• Article/content writing-11 hours
• Categorizing domains-2 hours
• Business development-3 hours
• Brain storming-3 hour
• Photography-11.5 hours
• Jan’s Writing Services-6 hours
• Marketing-4.5 hours
• Organizing-2 hour
• Planning-1 hour
• Keyword research-1 hour
• New project development-5 hours

The challenge resulted in me working on my photography more than I had planned, increase in income, and some great ideas for future projects.

All posts on the 50 Hour Challenge

To find out more about other challenges you can go to the category-challenges.

PHOTOGRAPHY

I spent 5 hours on my photography at the workshop and at the rodeo. I spent another 2 hours photographing snow in the dessert (rare) when we got enough snow that it stuck a couple weeks ago. It was quite the experience. I took so many pictures between a couple trips to the rodeo, the snow, the barn dances, visiting a national monument, and friends out dancing that I was almost tired of taking pictures! Have lots of great shots and awesome memories.

WRITING

I have been getting a lot done with my content writing services. I have a new writer and new client. I’m going to credit 4 hours towards the challenge. I got my new writer started, worked on articles for a new client, wrote articles for use for marketing, and wrote a little for a new faith focused project I started. That would be 2 hours for Jan’s Writing Services and 2 hours for content writing.

WORKING WITH BOB SCHMUCK

The time working with my son, Bob Schmuck continues to be productive and motivating.  We have gotten together twice in the past few weeks. During that time we did the following:

• organize (1 hour)
• marketing (1.5 hours)
• keyword research (1/2 hour)
• write (2 hours)
• brainstorm (1 hour) during our time.

The focused time has paid off. I hit my $100 in Adsense income in two months…a personal record! (happy dance!….happy dance!)

NEW PROJECT DEVELOPMENT

Working on a few new projects. One is for Super Bowl L (50). I am going to have two sites that I will develop over the next 4 years and then sell it right after Super Bowl XLV (45). This I got the domain names and keyword research done.

The other project is faith focused and I haven’t gotten much farther than lots of notes and ideas in a notebook. It will have a lot of videos. It will start with a focus on teens. I did get the domain names.

When my new writer submitted her sample article, she actually had an excellent keyword. I have the articles ordered for that and am going to develop a website. I got the domain names.

For these projects I probably spent about 3 hours plus about 1/2 an hour on keyword research.

Well, I’m almost done! I have tomorrow off and hope I will be able to get closer to finishing.

TOTAL    42.5/50 hours

With the new local searches on the Google search results pages, adding a page for Arizona was helpful. I am on the first page when searching for Orchid plants Arizona and for AZ. I think it is important to use the abbreviation in the article when working on state keywords.

We took a little break around the holidays, but my son and I work on getting together once a week. Not only do we accomplish a lot, we also get motivated. That motivation lasts the week!

ADVANTAGES OF WORKING FROM HOME

There are many advantages to working from home. This is especially true if you are sick. Working from home allows me to do the following:

• Lay down when I need to
• Take a nap as needed
• Not worry about the effects of cold medicine
• NOT share my germs
• Work as much or as little as I can

SECURITY OF WORKING FROM HOME

I don’t have to worry about calling in if I can’t work or can only work a few hours at a time. Calling in can cause coaching and even the loss of a job. I can still get some income coming in.

PASSIVE INCOME WHEN SICK

Even though I don’t have much passive income, the great thing about passive income, like from Adsense,  is that it keeps coming in when I am sick or out having fun. Even maintaining passive income sources takes very little time overall and that time spent is flexible as to when it is done.

Well, I updated some blogs due to the launch of  the Financial Crisis Site. I changed some of the wording on some post titles and in some posts to see if I can get more targeted ads. Getting ones for freeze dried food! I guess Google doesn’t know it is not that kind of survival .

Going to rest a little and then do some writing for Jan’s Writing Services. Being sick will keep me from being distracted going anywhere to do anything and I will have to stay home to write and rest.

Another milestone for this Internet entrepreneur-FINANCIAL CRISIS BLOG IS LAUNCHED!!!

I had some cards printed out and handed some out at work and I also made a Facebook event that will last for a week. The cards already brought in a little trickle of traffic. I just did the Facebook event today.

I had to edit my event to make it more clear because some people who are not familiar with a website or blog launch, thought it was a physical event.

I included the following in the details of the Facebook event:

• Cyber event
• location-new website with the website address
• NOT a physical event to attend, just visit a new website this week
• NOT selling anything
• NO email info or any other info required

I hope that it will give the blog a good start. I also have daily posts for the week, so there will be fresh content.

I’ll keep you updated on the success of the event.

I had been waiting for my son to get a chance to look at it for me. He isn’t real familiar with WordPress, but he knows enough about coding that he can usually figure things out. He has been busy with work, his sites, and paintball and hasn’t been able to take a look at it. I’m kind of glad now because if felt REALLY good to figure it out myself!

The problem was when I changed the permalink. I customized it to have the post name in the link. When I looked at the options for permalinks, I saw all the others include index.php/ and when I looked at my posts, they did not have that. I added that to the customized permalink and at first it didn’t work. I was sad and then I looked closer and realized that in my excitement I typed indes.php/, well I corrected that and it worked!

I believe my son was as excited as me because I think he may have been dreading bringing his sister home because I would’ve tried to get him to stay and fix my blog!

I am a BIG step closer to launching the blog now! It IS a beautiful day in my entrepreneurial neighborhood.

I pray I always have a deep appreciation for every cent I make on line while never being satisfied with what I make. I want to be motivated to earn more and do good with what I earn on line.

Also….Jan Fran’s Redneck Yard has targeted ads again!

Today I was trying to figure out why Jan’s Group Home Support didn’t have targeted ads. I worked a little on Jan Fran’s Redneck and then on my blog about working with disabled people was ads for lawn care and cornhole games! After a little research I found one of the reasons for non-targeted ads can be from the Adsense settings.

Go to your Adsense account > My Account > Account Settings and then scroll down. You will find these two settings that you can edit:

1. Interest-based Ads Preference-You will be able to set your preference for interest-based ads. These ads are served to users (based on their interests. The problem is, if they are in search of a topic they normally don’t search or don’t exhibit an interest in online, they will still have ads targeted to their history instead of what they are currently searching. This explained redneck ads on my group home support blog…I had shown interest in redneck information. You can select to not to have interest and demographic based ads appear.
2. Third Party Ads Preference-You will be able to set your preferences for third-party ads. Some advertisers may use third-party information to deliver more relevant ads to your site. These advertisers are not allowed to gather information about the audience from your site to improve their own audience targeting capabilities and the ads may not be as targeted that are showing up on your site. You can select not to have advertisers use their information about their audience to determine the ads that appear on your site.

I was surprised to find out that if a site doesn’t have keywords that advertisers are paying for, there may be no ads to display. In that case you may have public service ads that look like regular ads that just aren’t targeted. For this, simply change your code to exclude public service ads and the space can be blank or non-Google ads from another website.

You can go to your account > Adsense Setup > Ad Review Center and you can block certain categories of advertisements.

Before you re-write you website or blog, try changing the above settings. It may take a few days before you see results and the “bots” return to your website or blog to crawl it and send the information back to Google and changes are made.

I am expecting to see the results on my ads and in an increase in my Adsense income.

So often I felt like I was under a big dark cloud. Everywhere around me there are Internet entrepreneurs making money. They seem to be spending a lot less on their projects and make a lot more money than I do. I could be discouraged and give up, but I keep plugging along. Lately I feel like the clouds are parting and its time for the sun to shine on this entrepreneur.

CURRENT INTERNET PROJECTS

The marketing done in April, on my Orchid Plant Site is still paying off. The Adsense income is steadily increasing. I can’t wait to do more to market that site and start marketing some of my other websites and blogs. I’m very excited about my blog about financial crisis survival. I hope what I have learned can help others.

FOCUSING ON INTERNET PROJECTS

I have been struggling with making money with my websites and blogs for years. I realize part of the reason is trying to do too much. So since I have the time now, I’m going to focus on my Internet projects. Once I have things going I will have the freedom to go out when I want to. Instead of trying to continually squeeze some time in every couple months, I am going to just focus on my projects and give it my full attention. Trying to do it all is just prolonging me reaching the place where I don’t have to squeeze in being more sociable.

My writing is still going very well and I keep plugging along at keeping up and catching up.

Today, with the help of Bob Schmuck, I hosted my domain and put up a WordPress blog. I like the theme, but it needs some tweaking so that it looks right. He is going to help me with that another day. I’m excited that I have it up though and will work on it more before I show anyone.

I don’t know that I will market this a lot on the Internet, but will share it with people that I know so that they can share it with people that they know it will help. There is too much competition for the keywords and I don’t have the time to work on marketing right now.