always loved the show, and seeing him in person was even better. If you ever get the chance to see him, do it by all means. Also, for everyone HBO, don’t miss the Seinfeld reunion tomorrow on Curb Your Enthusiasm. The season finale of Entourage is right afterwards, it’s the best two hours of TV ever haha.

Now that I have a lot more free time I’ll try to post weekly, but I’m sure you’ve heard that before. Until next time…

There’s no more motivating way to start off the day then by hitting the remote controlled lights, looking at “El Matador”, and rolling out of bed.