April 26th update
Lots have happened since my last update April 12th.
First, I went ahead and decided to make the next big move... Investing in real estate :D Okay I did have a little bit of help with that one. My father, who has a lot of experience in real estate, talked me into investing into that nice small apartment building. With the low mortgage interest rates, I had the perfect combination, so I decided to just do it.
The apartment building consists of three main units and also has a bachelor in the basement, that can also be rented out.
The reason I decided to invest in the triplex is that, other than the down payment, there isn't any real cost associated with the building. The renting out of the three units+bachelor covers the mortgage and will even give me a bit of surplus by the end of the year. This way, I feel my money was put in a very safe investment, that will give me a big return on the long run.
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Second, my websites. I learned a lot throughout those two weeks as well in terms of websites, niche, adsense and affiliate sales.
My niches were: Niche 1 (ct), Niche 2 (ca), Niche 3(h), Niche 4(o)
My goals were:
* have Niche 1 on the first page of Google for the chosen set of keywords
--> Niche 1(ct) is on the first page of Google for the chosen set of keywords, after a lot (and a lot and a lot) of SEOing... HOWEVER, I realized that Niche 1(ct) wasn't gonna make any money. I realized that this first niche was chosen poorly, and although it has the potential of attracting people, it doesn't have quite the potential to making any money, as the click-through-rate is extremely low (below 1%). So I decided to let that website dies on its on, which I found a little bit frustrating since, as my first website, I had put so much dedication and effort into it. I least, I can learn from my mistakes.
* have Niche 2(ca) on the first 3 pages of Google for the chosen set of keywords
-->Niche 2(ca) is also doing well. It is now on the 2nd page of Google for my chosen set of keywords. Niche 2(ca) has pleasantly surprised me, as it is generating the most money and growing in the most steady way. The click through rate is fairly high, being between 5% to 20%. I can't wait to see Niche 2(ca) being on the first page of Google, now that I see its potential!
* have Niche 3(h) on the first page of Google for the chosen set of keywords
--> Niche 3 is doing fairly well and is on the first page of Google for the chosen set of keywords. It is on the fourth position of Google, although it seems to be stuck there. I have been doing a lot of SEO, and am hoping that it will catch up and climb up the page. Niche 3(h) is returning an okay click through rate, I am still positive of its potential of making money once its up the ladder.
* Start doing some SEO work for Niche 4
* Write some content for Niche 4
-->I neglected Niche 4(o). I did write a little bit of content and did a little bit of SEO work for it, but I certainly did not push it very hard. After being stuck on page 30, then 15 of Google for the longest time, it showed today on page 6 of Google, which I think isn't too bad, for a website that was neglected.
* be making about 5$/day
--> Unfortunately, I haven't reached my 5$/day goal yet. Nevertheless, I have been averaging 3.30$/day and have even had a 6$ and 8$ days in a row. My big mistake was too put so much effort in Niche1(ct) at the start, therefore neglecting the money-makers. But I am still learning, and hopefully I can catch up quickly.
* start a new blog with a new Niche with a good set of keywords
-->And I did! I started a completely new website, with a new niche (Niche 5(cr)) and a new set of keywords. This time, I decided to make things slightly different. I did not put any Adsense and decided instead to sign up for an Amazon affiliate sales. The set of keywords I chose had so few competition and so well targeted that after 3 days I setted up the website with the affiliate products from Amazon on it, it was on the first page of Google in 4th position! Although it is in 4th position, I haven't seen any sales yet. I'm hoping that as it goes up the page, I will start seeing some sales soon.
Some graphs
Niche 2 (ca) week by week: shows a steady increase over the weeks (the average of visits per day over last week is 40).
Niche 3(h) day by day:shows a steady increase over the days (the average of visits per day over last week is 25)
Niche 4(o) day by day:is taking some time to pick up, because I neglected it (the average of visits per day is lower than 10)
April 27th, 2009 - 04:30
Nice writing. You are on my RSS reader now so I can read more from you down the road.
Allen Taylor
January 15th, 2011 - 22:28
any reason why you keep your niches a secret?
2 years ago i got into websites like this and so i know exactly what you mean by all this. my first site made nothing, thats what everyone puts up with. but thats your learning site, my second site made quite a bit and usually in the category my site was in thats actually a really good accomplishment. usually people make 10 or so at a time before finding any profits. keep it.
The really interesting thing about reading your blog is that this is pretty much the same thing im going through. well when we talk about making money on websites and shooting for buying apartment buildings. and having rich dad being a guide line for things. its pretty simply set up in that book but whenever i try to explain it to people they just act like poor dad and not understand the difference of the asset and liability.
anyway i only skimmed on the top of the blog before i realized that the older posts were at the bottom so im still reading the rest but from what i read before i went down it sounds like the website team you got going is something ive been setting up too.
keep up the good work and hopefully i can meet you at the top someday
February 12th, 2011 - 01:13
Thanks for your comment Mike :) Do you have any blog of your own where we can follow you progress?
Well we have well over 30 websites by now… I have a little bit of everything, from fitness stuff, to mommy stuff, to gaming stuff and even more school stuff, but in the last little while, I’ve come to realized that I’d rather focus on a few bigger websites rather than making several hundreds of small sites.
On the long run, I find it easier to maintain a couple of big websites than hundreds of small ones (obviously).
Anyway, I’ve started to put my focus on a different business as well (which I will discuss in my next posts :)