I will still create two blogs this month, and two while doing the thirty day challenge in August. But I think I will focus my strength on writing articles to earn money in the beginning. I will still make research on both keywords and competition, but I will have “less” work marketing if got compensated publishing articles for money. I will probably “lose” some money as I have to share the revenue with other pages, but I will have to do less waiting, and less marketing to rank well on the chosen keywords.

I hope putting my attention to keyword analysis, and marketing will pay off in shorter in time to allow me focus on new pages, with domains I own.

Anyway; I just wanted to inform those who have heard about the challenge that I am in progress of choosing keywords, and will probably publish my first articles and blogs shortly. And remember if you try to do a similar experiment; make some quality content. It will help you in the future as you are less likely to be punished for publishing crap and being taken as a spammer. There is no point in distorting future revenue by behaving as a spammer to earn money.

And if you are creating a blog; don’t bother to put up any ads till you have about 50 people visiting your blog daily from search engines. You do not want Google to give you penalty for publishing just to make money. Yes; making money from our articles and blogs is our primarily target; but we do not want to behave as spammers to make it happened.

Anyway; wish the best as I have a lot of work ahead of me.

Take care till next time!

-Kentaki-

© Kentaki for Enlightened Individual, 2009. | Permalink | 165 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 30DC, articles, competition, keywords

To start with, you can contact a credit counselor who can suggest ways to manage your debts. The credit counselor will evaluate your financial situation first. Thereafter he will guide you to select the debt help option that will help you under your current financial situation.

Some of the debt relief options that can help you to get relief from debt include debt consolidation, debt negotiation, debt management plan etc. Bankruptcy is also regarded as one of the debt relief options that can give you an opportunity to start afresh.

Bankruptcy is always treated as the last option of getting debt relief. With the introduction of new federal bankruptcy laws, filing bankruptcy has become even more difficult. However, if you are planning to file bankruptcy, it is best to have an attorney represent you legally. Depending on your financial situation, you can either opt for Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 bankruptcy.

One of the main reasons for consumers to fall into debt is credit cards. The number of credit card defaults has escalated especially after recession set in. Credit card defaults increased as credit card issuers changed their payment policies and reduced credit limits. This was not communicated to the credit cardholders. As such, consumers continued using credit cards according to previous payment policies that led to the increase in the number of defaults.

So, the debt reliefs companies are doing brisk business and helping debtors get out of debt. Whether you opt for debt consolidation, debt negotiation or debt management plan, you basically manage your existing debts. This is done either by making payments as per a new repayment plan or you get to enjoy lower interest rates and consequently lower monthly payments.

The debt relief companies can either charge you for offering their services when they are known as for-profit debt relief companies or charge very nominal fees or no fees at all. These companies are referred to as non-profit debt relief companies.

Whether you select a for-profit or a non-profit debt relief company, try to find out the credentials of the debt help company from the Better Business Bureau.

© Kentaki for Enlightened Individual, 2009. | Permalink | 4323 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: debt relief, financial, professional

So the new start date is 10th of July, and I will have a person competing with me. I also gave him some ideas; some of them which are easier for him living in USA while doing his master.

Anyway; I didn’t tell him how I would reach these goals, but we did agree on these terms. We are allowed to use internet and friends to gain expertise. We are also allowed to use what we have to create products. (e.g. word processor to write eBooks, camera to create YouTube videos).

We are not allowed to use money buying domains or hosting services as these are not starting from zero. I also suggested he could try finding agreement with wholesalers to deal with eBay, which might be easier if you live in USA. If he needed some start-up money I allowed him to do online freelancing or completing surveys. The only condition is of course he could document what he earned on these things by screenshots and so on, and how it covered any expenses he had.

Of course it would be theoretically possible to do the challenge by writing, or copy editing articles while writing your own self published book, and use money from freelancing to cover expenses as editor, proof reader and so on for your own book.

I don’t think it’s impossible to learn using Blender to create simple 3D animations. If they have a niche and a good plot you might easily become a YouTube partner. If you want to make it really simple you could probably use MS Paint and MS Moviemaker to create funny animations. But it requires a good knowledge of writing catching and funny scripts. But it is possible if you are determined.

The point is; you can create products as movies, music, art, books and gain revenue. You can also start writing sites and so on to gain revenue. There are really no limitations to how many ways you can earn money online if you are determined to succeed.

I will be updating this blog with my progress and what I am doing, I will also write a bit on starting freelancing, and self publishing and maybe other ideas for product creation during this year, so I hope you will stay tuned. By the way; I doubt I will frequently update my blog, but I will try to update each of my blogs here once a week. (And no, if I earn money on this site it will not be part of the zero to hero challenge – I already paid for the domain and hosting).

© Kentaki for Enlightened Individual, 2009. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: creativity, earn money online, ideas for making money, revenue

Sure; I believe I can do many of these myself; but having a team with people who are experienced, and having experience will make it much easier to succeed. It will also make it much easier to create websites of quality.

This is an important issue as well: Yes; the main purpose is to earn money. I do not try to hide this fact; but I do not want myself, or others trying this, to spam the internet with trash. There should be some value to the web pages we create; and we should not start using ad sense or other means to earn money before we have enough visitors. I and you hate pages with little content, and search engines hate websites without quality at all.  So I am happy we have had a successful start to create team, as this is really important to succeed in my pursuit to win the “Zero to Hero” challenge.

I will also advice everyone to not join the 30 day challenge to earn one or ten dollars, instead use it as a educational purpose, to learn the business, and to create strong connections between the team members you are to work with.

Once upon a time it was great doing everything ourselves; and it is still true. We should not use others to do our work; we should not be lazy and depend on others. But neither is we experts in every area; we should make use of each other’s expertise as well. So do not misunderstand me; I believe to be successful I will need to do lots of individual work, requesting others expertise; but I should also be able to cooperate with others as a collaborative team to create web pages with teams.

My main point is this: I do not believe 30DC will educate us to be great internet marketers, but it could be used for some education, and learn new things you didn’t know or think about previous. But it alone will not make me great.  It is limited to what you can do with a web page in 30 days, as the true work start after 30, 60 and 90 days. The second reason, which is most important for joining, we have a chance to meet people having similar goals and ambitions, people we can learn from, and people that can support and motivating.

-Kentaki-

© Kentaki for Enlightened Individual, 2009. | Permalink | 37 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 30DC 2009, educational, team

As you might know; I have started exercising running 5k, and next is starting to earn money from home, using internet.

While I have written a bit on FOREX, and saving money, I have decided to give myself a challenge; within a year I want to create a nice additional income from online within 12-18 months.

It will be an interesting experiment, and I hope I will succeed.

I will write articles on what I will be doing and my progress during the experiment on the money development sides, but will also post some information on free lancing, publishing etc for other opportunities to earn money from home. And if I find interesting I mind try some freelancing as well, but it will not be part of this challenge.

The experiment is similar to Chris Ferguson’s poker experiment, if you haven’t heard about it; you should Google for “Chris Ferguson Challenge”. The point of his experiment was to start with 0 dollars, playing free rolls (free tournaments to win a few dollars), till he had enough to keep grinding till he came to us$ 10 000. He succeeded within 15 months I think.

Anyway; I do not encourage gambling, and do not want to earn to living by gambling. Call me stupid or something, I don’t care. I know many people have gambling problems, and I do not want to earn money from something where I am encouraging other to play and lose/win money. What I did like about the Chris Ferguson Challenge was two things: He created 3 rules he played by all the time and he succeeded because he is professional and determined.

And just for the fun of it tried playing free rolls for month to see if I could read books and learn the game enough to win some money; and within that month I won us$ 13. (It took Chris Ferguson 7 months to earn us$ 6.50). I believe I earned quickly because I played a crazy kind of poker when I started, and later got more like a rock, before I again played some crazy. And of course I was really lucky. I never played any of that money as I couldn’t find it morally right to earn money this way, and of course it was really time consuming, and needed a good deal of luck.

Anyway; my challenge will be dealing with websites and online marketing, and most likely product creation. My goal will be to earn us$ 10 000 as Ferguson, and have sustainable websites generating money for me each month after the challenge is close (12-18 months – I haven’t decided exactly which of the is most realistic as I haven’t planned everything in detail yet)

I will try starting the challenge 1. July 2009 as some of my university papers are finished by that time and here is what I hope to be able to do:

Step 1) create 5-10 blogs, and market them.
I assume, before really investigated it; It will take at least three months to market and have them ready for advertising. Within the next month or two I hope to create enough to buy hosting for 3-5 more sites.

Step 2) Create 3-5 websites with affiliate programs or self created product.
These sites will of course be hosted by a cheap hosting company and have unique names. When creating those three pages I hope to be able to use knowledge I acquire from the 30 days challenge 2009 with Ed Dale. Yes, I will take part of the 30DC 2009 to educate myself, and share my experience on this site.

There will be a third step as well, but I will keep it as a secret till I have researched more upon the possibilities, but in theory the first two steps should be enough to reach my goal, but there might be a step 3 which will include more about creating a online business with outsourcing of some of the work. I will of course inform you about outsourcing for better creating of site and product if I earn enough to do outsourcing.

Anyway: The title of this project will be Kentaki’s From Hero to Zero challenge.

If you want you can do the same as me; I will write a bit more on plans I have for market analysis, niche research, marketing etc when we get closer to July.

I would love for other to work with me. Let me correct it; for others to do the same as me; and let us exchange ideas and knowledge to help each other.

I would also like a partner or someone to cooperate with in the Ed Dale’s 2009 challenge, so please email me at kentaki@enlightenedindividual.com, or leave a comment in the comment field if you want to join me.

At least I do not want to work from salary to salary for someone else; I want use some of my time to start creating something that is mine, and work to create something earning me money while I spend time on stuff I enjoy, and people I care about.

As a last note: this project is not meant to be quick way earning money: It is meant as a long term project creating sustainable revenue, helping me create more opportunities, and more projects. I hope to succeed and get out of the rat race where I work for other people, and other companies.

-Kentaki-

© Kentaki for Enlightened Individual, 2009. | Permalink | 73 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 30DC 2009, Chris Ferguson, earning money, Ed Dale

Automated trading is a largely debated topic; are there any platforms making the perfect choices? Are there any systems “intelligent” enough to get maximized profit and minimal losses? Of course there are no real substitution for human understanding and logical resonation based upon knowledge. However; most systems are smart enough to look for cues to enter and exit. They act without emotions and does it best to predict trades. They are however limited in knowledge and mostly based upon only technical analysis. You as a human being could read some news that you know for certain is either bad or good for your investments and can act about what you learn about the world. However; you and me have emotions, and are particular strange when it comes to money.

So please; before you decide using a automated Forex trader you should be aware it mostly act upon technical analysis, and are not knowledgeable as you. It might however be an advantage having a computer analyzing a lot of data for you and doing the transactions for you.

There are some requirements you need to fulfill before creating an automated Forex trader;
1) Choose a trading platform
2) Choose a company creating automated trading plug-in
3) Understand how the system should trade and choose strategies fitting you
4) Decide whether to use your home computer, or a hosting company

There are some trading platforms to try out there; and there are companies delivering automated systems. However; these systems most often cost money. Before using any of them you most likely have to pay some money. And you should try both your strategies and software on trial before making actual transaction with it. Once the system is set up you should also watch how the system works, when it makes trade, and what configuration you need fine tuning.

It’s not particular difficult setting up a system and making it use various strategies; but it should be done with care and a basic understanding of what the system is doing for you. You don’t want it to aggressive; nor do you want it to passive. You want to find a balance creating a small additional income without doing to many stupid mistakes.

Another evaluation you should do is whether to use your personal home computer to run the system; or to buy a virtual private server or dedicated server at a hosting company to do the trading for you. There are several advantages of outsourcing the computer, as there is no one there to crash the computer or other unexpected shutdowns. There is also the option of not having to have the computer on all the time saving some electricity and some other things. These things should be carefully planned.

© Kentaki for Enlightened Individual, 2009. | Permalink | 36 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: automated trading, FOREX trading

Included is of course the importance of choosing a correct time frame.

Many choose only looking at signals given by graphs; and acting accordingly; much like software for automated trading would do. The best trades might sometimes be triggered by a news article you read, finding the correct signals that indicate its right; and waiting for a signal confirming the largest growth is over. Hence; the best trading strategies are more long term and based upon both knowledge and analytical skills. These are however often more long term.

As you might remember from previous; day trading and short term trading often contain more risks than long term. And be aware; some consider day trading as gambling as it’s really difficult to do successfully.

You might sometimes be successful by using knowledge on short time trading with technical analysis; however; it is difficult and requires a understanding of how news or situations might affect the currency; and you need a understanding of which signals to look for to confirm the knowledge you have is correct. By doing this you might develop your own, personal strategy helping you to earn money much quicker than other strategies that are pure analytical.

I do ask anyone wanting to do trading to educate themselves well to understand why they are making actions, how to control their own human greed, and how to successfully manage their money without risking all of it at once. There is nothing more important than knowledge to be successful within trading. After you understand yourself and economics is the right time to start looking at patterns and signals you find in the software; but the strongest knowledge is human behavioral and how business and politics affect the local currency. Having a strong knowledge will help you to create winning strategies that are not based on pure luck.

Again I empathize how important it is to not use money that are needed for bills or the family; only additional money you can afford to lose. IF you are successful you might not lose anything at all. But be careful with any investment, and do not believe you can get rich without hard work. Hard work and determination is what creates wealth and winners.

-Kentaki-

© Kentaki for Enlightened Individual, 2009. | Permalink | 43 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: business, human behavioral, politics

Now we are going to look a bit on leverage; leverage is to lend, or use credits of the broker. It allows you to spend us$ 1000 to control us$ 100.000. To be able to do this the brokers offer different ways of trading:

The Spot Market: this involves a transaction from one currency to another currency. We do the exchange over two days; where the first day is called the “value date” which is the settlement days where you agree upon the exchange, while the “deal date” is the date you agree to do the exchange.

Other trading that you might be a part of is:
Forward and futures
Options
Contracts for differences
Spread betting

I will not cover all these sections right now; but they will be discussed in the future.

Now that you know a bit about the trading you might be thinking about deciding a platform for your trading; this typically includes deciding on a broker, and software to use. As I talked about previous; you should look at the pips rate, but more importantly you should make a research on the broker.

There are unserious actors as brokers; so make sure you read reviews; but also make sure they are attached to a real bank. You should also make sure they are registered with the Futures Commission Merchant (FCM), and regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

After you have narrowed down the list of brokers that might be suitable for you, you should request a free trial of their software to make sure they have a tool that is easy for you to use; and providing you with the information necessarily for you to use your preferred strategies. You should also evaluate which option is out there for automated trading while you are away. There might come a time where you want to start using automated tools; and you should have chosen a trading platform suitable for both manual and automated trading.  It might be too late to choose a good trading platform at a later stage without having to change broker and software; which is time consuming.

Most brokers also allow you to have a trial account where you can practice making trades without actually risking any money. Trial account and trial software should be one of the most important tools for the beginning FOREX trader.

-Kentaki-

© Kentaki for Enlightened Individual, 2009. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: beginners, Trial account

Now we are going to look at bid, asks and spreads. Bids are the price a seller asks for a currency; the price you have to pay for it. Asks are the price you are selling for. Keep in mind the bid and asks prices are not the actual value you from sell and buy prices. There is a small difference, which we call spread. This spread is what earns the broker money. They often sell for a value above the value, and buy for a price bit above the real value. The spread is often represented by the word pips (percentage in points). You often want to look for serious FOREX platforms and brokers offering low pips for transactions.

I hope this explanation wasn’t too clumsy; but you will shortly understand true meaning of words. There is always a true sale and buy price of a currency; but bankers or brokers earn money from the spread; or difference between what you pay and the true value. It’s not as complicated as it sounds like; but everyone wants to earn some money; and brokers and banks often earn some money by adding a small difference on the currency. You as a trader are mostly busy chasing profits from selling at a high price and buying at a low price.

Before you start using your money on the FOREX market you should be aware that short term investments; especially day trading is a risky business. You might come to many wins; but also suffer large losses. Hence; it’s important for any beginner to only trade spare money you can afford to lose.  The business of trading being risky is not reduced to intelligence; it’s hard to succeed with both if you are gifted, and if you aren’t gifted. You should also keep in mind currency exchange is more complicated and difficult to understand that trading stocks. To really have a good chance to do well you should read books and really educate yourself in economic, stock trading, microeconomics and macroeconomics. Some basic understanding of how political directions might affect a currency might also be a smart topic to understand. And as we discussed in a previous posting you should educate yourself in psychology and self understanding; and of course within money management.

-Kentaki-

© Kentaki for Enlightened Individual, 2009. | Permalink | 15 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: long term, money management, short term

You will most likely be using symbols and patterns for most of your trading; but do not make excuses for not learning and educating yourself to understand what you are doing and why you do as you do. It is not really many shortcuts to be successful within a field; knowledge and understanding what is happening and how your actions are compared to what you know is important.

To make money you should also create a set of rules to follow; rules for when to enter; and when to leave to minimize losses or maximize profits. You should have rules helping and saving you from losses.

Another important skill you should acquire is money-management. Chris Ferguson demonstrated how important rules and management skills are in poker; this is also valid for investing and trading. You should always keep a track of your investments, your losses and your profits and have strict rules on how to invest your total money on the market.

As I mentioned previous your psychology is really important. I return to this topic as it’s really important not to be caught by greed; or being caught by losses. You have to train yourself mentally to be a successful trader; to be as objective and neutral as possible. It might sometimes be more successful using computers to help make demission in the beginning to get a feeling of making emotionless trades. But keep in mind that computers do not have the expertise or knowledge you got; so you are a better trader by default; as long as you don’t get caught be human greed. The best way to prepare your-self mentally is to practice trading without using real money. You should behave as if any trade is real; but still distance yourself emotionally.

I think you shortly within your first trials will experience your mentality within trading; and please; listen and improve yourself. Do not only act without understanding yourself.

-Kentaki-

© Kentaki for Enlightened Individual, 2009. | Permalink | 34 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: emotions, knowledge, skills