Make Money Online – How I’m Generating A Passive Income

This post is simply to give you all an idea of what I’m doing for a passive income. First off, let me say that my resume or C.V. is longer than the Amazon River in flood stage…doubled…I’ve done it all: mucked out septic tanks, built and remodeled homes, I was even a fitness model.

(Alright, I only dreamed that last one. Whatever.)

Not wanting to work for a b-o-s-s and getting hit w/a rough economy, I’ve discovered that I could either work *harder* or *smarter* and have opted for the latter. Sort of. I’m still working full time plus, and have a full plate on Elance. My plan, however, is to build an empire of quality <===[seriously] websites on various topics. My main monetization methods have been described in several posts, most notably the "First 6 Months' Earnings" post.

To recap, they are:

1) AdSense by the big G
2) Various Affiliate Products

I freelance on Elance, but that's irrelevant to my passive income. I'll make this post pretty general and later on add some specific posts on the specifics, but I essentially use the Micro Niche Finder to find keywords that I will then purchase as domain names – more on that in a later post – and these become my mini-sites on very targeted subjects.

I started all of these efforts because I was given the AdSense Master’s Course along with the WordPress template “SuperOptimized” (it’s known as a big, ugly, simple site template that gets much negative press but *works!*), etc., from my brother who paid for it all and didn’t want to do it for himself. Thank God. Literally.

What I do is take those domains, install AdSense according to the template, and in a few hours’ time I have a site up. When I do the research properly – more later on that process – I have a site ranking fairly high in Google’s SERP. It has taken my first few sites a couple of *months* to rank on the front page, and in order to facilitate that, backlinks are required…

Google and the other SE’s look at backlinks as “votes” for your site. The more quality backlinks, and the less competitive your search terms/domain names, then the higher you rank. Every one of my sites has an average of 5 pages of content, a privacy policy to keep in step with Google’s Terms of Service (ToS), an “About” and “Contact” page, and that’s more or less it.

Here is where I *DIFFER* from the AdSense Master’s course (XFactor’s course) – my backlinking strategy. My first few sites were put up using exactly what the AdSense course suggests, and that is a handful of article submissions to article directories (EzineArticles, ArticlesBase, GoArticles), and I just copy/paste my EzineArt’s as they’re published within a day or two. It works…it’s just a lot of writing.

I love to write, so it’s not that big a deal, until you see Sara at NoteworthyTips.com and Mike at MikeIser.com both obliterating goals and setting the bar really high…and then you start to feel like a schmuck.

Well, I will say this: I recommend that you check out both of their blogs, read their tips, and either use their approach or come up with your own. What I am now experimenting with is a minimalist approach, much like Mike’s:

1) EzineArticle submission, 1 per page of content, with a link to my main domain and one to an inner page.
2) Copy to Art’sBase, GoArt’s – they publish instantly.
3) Spin the submission and submit to UAW *after* they’re published
4) RSSBot and FeedSubmit (semi-automatic RSS submitters), DirectoryBot, BookMarking Demon and SocialBot

**Update: I am now using Magic Submitter to consolidate many of these tasks…**

I also have a ping list I copied from Pingler.com that I put into my WP dashboard=>Settings=>Writing=>Update file. Every post = pings.

I read that and wonder, “Wow. Nice so-called minimalist approach,” but the truth is: I will spend less time writing, more time building, and more time making $$. I’ll write one article and make the most out of it, versus writing 5 articles per page. The other tools will ensure I get various backlinks, which is really important for a site’s portfolio, or at least that’s what I read at SEOBook.

For the record, I will *not* be worried about my AdSense sites, as I will be building them out using the free articles from UAW as needed, and will have heftier sites than simply 5-page sites. My plan is to go all “Mike and Sara” on this and actually start building.

My main trouble lately has been Elance projects bogging me down, and then my need to provide good customer service – my active income is getting in the way of my passive. To that end: I’m quitting my day job this year. I can’t get ahead in life unless I take the plunge.

My main concentration will be AdSense, with some affiliate sales coming in (that’s another post topic). I don’t want to police my sites, just keep building and thus working towards working less. I don’t, however, want to have all my eggs in any one basket. Why? Because Amazon is now beginning to shut out entire states – due to stupid laws being passed that forbid an affiliate income…and tax laws being what they are: most aff sales have zero tax.

In any case, I don’t plan on getting caught w/my hands in my pocket: if you have your eggs in one basket, you’re at risk for losing it all. I have 8 kids and don’t plan on putting my wife to work unless she wants that. That means I hedge my bet. To that end, I don’t think Elance will ever be entirely out of my life, but in the near future I hope it sure becomes less of a staple for me.

More sites = more money = more freedom = more family time! The family deserves that, and I love those peeps.

That’s it in a nutshell, bird’s-eye-view. More sites, less work to launch, and I’ll see how that works. One key to this whole thing is checking my rankings LESS instead of thinking that every single moment my obsessive checking will somehow give me better news. Backlinks and ranking don’t change that quickly, and it’s a wasted effort to keep checking.

Future posts will include:

• Free and Budget SEO Tools
• How To Find A Good Keyword To Use
• How I Make Affiliate Sales

Thanks for reading!