What a crummy year.
Wow what a year 2013 was. It had it's ups and downs, with a steady downward spiral and things getting worse. Overall I learned a LOT in 2013. What to do, and what NOT to do. I am sure I will make mistakes in 2014 with my affiliate sales, and have my web site dissapear completely from the Google search results. Let's just hope that in 2014 I don't make the same mistakes.Since I wasn't bringing in much from the affiliate sales and not working, Christmas this year was all Oranges and Coal for the kids. We were thankful that we all had each other, and a roof over our heads. There are still people in this world that are/ were less fortunate than us. It was a true blessing that we had our health, and were able to keep the lights on. Since we run wood heat, we even had a few days where we were able to stay warm. The rest of the time we were bundled up in blankets....
SO, why does 2014 look brighter ?
Well, for starters I now have a steady part time paycheck coming in. With all of my work from 2013, I learned a LOT about Search Engine Optimization and affiliating with other sites to make a little bit of money. Over the year I made some dumb mistakes like keyword stuffing, trying to make my site rank faster and at the top of the search results. Apparently Google doesn't like this method too much, and so I had a few web sites that just completely disappeared. Fun stuff, but I worked my way through it.
As a result of working so hard and learning so much, I was offered the chance to become the affiliate manager for a major ham radio web site. I keep track of what others are doing, send out emails and help with any issues or questions that they may have. I really enjoy the work that I am doing, so it is easy. It is not going to make me rich, but it is a steady part time income, and I get to work from home, talking about and working with ham radio stuff.
Another thing I have been doing to generate a few bucks is writing content for others over at iwriter. This is not going to make me rich either, but it is an extra 50 to 100 bucks a week, if I stay busy at it. I quickly made my way up to Elite status (30 articles with an average review of 4.6 out of 5 stars) so now I make 10 to 15 bucks per an article. It isn't always easy writing for someone else, but it is good practice for me. Eventually if I continue to do it, I will be able to create better content for my readers here at W7DTG.
Picked up a new affiliate web site. I am now affiliating with ScannerMaster. Since police scanners and Ham radio go so well together, I thought it was a natural step.
As you can see, 2014 looks to be a better year for all of us hear at W7DTG.
Happy New year and here's to 2014