Do You Have a Portfolio?
By Vic on Jan 19, 2008 in Monetization
Now folks I want you to understand how I make money and hope that this is the way you work your online business. I have multiple streams of income. Now Robert Kiyosaki in his book Rich Dad, Poor Dad and Robert G. Allen in his book Multiple Streams of Income: How to Generate a Lifetime of Unlimited Wealth talk about the same principles that I apply to my online business.
Long Term Money: Local niches and personal blogs are in the long term niche category. These niches are high maintenance long term look of making money. With some of these niches like the local niche you have the opportunity to have a hybrid. You will have a virtual business that also brings you the opportunity of selling advertising to your local community and also take advantage and get perks from it, like getting free meals and VIP treatment to where ever you go because they will learn that in your hands you have the opportunity to either bring them more business or hurt their business with a bad review. Currently I am working on the idea of a local niche with my wife for Puerto Rico in English focusing on the tourist. I have another long term niche that is about wireless technologies. This niche is high maintenance in a magazine format. The development will be time consuming following the 120% effort and 10% results line but down the line the pay off is huge.
The promotion for this type of niche is also a hybrid. We can use BookmarkingDemon, Social Promotion, Article Submission and Directory Submissions. Since we will be using generic advertising much of it Pay Per Sale, Or CPM you will not have to worry about CTR.
Set And Forget Money: Part of my online business strategy is to always have options and as such on the set and forget strategies I use a combination of paid domains and free pages. I have become a huge, huge fan of BANS so I use BANS for two things, here we will talk about the straight up BANS site for profit. I have bought Pre-Owned domains, some with PR and others with out but the most important thing was keywords inside the domain and it has to be aged, the older the better. Once I find the right domain I setup a for profit BANS this site I write keyword focused intro text into each category and I promote each individual page. These sites I do not have intention on selling them I look forward to have them for years and years using them as retirement income.
Niche Adsense Blogs: Using the techniques Grizz Finding Niche Markets, Court Keyword Sniping and myself talk about Start A Blog About Ants I make blogs that the only monetization I use is Adsense. These sites are made to be set and forget. Once the site is set-up and running I only promoted it. Once or a few times in the year I might go and make a new post just to let Google know that it is not a dead site and notify bots.
Free Pages: I have not used Hub Pages but I have heard many great things. Instead I use Squidoo pages now currently I have in the area of 70 to 100 pages I really do not know the count as I would have to open all of my BookmarkingDemon saved URL saved txt files to count them, but if there ever was set and forget Squidoo are it. I set them up pretty much like Squidoo Queen says I am 39 and if it works I really do not change much I learned Squidoo from that ebook and really know no other tricks. Now from Squidoo I only work Click Bank affiliates and I maybe get 2 to 3 sales a year from each page but again think about it they are free and I do not even know of the top of my head the URL’s so talk about a set and forget option.
For all sites that have Adsense or Bans I only promote with link building for organic traffic. We can use BookmarkingDemon, Article Submission and Directory Submissions. Since we will be using Adsense advertising we need to worry about the CTR you do not want StumbleUpon or any other non targeted traffic. For the BANS you also want targeted organic traffic your intent is to make money not have 20k feed count.
Folks the main intention of this post if for you to understand that Grizz, Court and me do exactly what we tell you folks to do. The difference is we are years ahead of you in a time line. We have tons and tons of domains and free pages and ways of making money. This is what you should be looking to do. Build a solid retirement portfolio where you have multiple streams of income.
Popularity: 32% [?]
Now Squidoo is somthing I do use a lot. Squidoo lenses rank on Google quickly and now Yahoo is starting to like Squidoo.
You can also sell your Squidoo lenses for profit. Another opportunity to make a quick buck. Lenses are transferrable and saleable.
I personally have not sold any yet but I do know people that do.
I do however make a couple of bucks a month off these free lenses with just a little updating every so often.
First page on “make money online” is a Squidoo lense and she has been making a lot of money for quite some time with this.
Hubpages are little more trickier. But you can get organic traffic to your blogs and sites. Hubpages will spank you if your pages are too spammy. They want quality content with very little links.
Have we all been readers of Robert Kiyosaki?
Denise Squidoo is an awesome resource especially when it is free. The problem for most people is that they do not write a key word focused page and have no idea how to promote it. But I love the set and forget money.
Robert Kiyosaki is a must for the serious business person
Denise just keep building them and they will come
Vic,
Thanks for giving us an overview of your streams of online income. It is funny. Just before reading this article, I created a Squidoo page for a clickbank product.
Also, thanks for the link to Newest on the Net.
Fred you are welcome I thank you for taking the time it was very much enjoyable.
To your success buddy.
i do, for my web design catalog, but that’s about it
Once again thanks Vic. You have helped point me in the right direction now it’s time to take action. Your information, is so honest and to the point. I’m glad this blogger has been unleashed.
Emma
Emma bless you and I hope you make some good cash with at least one tip. And always remember you are not alone.
Vic,
Liking the free pages idea. I have setup pages on squidoo and hubpages, but mostly so there are extra links to one of my sites – think I’m going to have to write a few this week!
Thanks.
Nick the fact that it is free and I use them also to hide my links when I go on a BMD run. I also use them for links but not as much as I should. The fact is since Blogging Zoom was born my time is way limited and now with BU if not for all my set and forget money makers I would not know what to do.
Yep, this is exactly what I need to do. A little at a time or I will get overwhelmed.
This is something that can take years – just keep adding and adding and eventually I will have a lot of different things making money.
Bruce this is one of the things that I wanted to make sure people understood. The fact that Grizz, Court and me have known the rules for years we have a head start on set and forget money makers but it is never to late to start. It is amazing how quickly you can build a portfolio if you decide to do it.
Bruce tnx for stopping by I know your time is way limited.
Nice one Vic,
I’m a Squidoo fan as well and I get a nice trickle from them – as you say they’re free so WTF!
The expired domains idea has really got me off my arse and very busy – I check through most days to see if I can stumble over a nice niche keyword domain that’s good and old.
I haven’t looked at BANS yet – something for me to get my arse in gear and start working on very soon too. Coooooool!
Terry BANS has been a blessing I just hope that EBAY never changes the commission structure or stops their affiliate system that would really suck.
Vic,
Clickbank is out for me (they don’t accept accounts from my country) so I think half the opportunities you mentioned here are as good as gone for me too.
I too dream of having some domains that will keep me going when I retire in a few years and I am quite banking on Adsense. I understand it might take quite sometime to see results, but like hell, I am willing to wait it out.
I am in the dark about what else I can turn to anyway. Some afilliate sites that don’t work via clickbank maybe?
About the free pages, if we have a domain, is it advisable to have Blogger host it for free? We can still sell the domain one day can’t we?
Costa I swear you guys are like backed against a wall. It is amazing how hard it is to monetize and you have to deal with the bullshit of advertisers limiting your options.
Costa maybe with you we need to work it backwards. Find what options you have for monetization and build for that type of affiliate.
I will contact you Monday see if we can chat on Skype try to work this together.
Vic,
Great information. I too used Squidoo and have built them according to the Queen and been successful with them in making $30/month. I admit I haven’t updated much and they lost their ranking. Might have to get back onto them.
Not so long ago I also purchased BANS and am eager to set them up as soon as my news site and my other pressing niches are up and running. Trouble is with all the writing I do daily there isn’t much time to get creative and sometimes I struggle with this since I want it all done yesterday.
Robert Kyosaki opened my eyes to doing better than being employed so thanks to him and lots of other situations I now am.
Haven’t worked as an employee for over 2 month and every month is getting better in terms of income.
I know that with my writing for the short term and my niches for the long term I’ll be making some decent money too on the Internet and can’t wait.
I find it amazing how pages that I have had for really long time and never really produced much out of nowhere bam I get a sale. And the important thing is besides our time it has no cost to us. It is a win win situation.
The important thing is to stay the course. I am currently profiting this month from domains and sites I setup in June 07 and now is when I am seeing the rewards.
Keep pushing forward always keep pushing.
Ah, and did I mention that I sit on place 9 in Google for my locals news site after some 5 days.
Sweet and I bet you Google has not geo your site yet. That is so cool that you already have authority it can only get better
Vic, glad to hear your getting back to 100%! Would you do directory submissions with Court’s “keyword sniping” blogs or would you just do the article submission and “d-list”?
For niche blogs I use Article, BMD, Directory and D-list because remember I know I will not really get traffic from any of these but I am really looking for the keyword anchored links to move on the SERPS.
One concern is having these sites as adsense sites many of the directories will decline them. Andy work-around on that? Also, do you personally have a list of directories you feel is worthwhile, as there are thousands of directories. Thanks Vic!
My suggestion would be to not have them monetized up front. Then create about 10-20 better-than-average quality posts that aren’t purely cut-n-paste PLR’s (they’ll probably run copyscape to check). Then submit them. They’ll see there are no ads and that the articles are good and original and will approve you. Then you can monetize and you’re fine.
Frank, thanks for the tips. I did that on previous blogs, but I have already added (but I guess I can remove them) the adsense on them. The ONLY reason I would remove them is if Vic, Court, Grizz or you
think the directory submissions will help with rankings. If not, I wouldn’t remove them and I plunge ahead with article submissions and d-list commenting.
My observation is that if there is a niche directory that fits well with your blog’s niche is that it is worthwhile. This worked very well with my VB.NET blog. But if there’s not a niche specific directory or if the directory doesn’t place well in Google, I don’t think it would be as effective. We’ll see what Vic or Griz has to say about it.
Frank the main reason I use Directories to is to give the site mor of a legit look at Googles algorithm this way the bot reaches my site from multiple legit options
Thanks for the clarification Vic. I had seen it work but I wasn’t sure if it was just in general or due to having niche related links.
Mike the thing is that I do not place adsense on my MFA sites sometimes after 45 to 60 days I try to have the full site indexed aged post and fixed pricing at the same time I have already submitted to directories articles and BMD
Vic, two questions. Should I now remove the adsense even if some of these new blogs have been indexed?
Can you provide us a list of the directories you submit to…pretty please
Mike I use a Directory Submitter so it is like 1000 maybe get 300 approvals for the reasons I submit I will take who ever takes me.
Mike it depends how long has the site lived and how many inlinks do you have already indexed. I try to have a minimum of 1000 anchored links and 45 to 60 days of the post indexed for pricing reasons.
So remove them
Sorry for the indecisiveness. Don’t beat me up for it kind sir 
Mike if the site has less then 45 days I would remove it.
Hi Vic,
Good points about building a diversified “portfolio”, then having the patience to let it all mature.
I’m slowing adding sites to my stable as I learn more. It’s funny though, by far my worst performing website (probably because it’s a very competitive niche) is also associated with the business that I make the most money from (because I’ve been doing it for years, and have hundreds of affiliates that I get paid on).
I’m having a great time on your blog here. It’s seems like every day I come here, I leave with a couple of new “assignments”.
lol, I’m likely to end up with a large diversified portfolio, whether I want to or not … just by following your suggestions.
Keep havin FuN!
Todd
Todd the way I look at it I want to give you guys the best opportunity to have success. Think about this you buy a new domain and that domain you build a BANS site and for what ever horrible reasons it only gives you a buck a month, hell at the end of the year you still had a 2 dollar profit now you pay your renovation fees and again keep it for another year now you still had a fucking horrible year and only made 12 bucks still had 2 buck profit. But now you may have a PR3-4 domain aged two years, would it be possible to sell it on Ebay for shit again just fucking horrible luck $200.00. So that means for an original investment of $10.00 in 24 months you have a ROI of $204.00 please tell me where you can get a return like that?
Now lets say you had spend the first year $1000.00 in domains in other words you bough 100 domains. Now using the same math in 24 months with the same fucking horrible luck for all 100 domains you still have a profit $20,400.00.
Now this is just in your pre-owned domain part of your portfolio. This would not be counting all the other parts of such portfolio.
Now imagine you avg one dollar per domain a day and do the math.
Multiple Streams of Income is just power.
Vic,
Right after my last comment this morning, I found this article by Guy Patterson.
http://www.nullamatix.com/make.....poor-mans-BANS-build-a-niche-store/
Since I had a domain lying around, I actually set one up following the small tutorial above. It is running now and like all things new, I will need some organic traffic, but for sites like these, I guess BMD is out huh? I don’t think BZ would allow such sites to be bookmarked either.
So is Adwords my only option?
Costa,
You’re always welcome to place a free 125×125 on OpTempo for it. A good ad will get a few clicks a day there (ie worth what you pay for it
). You’re also welcome to sign it up for a free blog review although there’s a line for that. I already have one such product feed blog in the queue now, one for action figures.
Also you could setup up some free Blogger blogs that have a few PLR posts on your niche plus an article of two pointing to your product feed blog.
Another strategy would be to toss in some niche PLR articles in with the feed to make the blog look more legit and submit these articles to bookmarking services.
Frank.
Thanks. You given me some fresh insights and I think I might just go along the route of starting a blog sniped with keywords for that site.
Thanks also for the offer for a free Ad space and review, but I sell faucets there, so I think it will be quite inappropriate. It would be nice if you could place ads for and review Blog Gigs though. I’ll officially apply for queue up. Thanks!
I’ve tried using adwords. After 3,000+ impressions (mostly from content network), there’s been one click
Perhaps this would produce higher yielding results if I actually spent some time setting up my campaigns.
If you do end up going with PPC marketing, share your results with us.
Good post and point. One thing (that I thought this was about) I would be interested about hearing is your opinion on diversifying your sites across different topics. Also interlinking sites. I always want to add links from page to page, but am afraid if one pisses the g-train off that all my sites will suffer.
Niche marketing is albout diversity so this is covered all over this site Grizz and Court’s
I never cross link any of my sites for any reason an asshole marks one of your sites as spam or what ever your whole network will be flagged.
Vic,
Let me get this straight. If you have lets say 5 niche sites that are very closely related; you wouldn’t do reciprocal linking to them? I’m curious as Court said that is okay (sorry Court
)
Thanks,
Mike
Mike remember Court is totally legit. I am a paranoid bitch because of my BH days. Some of my sites are inches away from being SPAM. I can tell you this the number one mistake noob BH kids make is cross linking they find one of your sites your whole network gets de-indexed. Again if you feel your sites would never get marked as a SPAM site then you should be good.
In my case I will never cross link. Remember I have had 200 domains de-indexed in one day so I am the classical paranoid bitch.
A very enjoyable post, but it is actually the follow up comments that moved me to comment myself.
I am a newbie to all of this blogging business and have started by simply dipping my toe in the blogging for profit pool by using free blogspot blogs. Well, that plus the fact that I tend to be one of those ‘have to see it work first’ tightwads that is loathe to spend on online ventures. (I’m fighting it, but y’know, it’s sooo hard, lol)
Okay the point of my ramblings: I have been seeing various people here heartily recommend Squido. I am on the verge of trying it because I am noticing it show up higher on Google than equivalent bloggger sites for my niches. Is there an obvious reason to go with squido ovber Blogger?
Stephen if you are not looking to spend money you are destined to fail from jump street. This is a business if you do not treat it like that you will not make it.
Squidoo and Blogger serve different uses Blogger is a blog Squidoo is a generated static page.
I am doing my rounds zooming local niche blogs from Elliot’s list but find that almost have of them doesn’t have BZ installed. Maybe you all like to all in the button, so that I can zoom you?
If you find the BZ button diffcult to install, then Social Bookmarking RELOADED with BZ integrated is highly recommended. Just upload, choose the buttons you want and activate.
Though the BZ button in Social Bookmarking RELOADED is small and doesn’t have a BZ count with it.
JurongWestDigest.com
I had the BZ plugin installed, but for some reason it threw some code up on my home page. I’m going to try again and put it at the bottom of the page and see how that works.
Love your approach, and expertise.
Simple question: Are you taking on new clients?
Jack hi I do not do this as a business the whole reason of this blog is to help others get the real deal of how things work
I have a few hub pages. The don’t do anything special in terms of traffic however one of them has had 561 visits in the last 30 days. Not sure why, the others just get a trickle.
In terms of PR they have about 1 or 2 which is decent.
Gather.com is another good site.
The same factors that we use for any niche blog applies so make sure you look at what keywords you focused on and what traffic those keywords have a month.
Had a look at the stats and it seems most of the traffic for that hub is from hubpages itself along with some from yahoo. Yahoo seems to love hubpages.
Does a BANS site have to be a previously purchased domain, or can you start with a new one and have any hope?
I mean, say you find something decent…like http://www.tools-on-ebay.com
And you set up a site for tools…I mean, is that good? Even if the domain is new?
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