Strygwyr
Junior Member
- Apr 23, 2010
- 154
- 1,480
Hi Everyone,
I've begun working on a new project whereby I'll be developing a few new online income streams and I want to bring everyone along for the journey.
A Little About Me
I'm a 25 year old, university grad and I make my income online; the majority of which comes from a few successful authority blogs I've developed over the past couple of years. I also have a few side projects on the go such as the article service I provide here on BHW. I'm not going to go into much more than that. If you want to learn more about me and the purpose of this project, you can do so here.
The Project
My primary goal is to increase my revenue streams generated from online assets. The first step in doing so will be through the development of a couple new authority sites. I recently started a thread here, where I've asked the community to choose one of the niches they'd like to see developed. The other niche I'll be deciding on.
As I already have experience developing these types of sites, I'll be attempting to expedite the development process. Along the way I'll be showing you step-by-step how I go about doing so. I'll also be completely transparent about how much money my sites generate. So if you've been stuck on how to make money online and don't mind putting in the work, this will be a great method for you. The key to succeeding in this is work and it's far from a get rich quick method. On the bright side, if done correctly it will be a long-term, profit-generating asset for you which can become passive.
I have a 6-month timeline I'll be following and by the end I'd like to be generating $500/site/month for a total of $1000/month. This may not seem like a lot (especially for some of you) but that translates into a $12,000/year raise. It's also important to note that that's just a starting point, as in the past I've found that once the sites gain momentum the profits they generate increases fairly rapidly; so don't be off-put by this base figure.
Where I'm at Now
As I mentioned, I'm waiting a couple of days until the poll closes before I start on the sites. As of now I've defined what I consider an authority site, and how I start the niche selection process. I'll touch on these each briefly now.
What Is an Authority Site?
I consider an authority site to have three main characteristics. An authority site must have: 1) high-quality content (presented by an expert/knowledgeable writer); 2) a large and loyal audience; and 3) a high degree of trust from that audience.
There's a lot of talk on BHW about authority sites simply being large sites ranking high for a lot of keywords. However, these sites often have mediocre content (at best) and rely on artificially gained rankings (through heavy SEO). This is BHW so I'm not going to knock this. If it works, great. What I will say is that I see a lot of complaints about the power of Google and how they crush the souls of IMers. I have no reason to complain (take from that what you will).
Instead of focusing on the SEO tactics often discussed here, I focus on social/relationship driven promotional techniques. Yes, I use blog comments; but rather than the primary focus being on a quick link, it's on establishing a relationship with the blog owner that can later be leveraged as a promotional vehicle. This is a far more (mutually) beneficial tactic. Yes, I use forum promotion; but again, rather than cheap links I actively participate on the forum providing quality, informative posts. I'll go far more into how I promote my sites later on but for now just know that I don't do what's typically recommended on BHW (building multiple tiers to blast the site with links, etc.).
I'm not going to tell you my methods are better than anyone else's. What I will say is that this is what has worked for me. Obviously the techniques I use are might be considered more work, which is why the next step I use to pick my niche is so important. If you want to read more about authority sites, you can do so here.
Picking a Niche
There is a ton of debate about how to properly pick a niche. There's also a lot of pseudo-scientific methods to do so. Since I don't follow the typical development process used here on BHW, I similarly don't use the same method for picking a niche. When it comes to picking a niche, I focus on one thing: passion.
What topics am I passionate about? What topics am I knowledgeable in? What topics do I want to be knowledgeable in? I'm one of those people that is interested in a wide variety of topics and love absorbing information. Even if you're not, I'm sure theres at least a couple of things you could talk to someone about for hours. As long as it is a potentially profitable topic then that's what your niche should be. I'll talk a little more in depth about profitability later on, but if this is your first authority site: focus primarily on passion.
As I mentioned, the large majority of my promotional methods involve interaction with the niche's community. If you're not passionate about the topic you're not going to want to put work towards actively participating in related blogs, forums, etc. You might at first (if you're motivated enough by money), but it will be hard to see it through to profitability. If you want to read more about picking a profitable niche that's right for you, you can do so here.
TL;DR
If you want a method that will earn you money, I urge you to read the entire thread and the related content I linked to. If you're just interested in following this project, here's the synopsis:
Project Overview: Developing 2 authority sites.
Progress: Defined goal and began picking a niche.
Next Step: Pick a niche and subsequently decide on primary focus and domain name.
Money Spent: $0
Money Earned: $0
Net: $0
I've begun working on a new project whereby I'll be developing a few new online income streams and I want to bring everyone along for the journey.
A Little About Me
I'm a 25 year old, university grad and I make my income online; the majority of which comes from a few successful authority blogs I've developed over the past couple of years. I also have a few side projects on the go such as the article service I provide here on BHW. I'm not going to go into much more than that. If you want to learn more about me and the purpose of this project, you can do so here.
The Project
My primary goal is to increase my revenue streams generated from online assets. The first step in doing so will be through the development of a couple new authority sites. I recently started a thread here, where I've asked the community to choose one of the niches they'd like to see developed. The other niche I'll be deciding on.
As I already have experience developing these types of sites, I'll be attempting to expedite the development process. Along the way I'll be showing you step-by-step how I go about doing so. I'll also be completely transparent about how much money my sites generate. So if you've been stuck on how to make money online and don't mind putting in the work, this will be a great method for you. The key to succeeding in this is work and it's far from a get rich quick method. On the bright side, if done correctly it will be a long-term, profit-generating asset for you which can become passive.
I have a 6-month timeline I'll be following and by the end I'd like to be generating $500/site/month for a total of $1000/month. This may not seem like a lot (especially for some of you) but that translates into a $12,000/year raise. It's also important to note that that's just a starting point, as in the past I've found that once the sites gain momentum the profits they generate increases fairly rapidly; so don't be off-put by this base figure.
Where I'm at Now
As I mentioned, I'm waiting a couple of days until the poll closes before I start on the sites. As of now I've defined what I consider an authority site, and how I start the niche selection process. I'll touch on these each briefly now.
What Is an Authority Site?
I consider an authority site to have three main characteristics. An authority site must have: 1) high-quality content (presented by an expert/knowledgeable writer); 2) a large and loyal audience; and 3) a high degree of trust from that audience.
There's a lot of talk on BHW about authority sites simply being large sites ranking high for a lot of keywords. However, these sites often have mediocre content (at best) and rely on artificially gained rankings (through heavy SEO). This is BHW so I'm not going to knock this. If it works, great. What I will say is that I see a lot of complaints about the power of Google and how they crush the souls of IMers. I have no reason to complain (take from that what you will).
Instead of focusing on the SEO tactics often discussed here, I focus on social/relationship driven promotional techniques. Yes, I use blog comments; but rather than the primary focus being on a quick link, it's on establishing a relationship with the blog owner that can later be leveraged as a promotional vehicle. This is a far more (mutually) beneficial tactic. Yes, I use forum promotion; but again, rather than cheap links I actively participate on the forum providing quality, informative posts. I'll go far more into how I promote my sites later on but for now just know that I don't do what's typically recommended on BHW (building multiple tiers to blast the site with links, etc.).
I'm not going to tell you my methods are better than anyone else's. What I will say is that this is what has worked for me. Obviously the techniques I use are might be considered more work, which is why the next step I use to pick my niche is so important. If you want to read more about authority sites, you can do so here.
Picking a Niche
There is a ton of debate about how to properly pick a niche. There's also a lot of pseudo-scientific methods to do so. Since I don't follow the typical development process used here on BHW, I similarly don't use the same method for picking a niche. When it comes to picking a niche, I focus on one thing: passion.
What topics am I passionate about? What topics am I knowledgeable in? What topics do I want to be knowledgeable in? I'm one of those people that is interested in a wide variety of topics and love absorbing information. Even if you're not, I'm sure theres at least a couple of things you could talk to someone about for hours. As long as it is a potentially profitable topic then that's what your niche should be. I'll talk a little more in depth about profitability later on, but if this is your first authority site: focus primarily on passion.
As I mentioned, the large majority of my promotional methods involve interaction with the niche's community. If you're not passionate about the topic you're not going to want to put work towards actively participating in related blogs, forums, etc. You might at first (if you're motivated enough by money), but it will be hard to see it through to profitability. If you want to read more about picking a profitable niche that's right for you, you can do so here.
TL;DR
If you want a method that will earn you money, I urge you to read the entire thread and the related content I linked to. If you're just interested in following this project, here's the synopsis:
Project Overview: Developing 2 authority sites.
Progress: Defined goal and began picking a niche.
Next Step: Pick a niche and subsequently decide on primary focus and domain name.
Money Spent: $0
Money Earned: $0
Net: $0
. Ive been looking into creating an authority site but been working on other methods lately.
