The 60 Day Challenge - The Return: Writing for Money and for the Love of it

Tired, sleepy, overworked and procrastinated too much on the subject of search engine optimisation and hub promotion. So I am going to pick myself up and do this 60 Day Challenge in order toachieve the following online writing goals:

1 Increase my online income.

2 Improve my web promotion skills.

3 Contribute to the body of unique content on the net, the undeniable vanity of the writer, as in the world needs my voice. And your voice too so if you are not yet writing for HubPages join up here.

I have left the real estate sales about three years ago and joined my wife full time in the family business. But I would love the opportunity, and the power to contribute some passive income from my writing to the family budget. I mean I have earned a living as a media scriptwriter at one point in my life so it’s about time I get serious about the internet.

I find chasing traffic rather tedious and well, boring. I am all for organic traffic but I have heard online veterans declare that there is a science to online income and you must promote and eventually buy traffic.

So while I am still seeking free traffic I might as well join this team of energetic, creative, and knowledgeable hub geeks to apply my little knowledge of SEO and climb a little higher on the learning curve.

Write 30 hubs in 30 days in three broad areas:

Scrabble Online Word Game,

Taekwon-Do for the Middle Age Student

Women’s Apparel.

I am choosing these topics because I bring passion and knowledge to the table. I will drag myself to free keyword research sites in order to write what people are searching for now.

During the next 30 days of promotion I will seek to work closely with the mentors such as sunforged and do the joint promotions with fellow 60DC hubbers in order to experience the synergy reported by previous participants.

Day 3, August 19, 2010

I have downloaded the 60dc toolbar and registered in the private forum. Reading Market Samurai and doing some preliminary keyword research with Google Keyword Tool. I am wary of analysis paralysis but I need to ensure that this time around something better than throwing mud at a wall is happening.

Day 5, August 21, 2010

So far I have published but one hub which is not on one of the proposed topics, simply a sort of review for a seafood restaurant in Portmore, Jamaica.

http://hubpages.com/hub/Beachfront-Meal-on-a-Kingston-Harbour-Evening

Not yet optimised but I wrote it to get the juices flowing. I have not yet downloaded the Market Samurai tools because I am using my daughter's Toshiba Satellite laptop computer which she is expected to take back to college with her in a week or so. The information for the 60dc is in several places so I get the feeling that I have not yet quite got it. Everyone is talking about doing feed submissions early. So tonight I want to download the Market Samurai tool and then do feed submissions.

I just ensured that I greeted the first 20 team members on my list. Will greet the rest tomorrow.

Finally got into the private forum and trying my best to get up to speed.

Day 6, August 22, 2010

Got going with Twitterfeed for Facebook and Twitter. So much for that. I was already posting to those two sites. I have so much preparatory work to do. I am discovering that the promotions phase will officially begin in the second thirty days; yet the groundwork begins now. You research, pre-promote, write, then polish and do more promotion. Hard work. It's 1:40 a.m. And so much to learn.

Day 7, August 23, 2010

Just completed my second hub on the Scrabble word game. I look at the troublesome yet sometimes welcomed letter Q. I also include a list of q words without u.

http://hubpages.com/hub/Scrabble-Words-With-Q-With-and-Without-her-Best-Friend-U

Market Samurai has given me a response which says that my free trial period is over and the tools are locked. With so much going on seems like I took too long to download. So I will just have to look at good old Google Keyword.

Day 10, August 26, 2010

So very very busy. No time to write. But gestating a few more articles. Will try to write three hubs tonight.

My Adsense earnings are looking a little better but still very small.

Still have more feeds to do. So very very busy.

Preparing rooms to rent to college students. And contacting my customers as well. And it's month end. Yea! Crazy. But I must make some time to write. Not to mention my art studio. That is so neglected right now.

Day 11, August 27, 2010

Later same morning really.

Just published

http://hubpages.com/hub/How-to-Play-the-Q-in-Scrabble-Board-Game

A whimsical investigation Sherlock Holmes style into the behaviour of the letter Q in the Scrabble word list.

Day 13, August 29, 2010

Coming from my right are the loud, intrusive, and somewhat vulgar lyrics of a dance hall. Unusual. There goes the neighbourhood. Sounds like a Ragashanti thing. How did they get past the Noise Abatement Act? Someone must have bribed the authorities or something.

Meanwhile, I have penned the fourth hub, this time on women's apparel, specifically Mary Frances handbags. A San Francisco Bay Area designer, she started out as an importer who saw a need and designed her way into collections all over the world. Mary Frances handbags are available on Amazon.

Day 14, 1:33 am local time, August 30, 2010

Slowly churning out the hubs. Hub # 5 is a partly serious, partly light treatment of the inevitable march of time and the symptoms of aging. Go take a look and let me know. Are you there yet?

http://hubpages.com/hub/You-Know-You-are-Growing-Old-When

Day 20, September 5, 2010

Talk about way behind schedule. if I don't get out 7 more hubs by tomorrow I might as well drop out of the challenge. and since I don't plan to quit please see links for hubs # 6 and 7.

Hub 6 is a humorous look at the frustration of learning quickly about home wireless networking as I tried to set up mine.

Hub 7 continues the adventure of a layman setting up his home wireless network with some help.

Day 26, September 11, 2010

Having some health issues, and wondering if I am suffering from burning too much midnight oil on this 60 day challenge in order to write the best top articles. The pressure of being so far behind is really on me. My progress report:

Hub 8 is about Cotton Traders, a British mail order company which received great product placement in the movie 'Invictus'.

Hub 9 talks about the letter X in Scrabble word game.

Hub 10 seeks to resolve the internet wireless router adventure with the successful intervention of a network specialist. There is still one device which is not able to browse, but that's another story.

Hub 11 is basically written from the heart about sales and marketing.

Hub 12 returns the reader to the field of fashion and beauty. We look at appropriate attire for a morning wedding.

Hub 13 discusses the approach you should take to improve your Scrabble word game vocabulary skills.

Hub 14 takes a trip to the rural uplands of the parish of Clarendon in central Jamaica.

Day 29, September 14, 2010

Let's add three more hubs:

Hub 15 is another travel hub, this time to Negril Beach on Jamaica's north coast with a small group from my church.

Hub 16 takes up the Religion and Belief theme with a discussion on how to keep the Sabbath rest with emphasis on the family.

Hub 17 is admittedly a very biased comparison of Facebook Scrabble and Yahoo Literati. Biased because I am obviously in favour of Facebook Scrabble.

Day 34. September 19, 2010

I published three hubs on Day 30:

Hub 18 is about a pet peeve of mine, the prevalence of substandard radio talk show hosts and their interesting callers.

Hub 19 is a poem on a concept that I want to paint.

Hub 20 takes up the taekwon-do theme again by looking at the legend of the unwashed martial arts belt.

Alas! The first 30 days had passed and I hab but 20 hubs. So I consulted the hubpages 60dc2 team to get advice on whether or not I should withdraw from the challenge. I was informed that the first week of the second phase is for tweaking hubs and that I could complete the thirty in that time.

I will try my best to stick to the three groups for the final 10.

Day 47. October 2, 2010

Wow! Hurricane season decided to send us the outer bands of a depression which developed into Tropical Storm Nicole. Rain and more rain, with strong winds. No electrical supply, no internet for two days, except of course the Blackberry. That was three days ago. Now just endless rain with intermittent fair weather. Still, no excuse for being like two weeks behind schedule.

I should be doing promotions but right now I will try to write the four hubs left. Before all that let me summarise the six hubs not yet mentioned here:

Hub 21 another on the Scrabble topic, this one on the Scrabble consonant words without vowels.

Hub 22 is a travel hub on Jamaica. Just took a whole lot of pictures one day when I was too tired to drive all day so I asked wife to drive while I soaked up the scenery.

Hub 23 seeks to explain the difference between regular fit and the fuller figure. "Size 18 is a regular size which does not fit comfortable enough on the larger bust, hip, and arms of the 16W customer."

Hub 24 continues the Jamaican road trip series on that photographic day with the smart phone. Admittedly the resolution is not too hot. This one documents the journey from May Pen to Mandeville.

Interestingly, the next article, Hub 25 is a Poem inspired by a dead tree which I photographed on Lady Musgrave Road a week or so later.

And Hub 26 is something which I was not sure that I would have been able to get away with, a plus size fashion hub which is itself a review of other writers' hubs. I wrote it while not quite sure whether or not Hubpages would allow me to review hubs which were not part of a collective project in which I was participating.

Day 53, October 8, 2010

I am at a critical stage in my personal and business life whereby I am spending so much time on the road that I hardly blog for the past two weeks. This has affected my output. No time for Hubpages. Good news, I have written two more hubs since the last entry.

Hub 27 is a reaction to the sad story of Jonestown told in the Jim Jones docudrama on History Channel. I conducted some further research and for the first time realised who Jim Jones was. Can you imagine? Jim Jones was really a disillusioned political idealist.

Hub 28 continues the women's apparel focus, this time on petite clothing.

I shall seek to group the hubs and do some backlinks going into the weekend, then somehow write the other two. On an extremely busy schedule.

Day 58, October 13, 2010

I finally started to group my hubs, pre-challenge and 60dc2. Late huh? I guess I just got to continue the process after the 60 days. I will have to write two spontaneous articles to make up the 30. Just too busy to spend time at the computer like I used to, say, a year ago. Australian Eric Graudins has this great article on Keyword which is a must read.

Day 63, October 18, 2010

Laugh! Day 63 indeed! I wrote the hub 29 a few days ago on the Chilean mine rescue which I believe is the defining event of 2010.

And hub 30 is another review, a kind of biblical response to sunforged's description of his journey to vegetarianism.

Too early for me to say much, but my adsense income from HubPages, though far from what could be considered fantastic, even good, appears to have improved a bit.  What I can be more definite about is that my traffic at the start of the challenge was below 75 per day, and now I am averaging over 100 pageviews. 

1. Sunforged - http://hubpages.com/hub/Online-business-success-60dc
2. Waynet - http://hubpages.com/hub/60-Day-Challenge-Hublog-By-Waynet
3. IzzyM - http://hubpages.com/hub/Making-Money-on-Internet-60-Day-Challenge
4. Patty Inglish, MS - http://hubpages.com/hub/A-Change-In-the-Weather-60-Day-Forecast-and-HubLog
5. Viking305 - http://hubpages.com/hub/As-a-member-of-the-HubPages-writing-site-I-write-articles-and-earn-money
6. Shazwellyn - http://hubpages.com/hub/Make-Money-Online-With-New-Marketing-Strategies-60dc-Again
7. PacHub - http://hubpages.com/hub/How-To-Make-Money-On-Hub-Pages-With-The-Return-Of-The-60-Day-Challenge
8. Lisa Beaman - http://hubpages.com/hub/Lisa-Beamans-60-Day-Challenge-Hublog
9. Dobson - http://hubpages.com/hub/The-60-Day-Challenge-for-Agust-and-September-2010-My-Hublog
10. prettydarkhorse - http://hubpages.com/hub/The-60-Day-Challenge-The-Return-Increasing-Traffic-and-Earn-Money-Writing-Online
11. humagaia - http://hubpages.com/hub/Online-Writing-Goals-Motivation-Topics-Aspirations-and-Collaboration
12. LeanMan - http://hubpages.com/hub/Journey-toward-a-passive-income-My-60-Day-Challenge-Log
13. Pandoras Box - http://hubpages.com/hub/60-Day-Challenge-at-HubPages-My-Experience
14. Mutiny92 - http://hubpages.com/hub/The-Return-of-the-60-Day-Challenge-HubLog
15. Deborah Demander - http://hubpages.com/hub/60-Day-Challenge-Reviewed-Revised-Revived
16. Irohner - http://hubpages.com/hub/Achieving-My-Goal-My-60-Day-Challenge-Log
17. Jrock365 - http://hubpages.com/hub/So-What-Are-These-60-Day-Challenges-About-and-Do-They-Work
18. Sufidreamer - http://hubpages.com/hub/The-Aphrodite-Files-Ouzo-Camels-and-the-60-Day-Challenge-Part-II
19. enlightenedsoul - http://hubpages.com/hub/60-Day-Challenge-The-Return-Make-Money-Online
20. wavegirl22 - http://hubpages.com/hub/Learning-How-To-Promote-on-Line-60-Day-Challenge-Return-Wave-Log
21. johnyater - http://hubpages.com/hub/My-goals-Improve-my-online-writing-and-promotional-skills-My-60dc-log
22. billyaustindillon - http://hubpages.com/hub/Online-Business-Success-60DC-Log
23. Smart Rookie - http://hubpages.com/hub/Making-Money-On-Hubpages-My-60-Day-Challenge-Log
24. Cagsil - http://hubpages.com/hub/HubPages-60-Day-Challenge-HubLog-and-Online-Writing-Goals-A-Set-Task
25. Pro Design Source - http://hubpages.com/hub/Making-Money-Online--
26. glendoncaba - http://hubpages.com/hub/The-60-Day-Challenge-The-Return-Writing-for-Money-and-for-the-Love-of-it
27. Jane@CM - http://hubpages.com/hub/Jane_at_CM-60-DC-Challege-Hublog
    
28. Pamela99 - http://hubpages.com/hub/learn-new-ways-to-make-money-group-challenge
29. Lakeeerieartists - http://hubpages.com/hub/Doubling-the-Profit-From-My-Niche-60-Day-Challenge-Hublog
30. Money Glitch - http://hubpages.com/hub/The-60-Day-Challenge-Return-Learning-How-to-Increase-Online-Traffic-and-Improve-Affiliate-Sales
31. Wendy Crick - http://hubpages.com/hub/getting-more-traffic-earning-hubpages-money
32. Morgan F - http://hubpages.com/hub/My-60dc-Hublog
33. Kaltopsyd - http://hubpages.com/hub/I-Finally-Have-the-Guts-to-Join-the-60-Day-Challenge
34. K9Keystrokes - http://hubpages.com/hub/60-day-challenge-My-hub-log-by-K9keystrokes-on-HubPages
35. Faybe Bay - http://hubpages.com/hub/60-Day-Challenge-The-Second-Time-Around