It’s that time of month again when I get to publish a detailed post summarizing and analyzing all the awesome stuff that happened during that month
For those who are new to the blog, each month at the beginning, I set out a set of goals that I would like to complete and at the end of that particular month, I write a highly detailed Achievement post like this one you are reading as a response to the goal post for that month.

I do this for several reasons:
1/ It’s hella fun to look back at what you have achieved in 1 month ( 1 month is a perfect duration as it is not too long that you lose your focus, but not too short that you won’t see any results)

2/ It keeps me motivated on my journey. I love crossing out things on my to-do list. Hence knowing there are things to complete excites me A LOT to actually move my lazy butt and start completing the goals I set out.

3/ The goals and achievements are published, hence transparency is an essential factor. I love promoting honesty and transparency on the internet, as I always believe it is the key to earning TRUST and develop RELATIONSHIPS- the 2 most important factors in doing any type of business.

4/ I hope to show you that YOU too can do anything you want as long as you stick to it.

Here is my progress so far:

• Goals for Oct- 2011
• Achievements for Oct-2011
• Goals for Nov-2011
• Achievements for Nov-2011
• Goals for December 2011

I ‘d like to show you my successes as well as my failures through my own case studies, attempts and experiments so that you too can learn from the success and avoid making the same mistakes.

Why do I do this? Simply because I believe in KARMA. Trust me, it does exist.

Let’s jump right in to the Achievements for December 2011

Please note that some of the links are affiliate links and I absolutely appreciate it if you decide to purchase using my links based on my recommendations. I absolutely am thankful for your awesomeness. If not, no sweat! I can’t thank you enough for visiting this humble blog =D

1/ Achieve an Alexa rank of less than #200,000 ( rank at point of writing #762,310).

I believe a picture worth a thousand words, so here is a snap shot of my latest Alexa rank

Even though I didn’t achieve the goal I set out at the start of December. Admittedly, being ranked in the top 500,000 after just 3 months is quite something. The higher the ladder, the harder it becomes to climb because it’s quite hard to beat the extremely awesome sites that rank up top.

As Alexa takes on several different things to measure the rank of a websites. I basically figured out and followed this simple strategy to climb the Alexa rank. I focus on getting sites linking in. Notice inside the love heart, I have 97 sites linking in. I believe that the higher the rank the sites that link to your site, the better your site’s rank will become.

Think of it like peer-pressure at school. If you hang in a group of all smarties, your marks tend to be lifted as well ( because they let you copy their answers in tests, duh=)

So how do you get many site linking in?

Comment, comment, comment. And not just comment for the sake of getting links to your sites. Authenticity shows as clearly as much as fakeness can not be hidden. All webmasters hate spamming, and if you spam even just once, in you go to their black lists.

Guest post, guest post, guest post. This takes more time and effort than commenting and of course the result is way more worthwhile. Not only you get links back to you site, you get to expose your best content, your brand to a bigger audience, not to mention a relationship established with the webmaster of the blog/site(s) you guest post for. It’s a win- win-win for everyone. Yay.

2/Achieve traffic of more than 100 visitors a day and keep it that way

(this would be a good mile stone, I love number 100. The most visitors I have ever welcomed to my blog was 97, when my story: How a 10 year old taught me ways to make money got featured in Pat’s Flynn reader challenge =)

Another screen shot for your entertainment =)

I surpassed that milestone of 100 visitor/day by nearly 3 times. All thanks to the awesomeness of Pat Flynn and his epic SPI community. I was his Dec 2011 top fan and got mentioned once on his famous facebook page. As a result, this was what happened.

I had to refresh my Google Analytics several times because I couldn’t believe my eyes hehehe.

Thank you Pat, you are more awesome than words can say.

By the way, I only smashed the first part of my goal ( to get traffic of more than 100 visitors a day). I definitely HAVE NOT kept it that way. As you can see, traffic dropped the next day and has been slow since. There will always be room for improvements. I will report back next month as how I bring the traffic up and keep a constant traffic to the blog.

3/Finally submit 5 spun articles (This has been delayed for 2 months).

I just found out the best Spinner only runs on PC, not Mac=( any tech experts in the house, please come to the rescue and help me install it on the Mac.

Ok, this is the part that I’m most ashamed of, I have not done it. Full stop

Why not? Because I’M lazy of course. Anyone knows how to cure laziness?

4/Hire Graphic designer for the iPhone app (affiliate link)

This is what I’m most excited about this month. The iphone game promises to be awesome.

The Graphic designer my awesome boyfriend and I hire is more than what we could ask for.

As many people have been asking me about this particular subject of out-sourcing, considering the importance of choosing the right people for anything, including business, I will cover this topic in a more detailed post.Hopefully, it will help you in selecting the suitable people for your business.

Remember, no machines can replace human, you just have to choose the right people.

5/ Online income of $400 using Ebay, adsense, affiliation

Ebay : $69.89

As seen on the screen shot, sale has definitely dropped.

This is expected as it happened last year as well. Despite all the hype about online shopping increases sales over Xmas time, I have never experienced any increase in sale over Xmas time.  I suppose during Xmas everyone had more day-off to physically go shopping, more shops had more sales, postage was such a pain.

I have not taken care of my ebay store as much as I would like to. I have no one to blame but myself. It’s time I look for help from outside ( listing new items take all my time) if I want to expand this ebay store. Will report back to you when I find a solution.

Adsense: $ 10.22. Whoohoo. This is the first month, the Start Young Finish First blog makes profit. I’m so happy. Minus Bluehost hosting cost of $5.95/ month ( which is really cheap for a hassle free, fast, reliable service, plus the good customer service team I NEVER get to try, because I haven’t had any problem with the service so far). Anyways, I made $4.27 in profit. hehehe

Even though it’s not a big number, it brings a huge smile on my face. I can’t help but smile from ear to ear like this XD.

It proves that Adsense does work. And for starters like me and you, it’s a good platform to start monetizing your blog.

Affiliation:

Amazon: $0

50 Interviews: Young Entrepreneurs – Make More Money Than Parents: by Nick Scheidies and Nick Tart: $6.40

BlueHost: $ 0

Total: $86.51

Though the income dropped in comparison to last month, I’m not worried.

Affiliation is solely based on trust. I know that I have a long way to establish that trust with my readers before the money start rolling in later. Besides, I have so much fun blogging.  John Chow said blogging is his passion. I can see why. I used to be a Korean drama addict, now after just a few days of not blogging, I seriously miss it. Is it normal? =D

6/ Have an awesome Christmas.

This Xmas was awesome. Check out why at this post: I know who the real Santa is.  

Really, Xmas this year was so awesome, not only did I get cool presents, but also I got to experience the true spirit of Xmas. I must say it’s the best feeling in the world. =D

7/ Write 2 guest posts for my favourite blogs.

I wrote only 1, but I put a lot of effort into it. I must say seeing your post went live on other blog(s) is a strange feeling. Many top bloggers such as Darren Rowse of problogger.net, Corbett Bar from Think Traffic and Expert Enough, Danny Iny from firepolemarketing.com all say guest posting is the ultimate way to bring your blog to the next level. I can’t agree more.

To illustrate what they meant, I found this Cool graphic from myblogguest.com

Through this blog post, I would like to thank my awesome fellow Viet blogger/ owner of the legend blog Techwalls – Tuan Do ( thanks to him, my noobness in terms of technology is now decrease a little bit) for allowing me a chance to submit my first ever guest post to thousands of his regular readers. Can’t wait to contribute more to the awesomeness.

Random note: Tuan Do won the first giveaway here on the Start Young Finish First blog and now he is my awesome guest post host=D, I told you Karma does exist.

8/ Complete my last month’s goal of obtaining 350 Facebook likes =)

This, I SMASHED, whoo hooo.

A few of you have asked me how to increase the number of like on your Facebook page. Even though the page doesn’t have many fan yet, up till now I have a few tricks up my sleeve, I will share with you in a more detailed post after testing out a few more methods.

9/ Give out more sexy freebies.

This is what I’m really proud of how the blog has turned out. I’m a big believer in giving back, as karma does exist. With the rapid expansion of the Internet, Karma happens even faster in the online world.

Check out my latest giveaways: 2 copies of  the awesome ebook: 50 Interviews- young entrepreneurs- make more money than your parents ( affiliate link) here

10/ Write more posts about inspiring young CEOs with the help of this awesome ebook: 50 Interviews- young entrepreneurs- make more money than your parents ( affiliate link)

This last goal I don’t think I can tick off as there has been no new blog post beside part 1 of Top List World Youngest, Coolest and Most Popular CEO.

Do you know any young, cool CEO who we all can learn from? Please let me know in the comment section. I ll be sure to check him/ her out, and spread the words about their awesomeness, so that we all can learn AND TAKE ACTIONS FOR OUR OWN SUCCESS.

That’s it for now folks, thank you so much for your time, I wish you a successful 2012 with many many fresh starts- which bring in a lot of new connection, profit and happiness. Whatever you do, make sure you have fun doing it.

Stay tuned for my Jan 2012 goals

P.s: If you haven’t claimed a chance to win the ebook of how to make more money than your parents ( affiliate link) , claim it here

P.p.s: If you like what you read and want to share this AWESOME journey with me, please subscribe to keep in touch. (Plus you get FREE and INSTANT stuff too)

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