As a lot of you may have noticed, I have not been posting on StandOutBlogger that much lately. I have had a shift in focus and I have been trying to work out a way to bring this blog in line with my new direction. Here is what I came up with…

shift focus A Shift In Focus For The Next 8 Months!

Over the last couple of months I have slowly noticed a shift in my thinking from a focus on active income to passive income.

The simplest way to explain those two terms is:

Active income is money to have to turn up to earn, while passive income continues to pay long after you have done the work.

The problem I have always seen with the blogging business model in this regard, is that the more work you put in, the more popular you become and the more you have to do (to keep your readers happy)!

The Regular Blog Model Is Definitely Not Passive Income!

Now that doesn’t mean that I am going to stop blogging. All it means is that the current business model needs some tweaking – and that is what I have been testing over the last month.

As you already know, I am a massive believer in the power of search engine traffic, so for the next 8 months (until July 2011) I am going to turn my focus solely towards creating profitable niche blogs – and will document my journey here.

Here’s How All This Will Affect StandOutBlogger

1. This Blogs Focus Will Be ‘Niche Blogging’

If my focus is going to be solely on creating profitable niche sites, then it is going to be hard for me to talk about social media and the like on here. So StandOutBlogger is going into lockdown and blocking out all new content that may try to sneak through related to anything that is not related to niche blogs.

2. It Will Be My Notepad For My Ideas

The last month I have been completely engrossed in the world of niche bloggers, and a lot of my research has led me to a lot of ideas for traffic generation and money making strategies. I plan on using this blog as a notebook for my ideas (both good and bad). There is going to be a lot of great ideas for people to steal and implement into their own niche sites.

3. A Lot Of Case Studies (Both Successful & Unsuccessful)

I have been working on a game plan because I know working on 10 new niche blogs at the same time is just setting yourself up for failure. So what I have decided to do create one of these niche sites at a time, built it to a minimum of $30/month (hopefully in the first month), and then look at starting a second niche site ( and continue that process). This means that I have be setting up a solid framework for each niche blog before I add another one to the portfolio.

What I Have Been Doing For The Last Month

Now I wanted to make sure that this was going to be something worthwhile, so I started my research and first niche site almost exactly a month ag0 – and man has it been a learning curve!

I plan on talking a bit more about it in future posts, but here are my results from October so far:

Niche Site 1: October

TRAFFIC

traffic breakdown A Shift In Focus For The Next 8 Months!Visitors:  349

Unique Visitors: 318

And as you can see by the image to the right, the majority of it is already search traffic and referring traffic (articles, hubpages etc) – oh that the direct traffic is most likely me and a couple of people I have shared the niche blog address with.

INCOME

eBay Affiliate: $23.85

Adsense: $11.02

In fact I have made eBay over $7,000 in sales, so I am expecting my decent cost per click to continue.

(I will be going into all of this in more detail – so don’t stress)

…and yes, that does mean I have just started my second niche site!

For this second niche site, I am breathing some life back into a keyword domain that I bought about a year ago that gets about 5o visits a month (and no income).

So What Are My 8 Month Niche Blog Goals?

If you have been around here long enough, you will know that I am a massive fan of goals – especially big, scary ones!

That is why I have decided that:

‘by the end of June 2011, I will have created a passive income of AT LEAST $1,000/month – from my niche blogs.’

Now, while I am focusing on eBay and Adsense for these first two niche sites, if you are not a fan of these strategies – don’t leave (please). I have not ruled out any monetization method, and plan on research a lot of different options!

Something That I Have Planned…

Now during these 8 months, I plan on giving a lot back to my readers in the way of practical knowledge, and one of the things that I am extremely keen to do is show people how to make their first ‘dollar a day’ niche blog.

I know a lot of people struggle when they first start trying to make money online so I want to create a blueprint that you can follow.

What this means is that for one month (somewhere in the middle – I’m thinking January), we are going to do a ’30 Day Profitable Niche Blogs’ case study, and go from start to finish, building  a money making, ‘dollar a day’ producing niche site in just 30 days (I will be posting each day along this month long journey).

I Hope I haven’t Lost You All…

I know this is quite different to what a lot of you have come to expect from StandOutBlogger, so I hope that you will stick with me as I make this change. This is going to be one interesting journey and I am committed to my goal! If you have been looking into niche blogs then you are going to love this as it is going to be an 8 month intensive (like school but more fun!).

Oh, and in case you didn’t know already, Keyword Winner is now available!