Planning And Preparing Test Sites

Week 01 Planning and Preparing Test Sites for  Monetize Blog Challenge.

The first action I had in mind was to create a detailed plan, “List To Do” for the entire Challenge – 3 months, which will produce a model of monetizing for beginners.

I start writing a post in one of the test sites called 14-mistakes-to-avoid-on-blogging. It is a good idea to start reading that one. I am not going to repeat all those ideas and I just tell you which I consider having the greatest value. This is “treat your Blogging as a business, and think as a marketer“.

Now let’s go back to planning. I spent 2 days creating a plan, it was more complicated then sound… because of   testing requirements:

• Features I know they are working, those are easy to implement in all the test sites at once
  
• Some are just first time experiments on my part, so the ideal test will be to use one at a time, measure the results and go forward. I cannot do this as it will take forever to test. The reflection of a feature in traffic and ranking take a considerable amount of time, so I have to come with a different approach
• You will notice some features implemented in just 1-2 sites, it is on purpose, to follow their outcome without to stop the entire process. So if some tests sound funny to you, I have a reason to do it that way, just be patient with me, as I have to cover a big territory in a relative short period
• For traffic I’ll start from the beginning with the big boys: Twitter, Facebook, Google Buzz, Flickr, Linkedin Plus Squidoo, Hubpage and Technorati. Let you know when and why I’ll expend this list. From the beginning, I refuse to spread my effort of getting traffic with the entire Social Media
• I’ll use dofollow directories later
  

Some of the portions of the detailed plan will change in time, it is OK but I cannot start working in a vacuum, I need to have a solid frame to lean on, a start, and an end to keep motivated and commited to my Model. Two days I spend to do the plan will pay off in future as a time saver.

Preparing Test Sites for Testing.

This is a fragment of my list to do related with this specific task:

• The test sites will be:
  1. http://michaelacernescu.com this is an old blog created with WP on my domain, still WP v 2.9.2, it will stay with this version
     
  2. This site, squidooeventlog.com, for specific features only, it is also the site in which I’ll give you weekly report with what I am doing, this is transformed already
     
  3. http://learning-php.10-finity.com/ this is a new blog, part of  WP v 3 environment  (WPMU)
     
  4. increase-blog-traffic.net,  bought the domain. The site will use WP v 3 as well – not set up yet, also a new blog
     
• The all 4 blogs must have same plug-ins to start with,  DONE for 1, 2, 3 is part of WPMU but 90% of plug-ins are the same, 4 blog is not created yet
  
• Clean up the old blog 1,  DONE half of it
• Install WP v 3 in old blog 2, the install is DONE, still some work to clean up, add and create widgets, redesign the blog for the new theme
• New blog 3 will stay as it is
• For 4  I set up the DNS, the Blog is not set up yet as I wait a specific package, I want to advertise, to be updated for WP v 3, it will take another 10 days until I can do it, but at that point I’ll know if I’ll advertise that package or not. You see I am thinking as a marketer
  
• Created a list with 12 freebies I need to giveaway when I’ll introduce or change the existing opt-in forms on all 4 blogs (I don’t want to be the same all over, I want to be different from one blog to another). The list is DONE, it is containing my own DPs, products I have rights to giveaway, and some other freebies I have inherited in my activity as an Affiliate marketer
  
• The above list contain some products I have re-branding rights, so I have to use the tool to introduce my own links to them – this is not done yet
• The packaging for some PLRs I want to offer as freebies must change – not done yet
• After all the above is done I have to add 4 more monetize plug-ins to all 4 sites – not done yet

So the preparing sites will continue in week 02.  And the building of the model will start in week 03.

Success is not an accident, and I just happen to believe in planning ahead.

Michey