So here we are coming towards the end of 2009, and it has been a great year for me…

It was this time last year that I properly got interested in the whole make money online concept, but unlike in the past, this time I decided to take the plunge and get my very own website online.

Having my own website was something that I had been worried about doing in the past, it was the thought of all the technical stuff involved. But now that I’ve taken action and done it, using all the guides that are available these days, I found it was actually quite simple, and I now realise I should of done it sooner instead of putting it off.

My very first website was www.Online-Auction-Success.com , which I didn’t mention in my recent eBook Traffic Guide For Newbies because it wasn’t a very successful site, it was a project that I started with little knowledge or planning, and was somewhere that I was sending my eBay customers to at the time.

I worked on Online-Auction-Success.com right up to May/June, which was when I came across Mr Alex Jeffreys and his brand new coaching program, which after some thought I signed up for. It was at that point, following Alex’s advice, that I wound everything up that wasn’t making me any money in order to give all my concentration to the coaching. A few weeks later the coaching started and this blog, Paul-Lear.com was born.

Although Online-Auction-Success.com wasn’t a successful site, I believe that I wouldn’t have even considered signing up for a coaching program, had I not made that first step earlier in the year, and got a bit of experience with the technical side of things.

So if you are interested in making money on the internet, the best thing you can do, if you haven’t already, is dive in head first and get your own personal blog online, like I have here at Paul-Lear.com . Don’t waste time taking the route I took, with my unsuccessful niche blog. When you are starting out, personal blogs are the best way to go.

Referrring back to when I joined the Alex Jeffreys coaching program. Advised by Alex I started my own personal blog on a new domain name, and I can honestly say that my decision to have Alex as my mentor is the best decision I have made this year.

Here is what I have achieved since I joined Alex’s coaching program:

1. I started this blog, which as been reasonably successful.
2. I have met lots of great like minded people, and made many good friends through visiting peoples blogs regularly.
3. I have learned a great deal about how to drive traffic to a website, and I am still learning more about this each day.
4. I have learnt the importance of building a list of prospects and buyers.
5. I signed up to Aweber and I am now building an email list of willing subscribers. (which was another thing I had once put off doing)
6. I have built my email list to 215 subscribers, (bare in mind that I was neglecting my list building efforts until November)
7. I now have 4 websites online, and I’m about to purchase another new domain for a new project in January.
8. I made my first video and overcame my fear of speaking in front of the camera.
9. I made my first tutorial video using the screen capture software, Camtasia Studio.
10. I wrote my first eBook Traffic Guide For Newbies, and released it on 23rd November. It has now had 76 downloads on it’s own, and I also added it to a download package which has had 80 downloads.
11. I attended my first Live Workshop which was hosted by Lee McIntyre, and I met some great people including Alex Jeffreys, John Thornhill, and of course Lee McIntyre himself. I also met some of my fellow Marketing With Alex students there too which was cool.
12. I have started to develop a good marketing mindset, which makes it easier when it comes to creating squeeze pages and writing email copy for adswaps, and writing sales pages.
13. I have developed a love of blogging and writing, which at the start of this year I never thought I would even begin to enjoy those things!
14. I have driven many thousands of visitors  to my websites.
15. I’m now focused, dedicated and determined to succeed at Internet Marketing, and most importantly I’m enjoying it! 

I’m sure you can see from all that I have listed, that compared to where I as at the start of the year, which was pretty much a newbie, that I’ve achieved quite a lot in the last six months, and it all stems back to that one simple action I took at the beginning of the year, to get a website online. That was what started me on this whole journey, and I am looking forward to next year, where in 2010 I am certain I will achieve much more!

So if there is something you have been thinking about doing, that you’ve been putting off, just take action NOW, stop thinking about doing it and just get it done!.. You never know what it might lead to, and if you aren’t prepared to take a little risk now and then, you will never achieve very much, and you will remain at the same stage you are at now.

If I hadn’t of made the decision to finally start a website this time last year, I would most likely still be doing the same thing I had been doing for the past couple of years, which was very little other than playing computer games and wasting time watching far too much television. Now don’t get me wrong, I still make sure I take time out to relax and do those things today, I just plan my time better to fit everything in that I want to do.

I hope you have got something out of this post, and I will be following on from this in my next post, with my plans for 2010.

I would also like to take this opportunity to wish all my readers and everyone who has supported me throughout 2009, a very Happy & Profitable New Year!

Best Wishes For 2010

Paul

Images courtesy of Francesco Marino and Dan

I’ve decided it’s about time I posted an update of my progress, and what I have been doing recently. This is actually an idea I came up with after visiting Jacinta Dean’s blog. Jacinta has been doing weekly posts of her daily tasks, and I’ve been meaning to do something similar for a few weeks now.

I’ve decided not to do a list of my daily tasks for the week, as I doubt I would keep up with it. So instead I will try and do one of these posts, once a month, as I think this will be less of a chore for me!

I wasn’t really writing things down much back in August, so I’ll start in September.

Now I can see how important it is to keep a journal of your daily tasks, this is something that Alex Jeffreys talks a lot about in the coaching. So if you haven’t started to keep a journal yet, then I recommend you to start one today!

September

• Contributed in a Giveaway event for the first time, and unbeknown to me, I went and chose the only event with different rules from the average giveaway. The rules in this giveaway were that instead of all gifts being shown at the start, you had to earn points by referring people to get your gift shown! I don’t think my gift ever shown because I found it hard going to get referrals. So that put me off giveaways a little, as I thought they were all like that.

• Caught up on some coaching modules that I had fallen behind on.

• Ended up not being very well throughout September, and it made me lose focus a bit. I also let my birthday pass by without mentioning it here. It was on 17th September, and I turned 28! I had a few beers with my cousin, and despite being ill I still managed to have a decent time.

• Installed the Alexa Toolbar which sparked a string of posts about it – Improve Your Alexa Rank Challenge (Part 1), Alexa Rank Challenge (Week 1 Update), and Top 10 Tips To Increase Alexa Rank

• Started trying out different things with MyBlogLog to see if I could get some extra traffic from there.

• Started enjoying blog commenting more, and made some good friends in the process.

• Had an idea for my first ebook/report, and started to plan and write it.

• Purchased one of John Thornhill’s latest and greatest products – Profit From PLR . I’ve had a quick look at the videos and this is top quality information, and I’m pretty sure that once I put this into action (which will be as soon as I’ve finished working on my free ebook) I’m sure I will be able to make some good monthly income from this business model. I can also see this building me some big targeted lists in various niches too.

October …so far

• Made a blog post about what I had learnt from experimenting with MyBlogLog to drive traffic – How I Use MyBlogLog To Drive Targeted Traffic.

• Continued writing ebook, but started to struggle with it a bit. I’ve heard it called writers block, and I know exactly what they mean now. I have been writing pages, then having a break. When I come back and read what I wrote in the last session, I decide it’s a load of rubbish and delete it. But I’m getting on with it a bit better now and not reading it back so much. It’s also turning out to be a longer book than I planned.

• Found what I think it a decent package to use for the Giveaway events. I’ve submitted it to 2 events so far, which haven’t yet launched. I’m going to set a page up showing all the current giveway events soon, as this might help with referrals? I’ve seen a lot of others doing this so I think it must help a bit?

• I set up a second Twitter account based on one of my profit pulling platforms, and to help build my list. Currently I’ve grown it to 2,600 followers in 3 weeks. I’m not sure whether or not you are supposed to have more than 1 account? But I noticed one of my friends on the coaching has set up another account, and he doesn’t seem to have had any problems. And I’ve not had any issues either.

• Secured my place for Lee Mcintyre’s live workshop in Manchester, which is perfect for me because I live in Manchester! But this has also been a huge step for me, because as you may have read in my 25 Things You Should Know post, I have a bit of a problem with unwanted anxiety. Just a few short months ago I would have done anything possible to avoid going to an event like this. But ever since I started on Alex Jeffreys coaching program my self confidence has been rising at a fast rate, and instead of dreading the event I’m looking forward to it. I’ll be making a post or three about it afterwards, but it’s not for another week yet!

• Started keeping a journal of my daily tasks rather than just writing the odd thing down, which I was doing before.

• I seem to have been focusing too much on my blog recently, and not spending enough time on my list building. So I’ve changed my focus back to list building, which is where it should be.

• Installed some  more plugins on my blog, and updated my Blog Plugins page. One of the plugins I wouldn’t have found, if I hadn’t of paid Norene Broyton’s blog a visit. Norene made a post titled – Hear Ye, Hear Ye — A Unique Blogging Tool , which is about a plugin that you will see at the top of each of my posts. It gives you the choice to listen to the blog post, rather than read it. I find it quite fun to listen to. You can also download the audio as an MP3 or Podcast.

And finally that’s about it. Phew!!.. That was a lot of typing, and yet another long post from me. I do hope I’m not boring anyone with these long posts? And try to keep them as short as I can, while fitting everything in. But it can be hard as you can see.

Right now I’m going to have a well earned rest, and then I’ll get back to joining a few more giveaways. And continue writing my ebook of course, I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I will have at least finished writing it by the end of next week. Then I will need to look at getting some graphics.

So until next time…

Paul.