KhalidsLife.com

It has been a tiring return to work. I couldn’t sleep the first night, as you do when you are getting back into a routine. Then, on the second I didn’t have my usual eight hours and tonight I’ve been working solid for what feels like eight hours!

I’m ranting, but whichever way I put it what I’m trying to say is that I really need a rest. My ambition and drive for success sometimes means I skip sleep, cut out breaks and sit solidly until the job is done. Whilst this is really good and means I can hammer out sites quickly, it does mean I’m constantly yawning, my eyes are blood shot and I feel like I am getting no where!

It’s important to rest and take breaks so you return to work with a clear head and fresh enthusiasm but everyday when I get up at 6.15am to go to work I kick myself for not living my dreams of being a full time internet entrepreneur. And when I sit at my desk doing boring work, hating every second, I kick myself for not earning enough online.

I’m still ranting, I guess I just need to zip it until the day comes where I am earning enough to write inspirational blog posts and food reviews like Mr Chow. In the mean time I’ll be repeating my working patterns of coming home to build more sites until I have a network with hundreds of domains - 30 so far, I want 200. My time will come…I hope.

Good luck with your persuits,

Khalid.

I’m back and I’ve already been working hard to launch Bar Vacancy. After sending out a few hundred e-mails to bars, nightclubs and agencies, I’ve setup an Adwords Campaign covering a lot of keywords. I’ve decided to let it run for a few days and if it doesn’t work well then I’ll need to look at another form of advertising.

The site is simple, easy and best of all FREE. There should be no reason people don’t want to use the site, I just need to ensure an balanced number of visitors between employers and employees. Word of mouth will hopefully play a big part in ensuring people recommend the site and I intend to advertise privately across bar/nightclub/security forums.

If anyone has any comments or suggestions I’d love to hear them. Perhaps you have an idea or opinion that could help?

Good luck with your persuits,

Khalid.

When I get back from Spain I’ll have a week to complete my “to do” list and relax further. Here’s whats on it so far…

• Girlfriend’s 21st Birthday Party - This is definately the first thing! We return in the early hours of the morning on the 30th and Christy’s birthday is on the 1st. After a few minor drama’s trying to sort a plan out, I’ve managed to get something together and fingers crossed it’ll go according to plan.

• Launch Bar Vacancy - I’m still waiting for the coder to fix two minor issues then the site is ready to launch! I’m really excited, with just a few postings the site is already getting enquiries from potential employees. Again, fingers crossed that’ll go to plan too! I have a number of e-mail lists ready to be used for bars and nightclubs across the UK. I also intend to run a few AdWords campaigns, seek partnerships from agencies and sponsorship from drinks wholesalers.

• Start Edinburgh Ironing - My best friend Stephen and I launched Edinburgh Clean not so long ago. After distributing 100 A4 flyers we managed to get a couple of clients. Through a family friend we’re also getting a free advert in a directory publication. Hoepfully the business will expand and we want to diversify into other areas. My father recently purchased a larger property and his partner has taken some time off work. With the staff and space we seize the moment.

We decided to this after a a few friends expressed the opinion that they may feel slightly uncomfortable having a cleaner enter their property but wouldn’t mind giving someone their ironing to do.

I think we’re going to order about 5000 flyers and test the water, perhaps hiring some equipment to begin with rather than. This seems more sensible as it is going to cost a lot more for the commercial ironing products than it was for the cleaning supplies.

Watch this space!

Good luck with your persuits,

Khalid.

Marketing a product or service can be particularly difficult, especially if you have stiff, established competition. Introducing my latest site, www.BarVacancy.com

Bar Vacancy is a free classifieds site specifically geared towards the licensed trade. Bar Vacancy allows you to post free bar jobs and will make money through people paying for “featured ads” and banner adverts.

The site rivals Gumtree, BarZone and every other site because it is FREE! Gumtree charge £25 per ad and BarZone £34.

I need your help…

Marketing such a service may sound easy. People often say “Oh that’s a good idea and because it’s free everyone will probably use it” - In theory yes, if a vendor was handing out a product you’d check it out before paying for it elsehwere.

The problem is getting the message out.

I let Adwords run for a few hours, targetting keywords for employers only so I could get some more jobs posted on the site e.g. “bar staff required“. £14 later at a cost of £0.40 per click, I got nothing. Understandably campaigns like this take time and I can’t expect immediate results, but just how far do you go before you try something else?

I’ve been looking at magazine specifically for the licensed trade, such as bar owner magazines and websites. For a good quarter page magazine ad I am looking at £1400 and there are no decent websites I have found so far.

I was thinking of doing down the route of business cards but they would only cover my city and would involve a lot of legwork. Flyers and mailshots is another idea and I have an e-mail campaign ready to go but I need more ideas.

What do you think I should do?

Thanks, and good luck with your persuits,

Khalid.

In preparation for my week’s holiday in Spain I’ve been pushing to get my “to do” list finished, including the completion of two projects posted on Rent a Coder, finishing the setup of a piercing network included in the sale of my tattoo network and sorting out some back dated paperwork!

Thankfully the Rent a Coder projects are done - one extremely well and the other terribly. Nevermind, the latter only cost $30 and it works so that’s the main thing. I’ll be introducing these projects soon, both require groundwork prior to launching.

In preparation for the well written script to be launched I’ve been building a network of sites to support a marketing campaign. These sites will provide keyword specific information and link to the main site for organic traffic.

Upon my return from sunny Spain I’ll be contacting e-mail lists of people who will benefit from the site (it’s free to use) and then finally I’ll be exposing it to the masses through word of mouth, business cards, posters, Google Ads and the information sites previously mentioned.

Having an over-active brain, it’ll be difficult for me to switch off on my holiday so I’ve purchased an iPod shuffle and three books. I had a 1st Gen Nano before that was 1Gb also so I’m happy the 125 - 250 songs you can hold on a shuffle. The design is cool too meaning I don’t have to stuff another electrical device in my pocket!

Out of the three books, two were business related and one was “The Art of War” by Sun Tzu, seemingly a “must read”. They’ll keep my brain occupied and I’m sure the warm weather will slow me down a bit.

I’ll be excited to go and relax but excited to return and launch my new site.

Good luck with your persuits,

Khalid

May was a fantastic month for earnings overall, but the majority of that was the sale of my tattoo network. Here’s a breakdown of the revenue achieved…

>> $12,000 : Sale of Tattoo Network

>> $119.30 : Media Jump (down from $163.22)

>> $37.45 : Value Click Media (down from $50.19)

>> $36.45 : TTZ Media (same)

>> $7.5 : Text Link Ads (same)

>> Grand Total: $12,200.70

An amazing month and I’m very proud, it’s a shame it won’t be like this next month! The revenue from ad networks dropped due to the ad codes being changed on all the tattoo sites in the middle of the month.

>> Daily Average : $393.57

Good luck with your persuits,

Khalid.

For one of my new projects - still in the pipeline, - I need to do direct advertising. People ignore e-mails and Google ads are competative (and pricey!), so I’m resorting to offline marketing.

I did this before with Elite Kit, my former security supplies e-commerce store, by writing letters to security companies and nightclubs. To be honest I’m not sure if it worked as there is really no way of tracking it, unless you provide a discount code or re-directed url. But, for my new project, this is not an option. Well it is but it would just complicate things and cost more to implement.

Business Cards work well if you introduce yourself. This would require a lot of legwork, especially since this project will eventually provide a service to the whole of the United Kingdom and then expand further into Europe.

The main benefit of the site is that it’s free whereas rivals charge £25 - £35 per submission. There are only two main rivals but they are well established. Tapping into this market won’t be easy, hence why I need to think outside the box. I don’t want to waste money, especially as the marketing budget for this project is cash hungry.

Do you have any suggestions?

I understand it’s a little difficult if you don’t know the service so I’ll provide you with a brief outline. Sorry I just don’t like to give it all away until it’s launched. The site is a classifieds ads portal relating to one particular niche where turnover is high, i.e the businesses in this market are constantly needing replacements.

Let me know your thoughts, hopefully I will be launching on the 15th of this month!

Good luck with your persuits,

Khalid.

In my last post I mentioned I had invested “a few dollars” in new domains, actually its around $140. Each domain costs $10 and I know I can get them cheaper elsewhere but the service at UpBro.com is really good (touch wood!). I intend to build another network and become a website leader in a particular niche, offering content for all the smaller sites linking to one large user driven main site.

I intend to reveal more in due course but I wanted to put a question out to all readers. For a small content site (MFA), how many pages is ideal to rank well in the SERPs? I tend to find 3 pages with 500 words on each but I wanted to know what your takes was. Let me know!

Good luck with your persuits,

Khalid.

Patience - in business - is something I do not have a lot of, I never had and I never will. I don’t like waiting, I hate having to wait and I don’t enjoy wasting time. At present I have two coders working on two different projects…and I’m waiting on both finishing.

Everything else is ready and my mind is on overdrive thinking of the launch. I even check Rent a Coder when I’ve not received an e-mail alert just incase they have replied. Quite sad really, but that’s just me.

I’ve been up since 8am this morning, met a client twice (before and after) for Edinburgh Clean, finished a tattoo site for the new owner of the network, commissioned a logo design for one of the new projects, had lunch and wrote this blog post. I’m constantly on the go and find it difficult to switch off.

Rome wasn’t built in a day. My flatmate reminded me I work too hard and need to rest and my girlfriend must be getting sick of my business talk. I don’t think I’ll ever settle until I’m successful and run my business ventures full time.

How do you switch off? Am I just weird?

Good luck with your persuits,

Khalid.

My last blog post was 6 days ago, which is terrible really considering I’ve generally been posting every two days. Lately I’ve barely had enough time to sleep and as a result, the blog suffered. My apologies, here’s what I’ve been doing…

First off, I completed changing the ad codes for all the tattoo sites so the new owner could start earning. It wasn’t a case of copying and pasting so it took a good few hours. In addition to that I am working on building a piercing network for him which was included in the sale.

My friend Stephen and I started our own cleaning company, Edinburgh Clean. After two nights of flyering properties late into the night, we’re now receiving calls etc which is keeping us busy. It is difficult to get a reliable cleaner in the city and with everyone now in the 9-5 rat race, we’re providing a service that is in demand.

In addition to that, I have outsourced two new projects which I will be launching soon. One is just a small site similar to my name generator Cool Nicknames, the other is a social media application for a specific niche that will require a large chunk of investment. The market is untapped in many ways so fingers crossed it’ll work.

Whilst juggling those 4 things, I’ve been trying to spend time with family and friends. Did I mention I also work 37 hours per week?

…this will either make me or kill me, I hope the latter is never an option!

Good luck with your persuits,

Khalid.