This week feels like I’m turning the corner with earnings take a slight tick up on my websites, one of the sites hit hard in October has got some legs again. After reading something over on the warrior forums the other day I decide to make a pretty major change, and switch domains based on what I read. The site in question has always sat on the hyphenated domain and the non-hyphenated version had a 301 redirect. Yea I know that’s backwards by today’s standards, there was a short time when hyphens were the rage. Earnings from the site had sunk so low that even if I was wrong and earning went to zero it wouldn’t be much different. I made the switch, putting the site on the non-hyphenated and redirecting the hyphenated, then went and did the switch in googles Webmaster tools, and 4 days later google acknowledged the change, and traffic and rankings returned to Pre October levels. Only time will tell if it sticks, the site is on the list for an overhaul next month, which should secure the rankings.

Over the last few months I have been running quite a few tests, most are not returning anything which indicates [do this] = [defiantly more income] they do however, add to the list of things that will not drastically increase income so it’s good data of a kind. A few things are returning extremely positive results they just cannot be measured individually at a financial level; they do appear to adding to the total though.

The living in Thailand site is entering it’s last few days of daily entries to complete a detailed account of what living in Chiang Rai is like with just $400 a month. On a personal level it’s been quite an eye opener trying to live with just $400 I consider $600 to be very easy, and is the number I normally fall around. $400 is not easy and the site will show me failing and ending up around $440. After 15 days or so google started sending a little traffic and that number is climbing nicely. I should end up with a half decent site after the 31 days and one that I can easily develop further into something quite large.

Monkey farm in Surat Thani

I was hoping to get to eBay this week that just did not happen; I did see results on another front that will bring me back into the black. More on that next week with the monthly earnings.

Today’s wrap is going to be short, earlier in the week I got one of those whiteboards that I had been thinking of getting for year’s and just never got around to doing.

I then put everything I had floating around in my head. “not good”

Not a good idea to fill it up like this.

Bad Idea way too much stuff as I have learnt in the past list’s or whiteboards are there to help you not overwhelm you, with about 6 months work on the board I ended up not knowing where to start and doing next to nothing for a few days.

Anyways I have now wiped it clean and added just what can be done for the day, “I can always refer back to the photo” The board has helped in a few other ways though adding a new product that floats through my mind to sell and needs to be researched. It has also allowed me to see very clearly what I need to be doing now, and that is anything that produces instant cash.

Luckily I have an extensive background with eBay and just a little less with other sales channels. When I arrived in Thailand I started looking for things I could easily sell on eBay “I’m inquisitive by nature and can happily walk around markets for hours” coming from America I had a pretty good Idea what I wanted small, repeatable, and upwards of $15 profit per sale. I found very little nothing fitting this criteria. I’m now looking at it differently and am finding lots of small lines I could develop at very little cost, 10 or so like this could easily be worth $500 a month been in Asia I also dont have to worry too much about the problem with eBay that it can be quite labor intensive, as help is cheap here. Something that makes eBay a very difficult back in the West.

I also spent a some time reading through the reports over at Niche Site Challenge It was interesting to follow some of the main contestants progress, more so as they most all revealed the sites. It’s pretty fascinating seeing just how much effort is put in to building back-links and how it is working well, I do have this nagging feeling that one day a lot of the back linking  methods been used today in mass with these type of sites will suddenly lose value overnight, another reason for me to diversify and get the basics covered by something that is not so volatile.