The Niche Think Tank » Affiliate Marketing

Income Report for September 2010

Larry C. — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 06:35:19 +0000

Hey folks, sorry for the total and complete lag on my monthly income reports, lot’s of things been happening. So this is September 2010′s income report, 5 months late, but I guess better late then never. So the past few months I’ve been perfecting a system of how I build niche sites, how I place content on them, and how I get them ranking with back linking strategies and such. I’ve been working hard at this as I am putting together a membership course for niche site’s and niche marketing. I’ve been using ReviewAzon for getting some content up really quickly and highly suggest it. See my review HERE.

I’m sure there’s a few people out there who have a little extra time and would like to know how to do these little niche sites that build recurring monthly passive income. How’s about an extra $1000-$2000 a month sound to you? I’m sure for some of you it might make all the difference in the world to have a little more income than you have now. Especially in this economy, right? I know every cent counts for me, seeing as how this economy had tore my day time business apart. Which is why I turned to the internet to supplant that income.

This months(September) Amazon was way down, and in my August report it had come up from the previous month, but then went down again. This is all catch up from the past months of figuring out how I was going to make the Amazon Associates thing work for me, as it had started to actually make some income, and got me thinking. You’ll see from this month out, the Amazon income will be going up, and way up in December, but that’s another report.

So even though my Amazon was down many other things were up and going up steadily as I somewhat predicted a few income reports ago.You’ll see somethings fluctuating from this report forward but you should also see things going up. Way up.

So enough of my yakking, I’m getting ready to do a podcast with a special guest which will be released next week, so stay tuned. I’ll be catching up over the next two weeks on my income reports so stay tuned for those as well.

Thanks for stopping by.

September 2010

Amazon – 36.17

Dating Sites – 676.33

eBook Sales(Mine) – 29.94

Affiliate Sales – 223.48

Clickbank Sales – 49.21

Text Link Ads – 39.19

Google – 459.48

Side Jobs (Hosting, WordPress Installs) – 1067.00

Total September $2580.80

Last month (August) $2168.72

Increase of $412.08

September 2010 Income Report

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Amazon Trademark Infringement, Ooopsss…

Larry C. — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 04:24:25 +0000

It’s been a little over 2 months since I posted last, in fact December 6th was the last post. I had been busy making sites and getting them indexed for the rush of Christmas traffic, and just got caught up in the whirl wind of excitement. LOTS of things happenin’g and happened since then, one of which I am not too happy about, Trademark Infringement.

Yep, that’s right, I infringed on someone’s trademark, Amazon.Com. Ooopsss…

Basically it’s been a while since I had read the Amazon OA(Operating Agreement), and didn’t realize that I built a website that would eventually have them contacting me about. Thou Shalt Not use any of Amazon’s trademarked names(Amazon, Kindle,Etc.) in a domain name/URL. Two that I had and were running were www.kindlecoversandcases.com and www.thekindleboard.com.

Kindle covers and cases was a niche site that made a good deal of money over the course of the past year with December being a really great month. Then I sorta sandboxed myself a little with over zealous back linking. But that’s for another post, which I will tell the whole story and how I got out of the Google sandbox. The other site, thekindleboard.com was a forum for discussion of Kindles, eBooks and eBook authors, as well as other eBook readers.

I received an email, founding it in my spam folder, and read it:

We recently contacted you about our concerns with your domain names, and we have not received a response. Please know that we value your participation in Amazon’s Associates program. By requesting that you use alternate domain names, we are attempting to make sure that there is always a clear distinction between the official “Amazon” site and other third party sites. Your current use of the (insert domain name), (insert domain name) and (insert domain name) domains is a violation of the Associates Program Operating Agreement. The registration of these domain names also violates Amazon.com’s trademark, proprietary and other rights. Please review the Associates Program Operating Agreement for more details.

Please choose new domain names and transfer your content to those names. Amazon will purchase your domains (insert domain name), (insert domain name) and (insert domain name) for the initial registration prices, provided that you agree to not register any domains containing Amazon brands, or a misspelling of those brands, in the future.

If we do not hear from you regarding the above within two weeks from the date of this email, we will have no alternative but to close your Associates account and withhold payment of all advertising fees in accordance with the Agreement.

So does this David fight the Goliath Amazon and take a chance on losing all my earnings for the past 3 months? Hell no! Are you kidding? Would you throw away $4000 in affiliate sales? Yeah, I didn’t think so. I actually had 9 domain names in total with the word “Kindle” in it, but only using 4 of them. Rather than give Amazon only the 3 they listed, and still use the other 6 domain names and take a chance on losing my Associate income and my Associate account, I decided to hand over all 9 domains. They promptly paid me $10 each for a total of $90.

Another interesting thing with Amazon is they don’t want you using other peoples trademarked names either. So names like Revlon, such as in a domain name RevlonMascaraReviews.com would be a no-no. I know many people who DO use trademarked names in their URLs, and don’t get caught, but is it really worth losing your income, house or other because of it? Not in my book.

So what am I going to do with the traffic from those sites? or what am I going to do with the brand I had built up? I could just let it go or I could get another domain name and do a permanent redirect to the new site. So what did I do with those sites I built up? I moved them each to a new domain: eBook Covers and Cases and eReader Forum.

I’m happy that Amazon.com was cordial enough to work with me and just take the domains off my hands and not my income I had acquired. Lesson learned.

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Income Report for August 2010, Niche Profit Course and ReviewAzon

Larry C. — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 16:48:39 +0000

I’ve been rather busy lately, putting out some niche sites, because it’s the Holiday Season and people are Buying like crazy! Great time to have an amazon powered Niche Site, pulling in sale after sale. I also recently listened to a great podcast over at Smart Passive Income with Chris Guthrie, Author of Niche Profit Course.

You can read how Chris got his start at making money online at his site www.makemoneyontheinternet.com. He posted one little video he made about the game called HALO, and having it go viral. Pretty cool story.

I downloaded his Free Guide, and then ended up getting his complete course which is basically his free guide and then a bunch of videos going over each step, but then some secrets to making large sales and continued sales. This is a great product which to me is worth the money I spent on it.

He also recommends using the plugin-in called ReviewAzon, which I also bought and have been using ever since. I can’t tell you how much time the plug-in has saved me when doing my niche sites. What used to take meat least an hour to post 2-3 posts about products for the Amazon Affiliate program, now takes me minutes to post twice as many. What a time saver, AND it posts a nice looking post with images and user reviews that are pulled directly from Amazon and shown in the Amazon fashion. If you’re going to be doing Amazon Associate review sites, you need ReviewAzon.

This plug-in saves me time, money and enables me to put up several sites a day if I needed too, which I have last week, in a record time. It posts great professional looking posts which give people a nice feeling when they see the posts. Amazon has brand recognition and people trust Amazon, so when you start posting professional looking posts associated with Amazon.com, the sales come in even faster.

The links above for the products are affiliate links which, when you use them to buy, help to support this blog, and my family, as I get a commission. Thanks for your continued support!

Now on to the income report for August. I know it’s a bit behind, but I’ve been very busy with my newborn girl, and making affiliate sites, as well as blogging on here more often and now doing a podcast. This report shows -72.04, less than July’s Income Report, but still 2168.72, for the month of August. Still not totally the amount I need to be fully self sustaining, but getting there. The next few months you’re going to see a big jump in Amazon sales and Google Adsense income.

Finally, here’s August’s income report:

Amazon – 139.74

Dating Sites – 504.09

eBook Sales(Mine) – 47.82

Affiliate Sales – 223.22

Clickbank Sales – 53.20

Text Link Ads – 47.15

Google – 363.50

Side Jobs (Hosting, WordPress Installs) – 790.00

Total August – $2168.72

Last month (July) – $2240.76

Difference of $-72.04

August 2010 Income report

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Micro Niche Site Challenge – Update #4

Larry C. — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 23:16:23 +0000

Well, I’ve not put too much work into my site for russiankettlebelltraining.com. I realized a little way into the building of the site, there may not be enough traffic to sustain it, or even put more effort into it. Not many people realize that Kettlebell Training originated in Russia, nor do many people search for “Russian Kettlebell Training”. So I’ve not put much effort into it.

I rank for some off keywords and number 19 for Russian Kettlebell Training, and that’s it. I’ve actually been working on some other sites that I am hoping will get ranked soon, they’re big commission products and there’s not many people working them, their under served.

Another thing about the site is I don’t think the template I’m using is conducive for sales and marketing, people stop and run. The bounce rate is pretty high. I may do some more back linking to see if I can get it to rank for just “Kettlebell Training”, and change the template to something prettier. If after I do these two things, it does’nt improve, I’ll just sell it on Flippa, and start all over again. And such is the natural of Niche Websites and Niches. Sometimes you just make a mistake and choose the wrong keywords to rank for.

Pat Flynn on the other hand, has done an amazing job of building his first niche site. At least I am pretty sure it’s his first. If not I know he hasn’t done many and he has totally blown us all out of the water with his ranking strategy. Check this out:

August 25th: Site went live. Not ranked.
August 29th: #184
September 6th: #162
September 8th: #135
September 9th: #119
September 13th: #117
September 14th: #53
September 21st: #38
September 29th: #27
October 22nd: #16
October 27th: #6
November 2: #3
November 6: #1

Not to damn bad if you ask me, now that, is how it’s done, and done right! You can read his post here about his ranking:
Pat Flynn Niche Site Update #10

Pat’s also got a great post on Backlinking to gain rank in the search engines here:
The Backlinking Strategy That Works.

There is one thing he didn’t mention, which I will, in my next post about Niche Site Creation, It’s how to Spy on your competition to find out where to backlink and find all the good juicy backlink spots. This is the easy way of finding places to backlink, just like my other post about Niche Site Espionage, I spy on my competition all the time. Why reinvent the wheel when theirs works just fine?

Be sure to check out the podcast I did with Pat Flynn here:
Pat Flynn Podcast

So there’s my update, I’m sitting here at my coffee shop office today, couldn’t focus at home so I had to get out and just write for a while. I’m basically taking it easy today as this week has been a lot of backlinking, writing articles and submitting them.

This week I interviewed Steve Chou from MyWifeQuitHerJob.Com. Steve and his wife run a wedding linen store online, and make a 6 figure income from it. He is the subject of my next podcast due out on monday morning. I think since it’s Friday I am going to go home early, take a nap and then take my daughters to the park. I hope you all have a great weekend.

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How Pat Flynn Got Started In His Niche Market – Podcast Interview #1

Choose Your Topic Wisely When Doing A Niche Affiliate Site

Larry C. — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 14:58:09 +0000

I was researching a topic last week for a few new niches and stumbled upon something that’s quickly becoming the next cool thing to have, an Android Smart Phone. With Googles new Droid, HTC’s Droid and Motorola’s Droid, there’s going to be a bunch of new cases and skins for the new smartphone craze.

I did my research, looked for a good domain and was amazed there weren’t more domains snatched up. I decided to get a couple different domains, ranging from $9-$12 at Godaddy.Com, and started building the sites. Things are going great, one site is already on the first page of Google within 2 days! Awesome!

The site looks great, cool Android type font, color is great, it’s going to be a great money maker. So I start to add products and after adding several from Amazon.Com I realize the price is so low, I’m not going to make anything. Well, at least not like I want.

A typical Android Phone Case or Cover is anywhere fro .02¢ to $20.00, with the majority being under $10.00. Wow, what a waste, sorta. I spent all this money on domains, then the time to build the sites, and then I realize the price of each item at Amazon.Com is so small, I’m going to be working hard to drive traffic to make any kind of money at all, if any.

The one saving grace is if there’s a lot of traffic it will drive my product count up, which will in turn drive the percentage I make from Amazon.Com up too. At Amazon.Com you make 4% to start. Then sell a certain number of items, and the percent goes up to 6% and then up to 6.5% and on up to 8.5% I believe. So if you have a site that sells larger, more expensive items that people are on the hunt for, like cameras, Kindles or Baby Car Seats, then you will make a nice chunk. At .02¢ a pop for an Android Case, I won’t be making squat, I mean what’s 6% of .02¢? Get my point? I will probably do a minimal of build up on these sites and then just get rid of them at Flippa.

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Niche Site Espionage, Spying on the Competition and Finding Niches

Larry C. — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 20:19:48 +0000

I love spying. I love when they(the competition) just give it to me, free high ranking keywords, domain ideas, traffic. Why reinvent the wheel when you can just steal it? I mean stealing is ok when they have their stuff on the ‘net, right? Well, maybe not in most cases, but I’m going to tell you one way of spying on your competition and finding:

Effortlessly find Niches to Exploit
High Ranking Keywords
Domain Name Ideas
Researching the other competition in SERPs
Finding Affiliate programs
Ranking in Google Quickly
Article Marketing to boost on page ranking
Making Money

I love this stuff, it makes my heart go pitter patter. The prospect of yet one more niche website that will eventually make me $200-$500 a month with little to no work after it’s established, makes my wallet vibrate. That’s how much I love this stuff. Don’t get me wrong, I like blogging too, but when I can build a micro niche website, populate it and have it start making money the first month it’s live, that’s what I’m talking about. After that first month, that income grows almost exponentially each month.

Ok ready? Got a pen and paper ready?

Step 1, Find Your Quarry

First I go to Flippa.com and look in the just sold section. Flippa is THE place to buy and sell websites that either already make money, have the potential to make money, or to spy. I look for the highest selling sites, and what niche they’re in. I don’t like to get into niches that are going to take a lot of programming to build the site. I pretty much build each of my sites, myself. I’m not a programmer, I’m a hack, I know just enough PHP and HTML to get me through building a site without any help from anyone.

When I find a site that sold for a large sum of money, I look at it. I ask why did it sell for a lot of money? Was it a hot niche? Was it a niche that people will always be looking to? Like pregnancy stuff, ladies will always be getting pregnant so start a niche review site on, breast pumps, right? Get my drift? Or 3d ultrasound images, or what to expect when expecting. Something like that.

So once I find a niche site I like let’s take an example, go Here, and look for or search for bikecarrierdirect.com. This is a site that recently sold, and for a mere $65K. Let’s look at the site itself, it’s a bicycle rack sales website. People are Always looking for bike racks, for the family, for the mountain biker, for the traveler who likes to ride his bike in other places, etc. So this is a niche I would exploit. I’m interested enough in Bike Racks that I could put up reviews and drive traffic to a micro niche review site, and earn affiliate sales.

Micro Niche Website Example

That site, sold for $65K because of the established site, Page Rank, and the income and profit numbers. The person who bought this is probably going to use it to make more money, or even flip it eventually, for a profit. If the site makes 3K in profit each month, in 21 months it will have paid for itself, and started to generate profit income for the new owner.

Step 2, Spy on Their Keywords

Next we copy the URL and go to Google’s External Keyword Tool. Paste the URL into the website address search spot and click search. The returned results will give me:

Number of searches per month
Search Terms( The high ranking ones)
Possible Domain Names
Competition of the paid search results(usually an indication of a hot niche)

The search terms are the hot words(high ranking) used by people who are looking to buy or are only just researching. People who are looking to buy a bike rack, are sometimes looking for reviews before they buy. Remember this. Another type of person searching for bike racks, is someone who is looking for a deal. Remember this. And the next person is someone who is ready to buy. Remember this.

Google External Keyword Tool

Step 3, Find a Good Domain

One thing I do before I commit to buying a domain name, is I look at the SERPs for that keyword phrase. If there’s not many other sites that are ranking high, except e-commerce stores, or Amazon.com or some other big company name, then I will pretty much buy the domain right off that I had researched.

If you look at the SERPs, and you see one or two sites pop up that are either review sites or someone else’s affiliate site or something like that, look at the page rank of that site. If the PR is less than 3 that’s great, you’ll rank high pretty quick. If there’s other sites like shopping sites like Amazon.com or bizrate or some other review site like that, then chances are you will also rank very quickly, because Google will be hungry for a site that it can index, instead of an e-commerce type site. If you Google Bike Rack, the results are large chain type stores, e-commerce sites and one or two “Small guy” websites. This is going to be an easy rank and money maker.

Go to Godaddy.Com, and start searching for domains using only the keywords you found, using Google’s External Keyword Tool. The keywords I used for my search were “bike rack”. That’s a really good search term for someone looking for bike racks. I prefer only singular domain names instead of pluralized domain names, Bike Rack instead of Bike Racks. Bike racks has a high search volume so it’s safe to say, bike rack does too.

I see that bikerack.com is already taken so I am going to try bikerackHQ.com, for “Bike Rack Headquarters”(Thanks Glen Allsopp). Great, bikerackHQ.com is not taken so I am going to register it myself and use it for a micro niche website.

My preference for domain names is to get the .com domain name for a high ranking keyword or phrase that people use for searching. When someone types in “bike rack” into the search engine, the first places to pop up are usually the domain with those exact keywords, IF, there’s a site on that domain. If not then that domain will not show up or if it’s squatted on by a domainer, then it will show up later in the SERPs. I try not to use Hyphens(-), but I will do a .net, if the exact keyphrase is available in .net and not .com. I rarely do a .org, unless I feel it could be a viable possibility that I could rank high and make some serious cash from the site. I never do .info’s.

Step 4, Build Review Site

When I decide to go for a niche that I think will be profitable, I will use WordPress to build a review site. Basically a site that I go out and find the products I want to feature, and either re-write reviews I have found or write my own. Usually the former. It’s easy to copy a review, and then re-word it and then use it as a post. Re-writing a review will not get you pinched for duplicate content on the web.

I will include images of the product, and videos if there are any. This is also a great way of getting people on the site and getting them into the buying mode. I also include Affiliate Links to the product on a site that sells the product listed. Once the customer goes to the site, an “Affiliate Cookie” is set. What this is, is a small piece of information put onto the customers computer, which says “If this person buys a product, this affiliate get’s the commission”. Cookies last anywhere from one day to several months or forever. Amazon.com’s cookies last only one day, but they are a great place to push people as they have a great up sell technique. They just show you more things to buy which catches peoples eye, and they usually buy. The bigger the sale the bigger the commission.

Step 5, Finding Affiliates

I prefer to be ranking in Google before I start putting affiliate links up, but sometimes I don’t wait, sometimes I just go with it and start “stocking the shelves”. Finding affiliates is easy, just google the phrase you are trying to rank for and look at the results and see if any of the competition have affiliate programs. If so, apply and use them if they fit what you want for your commission. If you can’t find anyone who sells the product you are “reviewing”, then there’s always Amazon.com.

Amazon.com doesn’t pay much, only 6% to start but it moves up the move products you sell and it does add up. The higher the sale, the higher the commission. Currently I have a few sites that are making $300-400 a month, on just Amazon.com alone. Who wants to turn down a small chunk of pocket change like that? Not me.

Step 6, Ranking in Google, Quickly

I use certain plugin’s in WordPress, like Sociable, Social bookmarking plugin. How I use this is after I have a few posts with reviews on my new site written, I then go and start bookmarking then. I don’t them all at once, I start out with one post every other day, sometimes everyday if I am impatient, but not all at once. I will bookmark in Stumbleupon, The Digg, The Reddit, then Delicious. I will also go find a couple blogs on the same or similar topic and do a couple comments. The chances that Google will be hitting one or all of these sites, in the same day you book mark them, is good, and Google will index you faster. I’ve had sites indexed and ranking on the front page of Google in one day! I’ve had new posts index in Google in less than two hours on some sites that were already indexed.

At the time of this writing, I had put up a new Micro Niche Website about 3 days ago. 2 Days ago I posted 2 reviews, and socially bookmarked them. Yesterday I Googled my keyword phrase and I was already #4 on the first page of Google. That’s the power of 1) a good domain name, 2) lack of competition in an under served niche, 3) social bookmarking, and 4) this knowledge of how I do this. I’m also ranking above the big name companies who sell the product I am “reviewing”.

Step 7, Article Marketing, and why.

I have a micro niche site that discusses kindle covers, and it ranks very high at this time, usually the #1,2 or 3 position on page one in Google. I had a post a while back about the Google Dance, in which the site would be high in Google for 2+ weeks or more, then it would fall back to page 2-3 or even sometimes page 4, in Google. I called it the Google dance, because Google was dancing me around in the SERPs, and it bothered me, a lot. I would post a review and a day or two later I would be back on top again for a few more weeks, and then it would happen again. Very annoying.

It wasn’t until I started posting articles on a few article directories, creating back links to the site, that my ranking stabilized, and now I stay on top, all the time. I’m on top now, in fact #1 for a certain keyword phrase, and I’m even higher than my competition who used to rank higher than me for the same phrase!

Adding article marketing to your strategy of ranking high will definitely help with keeping you high in the SERPs, as Google see’s this as you must be important, since you have back links pointing to you. You can either write the articles yourself, or hire someone to write them for you, just make sure they pass Copyscapes tests for duplicate content on the web.

Step 8, Making Money from Your Micro Niche Website

Once you have the site indexed and ranking high, all you really need to do is put in some good content. Give people stuff to read and pictures to look at and review the product they are looking to buy. I use a combination of Google Adsense and Amazon.com affiliate sales to bring in the money on my sites. Most of the money however is from Amazon.com, because people are there to buy products. occasionally if there’s a looky loo on the site they might get distracted by a Google Ad and click on it. If there’s heavy competition for that keyword phrase in Google Adwords, I will get some cash that way too.

Usually I have found that once the site is ranking in Google, I can easily start making money in the first month of inception. This money usually starts to grow month after month, once the site is indexed, especially if you are putting up good content and are consistent in your posts. Good content, pretty pictures and good affiliate links make money.

How I started this formula

I stumbled onto this formula when I was in a blog flipping list. I was learning the ins and outs of blog flipping and one person said they had just sold their blog for $1850. I was impressed, it was right before Christmas of 2009 and it was another shiny object for me to get distracted on.

So I watched some more of the websites being flipped and then I saw the same site listed and sold again, for $16,000, just 4 months later! I was floored that this site that sold for almost 2K, sold again for 16K 4 months later. So I went and looked at the sales page and they had listed the keywords they ranked for, and I also did my domain keyword search listed above in Step #2.

The keywords I found were different than what they listed so I went and looked in Godaddy for available domains. I was excited to find the keyword phrase I found was not taken and I immediately registered it. This site now ranks highest in Google for that phrase, and higher(obviously) than the site I mentioned on Flippa. I had beaten the competition in it’s own back yard and this site now makes me about $400 a month with organic, free traffic.

You can see the site I am talking about Here on Flippa. It’s ebookreaderguide.com

Here’s a screen shot:

Flippa Auction Past Results

These niche site are also great to use for flipping when you get bored with them and making you another chuck of money. They sell at a higher rate if they are already established and making monthly income. People are willing to pay many times more than the monthly income for the site, if they think it will make it back and then some.

Overall it’s fairly easy to spy on your competition and find profitable niches to make money from. If you want to try your hand at micro niche websites, then try following my formula, and let me know how it works for you.

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Niche Market Blogging or Streetfighting for Bloggers – Part 1

Larry C. — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 01:03:35 +0000

I’ve come up with a little philosophy about internet marketing, niche marketing, finding a good niche and making money online. I am sure I’m not the only person to take this approach, but it all stems from Bruce Lee’s philosophy of Jeet Kune Do. Take what works, discard what doesn’t.

With this philosophy in mind, take what works, discard what doesn’t, I formulated my own “Style” or philosophy of Blogging and Marketing. Comprised of things that work and get the job done the way that works for me, in the most efficient way possible. I call it Street Fighting for Bloggers. As I am sure you know, Street Fighting is Quick, Down and Dirty. Street Fighting for Bloggers is also Quick, Down and Dirty. It is the most efficient, fastest, easiest way to monetize a blog and start pulling income in within the first month of blogging or putting up a site, that I have found to date.

This philosophy I came up with for my own style of Niche Marketing Kung Fu, came from a need of money. I have my own company in which I do I.T. Consulting, and manage small and medium sized businesses. While I watched as my list of clientele slowly started to drop like flies, or were unable to pay me for services already rendered, I also saw my income take a scary downturn. I started seeing a bleak future for my company and my family if I didn’t start to supplement my income somehow.

I started out over a year ago selling old computers parts on eBay, for extra cash, there’s a surprising number of people who buy old computer parts on eBay and build computers with them. I supplemented my Christmas spending money with that one year. Then the economy started to take that downturn and people weren’t buying things like they used to. Instead of buying things they wanted, they ONLY bought things they Needed.

Need before want, was the message of the day and the stuff I had to sell wasn’t selling anymore. No money for luxuries, only for necessities. I had to figure something out and quick, my annual income was quickly going from 70+K a year down to under 30K, in under one year.

I started looking around and while I had a semi lucrative Dating Service I ran for people with a certain medical issue, and thought I knew about making money online, I started to see things that opened my eyes to things I hadn’t thought about before. I came across sites like Problogger, Entreprenuers-Journey with Yaro Starak and Copyblogger. I started to see that I really didn’t know all there was to know about Niche Marketing or even just making some money online.

I started reading Problogger, Copyblogger, and Yaro Staraks Blog. I also bought Darren Rowse’s 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, joined Yaro Staraks Blog Mastermind and joined Niche Profit Classroom and started my education of Online and Niche Marketing.

Blogging was cool and looked like it could make a nice lucrative, even “full time” income, Eventually, but that wasn’t fast enough. I needed money to support my family and quicker than the minimum year it sometimes took for a blog to start generating income. Niche Profit Classroom, was interesting, I learned about Niche Marketing and small niches, but the way they taught about websites, to me looked spammy, and in the 3-6 months I tried their method, I made exactly $0.00.

I did buy a product I really believe in and that’s Alexis Dawes “Give me Desperate Buyers Only”. With that I was able to make my first Niche Site that actually started making money, 14 days after putting the website up. I’ll talk about that in a few minutes.

All of the things I learned about seemed logical, and feasible to make an income, but it just wasn’t fast enough, I needed to be making money asap. This is when I started to do my own experimenting in blogging and niche market design. I had listened to Podcasts on Yaro Staraks blog, and with the info I gleaned from “Give me Desperate Buyers Only“, I created a site to help people get off a certain painkiller. Being someone with experience in this area, I felt I knew enough of how to successfully get off of this painkiller to write an info product that would sell.

It sold, and sold and still sells today. People are Desperate to get off of painkillers, especially those addicted to them for a long period of time. Why did this sell? Because it’s something that people are Desperate for. Something that they Need, as well as want, but the Need is much stronger. So they buy it, several times a month, and the money goes straight into my Paypal account.

After my initiate success with that first website, I tried doing sites in a manner taught to me by one of the programs I joined, to no avail. After 3-6 months of sites that weren’t making money with that style of site they promoted, I decided to make my own layout based on premium WordPress themes I had.

Street Fighting for Bloggers, is a combination/blend of Amazon Affiliate marketing, Banner Ad Marketing, and Google Adsense, all combined with good content, the basis of all good blogs and websites. With this formula you have almost instant income, which will only grow over time, as you keep adding content to the site it draws more and more traffic. As we all know: Traffic=Money.

My first month of using this formula I pulled in:

Amazon: $51

Adsense: $104

2nd Month:

Amazon: $97

Adsense: $95

3rd Month:

Amazon: $60

Adsense: $60

4th Month:

Amazon: $139

Adsense: $89

The Google Dance

The third month I had a little setback, and I’ll tell you what that setback was in a moment, but just remember this income is from just 3 websites.

On the third month, Google started doing what I call the Google Dance. Once you are indexed by Google, you will enjoy a nice period of being at the top on Page One many times, some people refer to this as the Google Honey Moon Period.

Google will index new sites and give them a good SERP ranking, being high in the first page usually, sometimes even #1. After a few weeks or a month or two, you will disappear, almost completely. Although you will still be indexed, your site won’t pop up for any search whatsoever, at least not in the first 10,20 or hundred SERPs. People get a little nervous when this happens, thinking they may have been penalized for something they didn’t do. Not to worry.

If you have done your homework and picked a good niche, ranked your keywords and use good content, you will return to the high ranks in no time at all. For me it took one site almost a whole month before this happened, on another site it was back up within 2 weeks.

Once you are back on top you will start to see the clicks and book sales start to happen again and start to increase with each month, as long as you have a good niche, and are using good content and picked your keywords wisely.

In part 2 I will be going over how I pick good niches that will bring in income almost immediately.

Part 3 will be about Constructing a Niche Site like I use to bring in monthly Passive/Residual/Affiliate Income.

Part 4 will be about content creation or re-purposing content for adding good content to your niche site.

Part 5 will be about what to do after you get bored with the site,even though it’s making money, or Blog Flipping.

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May Income Report

Larry C. — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 22:10:56 +0000

May’s income report was a slight increase from April, for a total of 1002.88. May was the month to start reorganization of my thoughts, my workflow and my direction in Internet marketing and making money online. I started the focus on writing my own product. I’m doing 2 to start with, a photography book on my style of photography, Hollywood Glamour Photography, and the second on my new way of monetizing websites, the fastest way I have found to do it so far.

While all the marketing and money making programs I have done have been good in their own way, for one reason or another, they do not monetize fast enough to help pay the bills.

Like I said This month saw a slight increase from last month, and I am forecasting a gradual but steady increase from here on out. I have a few new sites I’d like to talk about, one being a Kindle Forum. http://www.thekindleboard.com.

I am hoping to make a community of people chatting away about their Amazon Kindles, Apple iPads, and Barnes & Noble NOOKs. If you are one of my readers and wish to help me out, I could use more people signing up and posting on that board. As we all know, no one posts to an empty board. Eventually it will be monetized so if you all stick around maybe you will watch it grow?

I have also decided I have a Domain Addiction. I buy domains with the intentino of monetizing them, but I have way too much on my plate to really do anything about it. So I have decided to start a 12 step program called domain buyers anonymous. For those of us afflicted with Domain Buying Addiction. I almost bought 2 domains today but decided not too, I have tons of domains I can monetize, but just need to sit down and do it.

Do you, or someone you know, suffer from Domain Buying Addiction? We can help…hahaha…

BTW I own over 350 domains, is that sick or what? I ‘d like to know.

Anyway on to the report for this month:

Amazon – 48.43

Dating Sites – 465.17

Affiliate eBook Sales – 47.50

Text Link Ads – 57.67

Google – 284.11

Advertising – 100.00

Total – $1002.88

last month (April) – 977.53

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March Income Report – A Watched Pot Never Boils

Larry C. — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 05:02:24 +0000

I’ve finally had a better month at making some good online income, and have spent less time on the computer doing it too. I’ve made some huge leaps and bounds and while my income has only gone up about 100$ since my last income report, I’ve also spent less time doing it. WAY LESS.

First off, I’ll be giving another review of Niche Profit Classroom, as I have used it for over six months now, and not earned a single dime from it. At least not the way they teach it. But I will review that in another post. I recommend it for people needing or wanting to learn about selling ebooks or other info products, but the way they teach it and the products they sell with the program are… crap. But again that’s for another post.

So I’ve been very busy and away from the computer and this blog for WAY TOO LONG, and I need to post to this blog more frequently. So my total for this month right off the top of my head is $1,356.91. My last report was 1,294.78. The difference as I said before is I spent way less time on the computer and online doing it this month than ever.

I listen to blog talk radio sometimes and ran across this program: Adsense Masters Course, which I liked what I was hearing. I make some good money from Google AdSense but what this guy was talking is so simple and I am wondering why I didn’t think about doing this months ago, because I KNOW that Google AdSense does work.

Basically you make a site which a keyword phrase and pull traffic to the site and people click on the AdSense. It’s all White hat, no black hat crap. Otherwise I wouldn’t do it and risk losing my AdSense account. I’ve also implemented my own little twist to it too: Amazon Affiliate Sales. I will be putting out my own PDF document Product on how I do this now because I have had a steady growing stream of revenue from both the Adsense and Amazon stuff, that I feel I have finally figured it out and found the magic ingredients.

I’ve also re-discovered the real secret behind marketing and sales online: TRAFFIC. If you have no traffic, you have no one to sell to. I’ve also figured out that for me, I need to blog and work on sites that I have an interest in what I am writing or selling. For instance, my site www.rockabillylifestyle.com, or my photography Website on Hollywood Glamour Photography: Darkmans Darkroom. Oh and you should have seen the jump in traffic when I blogged about Michelle Bombshell McGee, Jesse James Mistress( I almost Photographed her once). That was a hot topic. So was the death of Peter Gowland, The Pinup Legend.

Traffic is a big part of those sites and there is a lot of interest in those topics. So I will be putting together an eBook for my own product here shortly and will be giving it away for a week and then I will be charging for it once I get some feedback.

Ok so here is the lesson with small streams of income and traffic kids, please do try this at home.

I have this money tree, it was given to me by a close friend who couldn’t take care of it any longer and it was not doing to good. I put it in a larger pot, and fresh dirt, with some fertilizer and it took off. I’ve had it about 3-4 years. I recently started trimming it just before spring of the past two years. I do this to keep it groomed and to train it to grow the way I want it to grow. I also have this idea that if I nurture this little tree, it will bring me luck and money.

So each spring I trim it and feed it and watch the new leaves sprout, but you never really see it grow by watching it. Just as you don’t see a pot of water boil if you stand there and watch it, or it takes just too damn long. So this year I took some pictures to illustrate how little streams and online marketing will frustrate the hell out of you if you start there and watch it try to grow. It will just be very frustrating, which I found out.

Each day I would look at it, and see no real change, but between photographs, which were taken only days apart from each other over a period of 2-3 weeks, you can see the difference. Little streams start to gather momentum, and then join with other little streams to start forming a larger stream of income and then the next thing you know you have a nice chunk of change coming in. See the pictures below.

The Money Tree

Little Buds Starting

Little BudsTurn into Leaves

Little Leaves Grow into Bigger Leaves

Over time things mature and really take form

The pictures were taken over a period of a couple of weeks(2), and this is how I have experienced the growth of my online presence and income slowly growing and gathering momentum. If you sit there and try to watch each click, visitor or payment that comes to your site instead of focusing on Good Content, Driving traffic and being patient, you will NEVER see any light at the end of the tunnel.

Still with something for at least 6 months to 1 year before giving up on it.

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Compounding Online Income Streams and December’s Income Report

Larry C. — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 06:07:15 +0000

Compounding Little Income Streams to make Bigger Income Streams.

I’d like to go over Decembers earnings and how Compounding Little Online Income Streams can help to form Bigger Streams of Income. This post is meant to encourage those having a hard time with making money online, by seeing how it’s working for me. Decembers income report is much better than the last one I put up, about $450.00 better than the last one. The last one was around $800.00.

Decembers Report.

So far the figures from December of 2009, which total $1,294.78, are as follows:

Dating Site I Run – $338.89

TLA(Text Link Ads) – $52.19

Direct Advertising on my www.RockabillyLifestyle.com website – $250.00

Photography Sales (I’m a photographer too) – $150.00

Various Affiliate Sales – $173.70

Contextual Ad Placement on 5 sites – $330.00

Again the total of all these is $1,294.78 which is pretty darn cool if you ask me, it’s gone up about $400 since my last earnings report, that I actually took down a while ago.

Compounding effects of little income streams.

In Yaro Starak’s Blog Mastermind Program, which I am enrolled in, he talks about compounding: “The traffic secret that every blogger knows is the power of compounding.” I am now seeing the effects of compounding this month and I’ve only been doing this for about 7 months now. I think Iam doing pretty good considering I have been totally flaking on a couple of my blogs. I have several blogs I run, most of which are hobby related and stuff I am very interested in. I know some people do blogs on topics they could care less about, but I just can’t do that. I have to have a passion in order to write about something, otherwise people will see right through me and know it’s fake.

So above I have 6 different little income streams. Each one alone, is not much money, however the effect and power of all of them together is worth $1,294.78 per month to me. That’s most of my rent payment right there. In today’s economy my day job is going downhill. I am an IT consultant and I manage 6 different companies networks and computer systems. Several of those companies are in debt to me by 3+ months, and I haven’t been paid in those 3 months by them. That’s several thousand dollars that I am out each month and needed to supplement that somehow.

Where and How I started.

I got my start accidentally through Ebay. I sell Hellraiser Puzzle Boxes on Ebay and I was also interested in Costume and Vintage Jewelry. I educated myself on the jewelry and I make and sell the puzzle boxes on Ebay. I realized when things weren’t selling that well on Ebay lately, that somethign was terribly wrong. That’s about when I realized the economy was going downhill fast and I needed to find a way to supplement.

Looking for an alternative.

I started looking around, bought a couple things, several bottles of Snake Oil as I was still learning what’s legitimate out there and whats not, and that’s when I stumbled upon Blog Mastermind, For Desperate Buyers Only, Niche Profit Classroom and Confessions of a Lazy Super Affiliate by Chris Rempel. I also stumbled upon 31 days to Build a Better Blog which is the best 19.95 I’ve spent on a product in a long time. If you want to learn about blogging and making an income, I suggest reading that. If you’ve got $97.00 a month you can spare for 6 months, then I Highly Suggest Signing Up for Yaro’s Blog Mastermind. That is a COMPLETE course in and of itself and I highly recommend it. If you don’t know anything at all about Blogging, what it is and isn’t, then I would suggest checking into Yaros “Become a Blogger Course”. This will teach you what is blogging, how to set it up completely and how to star blogging and make your first money, even if you have NO CLUE about blogging.

Optimizing what I already had going.

I had been running a dating service for people with a certain health issue for 13 years, when I started blog mastermind. I was making some money with it monthly, but not as much as I am starting to make now. In the blog mastermind forums you will meet all kinds of people willing to help you out for free. They are all in there for several reasons, to make money, to learn more about making money online, and helping others make money online too.

I found a few people who helped me to look at my dating site, optimize the keywords to pull in more traffic and helped to optimize the contextual advertising on the site to bring in more money from that as well. This was about 4 months ago and I posted about the site and my findings. It’s been 4 months now and the income from the site keeps going up a little bit each months, as does the income streams from my other little streams.

The Most Supremely Ultimate Important thing.

The most supremely important thing I’ve found about all this making money online stuff is being consistent. Through consistency we built discipline, and through discipline we are able to push through the times when we feel like giving up, and putting the blog down. I hit a little bt of burnout a few Weeks or months ago, as I have been doing this on several blogs for a little while now. Through consistency I have been building traffic which is the other most important thing about making money online. Traffic Traffic Traffic. Without it you have NOTHING. It is where all sales are generated and where all word of mouth comes from and all incoming links come from. If you don’t believe me, try selling something to nobody. Then you will understand the importance of Traffic! That and good content.

Enjoy your week!

Larry

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