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Today I’m going to share with you a simple online publishing business you can get into for yourself to generate passive income online.
Step 1: Decide on a market/niche
As a test, I chose the wedding market (a huge market by the way) and registered somewedding.com (if you want to register domains, I recommend http://www.wholesalerdomains.com)
You can go with any marketing/topic you want.
Step 2: Build the site
I used Wordpress script for pretty much all of my content sites. Just login to your cPanel (If you need an affordable hosting, try GuruCS’s $5/month web hosting) in your hosting account and use Fantastisco to click-install the wordpress script. It is really easy and you can literally have a site up under 15 minutes.
You can go with the default template that comes with the Wordpress install or you can install a different theme (for free) by going to http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/
Step 3: Keyword Research
In the case of my wedding site, I intended to focus on “low-hanging fruits” or longtail keywords that have very little competition (competition = how many other webmasters who also have webpages focusing on the same keywords as you are).
Make yourself a list of keywords and proceed to step 4.
Step 4: Write content to incorporate your longtail keywords
If the keyword allows, use it as your article title. If not, try to incorporate your keywords inside the article itself. Remember, since these are longtail keywords, they don’t need to be “optimized” as much - I find that simply having your keyword mentioned in your article will get it ranked well in the search engines.
Step 5: Place monetization on your site
How are you going to make money from your site? In case of my wedding site, I simpled used Google Adsense program (I’m selling advertising space on my website). You may choose to sell an actual product or service (your own or affiliate). But the point is, you have to sell something.
Step 6: Promotion! Promotion! And more promotion!
This is vital to the success/failure of your site. In order to get visibility and high ranking in the search engines, you have to get noticed. There are several ways to do this and these are my favorite:
Promotion activities can be very time consuming and that is why I highly recommend you use our link building service BackLinkShop.com (Use the coupon code “netpassiveincome” to get a $5/month off discount).
Step 7: Reinvest and Rinse and Repeat!
Once you start making money with one site, start another!
There you have it! I know this is just an overview and I have left out a lot of “how-to” information but given the time/space constraint on my blog this is simply not possible. Would anybody be interested that I put together a PDF or video course that details how to do each of the steps? Make a comment and you shall have it when it is available.
Be sure to subscribe to my blog to get the latest annoucements.
If you haven’t heard, Alexa has made available a list of top 1 million sites for download:
http://s3.amazonaws.com/alexa-static/top-1m.csv.zip
This list is updated daily and is a valuable resource if you know how to take advantage of it. Just visit alexa.com and the download link should be on the left-hand sidebar.
For pay-per-click affiliate marketers, I would imagine you can go through each site on the list, see if they have an affiliate program, and for ones that do, register the www[domain name].com version of the site (of course, watch out for trademark infringement - perform a search first)
Then you could bid on PPC that domain name as the keyword and direct the user back to the “real” site with your affiliate link. This technique is explained better than my own words in the Arbitrage Conspiracy report (download it free here) - if you are not into PPC, get it anyway because it will open your eyes to a $50k to $100k PROFIT per DAY business on the internet… Yes, you read that right, per DAY!
The top 1 million sites list is also an excellent opportunity for domainers to register typo’s (within legal parameters). By the way, if you want to get started in the domaining business, make sure you subscribe to Domaining.com’s free newsletter.
If you have a product or server that you want to sell, use the list to find out if any of these sites have a target market audience that will buy from you and strike up a private advertising deal with them (by going direct you cut out the middleman/broker).
I have 2 questions for you:
1. What other good ideas can you think of using the top 1 million sites list?
2. What is the motivation behind Alex offering this list?
If you want to build a list of marketers (internet marketers in particular) then you want to be 2 steps ahead of them.
What do I mean by that? Put yourself in these marketers’ shoes. Where do internet marketers hang out? What forums do marketers visit? What activities do marketers do regularly? (if you are not selling to marketers, just switch out the word “marketers” to your target audience).
By answer those questions, it will give you an idea of where to place yourself.
Where do internet marketers hang out?
Warriorforum, digitalpoint, sitepoint, and many other private internet marketing communities (usually established by another internet marketers who sold a product or service).
You will then need to go to these forums and start participating - I recommend that even if you are not going to be very active in these forums, just go register for an account - you never know when an aged account will come in handy.
The other thing you can do is giveaway something of value in these forums, and ask for their contact information in exchange. This is both good and bad - sure, you will build your list fast because people love free stuff, but it could also mean they will never spend a dollar on anything you pitch to them because they are freebie seekers.
What activities do marketers do regularly?
What do marketers do? They market! What are some of the marketing activities? Build traffic to their sites/products/services, and what do they do to achieve that? Participating in forums, and leave their links behind, leave their links behind on various web properties such as article directory, link directory, press release, blog carnival, etc. So what you need to do is become the provider for these marketers - run your own article directory website, your own link directory website, your own press release announcement website, your own blog carnival, all offering free submission, but require them to register first.
Will this work outside of “internet marketers”?
You bet it will. Let’s take another market - how about dog owners?
Where do dog owners hang out? Do a search on big-boards.com to find out!
What activities do dog owners do regularly?
Walk their dogs(?), show off their dog pictures on those “rate my dog” sites, and what else?
So, how do you exploit that? Take your dog to the dog park, and strike up a conversation such as, “Hey, have you read about… ” and then get them to give you their email address, you would then go home and forward the article link (your own article site, or affiliate product site) to your new dog owner buddy, and give him/her the permission to forward it on to friends.
How do you exploit the tendency of people wanting to show off their pets? Run your own “rate my dog” site!
If you want customers, be among them, it just makes things so much easier!
A while ago I introduced to you a ‘low hanging fruit‘ system of researching keywords and driving free traffic from the search engines to your website/webpage which will subsequently make you more passive income.
In Step 5, I wrote:
5. Submit that article to article directory sites, like ezinearticles.com, aritclecity.com, etc.
The main purpose of submitting articles to article directories is to gain backlinks to your website or webpage.
If you have tried to reverse engineer and figure out why some websites rank higher than others in the search engine results, you will find that there are 2 dominant factors that the search engines use to rank your website against others: On-Page optimization factor, and Off-Page optimization factor.
On-Page Optimization
On-Page optimization has to do with how the content is relevant to a keyword. For example, let’s say you have built a webpage on “dog training” and there are millions of other webpages that also has mentioning of “dog training” on the page (just go to Google.com and search for “dog training”) - how are the search engines to say that your webpage should be displayed first, above the rest of the other millions of pages?
This is where On-Page optimization kicks in. The more “relevant” your webpage is for a specific keyword, the search engines will give you a higher score on this factor.
Here are some tips on how to improve your On-Page optimization:
1. Put your keyword (in our example, it is “dog training”) in the <TITLE> tag.
2. Give descriptive META DESCRIPTION tag and try to mention your keyword in it. List your keywords along with relevant keywords in your META KEYWORD tag.
3. If possible, try emphasize your keyword in a <H1>, <H2>, or <H3> tag or give it a large font size - a good place for this would be in the content label or section heading.
4. Try to mention your keyword in your page content a few times. Many search engine optimists have different findings as to what percentage of keyword density it should be, but I tend to just make sure that the keyword is mentioned while keeping the content information and engaging to my readers.
Most of the On-Page optimization can be done by the site operator or webmaster - and it’s something that can be easily done.
Off-Page Optimization
This factor is based on everything else that’s not content-related. Namely, how many other websites are linking back to you. Generally speaking, more websites link that back to your website, the search engines will deem your site as more “important” and “authoritative” than others, thus gives you a better search engine placement.
Search engines have also evolved to not only count the number of backlinks (number of other websites linking back to your website) your website has, but have also accounted for the quality of backlinks. Here is what I mean by quality:
1. How long has the site been around - longer the site has been around, more weight it carries when linking back to you.
2. How relevant are the sites linking back to you - if your site is on dog training, then you would want to find other dog training sites to link back to you.
3. What link text other sites are using to link back to you - if your site is on dog training, then it wouldn’t make sense (both to humans and the search engines) to have other sites link back to your site using “bird watching” as the link text.
4. The rate of other sites are linking back to you - you don’t want to have a spurt of links going back to your site in a month, and no links going back the next month. The search engines are very keen (at least Google is) at detecting backlink manipulation, and this is what buying a 10,000 directory submission package will do to your site - red flagging your site and possible send your search engine ranking to the bottom of the ocean.
Off-Page optimization takes time. It is not easy to ask for other websites to link back to you. However, there are certain type of websites out there (often times directory type sites) that will let you submit a piece of content in exchange for a link back to your site (ie. article directories).
It’s truly a win-win situation, because the article directories get fresh content from you, and you get a link back to your website, which helps to improve your search engine placement (and ultimately your traffic).
—
I hope this will shine some light as to what you can do to your website to get a top 10 ranking in the search engines. Start with the On-Page optimization, because that can be done by modifying your content/site layout. Then focus on steady link building. The Off-Page optimization will require constant promotion, thus making it a deciding factor for the search engines to rank you first as opposed to ranking your competitor’s webpage first.
WHAT ARE TELESEMINARS?
Teleseminars are basically seminars that are given over the telephone. Your guests will not need leave their homes; which means they don’t have to make extensive arrangements, or pay expensive travel costs to attend. They simply call a telephone number and enter a special access code to listen in to the seminar, hence, the term “teleseminar.”
WHAT ARE WEBINARS?
Teleseminars shouldn’t be confused with “webinars,” because although they are similar in the fact that they allow for virtual presentations, they do differ in some aspects. Whereas telesminars are done solely over the phone, webinars may use a combination of both the telephone and the Internet, or the Internet alone.
Webinars are interactive in the sense that information doesn’t just go in one direction (from presenter to listener), but rather in a “hands on” format that enables the host and guest speakers to intermingle with their attendees in a virtual setting.
A webinar is more like an actual seminar in the fact that is gives guests that “live” feeling through the use of on screen presentations, audio (computer microphone and/or telephone), and the ability to ask or type their questions. But not only that, it gives guests the ability to network in much the same way they would at an in-person seminar. They can mingle and chat with the other guests virtually, share their website address by typing it right on the computer (as opposed to pen and paper over the phone), while typically, most teleseminar guests won’t stick around for after call networking.
TELESEMINARS vs WEBINARS
As with all things, there are both positive and negative aspects to consider when determining how best to serve your target market. In some cases, teleseminars will be the best option for your presentation, and in others, webinars may provide the better teaching format for your particular seminar; so it’s essential that you know the pros and cons of each method in order to achieve the best overall results.
TELESEMINAR PROS:
• Conducted solely over the phone and you can record the call for use later
• Guests do not need a computer to attend
• No cold calling; people attend listen in because they want to
• There is no need to travel anywhere to listen to speakers because guests can listen from the comfort of their own home, which allows you to reach the people who don’t have the time or money to attend a traditional seminar
• Your out-of-pocket expenses will be low because there is no need to arrange for the rental of a conference room, meals, lodging, etc.
• When your costs are kept down, your guests will benefit by being able to access your teleseminars for a minimal fee, or even for free
• Your planning time is cut down because the only thing you have to focus on, is what you and your guest speakers are going to be talking about and when
TELESEMINAR CONS:
• Depending on where your guests are located, they may be required to pay high long-distance fees to listen to the call
• You won’t be able to visually show your guests anything, such as a slide-show presentation
• Valuable networking time may get cut short, or be non-existent due to long-distance charges, and because some guests won’t be comfortable talking on the phone
• Some guests may not feel comfortable asking questions over the phone, therefore they may leave the call feeling unsatisfied
• Guests will have to take written notes of important points mentioned on the call, as well as having to write out entire website addresses, and this may be distressing for those who aren’t able to write things down fast enough
• Connection issues can be a problem, and with no other way to let your guests know what is going on, they could be left hanging
• Since the majority of your guests are going to be listening to the call from their homes (which means there are bound to be interruptions) it may be difficult for them to stay on the phone for the entire call
WEBINAR PROS:
• Guests can choose to listen in over the phone or by using their computer speakers
• Text based conferencing for those who aren’t able to listen in
• Low costs for your guests to attend because they do not have to leave their home to do so, and allowing you to reach those within your target market who wouldn’t be able to attend a live seminar
• In-expensive for you to host, usually only the cost of renting an online conference room
• Guests can ask questions using their computer microphones, the telephone, or through text chat; whatever they are most comfortable with
• You can give presentations via slide shows or video, and even bring up websites right in the conference room
• Make notes on a white board that guests can see in real-time
• Poll guests on important issues
• The ability to record the call to an mp3 file for later use
• The capacity to use web cams so that guests can see you presenting, and if you want, you can see your guests
• There are no long-distance charges because attendees can use their Internet connection
• Guests are more likely to ask questions, and interact with other each other because of the text chat option
• After seminar networking will be more highly attended because people can stay in their comfort zone, and exchange information and website addresses easily
• You can simply type in key website addresses into the text chat area, or bring it right up in the room for guests to browse in real-time
• Note taking may not be necessary if you provide downloadable hand-outs and worksheets for guests
WEBINAR CONS:
• Connection issues may prevent people from gaining access to the online conference room, or boot them out of it for unknown reasons
• There are those in your market who are not computer savvy and would have a hard time figuring out how to attend a webinar
• Some guests may be intimidated by an online conference room, and perhaps have a hard time following along
THE BUSINESS BENEFITS OF TELESEMINARS AND WEBINARS
Both teleseminars and webinars have proven to be effective marketing tools for business owners. They’re not only a great way to teach your target market, but they give you the opportunity to introduce your business and products or services.
Here Are 5 Ways You Can Benefit From Using Teleseminars & Webinars:
1. If you hold regular events for your customers, you can really add value to your business. These could be used as benefit of being one of your customers, and will give you the opportunity to sell more to those who are willing to buy from you.
2. Using this form of marketing is an easy way to build credibility within your niche. People are drawn to those they can learn from, and if you’re the one answering their questions or providing solutions to their problems, than they’re going to be more likely to buy from you.
3. It’s essential that you have a great relationship with your customers if you want them to buy from you, and by implementing teleseminars and webinars into your marketing campaign, your customers can truly get to know you. When they feel like they know you, they will be loyal to your business by returning again and again.
4. By having guests register for your event, you can build a list of people who are interested in what you have to offer. So even if they don’t buy from you during the actual seminar, you can send out promotional emails in the future reminding them of your business.
5. This is probably one of the best benefits to you as a business owner, and that’s using your presentation to create fresh products. By using the recording from your event, and the audio transcription, you can create an information product to sell to others. Even those who attended the seminar may want a copy for future reference.
TELESEMINAR & WEBINAR IDEAS
There are many different reasons why business owners hold these types of events, but if you’re not sure what you can do
• If you’re repeatedly asked the same questions about your products or services, hold a question & answer event where you answer 10 of the most pressing questions that your customers have. When you have people register for your event, be sure to leave a space for them to ask a question.
• Interview an expert in your field to teach your market, and follow it up with a question and answer session.
• If you have an ebook, hold a teaching session that covers the key points from your ebook and then tell your guests how to buy a copy at the end of the call.
• These types of events can also be used for training. You can increase the value of your current products and services by including access to a training session with you. Or, if you have an affiliate program use it to train your affiliates and to find out how you can help them sell more of your products.
• Create a paid tele-class that will teach something to attendees over the course of a few days or even a month. Then compile all of the materials into an information product (home study courses) that you can sell again and again without the work on your part.
• Teach people how they can use your products to their benefit, and then at the end of the call tell them how and where they can buy your products.
The ideas for hosting teleseminars and webinars are endless. Take note of how other business owners are using them, and come up with your own ways to serve your market.
TIPS
1. Have An outline: To ensure that your presentation goes off without a hitch, and to progress smoothly, make sure that you prepare an outline for your teleseminar. It will help keep you on track for the time frame you’ve allotted, and maintain a sense of professionalism. You may even want to provide a copy of the basic outline to your participants so they can follow along and take notes accordingly.
2. Keep A Drink Nearby: This is especially necessary if you are the only presenter, all that talking can make your mouth dry and you want to make sure you sound clear.
3. Backup Plan: If you have a guest to interview during your event, make sure that you have a backup plan or secondary guest on hand in case something happens and they don’t make it to the call.
4. Call Length: The average length for a teleseminar or webinar is about an hour; however, more detailed topics may need up to 2 hours. Just keep in mind that your guests are in their homes, so it may be difficult for them to attend for more than an hour.
5. Give Directions: Some of your callers will be experts and know what to do, and others will be on their first teleseminar call, so make sure that you give clear instructions. Let them know how to mute and unmute themselves in case of background noise, and tell them when you’ll be opening the line for questions.
6. Make A Recording: Always make a recording of your event. You can provide it to those who were unable to make the call, or use it in a future information product. Check to make sure that the teleseminar or webinar service you choose allows you to record, and then you can make an mp3 version.
7. Question & Answer Time: Try to make time for a Q&A session sometime during your event to encourage participation from your listeners, and to add value to the call.
8. Call To Action: End your teleseminar or webinar with a call to action for your guests. Give them an assignment, ask them to send in feedback, direct them to your message board, give them the link to your special offer, etc.
9. Transcribe That Audio: Don’t forget to send the mp3 of your call to a transcriptionist. You’ll want to have a text version to go along with your audio for your members
TOOLS
You Will Need:
- Bridge line
- An autoresponder
- A recording
- A transcript
- A squeeze page
- An outline
- For a webinar you may want a slide show or video presentation
Teleseminar & Webinar Services:
Let’s recap what my blog posts have talked about in the past in regards to making passive income on the internet.
Mindset
First of all, the mindset. The mindset must be right. Making passive income isn’t about getting rick quickly (for that, you are looking at high risk investments and activities such as gambling and any type of short-term trading).
Getting something for nothing simple doesn’t work, and if you are really determined to make passive income online, then be prepared to work hard - at least initially. The thing that sets earned income and passive income apart is that with passive income, you are able to gain future income without having to work for it, but this is not to say that you will never have to work for it. Passive income is the result of once earned income - engrave this in your brain.
Learn as much as you can about internet business, and investments. If you have read Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad Poor Dad or The Cash Quadrant, then you are familiar with the four quadrants. You want to have the mentality of an investor and business owner. Those two type of people have one thing in common - they look for high-leveraged opportunities.
Empower yourself with knowledge, just enough to get you going, and not too much for you to over analyze and paralyze. Some people think going into a particular type of business or investment is risky. Well, that’s because most likely those people don’t have any knowledge in the type of business or investment they are getting into. Risk is in the eyes of the beholder.
Get Comfortable With Selling
Ok, now that we have established the right mindset to start building your passive income online for life, let’s start selling. “What? Selling? But I don’t like selling!”, that little voice in your head is probably screaming right now. Relax, and admit it, professional sells is one of the top, best paying profession in the world, and there is a good reason for that. Believe it or not, even if you work for someone else (aka you have a J.O.B), you are still selling - you are selling your skill to your employer. Most people associate selling to car salesman, but the truth is there are many type of sales you can get into.
Be Careful What You Sell!
Some things you sell will only pay you once. In other words, you get paid only so much as what you sell - such as going to work for 8 hours and get paid for those 8 hours, or get paid commission once for selling a car, a piece of real estate, etc.
There are affiliate programs that can help you build passive income online - ones that pay you recurring commissions. Many web hosting referral programs were like that, but nowadays many have opted to pay just once due to stiff competition in the hosting industry. Look for affiliate programs where the nature of their business is of a membership or a recurring service, where customers pay a monthly subscription. Most likely the merchants will also pay out recurring commissions.
Internet marketing memberships tend to have recurring commission, have a look at these recurring commission products:
Some programs has a 2-tier structure or multiple tier structure where you can actually refer an affiliate, and earn a percentage from the affiliates’ commissions whom you have referred.
Many CPA networks have a 2-tier affiliate program.
Climb To The Top Of The Food Chain
While selling an existing product or service of another merchant seems like easy money (afterall, you don’t have to create the product or service yourself), keep in mind how much more money you could have made if you had owned the product or service yourself (it’s like keeping 100% commission :)). Also, keep in mind, when you are the owner of a product or service, you can recruit affiliates and have them sell for you. See Big Money Writing Little Books.
Make and Keep As Much $$$ As You Can Today
The other approach to making passive income online is to start making and keep as much money as you can today, doing whatever that it is you do (employee or self-employee) and then transition yourself to become an investor. When you make investing as your business, you are now leveraging your money - you are putting your money to work for you.
There are many online investment opportunities that you can get into, once you have some money in your pocket. For example, you can buy domains that have existing traffic, and make passive income from them. You can also purchase established websites that require little attention and just have them run on autopilot. If you are not familiar with buying a web property (be it a domain or a website), then start out small. There are many revenue generating web properties that are just waiting for buyers to snatch them up, and for a very good multiple, too. A typical web property investment will have a break even price of 2 - 3 years, which is much faster than a brick-and-mortar business, and much higher ROI than a real estate rental property.
More to come later…
I thought I would go ahead and post the reply to a comment I received in my previous post about “The Low Hanging Fruit” which may help some of you get over the keyword research hurdle.
Sorry I should have clarified. The keyword research bit is to find keywords that you can easily rank high for in Google, not for PPC purpose (although you can, and it won’t hurt).
Here is what I do for keyword research. I look around the house, or think of a topic in my mind, then I type that word in Wordtracker tool.
Then I go down the list of keywords that it came up with and click on the rightmost icon which will pop up a competition/Google trend estimate for that keyword. You can use the < 30,000 competition and > 100 searches/day guideline it gives you as a starting point.
So, if you want to follow along, I’m looking around right now and I see computer speakers in front of me. I type “computer speakers” in the keyword research tool, and it came back with this list (partial):
1,328 searches (top 100 only)
Searches Keyword G
1,328 total searches
418 computer speakers
73 wireless computer speakers
70 best computer speakers
43 bose computer speakers
31 speaker computer
20 computer speaker reviews
18 computer speaker
17 klipsch computer speakers
15 logitech computer speakersStart going down the list and click on the icon in the “G” colulmn. You will see that “computer speakers” gets searched over 3,000 times a day, but it also has over 3,000,000 webpages that are targeting that keyword! So it’s very competitive.
Let’s try another one. How about “wireless computer speakers” Nice! This is a good “low hanging fruit” keyword with over 130 searches per day, and 17,000 webpage results.
The next keyword is also good, “best computer speakers”
I would actually like someone to actually go out and register a domain for those keywords, and either monetize it with Google Adsense, Amazon, or eBay auctions, and see how it goes.
More to come later…
I got this email from Stephen Pierce today about his new product launch “Instant Traffic Expert” system where he gives you the blueprint to 21 traffic generation techniques that are “outsource-ready.”
It is not so much about the 21 ways to generate traffic, but the fact that he has them down into a blueprint so that I can easily hire a few virtual assistants and get them to perform these traffic strategies for me.
Back in 1996 when I first started my own web design service, I quickly learned that having a website is simply not enough. After all, what good is it that no one knows about your pretty-looking website, right?
If you are serious about generating traffic to your website, then I highly recommend his “Instant Traffic Expert” system (currently selling at $197 and will go up to $497 on Tues. March 31st, 2008). Top that with a 90-day “free-look” refund guarantee, you simply can’t go wrong.
I am a client of Stephen Pierce and has been for a long time (in fact, I purchased his “The Whole Truth And Nothing But The Truth About Internet Marketing” back in 2003) and I know Stephen’s products are always top-notch.
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