Residual Income Blog

Niche Site News

2012-01-17T21:46:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine just started a cool site called Niche Site News. Basically, she posts a short blurb every time one of the major gurus in the niche site markets post to their blogs. The site really makes it easy for you to stay on top of things if you want to know who's posting what recently and what's working or not working right now for earning residual income online.

Please check it out and let me know how you like it.

Best,
CM

Residual Income Niche Sites

2012-01-11T09:51:00.000-08:00

I've been very busy creating residual income niche sites over the past several months. My earnings right now average between $100 and $150 a month using Google Adsense and Amazon Associates. I spend about $60 a month for backlinking tools. I'm also spending money on buying new domain names, which cost about $10 each.

Earning money from niche sites is a bit more complicated than earning money by writing content for eHow, Demand Studios and Suite101. There's a lot more research involved and there's a lot more work involved in setting up WordPress sites. Now, it takes me two days from start to finish to get a site up and running with four to five articles and some backlinks. It's usually difficult and time consuming for me when I start something new, but if I stick it out, I get faster, and I know it will pay off.

I have a few niche sites up and I'm working on setting up a few more. My main goal right now is to buy and set up as many niche sites as possible and add content to them. Then I'll do a lot more backlinking.

Here are a few important things I learned from Pat's Niche Site Coaching class:

Be sure to check the competition. Basically I use Market Samurai (affiliate link) to get the average page rank of the top ten sites. Then I look at the BLP. BLP is the backlinks for the top ten sites on page one of Google. MS uses color codes to measure the competition. If I can find a keyword phrase that has an average page rank of less than 2.5 (top ten sites page rank divided by ten) and find BLPs with no reds and mostly greens, I've found a good keyword phrase that I can probably easily rank for on Google. These are hard to find, but it is possible. Here's an example from MS for the latest site I'm building about a jewelry product.

As you can see, the average page rank is 1.1, and there are very few backlinks under BLP. The red blocks under Title, URL, Desc and Head mean that these sites have permalinks that match the targeted keyword phrase. In other words, the keyword phrase is in the URL.

On MS the color codes can be interpreted like a street stop light: green means go, yellow means caution and red means stop. If there are at least two to three straight rows of green (there are three rows in the above example) that's a good sign this keyword phrase can make it to the top ten results on Google and make money for you. CA is just the cache age. I really don't look at that row. You can find this information without MS. It's just easier and faster to use MS than Google Adword Keyword Tool and checking the PR through an online PR Check site.

Be sure the keyword phrase gets enough traffic. I use phrase match on MS. I don't use any keyword phrases that get fewer than 100 phrase match hits each day. For the keyword phrase for the above example there are 204 daily phrase match hits. Besides MS, you can find this information on Google Adwords Keyword Tool too. Many people use exact match, but the hits I get from my sites are more consistant with phrase match. There are three types of matches: broad match, phrase match and exact match. Broad means the searched words in any order, phrase means the exact order along with additional words and exact means only the same exact keyword phrase.
Be sure the CPC (cost per click) is at least 80 cents. It doesn't make sense to build a site for a keyword phrase that's not earning any money or that advertisers won't pay for. I also check for ads on Google for the keyword phrase. In other words, I google the keyword phrase and look at how many ads Google has up on the top, side and bottom of the page. I also check Google Trends to make sure it's not a seasonal trend or a trend that's heading downward. Here are some good examples:

The first example is of a Google search I did for weight loss surgery. As you can see, there are a lot of ads at the top of search results. In the second image, the trends for weight loss is going up and that's a good sign for this keyword phrase. I can also see more people are searching for weight loss at the beginning of the year. Keep in mind the keyword phrases I used are pretty competitive. They're just for example purposes only. It's very hard to rank for any kind of weight loss niche right now. I'm not saying it's not possible. It's just going to be very time consuming. My first niche site was about weight loss, and I have not been able to get to the first page of Google. I hoover between the 12th 14th position on the second page. I still get quite a few hits, but the money making niche sites are in the top three positions for the main keyword phrase or phrases you're targeting. If you're just starting with niche sites, find a keyword phrase that's not too competitive and one where the top ten sites have very few backlinks (BLPs).

Make sure to do backlinking. Right now I'm using Build My Rank (affiliate link) for backlinking. Many of the successful bloggers are using BMR. Each post needs to be 150 words of unique content--that means so spun content. For every 150 words, I'm allowed one backlink back to my main site. I also use Web 2.0 sites to build backlinks like Blogger and WordPress.com. What's nice about BMR is there is information about the page rank of the sites for the backlinks I'm building.
Be sure to set up WordPress site with plugins that optimize the site. I believe the most important are the All in One SEO, Google XML Sitemaps, Easy Privacy Policy and Google Analyticator. I also like WordPress.com stats for real time updates.
Buy a good domain name. If you can find a good keyword phrase and buy an exact match domain in .com, .net or .org, you can move pretty quickly up to the top ten Google results. If there are no exact match domain manes, you can add some kind of suffix like ekeywordphrase.com. It just takes a little more work (backlinking) to rank well.
Here's the best advice ever for earning residual income: Join or create a niche site mastermind group. When I started as a student at UCLA, my GPA for the first quarter was 2.8. I was devastated. I went crying to one of the counselors, and he told me the best way to improve my GPA was to join study groups. He also gave me tips for getting organized. The following semester, my GPA was 4.0. How did I do it? I joined study groups in all my classes. Right now I belong to a niche site mastermind group. We meet online every week and discuss what we accomplished, our goals and information about what we've learned that week. Joining this group has helped keep me motivated and accountable. If you're really serious about making money online, join with a group of others who are on the same path as you. You will practically be guaranteed success.

If you're looking for more information about earning residual income, check out Smart Passive Income. There is more comprehensive information. Pat posts to his blog often and he makes much more passive income than I do.

Earning residual income online is not easy. It can really be frustrating at the beginning when there's not a lot of money coming in. However, people who work hard and who are willing to learn from their mistakes can eventually make a decent and even a full-time living. That's my goal.

What are some of your goals and tips for earning money online with niche sites?

Best,

Residual Income Classes with Pat and Tyrone from Niche Site Coaching

2011-04-30T21:55:00.000-07:00

I started a ten week niche site coaching program with Pat Flynn from Smart Passive Income and Tyrone Shum from TyroneShum.com. The first week's class was very informative about getting ideas for niche sites. In the next several weeks, I'll be setting up a new niche site and following the instructions from Pat and Tyrone. I'm sure I'm going to learn a lot about creating a successful niche. I'll also be working with 29 other students, and I'm sure we'll also be learning a lot from each other.

I'll keep updating this blog and keep letting everyone know how much progress I'm making. If you're interested in niche sites for passive income, check out Pat's Niche Site Duel Challenge. There is a lot of very useful information about how to create a professional high-ranking blog.

I started a weight loss niche site a few months ago. Then I stumbled across Pat's Niche Duel Challenge. I could see I was making a lot of mistakes setting up my site, and I needed some extra help, which is why I applied for Pat and Tyrone's class. It's going to be very interesting and I'm sure I'll be learning a lot over the next few months.

I've stopped writing for Suite for a while since the Panda update in February, which made Suite's traffic take a major dump. As traffic dropped, so did my earnings. I haven't written any articles anywhere else except for my weight loss site. The Panda effect has made me feel really hesitant about putting anymore effort into content sites right now. I do miss the simplicity of writing for content sites, but I feel it's time to move on and focus on my own sites.

My current weight loss site is about healthful tips for weight loss supported by credible research. I have a few adsense ads on the site right now. I've created a few backlinks, but traffic is still fairly slow. I've been feeling fairly hesitant about creating too many backlinks because I don't want Google to dump my site, but I know I need to move forward and be more aggressive with backlinks.

How has the Panda update affected your residual income? Many people on the Suite forums have stated their blogs have seen an increase in traffic since Panda. Have you experienced more traffic on your blogs since the Panda update?

Best,
CM

Residual Income and Niche Sites

2011-04-09T14:52:00.000-07:00

I've been working on new niche site; however, after reading and watching videos from Pat's SmartPassiveIncome blog, I can see why I'm not making a lot of progress. Granted I just started this new site less than a month ago, but I was hoping to see at least one view for the site in my Google Analytics account.

After reading Pat's Niche Site Duel Hub Challenge, I can see why my new niche site is not showing any progress. First of all, I set up my new niche WordPress site without using some very important plugins. Pat suggests the following plugins:

All in One SEO Pac
Google XML Sitemaps
Easy Privacy Policy
Google Analyticator

Another mistake I made was not doing thorough keyword research before buying my domain name. The domain name I chose for my weight loss niche site is not good for search ranking optimization. Even though I'm making changes to my weight loss niche site and still putting up content, I'm now taking Pat's advice and I purchased Market Samurai. For my next niche site, I'm using Market Samurai to make sure I choose a domain name that gets a good amount of traffic and has a reasonable level of competition.

It took me about a week to get the hang of Market Samurai. I watched the tutorial videos on Noble Samurai's site and Pat's video from his Niche Duel Challenge. Of course I wanted to pull my hair out at first, but now I finally feel comfortable using the software to find my next niche domain name. If you're interested in Market Samurai (affiliate link), you can use the product for free for a week before deciding to purchase it. Also, if you sign up for the free trial, they'll offer you a nice discount.

This week I'm going to be using Pat's advice about creating backlinks for my weight loss niche site, and I'm going to be using Market Samurai to find another niche domain name.

I'm very motivated right now to increase my residual earnings through niche sites. I work part time for a California community college, and there are going to be heavy budget cutbacks starting next semester. I have a feeling that the few hours I have right now are going to dwindle or totally disappear. The good news is that I have a lot of passion for earning passive income on the Web, so if I'm out of a job, at least I'll have a lot of time to devote to niche sites.

Best,
CM

Residual Income for February 2011

2011-03-06T00:03:00.000-08:00

Residual Income Earnings for February 2011
eHow $1,150.41
Demand Studios $32.74
Suite101 $55.25
Total Residual Income Earnings for February 2011: $1,238.40

Well eHow earnings are up. They're a little lower than last month's, but that's only because February is such a short month.

Suite101 Residual Income

I wrote several articles for Suite101 last month; however, my earnings at Suite are not that much higher than last month's residual earnings. Also, as most people know, there was a Google change that negatively affected about 30 percent of Suite's views. Only time will tell if it's going to be worthwhile writing for Suite101 in the future.

Demand Studios

I haven't written anything for Demand Studios in a while. I've looked at their titles, and there really isn't anything I can write about. There are a lot of titles for mechanical things, so if you're someone who's good at writing mechanical things like cars, now is probably a good time to head over to DS.

DS was also not affected by Google's change. Seems they were smart enough to see it coming and acted accordingly.

BrightHub

I've been checking out BrightHub. Evidently, they weren't affected by the Google meltdown. BrightHub pays a small upfront fee for many of their articles along with a small amount of residual earnings. I haven't applied there yet. I'm really more interested in residual income only.

As far as Google goes, it seems as if quality is more important quantity. But Google's been stating this for awhile. They posted on their blog a few months ago that they were going to rank content farms lower in search results. And now that it's happening to a lot of sites, people seem to be scrambling and maybe freaking out a little. I think it's important for online writers to be careful about whom they write for. Here's a list of the sites that were affected the most by Google.

I've also written a more detailed account of my recent residual income earnings experiences last month on my WordPress blog.

Best,
CM

Residual Income for January 2011

2011-02-07T13:06:00.000-08:00

Residual Income Earnings for January 2011

eHow $1.202.06
Demand Studios $42.76
Suite101 $52.84
Webika $23.03

Total Residual Income Earnings for January 2011: $1,320.69

I believe that January 2011 has been an all time high for residual earnings. I more than doubled my income at Suite101 from last month by writing about 40 more articles over the last six weeks. I've been writing articles that have low competition according to Google Adwords Keyword tool. Unfortunately, I have to return to my part-time tutoring job in a few weeks, so I won't have as much time to write.

eHow earnings did very well last month, and I hope they'll continue to pay off. Every time eHow does something--like close the writer's forums this month--I get a little nervous. Nothing is for certain anymore, especially in this economy. But I feel better about writing for residual income than getting a "real" job since writing for online income pays more, at least for me.

Suite101 does not pay as well as Demand Studios, but I'm hoping to improve my residual earnings per article over time. I think I'm getting a little better at SEO and I'm getting more views by watching the competition for keywords. Right now I'm estimating that I earn about 85 cents per each Suite101 article every month, but it's up from 50 cents a few months ago.

I hope everyone is still earning a lot of residual income from eHow.

Best,
CM
My Word Press Residual Income Journey Blog

Residual Income for December

2011-01-19T22:37:00.000-08:00

eHow       $921.21
D.S    $28.82
Webika    $40.94
Suite    $22.76

Total Residual Income for December $1,013.73

December was not a bad month for residual income considering I really didn't do any writing. But I'm off during the short winter session from work, so I've been adding to my Suite101 article collection. January is half over, and I've almost doubled the number of articles I have at Suite. My income for Suite right now is almost $22, and there are still two more weeks left this month. It still doesn't seem like Suite pays that well, but I know that the more I write there, the better I'll get at trying to increase my earnings per article.

eHow earnings are still doing surprisingly well. I still miss the old eHow days when I could add articles, and there was a lot of activity on the forums. I still plan on writing more residual earning articles at Demand Studios, but I probably won't put any effort into DS until I've written at least 300 Suite articles.

How are your residual earnings? Have you found any residual earning Web sites that pay as well as eHow?

Best,
CM

Residual Income for October and November

2010-12-12T05:27:00.000-08:00

Residual Income Earnings for November 2010

eHow $1,052.26
Demand Studios $27.86
Suite101 $26.44
Webika $26.58
Amazon Affiliate $12.99

Total Residual Income for November 2010 $1,146.13

Residual Income Earnings for October 2010

eHow $897.10
Demand Studios $32.17
Suite101 $22.90
Webika $44,28

Total Residual Income for October 2010 $995.45

I apologize for not posting my residual earnings last month. I have been working a lot of hours at school, and I’m also grading a lot of papers this semester. The good news is I am still earning residual income every month–an average of about $1,000 each month–even though I have been basically doing nothing.

Now when I look back at losing my full-time job in 2007, I can see that it was probably one of the best things that ever happened to me. I would have never thought about earning money online if I did not have to leave my previous job. Also, earning residual income is relatively stress free and drama free unlike my last full-time job.

I hope you're enjoying the holidays and your residual income is increasing each month.

Best,
CM