The Keyword Academy Scam Experiment

Day 47: Remember Me? – The Keyword Academy Scam Experiment

(Thursday August, 6th)

Hey guys! I got back into town Monday. Camping was fun. It was nice to get away from work, the Internet, cell phones, etc. for a few days and just relax.

I started my new job Tuesday. So far it’s been good. I’m obviously just starting to learn the ropes, but I think I’ll enjoy it. It involves helping build websites. I think the things I am learning with The Keyword Academy will help me in my new job.

My boss from my old job has still been bugging me, which is starting to get on my nerves. I offered to work for him for another week while he finds someone to replace me, but he said “no” because things are slow. So I went ahead and started my new job. But now he is calling me every day, trying to get me to take jobs and call customers! You had your chance man, now leave me alone!

I know none of that is in any way related to The Keyword Academy or making money online, but I needed to vent.

So, amidst all this chaos, I have still managed to work on my niche websites a little. I finished writing all 5 of my article distribution articles for site #2. I tried to submit them all to the distribution site, but apparently I have to wait till 10 of my articles (total) get approved, before I can submit any others. Oh well, at least they are written and ready to go when the time comes. Now I need to focus on link exchanges for that site.

I have been thinking more about my site revisions and I think I am getting close to final decisions about what I want to change. Aside from the other things I have mentioned before (not tracking time as a cost, changing my tag line, etc.) I think I am going to stop trying to update this site every day, and aim for once or twice a week instead. It takes a lot of time to update this site every day, and that comes out of time I could be working on my niche sites (or sleeping ). I think now that I have detailed the building of my first couple sites, there is going to be a lot of “rinse and repeat”. Nothing that would need to be reported on every day.

Also, I am trying to think of a better way to represent the progress I’ve made on my sites. Referring to them by names like “the first one”, “the other one”, and “my wife’s site” is starting to confuse even me. But I don’t want to give away my niche keywords by telling you the names of the sites. What’s a make money online blogger to do?

I have been thinking about using a table of some kind. Like having an Excel sheet with a column for each of my sites. And rows for each task I need to complete for them, like writing content, or link exchanges, etc. Taking and uploading a screen shot of an Excel spreadsheet seems kind of cumbersome though. However I recently read about how you can make tables on webpages using HTML. Like so:

Row 1, cell 1

Row 1, cell 2

Row 1, cell 3

I’ll play with it and see what I can do. Anyway, time to go to bed.

Oh, and let me know what you think of these ideas, please. I haven’t received many comments on this site yet. I have Stat Counter installed, so I know somebody out there is reading this!

Money spent: $0.00
Time spent: 1.5 hours

The Keyword Academy Scam Experiment – RUNNING TOTALS:
Costs:
Monetary costs – $225.76
Time costs – 58.75 hours @ $8.40 = $493.50
Revenue:
Google  Adsense – $30.08

GRAND TOTAL:
-($689.18)

Day 41: Long Time, No See – The Keyword Academy Scam Experiment

(Friday July, 31st)

Hi everyone. Sorry that I haven’t updated my site the last few days. I was busy working, and planing a camping trip for this weekend. I also was interviewing for a new job, which I have now been offered and accepted (I start on Tuesday). On top of all that, the temperature here has been record breaking all week (over 100 degrees Fahrenheit almost every day) which really drained me.

However, I have still been working on my websites. I posted those 3 articles that I talked about in my last post and I also wrote my first article for distribution on that site. Plus I have had 2 people contact me out of the blue and ask for links to my other site.

I also got some more Adsense clicks. Yesterday, for some reason, there were a lot of clicks. Made $7.50 in that one day! I thought that was pretty cool.

So, as I mentioned, I am going camping this weekend so I won’t be updating the site for the next few days. We are probably going to be home late Monday night, but I start my new job Tuesday, so I’ll post as soon as I actually get a chance to.

Oh, I almost forgot: I had to pay my Host Gator bill today, which was $9.95

Money spent: $9.95
Time spent: 2 hours

The Keyword Academy Scam Experiment – RUNNING TOTALS:
Costs:
Monetary costs – $225.76
Time costs – 57.25 hours @ $8.40 = $480.90
Revenue:
Google  Adsense – $26.89

GRAND TOTAL:
-($679.77)

Day 32: Built Another Site – The Keyword Academy Scam Experiment

(Wednesday July, 22nd)

I wrote the first page of content for another site today. I posted that and put the finishing touches on the WordPress settings.

My wife wrote her first article for distribution, so that will give her her first link when it gets published.

I still haven’t heard from the Keyword Academy Support team about reactivating my account. I decided to just go through the registration process again. I was worried that I would have to create a new account, but thankfully, they give you the option of reactivating an existing account. They also detected that I was using the same PayPal account, and charged appropriately (ie $33, since I re-joined the premium membership). So for any of you thinking about cheating and getting multiple months for a dollar each, you’re out of luck.

I also sent out some emails for link exchanges for this site today. Lis Sowerbutts site about online income was one of the ones I offered a link trade to. She was not only was nice enough to link to my site, but also wrote about it in a post.

The post was more criticism than commendation. But it was constructive criticism which I find very helpful. In fact, comments from her post and also from an email I got from Courtney Tuttle (one of the Keyword Academy guys) a couple weeks or so ago, are making me think that I should revise some of my experiment’s terms and methods.

They both made the point that learning the ropes of Internet marketing should be treated like school. You usually don’t get paid to learn (it’s usually the other way around), but it pays for itself down the road. I think I may be doing you readers a disservice by putting you in the wrong mindset, and making you think that you’ve failed if you haven’t been fully reimbursed for your time and money within the first six months of online money making. Making money online is like starting a business (in fact, that’s exactly what it is). Building a business takes time, even if you already know the trade. However, if you, like me, are completely new to a particular business, you’ll need to spend time learning it. That’s just the way it is. So is it really right for me to count the time I spend learning the system as an expense?

When I get the time, I’ll probably make some revisions to my experiment. If you have something to say about this, please post I comment. I would love to hear from you!

PS – Checked Adsense today and I had some more clicks. My total revenue is now up to $12.58! Woo Hoo!

Money spent: $33.00
Time spent: 2 hours

The Keyword Academy Scam Experiment – RUNNING TOTALS:
Costs:
Monetary costs – $225.76
Time costs – 52 hours @ $8.40 = $436.80
Revenue:
Google  Adsense – $12.58

GRAND TOTAL:
-($649.98)