Phone (Call or Text): 559-871-1613|brandonchopkins@gmail.com

Projects

Poker and Making Money Online, a 34 Part Series

I hope I don’t burst your bubble, but this post is not about playing poker to make money online.  While it’s possible to make money playing poker, there are people better at poker than I am and I’m definitely not ready to put my money on the table for a flop that might totally negate my pocket aces!

Zappos.com (Shoe store) CEO Tony Hsieh wrote a great post about how playing poker relates to business.  The problem with the post is that it didn’t go into any detail, just brushed the surface.  I will take his point and expand on them as they relate to making money online, affiliate marketing, niche websites and why I do what I do. You can read Hsieh’s original post here.

I realize, in all honesty, that I will most likely never finish all 34 parts of this series (I get bored and don’t finish many things), but as I finish a post, I’ll link it from this page, so bookmark this page!

Here are the posts I’ll be writing:

EVALUATING MARKET OPPORTUNITIES

* Table selection is the most important decision you can make.
* It’s okay to switch tables if you discover it’s too hard to win at your table.
* If there are too many competitors (some irrational or inexperienced), even if you’re the best it’s a lot harder to win.

MARKETING AND BRANDING

* Act weak when strong, act strong when weak. Know when to bluff.
* Your “brand” is important.
* Help shape the stories that people are telling about you.

FINANCIALS

* Always be prepared for the worst possible scenario.
* The guy who wins the most hands is not the guy who makes the most money in the long run.
* The guy who never loses a hand is not the guy who makes the most money in the long run.
* Go for positive expected value, not what’s least risky.
* Make sure your bankroll is large enough for the game you’re playing and the risks you’re taking.
* Play only with what you can afford to lose.
* Remember it’s a long term game. You will win or lose individual sessions, but it’s what happens in the long term that matters.

STRATEGY

* Don’t play games that you don’t understand, even if you see lots of other people making money from them.
* Figure out the game when the stakes aren’t high.
* Don’t cheat. Cheaters never win in the long run.
* Stick to your principles.
* You need to adjust your style of play throughout the night as the dynamics of the game change. Be flexible.
* Be patient and think long term.
* The players with the most stamina and focus usually win.
* Differentiate yourself. Do the opposite of what the rest of the table is doing.
* Hope is not a good plan.
* Don’t let yourself go “on tilt”. It’s much more cost effective to take a break, walk around, or leave the game for the night.

CONTINUAL LEARNING

* Educate yourself. Read books and learn from others who have done it before.
* Learn by doing. Theory is nice, but nothing replaces actual experience.
* Learn by surrounding yourself with talented players.
* Just because you win a hand doesn’t mean you’re good and you don’t have more learning to do. You might have just gotten lucky.
* Don’t be afraid to ask for advice.

CULTURE

* You’ve gotta love the game. To become really good, you need to live it and sleep it.
* Don’t be cocky. Don’t be flashy. There’s always someone better than you.
* Be nice and make friends. It’s a small community.
* Share what you’ve learned with others.
* Look for opportunities beyond just the game you sat down to play. You never know who you’re going to meet, including new friends for life or new business contacts.
* Have fun. The game is a lot more enjoyable when you’re trying to do more than just make money.

By |January 26th, 2009|Projects|0 Comments
Read More

Build a Niche Store (eBay Affiliate Store)

While products like the Build a Niche Store (BANS) are usually not on my list of things to try, I thought I would solicit some reviews about the product. If you’re not familiar with BANS, the premise is simple, you pick the niche and the script delivers products in that niche through the Commission Junction eBay affiliate program.

Sounds confusing, but you’re basically an eBay affiliate through Commission Junction. The part that entices me is that I know a few niches that aren’t horribly flooded with similar sites. Since I also own a few extra domains with crappy content, it could be a perfect match.  Build a Niche Store claims to be easy to install and if a newbie can do it, so can I.

The price is $97 which is irrelevant because the eBay affiliate program is pretty easy to make money with. If someone signs up for eBay through your link, you get $25. If someone clicks your link and buys ANY product on eBay in the next 7 days, you get 50% of the revenue (not total sale price). By just selling a few items and a few signups you’ve easily made your money back.

I’ve never actually used the Build a Niche Store software but am curious to hear from actual users.

What did you like? What don’t you like?

By |January 6th, 2008|Projects, Reviews|8 Comments
Read More

Zero to Hero Final Update

Well, the 30 days has come and gone and our final totals are as follows:

GOAL – 2,000 unique visitors
ACTUAL – 33,038 unique visitors

GOAL – 150 Total posts
ACTUAL – 143 Total posts (Andrew did his part, I was off my 7 posts)

GOAL – $100 Income
ACTUAL – $104.39 (Adsense 50%, Affiliates 50%)

All in all it was a good month, we have a lot of great content that is bringing in a lot more organic traffic this month.

11/2007 Google Traffic: 1137 total
12/2007 Google Traffic: 1458 (through only 12 days)

Huge increase in organic traffic is also helping to sustain Adsense earnings. We’re beginning to focus more on specific call center terms such as call center software, call center outsourcing and giving tips that can help find a call center job. With more call center posts tailored towards jobs we hope to start ranking for a bigger term.

Last month we saw 60,922 page views come from StumbleUpon. So far this month we have 30,850 (through 12 days) so it looks to be another record breaking month for SU as well.

Another interesting stat was that we used 12.45 GB of bandwidth last month. That is a lot of bandwidth for a site not offering downloads and only a rare post with pictures. We did have this post about funny office signs so that probably took it up a few GB’s.

Our goals for this month are completely different. We’re going for twice as much income, 30-35 total posts (5 times less) and focusing our marketing efforts more on link building through guest posts, article writing and social means.

So there you have it, the project was a success in my opinion and our stats show that it was definitely a success since we exceeded the important goals.

Zero to Hero Project Closed!

By |December 12th, 2007|Projects|11 Comments
Read More

Zero to Hero Day 24 – More Traffic, Need More Clicks

We’ll, the 30 day project is getting close to wrapping up. We’ve implemented the use of the Digital Point keyword tracker and are tracking about 300 keywords. Since we’ve started doing this, I’ve been amazed at how quickly Google and MSN are picking up our new posts and getting them in the index. Reservation Keyword PictureI noticed a few of my posts we’re ranking in the 150 range on the first day the post was live and down to the top 10 within 3 days. Granted, these are long tail keywords, but it’s still great to see such a quick success from MSN. Google has been getting our new posts into the index and SERP’s within a day or two. See the screenshot to the right for an example, the post was made live on November 20th.

As of 10/24 we have a total of 23555 total uniques. Just to remind you, last month the site had 88 total uniques. Since our original goal was 2,000 uniques, we’ve WELL surpassed that goal. You can see that a vast majority of those uniques are from StumbleUpon. Unfortunately those visitors only come for our linkbait, and not for our content.

As for our second goal, 150 total posts, we’re close. To date we have averaged 4.2 posts per day. Our goal is 5 posts per day and in the next 6 days we need 49 posts. In the next 6 days we need 8.16 posts average. That is 4 posts per day. I’ve seen Andrew have 10-12 post days and I’ve done 10-15 posts per day so I know it can easily happen.

Our third goal was $100 net earnings. To date we’ve earned a couple bucks from a few different affiliate, less than $5 total. Adsense, our biggest earner is at $36.99. Average daily income is around $1.66 per day. We need that to go to $9.8 per day if we’re going to hit the goal. Unless we really pick up our organic search visitors I don’t think we’ll hit that goal.

Here are a few screenshots from the project:

Daily traffic.

Visitors by Day

Visitors from Search Engines (including StumbleUpon and Digg):

Search Engine Visitors

By |November 24th, 2007|Projects|6 Comments
Read More