CFM Joining the Yakezie Challenge

Well, I would like to say that I am joining the Yakezie Challenge with this blog.  You may have noticed the Yakezie button over in the side bar along with the Alexa banner.  I know that most of you are already familiar with the Yakezie Network since I have been very interested in the network since I ran across it 6 months ago.

In fact, I had put another blog in the Challenge but allowed myself to peter out because I wasn’t really convinced that it fit in either the financial or lifestyle blog genre.  Plus, I will confess that I wasn’t really into it as much as I am now.  So I am going to give it a second go around, but first I would like to share a little history.

A Little Background

I feel like I finally have a blog to call my own.  After starting out writing and posting some articles at HubPages under the name “Kidgas”, I decided to start a blog detailing my online income efforts.  It is called My Online Income by Kidgas and is hosted at Blogger.

I knew very little about blogging two years ago when starting out and chose Blogger because of the easy to use interface.  At that time I was barely starting to learn about keywords and SEO.  As you can tell from the title of my blog, I wasn’t very original in my branding efforts either.

This is the blog that I entered into my first Yakezie Challenge.  It really didn’t go all that well as I mentioned.  I didn’t feel like I had any purpose which didn’t help my efforts.  I realize now that I just wasn’t ready.

Google’s Panda Update

Once the Panda Update occurred, I knew that making any money with HubPages or eHow or other content farms would not be possible so I had to start my own site.  I had some money in my Paypal account from eHow payments so within a day had started OptionsDude.com using the Weebly platform.

Initially, I had thought about making a static site with articles about options.  But as I got more involved with blog commenting through Yakezie to generate a little bit of traffic, I realized that I enjoy the blog format much better.

Finally Got Some Nerve

I had been thinking about a WordPress blog for about a year but really hadn’t gotten over the fear factor.  I eventually got to the point, however, where Weebly just wasn’t meeting my needs.  I knew I had to do something.  Finally, I had a day off from work and spent the whole day (about 8 hours in front of the computer) setting up Cash Flow Mantra, my own personal financial blogging site as inspired by all of the wonderful bloggers I was reading through Yakezie.

I went with WordPress and Hostgator since I had read good things.  It turned out to be easier and less frightening than I thought.  Of course, I wonder why I didn’t do this sooner.  Now that CFM has been online for a full month and I have been getting wonderful support from fellow bloggers at Yakezie, I have decided to enter the Challenge.  Plus, I am having a blast!

June Stats

Since I will starting this 6 month Challenge, I wanted to post some stats for the month of June with some goals for July in parenthesis:

Alexa ranking:  1,199,886 (700,000)

Alexa in US:  98,885 (90,000)

Visits according to Analytics:  382 (500)

Search visitors:  22 (40)

Subscribers:  2 (4)

Earnings:  $0.34 ($1.00)

Speaking of earnings, I am offering a special on advertising for the first 4 ad buttons in the right sidebar.  From now through July 31st, you can get 6 months of advertising for only $15.  That is only $2.50 per month!  Hurry because once these spots are gone, prices will go up.

Top Referrers for June

I also want to acknowledge those blogs that referred the most traffic to CFM for the month of June.  The top five are:

biblemoneymatters.com

budgetsaresexy.com

ptmoney.com

squirrelers.com (I always have to look and make sure I spell that correctly)

thousandaire.com

Shout Outs

I would also like to make a couple shout outs to a few fellow bloggers who have really offered some special encouragement and motivation to me.  First, I would like to thank Mark at buylikebuffett.com who published my first ever guest post as Options Dude.

I would also like to thank Barb at barbarafriedbergpersonalfinance.com who will be publishing a second guest post for me in the near future.  I wish her safe travels as she moves as I am sure we all do.

I want to make a special shout out to Crystal from budgetinginthefunstuff.com whose enthusiasm is electric and contagious.  I will drawing from her energy as I work on this Challenge and try to keep up the pace.

Finally, I would like to thank Felicia from nojobformom.com.  She is a great online friend whom I found online a couple years ago.  She offers great encouragement on her blog for anyone trying to make some money online.  She is the one I finally believed when she said that I could do this WordPress blog thing.  I know she doesn’t pop up that much in the financial blogging circles but she is worth following and reading.

Well it turns out this was a long post, but I had a lot that I wanted to accomplish.  I am looking forward to the remainder of the year as I grow in knowledge about blogging and WordPress.  I also look forward to making new online friends and learning and improving my personal finances at the same time.  It will be a fun journey to be sure.

Thank you so much for reading.  I sincerely appreciate everyone who has read and commented this first month.  Thanks!