• Reflections of the HART-Empire Network for 2006 and 2007

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    December 19th, 2006HARTHART-Empire Network

    This post is part of the Problogger Group Writer Project for December 2006. For more details on how you can participate, please go to: Problogger Group Writing Project Reviews and Predictions.

    I applaud other bloggers out there willing to discuss openly their online business plan, their earnings, costs, obstacles and feelings and moods and stories and expertise and so on and so on and everything else in between! Today I write this post not to openly discuss my own online business known as the HART-Empire Network .. but, in hopes to win some JUICY random prizes from Problogger! šŸ™‚ Haha .. just kidding! But seriously folks … I’m just like you .. trying to figure out what the heck is really happening out here, and trying to make something out of it. I am not a Problogger (although sometimes by the amount of time that I spent it would seem that I am) .. but if I could seriously make money with this I would seriously consider becoming a full-time Problogger. As such, this post is me .. HART (1-800-HART) .. trying to figure out what the hell really happened in 2006 and add some thoughts where I hope to take this network in 2007 …

    Status Of The Network

    I still consider the HART-Empire Network to be a network of blogs, rather than one of those typical ‘Blog Networks’ or even other name like “new media” or “magazine” or “portal” etc. I did not attempt in any way to recruit new members or blogs into this network, and despite having a “Join This Network” button directly on the top menu of this site and at the bottom of every network code in every sidebar in every blog part of this network .. there were no takers or askers.

    Blogs and sites that I put online during 2006, in date order

    (January 1, 2006) The-Singers.com (January 9, 2006) CurlingBlog.com CurlingBlog.com/kleibrink/ CurlingBlog.com/gushue HART-Empire.com (January 28, 2006) Battling-Cancer.com Battling-Depression.com Battling-MS.com Battling-Shizophrenia.com (February 27, 2006) Battling-Obesity.com Battling-Stress.com (March 5, 2006) HBSMC.com Battling-HeartandStroke.com Battling-Addiction.com Battling-Forums.com (June 30, 2006) DogLvr.com CatLvr.com (August 8, 2006) BirdLvr.com FishLvr.com HorseLvr.com (August 11, 2006) HART-oscope.com AndYouRetire.com (August 17, 2006) 62-151.com (September 13, 2006) PlanetEarthPeaceParty.com PlanetEarthResearchFoundation.com (September 25, 2006) Medieval-Site.com (October 12, 2006) The-Furniture-Site.com (October 29, 2006) HART-Network.com hart-network.com/pet-related/ hart-network.com/entertainment/ hart-network.com/shopping/ hart-network.com/opinionated/ hart-network.com/small-business/ hart-network.com/sports-related/ hart-network.com/health-and-fitness/ hart-network.com/personal-and-security/ (December 10, 2006) The-Lingerie-Site.com Item-Site.com

    Summary of These Additions

    The Battling-Series of blogs came into being when my mother-in-law was diagnosed with cancer on January 18, 2006. It was a total shock to everybody, and she passed away May 26, 2006. Ruth’s husband Chris has multiple sclerosis and my brother is schizophrenic. And to top that off – everybody could lose a few pounds and get back into shape! Ruth and I were talking about possibilities of a new health and fitness channel and it seemed like a good thing to do. I personally wanted these sites to be both a celebrity type of blog (look who’s got this disease now) and an inspirational blog (people battling the disease talking about it). The hope was to be another blog out there bringing about greater public awareness, if I could.

    The LVR-Series of blogs came into becoming an expansion of the PetLvr blog’s breed information category. If you want to know about dogs, look at PetLvr blog. If you want to know about breeds of dogs, look at DogLvr blog. That simple.

    The SITE-Series of shopping sites were an expansion of certain categories of my 1-800-HART’s Picks blog and certain categories. I wanted to separate the Medieval site .. because in a way, it tied into my HARTandYVONNE site, with our 2002 Medieval wedding and all that etc. I also wanted to separate the furniture categories because I think of all the categories, this is one that I can purposely expand outside of a ‘strictly shopping site’ into much more .. like a home improvement, building tips and other house renovation topics besides furniture. I recently created a lingerie site because I like to look at lingerie .. Guilty! šŸ™‚

    I’m glad that I created those HART-Network.com sites (HART-Empire Network II) that aggregates all the RSS feeds for each channel into one feed. I’m using a combination of a plugin plus cron jobs setup in my cPanel on my server to accomplish this .. each sub-site and main site searches all associated blogs in the channels every 2 hours for an update and posts it automatically. Neat, eh? This domain was actually registered before HART-Empire.com but, at the time in October 2005 .. I thought it sounded too .. infomercial. (Join The HART-Network and receive the fabulous prize behind door number two!)

    Other individual sites came into being for a specific reason .. like . The-Singers (it’s my last name) HART-Oscope (I had a similar blog on blogspot) and the Planet Earth Sites (Don’t ask! – but watch for this is the summer of 2007) etc etc.

    Milestones During 2006

    * David Sifry from Technorati called me a splogger and banned all my sites from Technorati in April 2006
    * In October 2006 my sites took a beating during the Google Dance wrt Page Ranks ..
    * October 16, 2006 marked the 1-year blogiversary of the HART-Empire Network
    * PetLvr reached its 2000th post October 27, 2006

    Bloggers Wanted for Battling-Series of blogs

    I am pretty much seeking bloggers to take over my health and fitness blogs .. with the disclaimer being, that I’m not actually seem to be seeking people too “actively”. Currently, there is not much traffic nor is there much revenues being generated. Two good reasons NOT to come on board! But .. it’s not earning revenues and I have to figure out ways to do that .. because it sure would be nice to just hand over some existing revenue base to go along with the blog to a new writer. In the past I have left it in the hands of such sites and organizations that rank its eligibility on Alexa rankings, and page ranks .. and once rejected it is quite hard to get a second chance. If any of you are reading this, and interested .. give me a shout.

    Outlook of HART-Empire Network in 2007

    I must assume that unless I can find bloggers, the same results will occur as you see in the above graph during 2007 that occurred in 2006. My offline business is my meat and gravy, and that’s accounting, income tax preparation and consulting. Most of my offline work happens in the first half of the calendar year. For the second half of the year, as I rebuild lagging network traffic and blogging empire! All in all, I hope that I am still here – “With My Zircon Encrusted Tweezers” – on my second anniversary in October 2007.

    Estimated Revenues for 2006

    I’ve spent about $1000 USD on web hosting between my two sites – believe it or not .. DOWN from 2005. I pay $9.oo USD inclusive per year per domain registered and renewed through Chuga (and you can count the domains above). There are additional costs and revenues associated with product sales, and Ebay sales and other sales .. but strictly speaking from revenues earned by my blogs in the HART-Empire Network in 2006 .. extrapolating expected sales during December 1-19, 2006 for the entire month .. here is what I will probably earn in the year:

    Google Adsense – $800.00
    Chitika Minimall – $75.00
    Amazon.com – $100.00
    Text-Link-Ads – $1,050.00
    Private Text Link ads – $1,500
    Clickbank Products – $45.00
    CafePress products – $55.00
    Other Affiliate products (sharesale/cj/linksynergy/private sites) – $40.00

    >> Total $3,665 USD

    Not bad, but where the heck is all that money? Spread that over 12 months and it gets eaten up really fast. At best, some sites were redirected into Ebay purchases, or transfers to my bank or credit card for minimum payments, or used for domain registrations ..

    For 2007 my hopes is to get as much possible value to my sites to be eligible for more revenue opportunities, and I have signed up with some other sites .. but yet to earn revenue .. with sites like Performancing .. Linkworth .. BlogKits .. Linkconnector .. Vizu Polls .. etc. If there any sites out there wishing to advertise on more than 40 blogs that I personally control covering at least 31 unique domain names, for a bulk price .. I am willing to discuss and consider offers! Text Links. Banners. Whatever.

    Goals For 2007?

    My financial goals remain the same as it was for 2005 and 2006 that I have wanted, since I started blogging in May 2005. I hope to accumulate and earn enough revenues to take my wife on a deserved vacation over the XMAS holidays of 2007 now .. because she deserves it most! So, in order to do that – I figure AT LEAST 2x’s or 3x’s my 2006 earnings will be the goal to reach.

    I do have plans for a few non-blog sites .. For now .. the immediate plans for 2007 will be a new facelift for the blogs .. and learn better SEO practices. I have slowly started implementing some ‘social’ practices on my sites .. and honestly, it’s not making much of a difference – but, a difference is noted for the good. I’m willing to continue with these social experiments over the next few months and see how this all progresses. Other than that? Live. Learn. Prosper.

    call HART crazy .. but

    .. that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

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10 responses to “Reflections of the HART-Empire Network for 2006 and 2007” RSS icon

  • Wow, that’s a lot of money to spend with only that amount of traffic. I hope that you see an increase in traffic and less hassle this coming year!

    We also participated in this project, stop on by if you get a chance!

  • Yup šŸ™‚ You pretty much nailed it on the head Mama Duck! More traffic for all everyone!

    Of course, there are other reasons for having such high website costs, including a store and lots of graphics and all our wedding pictures and videos. I could eliminate the latter and reduce my costs by 1/3 almost instantly. But, i’m an optimist hoping to increase the revenues versus cutting back on the expenses. // Thanks for visiting – I’m stopping on by now

  • A true insight and a great review.Thx for sharing the info with us.

    I also got entry in darrens project.
    technospot.net/blogs/index.php/2006/12/19/predicting-the-evolution-of-techspot-insideout/

    And i am feeding your blog.There wont be another chance to meet so many bloggers

  • Thanks for kind words Ashish .. I have added myself to your MyBlog community šŸ™‚ And, well .. more on your blog in your comments!

  • Good story and I’m glad you’re sticking to it. šŸ˜‰

    I too am scratching my head saying what happened in 2006 – where did it go?

    Sorry to hear of all the health problems in your family this year – hope 2007 is better health wise.

    I too hit 4-figure pay dirt with Text Link Ads, and best of all it, it was unexpected.

    Are you getting “social” on me? šŸ˜‰ Don’t fall for it, it’s just a fad … but then again, I’m known to be wrong.

    Happy Holidays, mate to you and your family.

  • Hi Martin .. On Nov 1/2006 I am using that paid wordpress plugin to help me with my Social experiment!

    I’m hoping that the ‘money is in the archives’ concept also works with the social bookmarking sites and I might benefit some time in 2007 and later. While I don’t expect any of my stuff to be “digg” worthy where people vote on my posts .. but, if they are searching for something – anytime I can become part of their search results – that’s good, right?

    I feel uncomfortable voting for myself, and do not have time to actually “SHARE” everything and it’s nice to have a plugin that does it automatically, most of the time.

    Thanks for the Holiday Greetings! Have a “Dr. Feelgood” headbanger’s New Year and have lots of “Fine, Fine Wine” and a “Hooligan’s Holiday!” ~

  • Wow! It’s amazing what you’ve done here. I’ve been looking to diversify a bit myself, but I don’t think there’s any chance of me running 40 blogs by myself. Maybe 2 or 3, though. Good luck in 2007!

  • Hi Ray! And, thanks for kind words. I don’t hope for the “moon” in 2007, but I’m not giving up! Thanks for the link on your blog too btw…

  • Yeah, i bookmark your site. What you wrote is great advice any way that you look at it.

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