The Niche Think Tank » what’s a good niche

The Real Life Struggles Of An Online Entrepreneur

Larry C. — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 18:35:36 +0000

It’s been a while since I’ve posted here, and there are several reasons why, which I will go into. Let me first explain a little about this post and the reason for posting it.

I’ve been blogging on here for a while now relating my successes and struggles. I also read many other blogs on success, making money online, personal improvement and the location independent lifestyle. One thing I have noticed about most, if not all, is the lack of struggles that happen. I don’t read much about the struggles and hardships they go through and many write about how everything seems peachy and rosy.

I’m not here to bitch and complain, but I think people should see or hear what some of us go through, because it isn’t all peaches and cream in the life of a successful blogger/online entrepreneur. There have been things that have happened that make me question why I am doing this, why I continue to try to make it big like others, and do I want to press the Publish button when I am done writing this post.

Everyone talks about being authentic or being transparent but I never hear about the bad shit. Show me you’re a real person and tell me what’s really going on in your life once in a while. I want to know you are for real.

I have this blog and things have been a little rough the past few months, and I need to write about it.

Business Stuff

Back in December things were really looking good, I mean really good! Income was going through the roof thanks to Christmas, the niche sites were really working well and I felt like I had finally made it to the big time.

Then Google hit with the Panda Update.

Some of my main money makers took a hit, a huge hit. My Adsense income went from $20-$30 a day to $2-$8 a day and my Amazon Associate sales feel quite a bit too because of the lowered traffic my sites had. You can read This Thread at the Google Webmasters Forum and see all the others who have been hit. People who have good sites with original content, yet are losing traffic and income because of the Panda Update, all in one fell swoop.

On June 16th Google pushed out Panda 2.2 and many people, including myself, have seen some recovery from the initial Panda update. This is the latest and just one of several updates done to Panda since it’s release back on February 24th.

My Adsense income has gone back up to $20-$30+ a day again and it’s been a much needed change and recovery. But it’s guarded. What I mean is that I can’t and won’t put much trust in Google again. Well let me say this that I never really trusted Google to begin with anyway. Having a monopoly on search engine traffic and customizing peoples search results isn’t being quite honest in my opinion. This is why I diversified my online income, so my eggs weren’t all in one basket, but it was a good part of my arsenal. I am further diversifying my arsenal for the next time something like this happens. And it will happen, trust me.

Family Stuff

One thing that has had me way distracted and very angry was the lead test that came back positive for my daughter Sarah. The landlord had done some renovations which weren’t conducted properly, nor was the clean up done properly, and my daughter was exposed to lead dust.

This house was built in 1927 and it is covered in lead paint. Most of the time, if the paint isn’t disturbed things are ok, but the lead laws in San Diego make it mandatory that a lead certified construction company do the lead abatement whenever there are renovations going on. This was not done.

Consequently my daughter tested positive for lead and when I asked the landlord to pay for testing to find the source, he refused. Further investigation lead me to the Lead Safe Neighborhood Program of San Diego. After telling them my story they opened a case on this house, came and tested the painted surfaces, took dust samples and cited the owner. The owner had 45 days to comply or be hit with heavy fines for violating health and safety codes.

New renovations have been done by a Lead Certified company and removed even more lead paint from this house in the safety of containment containers. However the owner and the rental agency have made us feel as if we were the bad guys for calling the city on them. It still really bothers me they did this, actually it makes me so damn angry, it’s not even funny. We still have yet to get an apology from the owner.

We’ve been looking for a new place to live and we don’t need their attitude. I am also sure after the “No Retaliation” period of 6 months is over, they will give us the boot. Either way, moving sucks but we need a place to live that is attitude and lead paint free.

In doing my homework I found what removes lead from the body: vegetables high in Iron like greens and Apple juice to name a few. Three months after the initial lead test we had her tested again and the lead has been eradicated from her body. Thankfully she didn’t have to go through chelation therapy. We are relieved and happy to have this lead removed from her tiny body, yet we still have to take her to get evaluations for her growth and learning progress to see if there are any long lasting effects from the lead poisoning.

It’s been almost 6 months since her initial lead test came back positive, the lead is gone but we are still dealing with the after effects of this situation. Doctor and therapist appointments, feelings of anger and helplessness, and wondering if her IQ has been affected or not. It’s not something a parent wants to hear has happened to their child knowing it could have been prevented.

Amazon Associates Program Gets the Ax in California

Here’s a screen shot of the letter I received from Amazon:

Amazon Associates Cancellation Letter

I had waited a week before hitting the publish button just to make sure I really wanted to publish this post. I guess there was another reason I waited and now I know why. Another blow has hit online entrepreneurs who reside in California. This blow comes in the form of the cancellation of the Amazon Associates program in California. This is because Amazon and other companies like OverStock.com are taking a stand on what they feel is unconstitutional and counter-productive.

Many, many people in California, and other states(California isn’t the only state who did this) who’ve been axed, depended on the income that Amazon Associated Program gave them. Many people have been ruined and some have probably lost their homes and livelihoods or worse. I counted on the income from Amazon too, but it wasn’t my sole source of income, as I said previously I diversified my income and it was only a part of my income. While it is making things interesting, it is not the devastating blow many people have felt.

Amazon isn’t the only affiliate program that has given Californians the boot. I’ve been kicked out of no less than 5 other affiliate programs due to the new law. Mainly companies who have no physical presence in California. I’ve had to search for comparable affiliate programs, but the biggest blow for me, is that many of my niche sites are dependent on Amazon for the products in the niche. Amazon has a HUGE, no, THE HUGEST inventory of just about anything you can think of. I looked at Barnes & Noble and Borders, and neither of those giants have the selection of the books or products I need to make money with my niche sites.

So what am I doing?

Some of my sites are being sold on Flippa, such as this site: Kindle Covers and Cases which brought in $1,649.10 in December of 2010 and it continues to bring in sales each month. I could get an LLC in another state to continue to work with Amazon, but I don’t really want to go through the hassle of getting an LLC in another state to continue to operate with Amazon Associates. At least not yet. I am hoping the tax law will be over turned and we will get our associates program back. For now I am selling it on Flippa, as well as some of my other sites.

Another thing I am doing…

Another thing I have been doing is focusing on niche sites that I have an active interest in and selling eBooks, such as my Boudoir Photography Poses website. This site, on average right now, has an average of 46 daily visitors, and it sells between $25-$50 worth affiliate sales in eBooks each day on the subject of Boudoir photography Tips.I started this site after the Google panda update hit the first time, in an effort to supplement the lose of the Adsense income I had. This along with the recovery of my Adsense income has helped to offset the lose of the Amazon Affiliates Program.

Dealing with stress and remembering what’s important…

In May of this year we had a family wedding to attend in Ohio. We stayed at my sister-in-laws in Kentucky which is right across the Ohio River from Cincinnati, Ohio. I decided that I wasn’t going to do ANY work at all. I had at first thought I would do some posts and get caught up on this blog, but decided not to. I did however have to review and approve personal profiles for the dating sites I run. This is about 10 minutes per day just before bed and that was all I did.

Taking time for the family…The Attitude of Gratitude

First, I spent lot’s of time with my girls: my wife and my two daughters.

My daughter and I on a quiet Kentucky dirt road

The next thing I did was not worry about business, knowing that whatever is supposed to happen, is going to happen no matter what I do. I just tried to do the next indicated step. Knowing that no matter what happens, everything will be OK. I’m an entrepreneur and entrepreneurs are survivors. I’m a survivor. If one thing fails I go to another thing or way of making money.

The next thing I did was spend some time with my parents who came down just to baby site and see the girls. That was nice. My dad hadn’t met the younger one, Hannah, and my mom hadn’t seen her since she was born. We went to the zoo with my parents and the kids and spent the day feeding the goats in the childrens zoo, riding the miniature train(Sarah loves trains) and just enjoying the free time of not having to work.

Worrying about what’s going to happen, does nothing but make you sick and paralyzed. There’s nothing that worrying has ever solved for me, so I just went with the flow. I just turned 47 last month and I’m not getting any younger so spending time with my daughters is paramount in my daily life. Who knows what the future holds for us, but I remember an old saying, ” Yesterday is gone, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift.”

Another saying is “If you have one foot in the past, and one foot in the future, you’re pissing on the present”.

Things do happen in the lives of successful people and their not always pleasant. Staying grounded and keeping what’s really important close to your heart, will help you get through anything. My grandfather used to say ” If you have a shovel you can always dig ditches”. My head is the shovel, life is the ditch. I dig life, it’s an adventure worth living.

So what Amazon is gone for me now, maybe it will come back, maybe it won’t. I’ll do other things that help to support the family and my lifestyle of working at home, close to the family. So what Google made my traffic almost nil for some sites and my income go down a bit, I’ll just do something else like sell eBooks and do photography. So what all this is happening around me, what really matters is what’s important and close to my heart, my family. That is what’s truly important.

Without the bad we wouldn’t be able to gauge the good or know true happiness.

This post goes out to my mentor and teacher Yaro Starak. My thoughts are with you and your Mum.

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Micro Niche Site Challenge – Part 3

Larry C. — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 01:30:56 +0000

Ranking the Niche Site Website in Google

I was pleasantly surprised to find today, that my site is on page 2 of Google SERPs, at #16, after starting out as not ranking at all, then on page 28 at #286 last friday. This is how I do my indexing strategy for this site.

Step 1

I installed WordPress and all of the plug ins that I was going to use for the site. I also started to modify the site to make it look a little different and to what I wanted. I make a custom header image, which I may still change once I can get my busy Graphic Artist Wife on board(Unless someone want’s to get pimped out with a design and a mention).

Step 2

I wrote 3 posts optimized for the key words I was going for, primary Russian Kettlebell Training. I added the header tags for the 3 main search engine sites and authenticated it with them, and added sitemaps.

Step 3

Bookmarking with Facebook, and Twitter to get some initial traffic, and some people even retweeted and passed the link on. I also did some social bookmarking with Digg, StumbleUpon, and Reddit. Having done that I was confidant that the site would be indexed pretty fast with Google.

Step 4

Added more content including a cool video of a Russian Girl juggling the kettlebells, which got a lot of traffic for the content itself. It was also getting traffic through YouTube for the video. All total was added were 7 articles, and that’s where it stands today so far.

step 5

I received my content from the article writers I use, and I’ve added a couple articles to Ezine Articles, and 1 to GoArticles.com. So far no traffic from them as they were added yesterday. I expect a couple days to be added and indexed. I also was granted Expert Author Status with EzineArticles.com finally, for all the articles I’ve written and published with them. I’m adding a couple articles a day for the next week, to let the articles be approved and added over teh course of a couple weeks. I don’t want to blast the internet with links all of a sudden, I want to do link generation slowly and naturally.

Searching for Validation

So Friday when I was looking for my site in Google SERPs, I noticed a post about Kettlebells on worldsstrongestlibrarian.com, a blog I recognized from a podcast interview by Yaro Starak. The Blog belongs to Josh Hanagarne, or The Worlds Strongest Librarian. I thought I would drop by and read some and decided to post a comment and talk about the site I was building, and just make myself known.

A few days later I was looking for my site again and saw Josh’s site on page two with the link to my site in the description, which means Google indexed that new comment with my link in it, and while it is a no follow link, it may still have some credence. I continued to look for my site and found it on page #28, at #286 position in Google’s SERPs.

Moving up in Google’s SERPs

Yesterday I looked an was happy to see I’ve moved up in position to page #2, at the 16th position. Today I checked again and sure enough I was still there ranking for Russian Kettlebell Training, I also have a counter on the site and saw that I ranked for kettlebell pelvic alignment. For that phrase I was on page 2 of Google, and at position #14. So that’s 2 phrases so far I am ranking for, and will most likely be ranking for more phrases shortly.

Adding more content and Backlinks

I’ve been using Market Samurai to find articles that I can re-write for content on the niche site, and that’s been working quite well. I also use Micro Niche Finder for my keywords, as I am not totally versed yet in the ways of Market Samurai. So I will add more content in the way of posts and videos at a rate of about 1-2 posts every other day. I’ll be building more backlinks with article directory submissions, and I’ll go spy on Pat Flynn’s Micro Niche Site on Security Guard Training, and find out where and how he’s getting backlinks.

I am confident that I will be doing quite well as my site is already on page two of Google, I just need to widen the number of keywords it is ranked for, preferably keywords like Kettlebell Exercises, Kettlebell Routines, Kettlebell Workouts, etc.

Adding Adsense

I’ve already got affiliate links and banners on the site, but I think I will be putting Google AdSense on there as well, but I am going to wait. I am doing a heatmap on one of my other sites to see where people are clicking. I am going to use this data to decide how and where to put AdSense or other affiliate banners.

All in All, I am happy with where things are going with this site so far. I haven’t really done much at all, but I think the way to making a great niche site is to first research your market, and the niche being looked at. While there is a flood of Kettlebell sites out there, I am positive I will still rank well for several keywords and make a decent amount of cash, as well as getting healthy from the workouts I am doing with the kettlebells.

Added Keywords Since the Writing of this:

russian kettlebell exercises

Micor Niche Website Ranking in Google

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Micro Niche Site Challenge – Part 2

Larry C. — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 19:40:47 +0000

Micro Niche Challenge

Ok so I have my domain russiankettlebelltraining.com, and I’ve started to add content, slowly, maybe one to two posts per day or every other day so far. I’ve also ordered my articles for the article marketing a few days ago, from seoarticlewritingpros.com. They charge 10$ per article of you order at least 10.

Content Strategy

I know the articles may be more than I can get from someone in the Philippines, but I’ve had one bad experience with PI, and I don’t have time to research for a new one. So I am basically paying for convenience. Now I am not sure if they outsource to the Philippines, but when I receive the articles they are great! Good grammar, well read and ready to post to article directories.

Double Your Moneys Worth

Once I have posted my articles to Ezinearticles.com, and they get approved, I slightly re-word them and post them to other article directories. This way there’s no duplicate content being posted, and I get double, triple or quadruple use out of the articles. BTW did I mention the articles are original content? They also pass CopyScape. So that’s where I am with my content and articles so far.

Theme and Site

I have adjusted and manipulated the default theme for WordPress for russiankettlebelltraining.com. I made it clean and pretty basic, so it’s easy to read and lot’s of white space. I changed the background color to something I like, and will probably change the font in the sidebar too.

Monetization

For monetization I am an affiliate with Dragon Door Publications, the largest seller of Kettlebells and Kettlebell Books, and Kettlebell Training Videos and DVDs. I will eventually put AdSense on there from Google, but I am waiting a little longer to do so, I think I want to wait till I am fully indexed before putting AdSense on there.

Ranking

I am not ranking yet, I am indexed, but not ranking, that I can find for my keywords, but I did run into a post by Josh Hanagarne at The Worlds Strongest Librarian on Kettlebell Training when searching for my site in Google. Great article and glad I ran into it, I posed a question for him about kettlebells and brands,as I intend on buying one this week so I don’t have to keep running to the gym to workout, I can do it at home. I figure since I am writing more I will have less time to drive to the gym so I should at least workout at home.

Personal Benefits

While the main benefit from a niche site is money, there is another very good reason I decided to do this Niche Topic on Russian Kettlebells. I am about 48 lbs. overweight and decided to make this a double challenge. After seeing Pat Flynn’s P90X Results, I said what the heck, I’ll not only kick his butt with my niche site, but I’ll also get in shape too. The other reason for this is to gain a better perspective on the Niche Topic itself. I CAN’T write about things I am not passionate about, much less interested in, so I figure this will also help me to write articles about Kettlebell training, and I’ll have a place to document my successes and failures. If you see some guy named Demetri posting on there, that’s me, my Kettlebell Alter Ego. I know, I’m a dork.

So the benefits will be many:

Doing a strict Niche website in which I am challenged and competing with others
Doing the niche site *completely* start to finish(Not getting distracted and moving onto another shiny object)
Getting healthy in the progress of it all
eventually, maybe, flipping it on Flippa.com for more cash when I am either done or bored with it. Flippa is a great place to flip a site, especially if it’s ranked and making money. People are happy to pay you for a money making site already built and running.

Be sure to check out the Niche Site Duel Hub for updates. And we have some newcomers to the list of Duelists:

Well that’s it for my update on this Micro Niche Challenge, Here’s a little video with Pavel, the guy responsible for Kettlebell craze in America.

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Adversity, The Catalyst for Change and Success

Larry C. — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 19:48:28 +0000

Sometimes, things just gotta change…

Naomi Dunford wrote a nice post for Problogger’s Birthday, and it gave me the inspiration to write about my own adversity in life.

The Adverse Incident

On April 15th, 1987, I was told I had a life threatening illness and was given about 1 year to live. It was mind numbing. As the doctor handed me a packet of information, I got up and walked out of his office, as his voice slipped into that hollow sort of echo-y distance like in the movies. I walked out to the parking lot where I fell to my knees and started to cry. Life as I knew it, was over.

All sorts of things were going through my head – How long do I have? Is there a cure? Would anyone ever love me again? Would anyone want to make love to me anymore? Would they see past the scary, ugly monster and see the real me, a person, a real person, not just this scary dis-ease? Was I damaged goods? Will I be alone for the rest of my life? On and on ad nauseum.

After a year or so of living in worry about how long I had, I realized that things might be ok. I decided I was still alive and I should go on living. I was put on a medication that made things manageable, and told there was no time limit. So on I go, but still the questions persisted: Will anyone ever want to be with me ever again?

The Push

There was a time, after this diagnoses, I was seeing a woman for a short period of time, and I decided it was time to tell her about my illness. We were sitting in her car after having a date night, kissing and laughing and then I decided it was time. I got sort of quiet and then started to tell her, that there was something I felt she should know.

After I told her she sat there quietly thinking. She didn’t know what to say and said she needed to go home. Right then, she leaned over, opened my door and pushed me out! Can your Believe that?!? She pushed me out of her car and I fell on the ground. As she drove away I just sat there for a few minutes, wondering if this is what I could expect for the rest of my life.

The Catalyst for Change

Fast forward nine years, I’m in a relationship with a young lady I had been seeing for almost two years now. Previous to this, I had no real relationships to speak of, things were great, or so I had thought. Soon after the 2 year mark we broke up. I was heart broken to say the least. Was this to be how life was going to end up, alone, no one in my life to speak of?

The Move to Change

That’s when it hit me, a dating service was needed for people like me. What we needed was a place to meet where people were alike, where we wouldn’t be shunned, ridiculed or rejected for the illness we had. I didn’t know much about running a website, much less a dating service. All I knew is it had to be done.

I searched around on the Internet and found some software for dating sites, and started the dating site that I am still running today. At first I didn’t charge for the site, it was free, people loved it and I received emails of thanks and success stories. Then I noticed there were some other sites starting to pop up for the same health niche, and they were charging for their services. I was pissed. How could they do this to me, to us, to this niche of people?

A Business is Born

Then I was introduced to the Nigerian Scammers. Someone emailed me telling me how they met someone on my site and they sent them money to come see them. As soon as the money arrived, they heard nothing from this person ever again. They said I was responsible for this loss of money and what was I going to do about it. Thus was born the FAQ about Internet dating scams and how to safely date on the Internet. And that’s when I decided to start charging for the dating site.

I implemented the “Paid” dating site. You couldn’t send messages to anyone unless you had a subscription. This was in part to help keep the scammers off the site and to keep legitimate users on. Then it happened, I received my first few payments and I had extra money in my pocket to spend. Maybe I could do this for a living? Maybe I should have been doing this all along?

Since that time, I’ve been running the site for 14 1/2 years now, and was making a few dollars per month with subscriptions, and almost $100 per month in AdSense income. Not a whole lot but it was something. I then started hanging out in a private forum for Yaro Staraks BlogMastermind group, and after talking to a few people about the site, I did some serious optimizations. I also implemented “Recurring” subscription payments, and the site now pulls in a modest $1,o00+ a month in subscriptions, AdSense, and affiliate sales. The income has become a large part of my monthly income and has been much needed since the demise of my I.T. company due to the economy. While I still run the site as a place for people looking for a safe haven to date, with this certain health issue, I look at it as a business now, and have for some time.

What’s a good Niche? Where to find a Good Niche?

Since then I have been hitting up various health care niches for income and affiliate sales. This is a prime example of what Alexis Dawes talks about in “Desperate Buyers Only“, find a niche where people are desperately seeking a solution to something socially embarrassing, health related or a fear. Once you have this you have a niche to explore. When people are embarrassed about Acne or some other related “Socially Visible” affliction, they seek out solutions, this is what we seek for niches, the same goes for health issues, cancer, diabetes or hepatitis. The same is true of fears and phobias.

And that, my friends, is how I got my start in online business.

Adversity, The Catalyst for Change and Success...

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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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What we can learn from Bruce Lee about Blogging

Larry C. — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 17:10:58 +0000

Bruce Lee

Bruce Lee, started a martial arts philosophy called Jeet Kune Do, The Way of the Intercepting Fist. Rather than a system or “Style” of fighting it was more philosophy than physical art. The premise is “keep what works, discaed the useless”. Having drawn from many styles of arts in his life, but the core being from the style called Wing Chun, his own growth in martial arts was very eclectic, taking what worked for him, and leaving what didn’t. In many ways, we as bloggers and niche marketers need to do the same thing for ourselves.

I for one have been through several “Schools of Blogging” and several “Schools of Marketing”, and have found that from each there were things that worked for me, and things that didn’t. The Darren Rowse School of Blogging, 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, was short and sweet, very to the point and inexpensive. Yaro Staraks, BlogMastermind, was 6 months long, and was a bit more from the wallet than Darren Rowses course, but worth every penny, as was Darrens.

From both schools of thought I took away many things that would work for me, and some things that didn’t work for me I just left alone. I then studied several schools of marketing in the Internet marketing world, one was the Micro Niche Adsense Masters Course, by John X-Factor, and the other was from CopyBlogger run by Brian Clark, learning writing techniques and traffic pulling concepts. Again both have their merits, both are good and both have things that didn’t work for me.

I also drew from several other courses, The Lazy Super Affiliate, Niche Profit Classroom and Alexis Dawes Give me Desperate Buyers Only, all of which had excellent points and things I took away with me and the rest I just left. Why carry it around if I’m not going to use it? Right?

With these philosophies I formed my own style of blogging and marketing, some are based on what I have learned from the “Masters“, and some I have developed myself. With these in mind, I would like all other bloggers reading this, especially Early Stage Bloggers, to realize that you don’t have to do everything perfectly by the book, or how the teacher explains, you should develop and find your own way of thinking and growing in the blogosphere.

There is no absolute right or wrong, sure there are right and wrong ways of doing somethings but there are no absolutes. So don’t feel as though you are doing one thing wrong if you do it differently than you were taught, but it works the way you do it.

Just remember, the Masters or A-List Bloggers started exactly in the same spot we all are or have, with only one reader, ourselves.

Available at Amazon: Tao of Jeet Kune Do

Stay Tuned for My Next Article: Streetfighting for Bloggers.

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