Passive Income

Twelve months ago, I started my quest to learn how to make a few bucks online. Looking back at my first couple attempts it is difficult not to laugh and wonder what I was thinking about when I decided that was a good idea. To be honest with you, up until a few short weeks ago most of my campaigns are quite pathetic (I tend to get bored rather quickly).

During this time spent online I have come to realize a few things about myself and this industry that I wanted to share with you.

Quantity beats quality ever time – While it is true that if you are trying to build a true authority site you should endeavor to create only top notch content, when building mini-sites (aka niche sites), it is better to simply pump out as many as you can, as fast as you can. How else can we accountant for the tremendous success that many of X-Factor’s students are achieving? Those little sites are popping up everywhere!

Having perfect grammar is not required to be successful – Most internet users simply skim whatever they are reading. Most readers look for bullet points that will help them solve their problems, address their issues, or entertain them from the monotony of life. They do not want to read scientific jargon that would confuse even a PhD from MIT.

Diversification is your friend – If you do not own the site where you publish your content, you risk losing it all. Take, for instance, Squidoo. After years of accepting any garbage that a writer wanted to publish, Seth decided that he wanted to clean up his site and not allow certain truly profitable niches (i.e. weight loss products). If you were in one of these now taboo niches, your lenses were frozen.

Another example would be eHow. Don’t get me wrong, I still like that site but I do not spend much time writing for them anymore. I simply do not want to waste my time writing articles for a site that will delete your article, redirect the url to one of their own articles (using the traffic that you naturally built) and then give you no explanation as to why your article was deemed unworthy. At least Today dot com came right out and told you they were scamming you!

Procrastination is a habit – During my first 10 months online, I spent 2 hours reading for every 5 minutes actually working. There are so many different techniques that truly can make you a lot of money, but if you never put those plans into action, you will have nothing to show for it. Following a few techniques outlined in Brian Johnson’s Commission Ritual, my progress has skyrocketed. Brian is the same dude that sold $22,000 worth of Halloween costumes last month. Instead of wondering what to do next, I now have a workable plan that will take me all of 2010 to complete. I have committed to avoid purchasing anything else until I make this technique profitable; which unfortunately means that I will not be promoting CPA offers anymore (which stinks because Copeac is awesome).

Ten minutes a day is not enough – If you want to actually make money online, it is crucial that you put in some serious effort. You cannot succeed if you spend more time checking your stats than you do creating content. The past two nights I have created 2 new niche sites. These babies are sweet, if I may say so myself. Each site takes about 3 to 4 hours to completely set up; from buying the domain names to publishing its first page.

My new plan is to try and create 2 new sites a week, hoping that each site will eventually earn $2 per day. After a year, this could be real life-changing income. If this does not excite you, nothing will.

At the end of one year of sacrifice, my potential earnings could be:

104 niche sites * $2 per site per day * 365 days = $$75,920

So there you have it; five things that I have learned in the past twelve months. In my naivity, I imagined myself a lot further along in my journey towards financial independence. I actually thought this stuff would be easy. I am, after all, a relatively bright and hard working individual. Unfortunately, it takes more than brains to make money. It takes a well thought out action plan, seed money (to buy domain names) and a ton of work, which does not include checking your stats.

What have you learned in the past 12 months? What steps have you taken to secure your financial freedom?

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