Frustrating day. I’ve been working on my keyword blog for the 30 DC and today noticed that someone snagged my phrase and is ranked #2 in Google while I’m at #220. To add massive insult to my injury, they did it with a tumblr blog that has an affiliate link. I’m half-tempted to E-mail tumblr and get it banned…. God has a sense of humor.

So, that just sucks and I’m getting zero traffic to my blog. The 30 DC is looking like a fat bust so far like many of my other attempts at Internet Marketing. Don’t let anyone lie to you, playing the affiliate game is tough and takes lots of work. Of course, you can always look to pay per click when the challenge is over.

Ed’s teaching today was about writing stories for marketing copy. He used some eBay examples where people told stories (I’m skeptical they are TRUE stories) on their auctions and created viral effects with massive traffic. So let me get this, I’m supposed to make up some really great personal stories that somehow tie into my esoteric keyword phrase? I’m dead.

At times you definitely feel like the outsider looking in. I doubt I’m alone on this. It’s really hard too because you want to succeed so badly, yet it seems so elusive. It feels like running as hard as possible toward a finish line that keeps moving.

So is it

Results? Why, man, I have gotten lots of results! If I find 10,000 ways something won’t work, I haven’t failed. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is often a step forward.
Thomas Edison

Or

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There’s no use being a damn fool about it.
W.C. Fields

Today’s teaching is all about tracking. Study Internet Marketing long enough and you’ll get it drilled into your head that you must track your traffic. You’ll never know what’s going on without it. I use two programs for my sites. The first is statcounter.com. It’s super easy to set up and is easy to use on a daily basis. It offers enough information at a glance to get the job done.

When you need more data, the best tracker is Google Analytics. It’s not only the best, it’s free!

Dan coined a new phrase today: “slippery content”. Slippery content is content that effectively leads your visitor to click the affiliate link. So, not only do you write “quality” content, you need to write slippery quality content. This is where the marketing artistry comes in and why some guys get paid the big bucks. If you suck at marketing, you should consider copying the style of any Internet Guru you can find.

I finally set-up a blogger page with some new content. The site looks great and I like the poll feature you can easily add to the blog page. I made a bunch of template mods and it’s ready to go.

Almost forgot a biggie. Dan did a video on a new tracking link the 30 Day Challenge team is providing. With this link you can now track how many people click your “evil” affiliate link! Really a great feature to have. It’s another essential piece to the tracking puzzle. You need to track your visitors, your affiliate clicks, and your product conversions. The key moving forward will be to optimize each step until you are getting the most money possible from your site.

The training today centered around further explanation of the process and why we are creating many pages on multiple sites. The point of all the writing effort is to grab enough traffic to decide if the traffic converts. If the traffic converts, then we are set to create our own product instead of pushing an affiliate. Overall, not a bad strategy. You do put a lot of effort up front but ultimately knowing that the traffic converts to sales is the best defense against wasting time and money on products for a market that is crap.

I also like Ed’s idea about how to create the product(s) through audio and video. I took a step in that direction tonight by getting set-up with CamStudio and decent microphone. I got myself a USB headset and mic. Great stuff and it was less than 40 dollars. The sound is outstanding compared to previous headsets I’ve owned.

I’m working on keeping the enthusiasm going but I’m not seeing much traction on the sites. Some people are already having sales and it’s getting tough to watch. I so better get at least ten bucks for all this effort…