Flukeit

AS I watch my web empire grow to over 35 sites, I look over and see my children growing up without me. Sure, I’ve been there for them and work hard to give my family everything they need. However, right now I think that I might be putting a bit too much time into my web activities. Especially since many of my sites are not paying off.

I need to scale down.

I don’t plan to sell off any of my sites, but instead I might try to focus more time on a few of them, and put off some of my other pet projects. Maybe fewer is better anyway. Maybe if I try to spend my time promoting just a few, they will pay off more than a lot of smaller sites.

Maybe what I need is a clear strategy, and keep with it. In the past, I have been the text book case of knee jerk webmastering. I might get an idea, then without giving it too much thought, buying a domain and putting together a quick site.

So, I will not knee jerk this idea. I will think it over for a few days. Some of the things I’m pondering are:

* No more custom templates, just for the sake of building them.

* Eliminate posting to other blogs I own for now, until I have more time to give them good thought.

* Continue to promote my popular forum, and spend time working on another newer one.

* Finish current websites I have obligated myself to building, then scaling back on new ones.

* Complete this year’s income tax return, as the mere thought of it is adding stress to my life.

Hopefully, this will clear my conscience, and give me more time with the family.

I was checking out one of my sites, and noticed these strange symbols being displayed on a couple of the YPN ads. Anyone see anything like this?

I’ve been seeing to ads for the Affiliate Summit West while logging on to my Azoogle account, and now my Maxbounty account manager Jessica Dagg announced that she is going. It seems as though everyone who is somebody with affiliate marketing will be there. Unfortunately, I will not be on the guest list this time around.

Not only is this short notice for me, but I find it hard to justify a trip to Las Vegas, plus the cost of getting in since I haven’t really even earned enough to get a paycheck from an affiliate.

I currently use Maxbounty and Azoogle as tools to help the money making machine chug along, and I have recently wondered how long I should let a non-producing CPA campaign go before pulling the plug on it.

For example, I am currently running a campaign from Azoogle that has a payout of $20 on one of my directories and have yet to make a dime on it. I’ve been running this ad for two weeks.

I asked David from CPA Affiliates.com about it, here’s what he had to say:

Flukeit: How long do you give a non-paying CPA Campaign before pulling the plug?
David: Well are you referring to CPA campaign where you are doing PPC to it or on a website you are currently running?
Flukeit: A website I’m running.
David: I usually will give it two days if it is placed in a prime spot on the site.
Flukeit: Wow, not very long huh?
David: The only time I would have it run longer is if it was a VERY low traffic site with like under 200 uniques a day then might let it run longer
David: I try to focus on targeting my audience. If audience is mainly techie teens I will try free iPod, laptop etc. If they are women I may try free magazine offers or free makeup.
Flukeit: Would you recommend using a lower paying CPA campaign and focus on higher volume, or the occasional big payout?
David: I would try both and whichever one makes me more over a set period would get the spot.

My conversation with David is leading me to have less patience with my CPA campaign I choose to use.

I really enjoy being a webmaster. I like designing a new site, creating a new web masterpiece. There are things about it that I really dread. One of those things is verifying links added to my Blog Directory.

I want to maintain a clean directory, so that means that every site submitted must be verified. Earlier this week, I had a backlog of 600 links waiting to be verified. That would take me forever to go through!

Then I began to think. The world is filled with low wage labor, maybe I could outsource it? I went to Digital Point forums and put the bat signal out. I got a bite.

A member agreed to sift through every one of them for the low price of $20. It took him a couple of days to go through, but he got it done. Amazing.

I then started thinking about third world sweatshops, and the possibility that there could be cyber sweatshops out there where young children or slaves are doing this sort of work. I’m sure it’s possible. Why not? After all, who do you think made the shoes you’re wearing?