One of the biggest problems with being an internet marketer, internet marketing writer or a freelance writer is that the money you receive is never steady. That is, you have some really good days, some mediocre ones and maybe even some bad ones. (Hopefully not to many bad ones). But, unlike an employee, you can’t really rely on a steady paycheck or paycheck salary as your income is not consistent. Heck, even with steady clients and residual income, your payments don’t really come in with real consistency. So, what is an aspiring internet marketer, writer or internet marketing writer to do? Well, you must plan accordingly and take action.

You must devise a paycheck salary plan so that you are covered in those good financial times and those bad financial times. Here is a plan that I learned from Felicia at nojobformom a while back. I used it for awhile and then stopped. However, I found that I was able to better manage my money with this plan.

Basically, you save all of your income you receive for one month. Yes, during the set up month, you don’t touch your income at all. You simply put it in directly into the bank when you receive it. This allows you to establish your nest egg of money. For instance, let’s say that you made $4,000 last month. Well, whenever you receive any payment you put it aside into your business account and don’t touch it for any reason. Then, when you have all the funds in your account, you can start giving yourself a paycheck. In the above example, you’d be able to give yourself a paycheck of $1000 a week or $4000 for the month. You then take that weekly amount and pay your bills and yourself for the week.

This system will allow you to give yourself a paycheck salary and you won’t be at the mercy of companies who might make late payments. As for me, I plan on utilizing this plan this month. What about you? Do you think you can implement this plan successfully?

I consider myself pretty knowledgeable about many topics including article marketing – heck, I might even say I’m an article marketing genius. Just kidding – not a genius but pretty darn knowledgeable. Not meaning to toot my own horn but I’ve got about 2000+ articles on the net published in my name and yes, I do write under aliases too so take my word for it, I have a LOT of articles floating around the net. I must admit however, that I’ve been a bit confused with traffic generation. I mean, its not that I don’t understand what traffic is but I don’t understand how to get it more of it (or rather why other bloggers have so much and I have so little). Sadly, traffic generation seems to be the one thing that is keeping me from really improving my income and achieving my goals. So, like most savvy internet marketers, I’ve taken it upon myself to get my fair traffic share.

What I’ve discovered from all my research is that some marketers swear by article marketing, whereas others believe that getting back links and using social bookmarking is the answer. Then, there are some marketers that swear by blog commenting, forum posting or both. Well, all this conflicting knowledge, is enough to give me(and most marketers) a massive headache and a severe case of “I’m so confused that I’ll do nothing.”

Well, I’ve decided not to get frustrated and not to give up. Instead, I plan to take action and I want to inrease my traffic using ALL of the above methods and to work off my fanny until I increase that traffic. And, the real cool thing is that I am going to use this site as my test site to see if I can increase my traffic right here on IM Writer Blog.

Here’s what I am going to do:

1. Write one really informative and thorough article every single week so that I can attract more readers and teach them something in the process. Its not that all my content isn’t good its just that I don’t always write really superb article every week.

2. Promote my site on YahooAnswers and other sites (especially forums) to let them know about my site and how I am working my internet marketing strategy. 10 answers and 20 posts a week (to 2-3 sites)!

3. Network with other writers turned internet marketers to see if I can get them to visit my site. I will do this by visiting mybloglog and other blogger sites that I admire to see if I can interact with them and get them to connect with me.

4. Post one article every single weekday (not including weekends)– not just with random posts but posts that are search optimized for my targeted keywords.

5. Backlink like a lunatic. I will try and get 100 new and relevant backlinks to this site in the next few months by using directory and article directories, social bookmarking, profile linking, twittering, etc.

6. Write and post 1 free eBook a month and use it as a giveaway.

7. Write 10 posts a moth and submit to article directories.

That’s it. By doing this, I really think that I will be able to increase my traffic from 40 visitors a day to a gazillion (OK at least 100 visitors a day). By doing this, I should be able to increase my PR from a 0 to a 2 plus get some steady readers. So, what do you guys think of my plan? Will it will work? Only one way to find out!

Today is September 1, 2010 and I am very proud of my accomplishments this past month. Oh happy day! I was finally able to pass the $2000 a month residual income barrier and I did it by a whopping $271.00. Now, that might not sound like a whole lot but how many employees can ask their bosses for a $271 raise and get it? Welll, if I continue with this pattern, I will have a whopping $3,252 extra at the end of the year and that is freaking awesome!

That said, today is a brand new day/month and it is now time to evaluate my strategy for this month. My plan is to continue building traffic to my 5 winning sites and also to try and get all my sites ranked using multi-backlinking strategies which consists of forum posting, Yahoo Answering, article writing, and Web 2.0 submissions, etc.

By diversifying my marketing strategy, I should be able to protect my interests and really market my sites and get them the traffic they need to be successful little niche money makers. After all, building sites and leaving them to fend for themselves is never enough. You have to optimize them for their keywords and backlink them like crazy if you want to increase your organic traffic and your income.

Only then will you rise up the SERPS and make money. Well, enough chatting – it’s a new month and I’ve got work to do. Make it happen!

I’m really beginning to feel as if most of the big gurus – you know the ones who brag about making a six figure income from internet marketing are not really making their money from traditional internet marketing. Instead, they are making their money from selling the hype of “ internet easy riches”. That is, they make their money by selling product after product after product to newbies who really don’t know the difference. Take me for instance, I spent so much over the past few years purchasing materials from self-proclaimed gurus who promised to teach me the next best way to make money online. And, all I had to do was pay a small fee for their precious information. Now, mind you some of the books were good and contained great background but none of them told the full facts about how much work was involved. Instead, these gurus only told me what I wanted to hear and encouraged me to buy more books for more information.

It was like a vicious cycle that I couldn’t get away from and I fear many newbies are experiencing the same thing. Well, now I realize that there is no “magic bullet” and no easy way to master internet marketing. Internet marketing is hard work and takes persistence, patience and a strong desire to succeed. Some days you make money (a lot) and some days you don’t (or very little). This is frustrating but it is the way the IM cookie crumbles.However, to be successful you must remain faithful even when it doesn’t seem like you’re making much or anything.

Now, back to the gurus that make their big incomes is by selling “the promise of easy riches” to unsuspecting individuals who don’t know any better. Just think about it – would someone really divulge all of their secrets for a mere $19 or $29 bucks simply because they want to help? Most marketers would not however, there are a select few that would. Instead, most of these gurus simply give their “desperate readers” a tiny bit of information and then encourage them to buy more.

But, what about those marketers who give out free information, what is their motive? Well, some of them really want to help you succeed however some just do it to build rapport with their readers so that they could hit them up later to buy more stuff – yes, sad but true. In 9 times out of 10 cases, most marketers are out for themselves when it comes to internet marketing and only a select few want you to succeed at the level that they’re at.

So, where does that leave me? I’m one of the good ones of course. My goal isn’t to become a six figure guru that sells the hype of internet marketing. Instead, I want to become a respected internet marketing teacher who makes a six figure salary by teaching others the fundamentals so that they can make a respectable salary for themselves and leave the rat race once and for all. I get no satisfaction of fooling anyone and I absolutely won’t prey on unsuspecting victims. I want you to succeed and I will tell you the truth. Internet marketing is hard but you can succeed at it!

There seems to be a little debate brewing in the internet marketing community about expired domains. Some internet marketers believe that expired domains are an awesome way to get a leg up on the competition whereas others think that expired domains are not worth it. So, what is my take on this matter? Well, I believe that they can work if you “know how to work them”. The secret when purchasing an expired domain is to make sure that the previous domain owner didn’t spam the domain (when they had it), that it has some PR and/or some existing back links on them. In contrast, do not purchase expired domains that have no PR and ones that were dropped or blocked by Google at one time or another. If you do, you are most likely wasting your time.

One great site for checking out whether a site has been dropped is www.domaintools.com. This site basically allows you to easily see if the domain has been dropped and if so, how many times it has been dropped. In addition, you should also make sure that the PR is real and not fake as some unscrupulous sellers will simply redirect a higher PR to another one so that you think you’re getting a higher PR domain when in actuality, it has lower PR. One great tool for checking this is www.prchecker.info.

Instead, find a good one with backlinks and go for it. Then, you can build a site or put a WordPress blog on the expired domain. If you do it right, you may be able to avoid the dreaded Google sandbox and can start getting traffic to your new site. After all, Google trusts legitimate aged domains that pass the above tests. Now, how cool is that?