Path to Passive Income

Creating a Niche Site for Passive Income

Tags: niche site, passive income, seo
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I have been a long time reader of the Smart Passive Income blog by Pat Flynn. In fact, I am modeling his approach right here with this very site. He has a very popular running post called the Niche Site Duel which I have decided to take up. A niche site is website dedicated to a, usually, specific subject. In Pats case it is a site about security guard training.

I’ll reveal my chosen first niche in a coming post. For the time being I want to make sure it is set up and ready to go. But I will share a little about the selection process I used.

In order to find a niche it is recommended that to find something that you have an interest in and that people are actually searching for. If you are the only one who cares or knows about something, it will be a lot harder to generate traffic to your site. Plus, if you are interested about the subject, it should make it easier to create content for the site.

I started my process by making a list of things I am interested in and then researching those terms with the google keyword tool, you can find that here. Once I had found a few possibilities I wanted to do some further research and did that using Market Samurai. I like to use the google keyword tool first as it is very quick when searching a lot of different terms. Market Samurai allows me to delve a little deeper into the value of the niche and the feasibility of actually ranking the site.

I had initially found what I thought was a gold mine of a keyword; lots of searches with very low competition. Market Samurai however revealed that competing with the top ten sites will be a bit tricky. So, after some further research I settled on a long-tail keyword which also included my initial keyword. I wouldn’t mind showing up on the first page of google for my initial term.

Once I settled on my keyword I checked the availability of that as a domain name with bluehost and then registered it. I got the .com extension too! It really is awesome to stumble across a keyword that has a dot com available. Could it be a sign that nobody wants it? dun dun dun (ominous sound.)

As you can see in this photo, Market Samurai makes it very easy to rate the data by color coding. We want to see lots of green and little red.

Creating a Niche Site that Actually Makes Money

Now that I have the domain and wordpress installed, its time to get to work. Ideally I would love to have an ebook or product of my own to sell on this site to generate income, but since I don’t, a quick way to monetize it will be with google adsense. I will also add affiliate products that are related to this niche and once it is up and running I will probably devote some time to creating my own product.

There is no way to really know how long it will take to start making money or even how much that will be, but in order to make money with niche sites you must have more than one. At least that is the case for the vast majority of people online who share their experiences. But it is passive income, so why would you stop at just one or two?

Since I will be using adsense with this site I can establish a rough low goal of $10 a day if I get a top position in the search results. The average cost per click for advertisers for this term is just over $1.00.

This site will be filled with valuable content, not just search focused fluff. It is reasonable to assume that the more value a site provides, the longer the viewer stays, and therefore the more ads they see and possibly click on.

SEO for a Niche Site

Market Samurai also analyzes my competition and tells me exactly what I need to do to outrank them. The #1 position in google is a page rank 1 with only 26 links pointing to this specific page. The problem is that this site has nearly 30,000 links to the whole domain. It will take some work, a lot of work, but I think I can get there relatively quickly. I won’t start aggressively building links until the site is up for a couple of weeks and has some well optimized and valuable content.

In the past when I have done SEO I have made it a point to spin my articles when submitting them around the web, but I am going to take a different approach with this site initially. I will not spin any content for generating links back to this site. In the past I did it because that is what everyone supposedly in-the-know does but I have always felt like this just creates virtual garbage all over the web. Stay tuned for the strategies and details.

You can find all of the resources I am utilizing at the passive income resource page.

Can I Do This? Staying on the Path

Tags: lifestyle, passive income
2 comments

Many entrepreneurs report going through a roller coaster of emotion when starting out on new ventures. I’m only days in and I’m already taking a dip into the trough of despair. Now that I have decided I am actually going to fully pursue earning an income from home working online I am finding myself stuck in analysis-paralysis and self doubt. Should I do this? CAN I do this? What do I even do? What is going through the minds of my family and friends when I explain how this works? The response I get makes me feel like this is a joke and that this type of dream is a lazy-mans pursuit.

Based on the assumed unspoken rules of our society, I should be busting my ass 60 hours a week to put food on the table and to scrounge enough money up so that “my kids have it better than I did growing up.” Now, there is nothing wrong with hard work and wanting better for your family. In fact, the whole reason I am doing this is because I want better for my family. What I don’t believe in is working more than I live; spending more time paying the bills than I do watching my daughter grow.

A joke, rather a tragedy, to me is watching all these hard workers wish they had the “lucky breaks” of others and dream of this, that, or another which would make their lives better, if only…. I will no longer live my life alongside these masses. I am on a road less traveled. I will succeed at this because I know it is possible. Thousands of others earn a passive income every single day which allows them the freedom to pursue their family and their dreams. I will do the same.

If you search for other blogs like this, which I have, you will find countless others who have started this journey only to disappear. Choosing to pursue an online passive income is no joke. It will take hard work. It will take diligence. It will take resolve and perseverance.

I heard this quote recently and it resounds in my mind constantly: “Success is uncommon, therefore not to be enjoyed by the common man” -Cal Stoll. This reminds me to consider that I shouldn’t compare what I am doing with what is “normal”, and to stop worrying what other people might think. I do not want what is common. I will not accept what is common. I will not live a life that is common.

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Benchmarking Your Way to Success

Tags: lifestyle design, optimal living, passive income
2 comments

Okay okay, what does this path to passive income look like? It’s quite easy to imagine point B when you are living on planet point A, but rarely do we consider what’s necessary to get there. The actual numbers are irrelevant at the moment, but I have heard of and read study after study suggesting a high correlation, more likely a cause, between those individuals who layout detailed plans and goals for themselves to succeed with high levels of success. Compare this to the millions of people who undoubtedly dream of a better life and put their chips on winning the lottery before they take action to self-create their own optimal future.

Anyways, I don’t have to convince you that this is a good idea. I’m pretty sure that even just the suggestion is agreeable. In order to accurately progress towards your goals, we need an action plan, and a detailed idea of our destination. I have set out to make passive income to support my ideal lifestyle. But what does that mean? How will I measure my success? How will I know if I am moving in the right direction?

I was just rifling through some boxes trying to find a book I had a while back with a worksheet on lifestyle design. Tim Ferris talks about this in his book The Four Hour Workweek. He has some worksheets on his site if you are interested. Essentially this is outlining the actual costs of living your dream life including details such as the cost of a house cleaner, personal assistant, mortgage, car payment, etc. It’s actually a very fun exercise and also serves the purpose of detailing point B. For example:

Porsche Cayenne Turbo – $2040/mos.
$2 million dollar home with property – $7639/mos.
Housekeeper & landscaper – $1600/mos.
Gas, meals, & entertainment – $2500/mos.
Investments & retirment – $2000/mos.
Vacations, gifts, and charity – $2000/mos.

Total= $17,779 a month.

This is substantially less than I would ever imagine. Granted, it is a large figure and take home money like this would be outstanding; WILL be outstanding. This was a quick example, but I’m sure you get the point. Your dreams are probably not that far away from reality and definitely not out of your reach. For the time being though, I will focus on creating enough passive income to support my current lifestyle. I have estimated that I need roughly $6,500 a month before taxes in passive income to support my family and provide my daughter and wife with necessities and comforts as well as to be able to spend lots of time with them. $6,500 a month is $216.67 a day (30-day month). If that sounds high to you, don’t forget that we are on the path to passive income, and passive income is made even when you are sleeping. So $216.67 a day, is only $9.03 an hour. Just a little above minimum wage in a lot of areas.

My first big benchmark will be to hit this number in 12 months or less, creating enough passive income to support my continued pursuit of my family’s optimal life. In coming posts I will be outlining my plan to do this and update you with short-term goals/milestones. Please feel free to post your thoughts on this or share any stories in the comments below.

The First Step Towards Passive Income

Tags: lifestyle design, passive income
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Moments ago I came up with my blog title based on the purpose I want to serve; Helping others on the path to passive income while also helping myself. I will create a blog that serves as a resource to others like me. The men and women out there who want more for their life and are unfulfilled and dissatisfied with grinding through life in a miserable job just to have enough for a hopeful retirement and a few rare moments of bliss in their lives.This is not how we are meant to live.

This blog is for me to journal my findings and methods of how I begin making passive income so that I can live my life the way I want to live it: helping others, enjoying my time with my family, and pursuing dreams. What I learn along the way will be posted here along with any relevant and/or interesting details. I will create enough passive income to enable me to achieve, do, and create the things I have always dreamed of. I hope to be a resource for you and to share the journey with new friends along the way!

Let me preface the future by saying that I have spent many nights and days wondering when I’ll finally get my big idea. I have heard the rhetoric over and over about ‘just doing’ and have confronted that with fears of inadequacy, feelings of not knowing enough or being ready, or being overly cynical of others’ methods and ideas. I have started, and quickly bailed on many ideas and businesses because I was too afraid to take a risk and clung too tightly to security. I don’t doubt these feelings will resurface but I have found greater confidence in myself in the realization that the only people who succeed are those who do and failure is guaranteed if you don’t try.

Here I am on the path to passive income. This is for all of us who dream, those of us cut from the uncommon cloth, passionate for more. I’m ready to go, are you?

On the Path to Passive Income