My New Year's Resolutions for 2006

If you celebrated Christmas, and even if you didn't, I hope that you enjoyed a fabulous holiday weekend – filled with fun, friends and family!

With New Year's just a couple days down the pike, I wanted to share my Top Ten New Year's business resolutions with you in the hope that my plans might give you some ideas for making your own affiliate marketing business more prosperous in 2006.

So here goes.

In 2006, I, Rosalind Gardner, will…

1. Manage My Time Better. It's easy to get caught up dealing with email and other people's blogs, but those activities rarely increase the bottom line. Therefore, in 2006, I'll put ‘profit' activities ahead of other activities by spending the first hour of each work day writing and creating products, rather than reading feeds and answering emails.
2. Blog More. I was surprised and delighted in 2005 by the extraordinary surge in traffic RosalindGardner.com received after I started the NPT blog. I will therefore start a blog on my top affiliate marketing site, Sage-Hearts.com, an Internet dating services review site.
3. Go Video! As Jim Edwards and Marlon Sanders have been telling us for the last few months, Internet video is the way to go in 2006. If people have a choice between reading and clicking a “Play Now” button, they'll almost always choose the latter. I will therefore create and add videos to my sites.
4. Post More on Other Forums. Since launching the NPT Forum, I've come to appreciate the work of ‘professional forum posters', ie. those who post on other peoples' forums to promote and get traffic to their own sites. I will therefore spend time answering questions in other affiliate marketing forums and determine whether forum-posting is an effective (read ‘profitable') way to spend my time, relative to other marketing methods.
5. Create a New Product. Many NPT subscribers and my Internet marketing colleagues regularly tell me, “We love your Super Affiliate Handbook. What's your next project and when can we get it?” So yes, in Q4 of 2006 I will release a new product. Why Q4? Well after writing another book about affiliate marketing as per my contract with McGraw-Hill, and all the vacationing I've planned for this year (see #10) it'll be the end of July before I can start working on the project.
6. Outsource More. Because I'm such a control freak when it comes to my business, this is a difficult resolution for me to make, however it is entirely necessary if I want my business to grow and become even more prosperous. I will therefore outsource some writing projects and get more assistance with site building and basic marketing functions.
7. Automate More. I love to tinker with graphics and tweak my sites, but those activities don't contribute to the bottom line. So, in 2006, I will seek out new technologies to build bigger, better sites in less time.
8. Spend More on Education. Although I learn more about this business everyday, this year I will create and execute a plan to better focus my learning efforts. That plan will include attending a few conferences related to those industries in which I work as an affiliate.
9. Increase My Advertising Budget. Because they're so effective, I've been pretty lazy with some of my PPC campaigns. This year however I will increase the size of my keyword lists, seek out new advertising venues and spend more to attract visitors to my affiliate sites.
10. Relax and Vacation More. In the past I've ‘chunked' my work and play time in fairly large pieces, ie. work seven days straight without taking a break to go for a walk, then go on a vacation for a month during which I barely answer an email. Although I won't stop taking month-long vacations; the 8-hour back-breaking, neck-kinking, carpal-inducing computer work-marathons have to go! So, this year I will begin each day with exercise and sustenance, and limit desk-time to no more than an hour at a time.

Well, that's about all for now, but if I come up with anymore, I'll let you know!

—

Rosalind Gardner is author of the best-selling “Super
Affiliate Handbook: How I Made $436,797 in ONE Year Selling
Other People's Stuff Online.

Super Affiliate Handbook