The Swog Blog

As we get going again (and in order to facilitate a distinct feeling of deja-vu), here are my goals for this blog project for the coming year. 

i.  Report on making $25 000.  Yes, the final target remains the same, folks.  Although I set this as my target some four months since at the commencement of this blog, the aforementioned dose of Real-Life® put things on ice for a while.  So I have re-aligned the project to run one calendar year, beginning January 1st, 2008.

ii.  Acquire steady linear traffic growth.  I’d like to see steady growth in readership and organic search engine traffic and will apportion my promotional efforts and expenditure so to make this real.  I want to try to keep the monthly moving average of unique and page views on an upward trend.

iii.  Break the 50K threshold on Alexa.  Sitting rather un-prettily at a mere 7 546 976 at present, I realise this is both quite a tough target and of mythical importance.

iv.  Establish several diverse revenue streams.  As the online earning arenas continue to fragment and become increasingly more  granular, I  would like to gain a solid foothold in at least three distinct areas each offering its own unique revenue opportunities.

I consider these humble and manageable goals and even if I fall short on one or all, it is guaranteed to be both a fun and educative experience.

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Well, I caught a quite severe dose of Real-Life® which led to a near three month hiatus in my online endeavours.  During this time, I was not completely away from the ’net but much of my efforts when on the computer were spent elsewhere (I have a few small developments to report on - perhaps in another post.)  Consequently, this pet project suffered quite a bit.  However, here I am once again, fighting fit and ready to go once more. I shall probably extend the self-prescribed timeframe by two or three months to make up for the intervening period of inactivity and we will see how we go.  Real-life permitting, I plan on making daily updates to this blog and regular detailed dispatches on my progress making the princely sum featured at the head of the column to the right!  Welcome, wish me luck if you have yet to, and enjoy the ride.

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Just a small update detailing what I have been up to the past few days.  The proxies are running well, and AdBrite is comfortably installed on the proxied pages.  Daily returns from AdSense seem to fluctuate markedly while AdBrite’s are consistent, even showing a slight upward trend as daily page impressions increase.

Other real-world endeavours have encroached a little the last few days, and my efforts in other areas, such as the celebrity sites, have been dampened a shade.  I should be able to allot a little more time over the coming week and bring a few more sites online. 

Also, I bought a small, cheap TV show related site that, I believe, has potential.  This consumed my remaining start-up funds.  More to follow on that topic too.

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Yesterday, the proxies earned me a princely $0.61 through Google AdSense.  As their traffic ramps I hope to see this figure rise commensurately over the ensuing month.  In order to maximise my return on the proxies, I signed up for an account at AdBrite and plan to use this on the proxied pages.  AdSense ToS prohibits the use of AdSense ad blocks on framed pages or pages you re-serve thereby ruling out AdSense blocks on proxied pages.  AdBrite is a little more lenient in this quarter.

I will not adjust the target figure (at the top of the right hand column opposite) until earnings are banked and cleared.  So expect little adjustment there for a few weeks.

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Since my last brief dispatch, I have been working like a Trojan in order to get some sites up and running for the commencement of this informal challenge.  I figured I should have a little passive income trickling in from the outset for two main reasons.  First, the psychological boost of seeing some immediate return on my endeavours.  Second, as I mentioned previously, momentum will be harder to acquire without a little more initial funding.  Hopefully my efforts over the last day or so will turn, quite quickly, in to a little more liquid cash thereby permitting me to springboard on to more engaging and more lucrative projects.

So, what have I been doing over the last 48 hours?  I went ahead and registered several domains and then set up several proxy sites.  Ten to be quite precise.  Within hours of them going on line I began to see PPC cash trickling in.  I put out $49.50 by registering 10 domains at DomainSite (five .com and five .info domains), so half my start up capital was invested in proxy servers.  Somewhat of a risk, I agree, but my research to date indicates that the initial outlay (plus a little more) should be recoverable within the month.  Perhaps a little more on proxies to follow in a later post.

In addition to the proxies, I adjudged the celebrity sites I’d been researching and mentioned in a previous post were worth pursuing and went on to register a further six .info domains at a cost of $17.94.  This leaves me $32.16 of my initial $100.

The celebrity sites will take a little longer to develop and I am prepared to invest a week or so knocking them in to shape

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As part of my ongoing efforts to promote this blog, I recently signed up at both MyBlogLog and Technorati and the sidebar of the blog is now proudly adorned with their respective widgets.  So, fellow brethren of the blogosphere, whether you hail from Technorati or MyBlogLog (or even some other as yet uncharted - by me - corner of the blogosphere) I welcome you to this week-old endeavour and hope you find it worthy of your return.

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Following on from yesterday’s notions on accruing additional startup capital, I took time earlier to research a few ideas for celebrity type sites.  In doing so, I used several free online tools and, half way through, it occurred to me that my methods of research would make a good blog entry and potentially be useful for others.

Mercifully for those around me, I, ordinarily, take little interest in the lives of celebrities.  My knowledge of the modern day celebrity is very cursory and general, and my reading on the topic is confined to the covers of the trash magazines that line the semi-aisle of the supermarket checkout.  So, my knowledge of Britney Spears does not extend far beyond the National Enquirer headline pronouncing she mothered Jim Morrision’s illegitimate quadruplets and was last seen being served chilled sangrias on a Venusian beach, by Hitler and Lord Lucan.

However, on occasion an expertly Photoshop’d face does stand out amid the surrounding sea of jokish headlines and Twix wrappers and that (and that alone!) afforded a starting point.  I wrote down the names of the few celebrities I was able to recall and used them as my starting point.

I ended up with one female sporting celebrity, one actress-cum-model, one actor, a poet and two major news celebrities.

The relative search volume figures for the sites looked quite promising.  Using the estimation tools at SEO Book, the projected monthly search volume for each of the site ideas are given thus:

• Actor site: 11 000 searches. per month
• Actress site: 352 000 searches per month
• Female sporting celebrity:  800 000 searches per month
• Poet:  2 000 searches per month
• News celebrity #1: 150 000 searches per month
• News celebrity #2:  50 000 searches per month

Although these are estimates, at this stage I see no reason not to place some trust in their accuracy.  For a search term of 800 000 searches per month, hitting the first page of the SE results should qualify the site for at least ~ 1000 SE referrals per month which, at an approximate AdSense CTR of about 2%, should generate around 20 clicks per month (not considering traffic from other sources.)

The Google AdWords Traffic Estimator Tool estimates a cost of between $0.50 and $0.80 per click.  So, provided my logic is not too skewed, the 20 clicks should bank $5 or more per month (provided Google pay the reputed 30-40% of the click cost value.)

Of course, there are numerous assumptions in the above but it seems a reasonable endeavour in order to accumulate a little capital in the short term.  The AdSense return on organic SE traffic is nice, but selling the sites once the traffic has been established would be a little more lucrative.  More to follow on this.

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Another minor omission from the inaugural post.  I managed to find relatively inexpensive, reliable and feature-packed hosting prior to beginning this blog.  And now, you too can have the same for a mere $22.40 per year (that’s right, less than $2/month!)  All you need to do is go to the DreamHost sign up page and use the promo code DH97CODE.  This promo code will give you $97 off the price of any hosting package.  So if you elect to go with their basic package (usually $9.95/month) you get it for $119.40 - $97 = $22.40 per year.  You also get a free domain!

If you are anticipating, or currently engaged in, a project such as the one I am undertaking here, there are numerous additional benefits, including:

• numerous standard packages available and installed with a single click (such as WordPress, forum software, shopping carts etc.);
• unlimited domains and unlimited subdomains hosted (very important!);
• plenty of allocated disk space (5 GB) and bandwidth (5000 GB);
• full shell access;
• 3-month money back guarantee!

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With so little start up capital, my immediate focus will be endeavours offering a quick return at minimal expense.  I have perused various forums and other blogs in order to determine the best entry points and several options beckon.

i.  Proxy servers.  These seem to be very much in vogue at the moment.  Essentially, they offer a means of getting to sites (such as MySpace, FaceBook etc.) from locations at which they are otherwise blocked (such as university and school networks and some corporation networks.)  Set up expense is minimal (the cost of a domain) and although the profit margin is quite low, turnover can be relatively high as the demand is high, particularly if they come with a little traffic.  One of the principal concerns when running proxy servers is resource and bandwidth consumption.  However, since my aim is to use these sites as a springboard to bigger, greater endeavours, I will not be holding on to them too long and therefore I do not anticipate this extra resource consumption as an issue.

ii. Celebrity sites.  Much like proxy servers these sites are quick and easy to develop and can sell quickly and in volume at a low- to mid-level profit margin.  The method here would be to develop a clean, glitzy site skin and then populate it with details, then duplicate it n- more times, each site for a different celebrity.  Celebrities currently enjoying a little limelight would, of course, be the focus.

iii. Other niche sites.  There are a number of small niches that, it seems, people are willing to invest in.  Even small 2-3 page sites in these areas offer a relatively quick return on investment by selling them on.  Certain travel sites, golf, investment and certain health related sites are in this category. 

iv.  Article writing.  There seems to be a steady flow of individuals seeking well-written Internet copy.  Although some of the rates are derisory (1-2 cents per word) it is possible to earn in this manner by producing several articles per day since the demand is high.  However, a variant on this might turn out a little more profitable.  Instead of writing to order, create a demand.  By using the forums as a gauge of the niches that are in demand, it might be possible to elevate the price on well-written material by producing a series of articles for a given in-demand niche and then offering them up for sale, either auction sale or at a fixed price in excess of the derisory standard rates of 1-2 cents per word.

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In my eager haste to get this blog started, I neglected to mention in the inaugural entry that I do have a very small amount of start up capital. Not a lot, mind you. About $100. And to clarify another point, the $25 000 target is $25K gross. I plan to rake in that amount over 12 months. How much of that will remain at the conclusion of the 12 month period, after deductions for domain registrations, hosting, and perhaps buying a small site here and there, who knows?

My recent research has focused on the world of CPA marketing, where, essentially, targetted traffic is converted in to money through affiliates programs and sales. I see this as a very viable and promising long term earning mechanism. However, with so little start up funds, it might be a month or two before I am able to bring the components together.

A very simplistic schematic of how it works is given thus:

• Register a domain and create a site in the particular niche in which you plan to compete (diligently researching the niche will be tantamount with so little start up funds available);
• Optimize the site as much as possible to maximize the potential for organic SE-traffic;
• Research and sign up for the best paying affiliate programs with the chosen niche (invariably, the sign-up process entails you having a working site); concurrently, commence a link building campaign for the site;
• Once accepted in to the affiliate programs, introduce the ads to the site; all the time continue to engage in link building and organic traffic accrual efforts;
• Once the site is stable and you think you have maximised its impact to the new visitor, begin to look in to traffic generation programs such as Google AdWords;
• As traffic grows, you should begin to see affiliate referrals and sales occur, if only in very small numbers at the outset;
• Bank the cheques! (And possibly reinvest the money, or a portion of it, in acquiring greater traffic.)

Of course, this is an overly simplistic view of the situation. However, as we tip-toe in to the world of CPA marketing, this broad sketch will acquire greater detail and richness of colour and, who knows, we may well end up with a masterpiece on our hands. More to follow.

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