As we go through life, we reach what have been referred to by someone much smarter and much more influential than me as inflection points. These are the times when something happens that so fundamentally affects us that every step and every action we take from that point forward is influenced by that event.
An inflection point. Something has changed in your life, whether good or bad, and now you are faced with changing the course of your life. Everyone comes to these points and it’s how we deal with them that truly define who we are and how we live.
I’ve recently come upon an inflection point myself. On October 19th, 2011, my daughter came into this world.
Since then, nothing has been the same. Everything has changed, and it has changed for the better. The only thing that hadn’t changed was my online business.
Let me tell you about my online business…
I first got serious about trying to make money online in 2006. I started podcasting in May of that year and built up a decent following, I was even lucky enough to be listed as one of the top podcasts on iTunes in my niche. Pretty cool stuff. Then I heard about a presentation that someone was doing that would show you how you could monetize your podcast in 30 days.
I was hooked. To know that there was a chance that I could make a living from something that I really loved doing was pretty exciting, so I went all in. Over the next several months, I spent a ridiculous amount of money on training, businesses, ebooks, webinars, conferences, and the list goes on. Over the course of time, I lost the vision of what I wanted to do in the first place and got caught up in the dream of the “internet lifestyle” that so many people are drawn into.
I then got into network marketing, which if you’ve been around this blog for very long, you’ll know that a lot of the content here is geared towards network marketing on the Internet.
Let’s just be honest here. I’m not a network marketer. I’m just not. I don’t have the right personality to be really successful with it. So, I’m calling it quits. Now, let me be the first to say that this decision is totally a “it’s not you, it’s me” type of thing. Network marketing is a fantastic industry and there are a lot of people that make an incredible living from it. If you’re involved, stick with it. You’ve got to figure out for yourself if it’s right for you. For me, it’s just not, at least not right now. Maybe it will be in a few years, who knows.
In all of this turmoil and change over the last 5 1/2 years, there was a shining example of what I could do if I set my mind to it. I set up a little niche website on a subject that I was pretty interested in. I never got a lot of traffic to the site, but it was enough. I set up some Google Adsense ads and some Amazon affiliate links in different blog posts on the site.
For the first few months, nothing really happened. Then, about six months after I set up the site and without even really knowing what I was doing, the checks started to come in. Over the course of the next several months, that one little site brought in an average of about $550 a month and I literally spent maybe 1 hour a week updating it.
Let me emphasize the point that I really didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t know much about keyword research, SEO, getting backlinks or anything else like I do now. And I was still able to generate over $500 a month from that site, just in Google and Amazon ads.
Let’s sit and think for a minute about what would happen if I had set up 10 sites like that. That’s $5,000 a month, or about $60,00 a year. My wife and I make just a little bit more than that together right now.
Think about what it would be like for you if you could basically double your income. I’m not talking about making millions of dollars a year, I’m just talking about making double what you make now. I know that for the vast majority of you that are reading this right now, you wouldn’t know what to do with yourself. You’ve never made that kind of money before and honestly you have a hard time even trying to wrap your head around that number.
And it’s not even a lot of money in our modern standards. But think about how much more comfortable your life would be if you could double your current income. Now, if you’re already making 100k or more, your task is going to be a bit more difficult. But, if you’re somewhere around the median American income ($44,389 in 2004), this is a pretty exciting concept for you.
So, I’m changing my business to what I’ve done in the past and always works and always will work for anyone with the time to learn a few things and to do some work. I’m going to start creating a network of content-rich sites that build a passive income through advertising. I’ll also be using affiliate marketing on these sites to sell products from places like Amazon, but also through affiliate networks like Commission Junction, Linkshare, and the Google Advertising network. I’ll probably be using Clickbank as well to sell some info products related to the niche sites.
As part of my journey, I’ll be documenting my progress here on this site, plus I’ll be sharing with you what I’m doing to generate traffic and SEO strategies that are working. I’ll also be posting a monthly income report. I’m not doing this to pump up my own ego, I’m doing it to encourage you and to keep myself accountable. I figure that if I tell you guys that I’m going to post a monthly report on my income from these sites that I better do a bang-up job of trying to actually make some money.
So, if you want to come along on this journey, let’s get going. You can check back here to read the latest updates and find out what I’m doing, subscribe to my RSS feed to get the latest updates, or even subscribe to my email list and I’ll let you know what I’ve got new stuff to share.
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