Well, I wanted to write about something today that is not related to internet marketing, yet has everything to do with it. What did I just say?
Well, first I want to thank all of my regular readers who come here to honestly try and learn how to be successful rather then just spamming my blog (those don’t get published). I appreciate you, and I hope that you are taking action on whatever it is that you are set out to do. Whether it be Clickbank, physical products, Adsense, or creating your own product, the truth of the matter is it will never happen for you if you don’t start right now, and make it happen.
The reality is, it’s work (don’t let anyone tell you it’s not), takes a lot of time when you first get started, and can be extremely frustrating at times, making you feel discouraged, and like giving up. Why does that happen? Because it is work that’s why. But the real problem comes in when there are so many people telling you what to do that you feel like your brain is going to explode with information that you have no idea what to do with.Is the information even accurate? Are they just trying to get you to click their affiliate link or buy their product?
If you look around on my site, you will see that I have not recommended a paid product related to internet marketing (other than the CTR Theme) since I purchased 3 products back in February and March of 2011. If you go to my Affiliate Product Reviews category, you will see that there is no affiliate link in any of the 3 reviews I made in February and March of 2011, and there never has been. Why? Because they were junk, and I would never recommend a product if I did not feel it would help my readers.
With that said, I want to share a personal milestone that has been a long time coming.
Although I now make more online than I make working at my full time job, I am not quitting my job just yet. What I am doing is going down to part time. Instead of working 5 days/wk, 8 hours/day, I have reduced my week down to 3 days at my job. I know that this may seem silly to many of you, but to me the reality has not really sunk in just yet, and I want to be very comfortable with my monthly earnings before I actually “Fire my Boss”.
With the 2 extra days per week, while my husband is at work and the kids are at school, what do you think I am going to be doing?
- Watching soap operas
- Buying more junk affiliate products
- Playing on Facebook
- Spending the day at the mall
- Building niche websites
You got it! I am going to be building more websites, and increasing my monthly earnings so that I can quit my job for good, and know that I will be ok, even on a bad month.
My question for you is, what are you going to do after you read this post?
- Go out with your friends
- Play on Facebook
- Read emails
- Buy more junk affiliate marketing products
- Do keyword research, buy a domain name, write some articles, and build a niche website
It’s your future, so you decide, but I would love nothing more than for all of you to answer #5. That is where it’s at guys. You don’t have to build sites forever, build them for a few months, get a steady amount of income coming in from Adsense, then venture off into something else that you feel comfortable doing.
If you need a reminder of how quickly you can make money with Adsense, read this post!
If you do take me up, and start #5, please leave me a comment. I would love to root you on!
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I almost cannot believe what I am reading. You have literally taken the words out of my (hopefully) future mouth! Where you are at, right now, is where I want to be sometime down the road. The only problem lately is, like you said, I’ve been reading so much that so many people have done, it’s starting to discourage me. It makes me think that the good ole days of niche blogging are behind us.
I have some questions for you.
Do you use Market Samurai for your keyword research?
Is there any variety between all your sites, or do they look nearly identical since they are produced so quickly?
For your keywords, what sort of competition/traffic combo do you look for?
Sorry if these are answered in your posts, I have not read through most of them yet. I will be though.
Jonathan
Jonathan,
I agree, that when done properly, niche blogging still works. It works for me, so I know it must be working for others as well. As far as my sites go, many of them do look the same, but I have recently been testing new themes, and I have found some other potential, although too soon to report on my site. I do not use Market Samurai, I actually rely on the good old Google keyword tool. I look for exact match results of no less than 800, but obviously, I try to get closer to 2,000 when possible. I usually don’t worry too much about the number of results for competition, although I do check the first 6 or 7 results to make sure that I can outrank them. CPC of $1.00 or more, unless you find a keyword with thousands of exact match searches and an available domain name – in that case I would jump on it regardless.
Don’t get stuck in the internet marketing gossip trap – I know how easy it is to believe what everyone is saying. You have to just take a risk and see for yourself. Not every site will be profitable, but until you have statistics from many, it is difficult to narrow down what niche worked, and which ones to stay away from. Once you find a niche that is profitable, continue building sites around it.
I hope that helps.
Good luck,
Melissa
Thanks for responding so soon, it’s good to see you are still with your site.
I actually just finished reading through all your posts, and it’s really given me a solid amount of motivation, knowing it’s possible.
I just launched my second site today. The first site has moved from position 35 to number 24-25ish. It looked to be jumping around a lot.
One thing for me, is that I get hung up on waiting for a site to start making money before I move on. That’s what I’m working on. I’m just planning to dive in! I’m determined to make this work.
Have you noticed any of your sites starting to lose traffic, as you don’t update them, or are they staying the same or growing?
I look forward to your next post!
I just wanted to let you know that I think I found an excellent keyword. It gets 1300 global, and 1000 local a month, both exact, not broad. CPC of $2.12. The best part is when I type the term into Google, it comes back with about 19,000 results without quotes, and 9100 with quotes. All three .com, .net, and .org are available, so I bought the .com.
If this doesn’t make money, I don’t know what will.
I’ll let you know.
Jonathan,
That sounds like a great keyword! I would love to hear how it goes. Keep me posted.
Well I said I’d give you an update, so here goes….I have received my first adsense ad click from my first niche site! A measly 43 cents, but the trickle has started.
That site, and one other I created are ranking in the top 5 for their keywords. Unfortunately they get 320 searches a month according to Adwords. My good keyword sites haven’t been indexed properly yet.
How are your sites progressing? Any updates comings? I’m very interested in how it’s going for you.
The first Adsense click is the most important click of all. That means that you are doing something right, and there will be many more “clicks” to come. I realized that I am way behind on my updates, so I will be posting my earnings for September and October, as well as what I have learned in the last couple of months. Thanks for checking back, and I would love to hear more about your progress.