$1000/month Passive Income Goal – The Details
**I am happy to announce that I hit my targeting (read my final announcement post here) and am currently gearing up for a brand new ‘niche site challenge’ with a whole new goal and a couple of interesting new challenges – stay tuned for more info.
- November Niche Income Report
- December Niche Income Report
- January Niche Income Report
- May Niche Income Report
As we draw close to the end of month one of my $1000/month passive income goal I thought it would be a good idea to explain exactly what I am doing.
For those who are visiting my blog for the first time and seeing the section in the sidebar that has a lot of numbers and percentages (and have no idea what that is all about about) – then here is what is going on in my world.
What Is The $1,000/Month Passive Income Goal?
If you have been reading my blog recently, I have had a massive shift in focus as I look to increase my online income over the next 8 months.
My main change, is that I will be focusing on passive income producing blogs (ones that will continue to make money even when I stop posting) and the goal is to create a $1,000/month income stream from these blogs by July 2011.
This income is new income, and will not include any of my current earnings. This is all NEW passive income.
What Is The Plan?
One of my favourite quotes is:
If you fail to plan, then you are planning to fail.
So that being said, I have set myself a few criteria that will help me to focus, save money and make more passive income.
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Start With Revamping Forgotten Blogs
If you are anything like me, you have a backlog of forgotten projects that got started with gusto and then dropped when the next great idea came around.
So the first thing I am doing, is not buying any more domains until I have used up my stockpile. This is to stop more wastage. Plus it means I start with a bit of an advantage, because the domains are already indexed – they just are not making any money!
As you can see in the sidebar, I currently have 3 niche blogs started. -
Diversify My Income Sources
If there is one thing that I have learnt over the last couple of months is that you should not focus on one income source. Now I know that is investing 101 – diversification, but it has hit me a bit over the last couple of months and I do not want any one source to make up the majority of my passive income.
That being said, I will be using quite a lot of different affiliate and PPC programs on each of my niche sites.
Such as:
And I will probably be adding more to this list before the 8 months is up.
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Focus On Search Engine Traffic
Obviously since I this goal is to build passive income, I will want to be generating traffic that once it is set up – I don’t have to keep working for it. That is why I will be focusing on search engine optimisation and keyword research (using Market Samurai of course)
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10 Websites At $100/Month
To keep things simple, I have broken my big goal ($1000) into smaller more manageable chunks. My goal is to have 10 websites making $100 a month.
Now I know that each of my websites will not make exactly $100 each month – some will eventually make more, and others will probably make much less. This just gives me something to work towards.
Why $1,000/Month?
I am sure a lot of you are wondering why I chose the figure $1000. Well there are two reasons that I did – one simple and the other logical :)
- Because it is a nice round number that is big enough to be a little bit scary!
- Because that works out to about $250 a week, which would pay for our rent, and I thought what better to aim for than to have our rent paid for every month – without the need to work for it!
Will I Be Sharing The Domains?
A lot of people responded to my initial post, asking for transparency and real case studies – so I will be sharing domains, traffic stats, income sources and much more for my niche blogs as they relate to my posts.
That being said, I will not be linking to, or talking about the actual domains names (they will just be included in screenshots – as I do not want to skew any results). So I will refer to the niche blogs by their niche and as I said, will include the domain name in screenshots for those who are interested.
That’s about It For Now…
Well I think that is everything. This is going to be a jam packed 8 months, and you are not going to want to miss what is going on. So make sure we are connected:
18 Responses
11.20.2010
It’s about time, isn’t it? As they say, the first 1000 is always the hardest. The subsequent one comes a lot faster than the first.
Good luck, pal. Cheers to more profitable months ahead.
Yan
PS: Been a while since I last visited your site. Nice redesign you’ve done here. You did it yourself?
11.20.2010
Wish you the best for your new efforts… I have been your RSS subscriber for some time now, and it would be interesting to be with you in this journey!
One thing I don’t agree with, though.
“That being said, I will not be linking to, or talking about the actual domains names (they will just be included in screenshots – as I do not want to skew any results).”
Why this reluctance to link to your other blogs? As I see it, you genuinely want to diversify your income among various blogs. You are not running an experiment, or a challenge to prove that someone CAN do it in 8 months.
So, where is the skew? Linking to your new blogs from here would drive some traffic (if just out of curiosity – not sure how relevant the new blogs would be to your current readers), but would also help with SEO.
Which means more search engine traffic… So whats the harm? I seriously request you to reconsider your take on this – you have put in a lot of hard work to build this site, and you can easily benefit from it…
Just my 2 cents…
11.20.2010
Hey Thomas,
That’s pretty much right where I’m at. I just finished up item one above, and am focusing on diversifying my income next. I haven’t quite set specific goals like you have, but probably should. :)
BTW, I really like the new design of your blog. I think the stat tracker in the sidebar is a great idea too. Thanks for sharing your details.
11.20.2010
Thanks Yan!
Yea, I can agree that first $1000 is hard, but I’ve been past that for a while now, and looking to see if I can do it again :)
And yea, I did the design myself, still a few things that I am not happy with, but at least it is up and going! I love your new site, how is everything going? long time no chat.
11.20.2010
@BlogSEOExpert
Thanks!
I can see where you are coming from, and I have been tossing this all up for a while now. The only thing that is stopping me from getting the link love from my posts is that I want to show people that they can do it to (from scratch), and by using this already well ranking and fast indexing blog doesn’t really make it something that they can copy.
That being said, I think you are right, so I might start linking to my niche blogs and give them that little boost from time to time.
Thanks for the 2 cents :)
11.20.2010
I’m good, Tom. Have quit ‘blogging about blogging’ many moons ago to focus on building a portfolio of “virtual real estate” – (my goal is slightly bigger than yours as I’m working hard to earn $1K a day by June 2011)
Anyway, the blog is still around since most of the posts are still relevant to today. I wish I could partner with someone who has the passion of “taking it to the next level”…….I’m NOT in a hurry though..
Yan
PS: Love what you did with those eye-catching banners on your sidebar….
11.21.2010
Hey Thomas,
You have a great plan here. Hope you can handle it, because it just seems like it would be really hard handling 10 websites. But hey if you believe you can.. More power too you!
Thanks for the awesome post!
God bless,
William Veasley
11.23.2010
@Yan – Love the BIG goal! And I had noticed that your blog had been a bit dormant, but I like the new direction you are heading.
@William – Thanks! I am not to worried about the 10 sites being a lot of work, because I will be creating them on a staggered basis, which will allow me to only be working on a couple at a time – and since they will be passive income, once I have them to a certain level I will leave them be and work on other sites.
11.26.2010
Hi Thomas,
I wish you good luck in this endeavor. Maintaining a passive income stream, while relying on Search Engine Optimization (Google mainly) is very challenging. Never know when Google changes its algorithm that will send the sites into oblivion. It is going to be interesting as to how you will tackle this issue.
Regards,
Nick
11.27.2010
If you fail to plan, then you are planning to fail. — so TRUE!.. without a plan, you’re doomed before even starting..
Tom.. I think what you’re doing is AWESOME!.. 10 websites?? Wow!.. I’m interested to see how everything turns out.. I will definitely check back periodically to see your progress.. Best wishes to ya..
12.11.2010
I like your idea of having 10 sites making $100. The only problem with that is how could we actually start a site earning at least $3 per day. It must have a good number of visitors per month on each site and must have a good money making activity (adsense) within the site.
12.18.2010
It is good way to start with. To make $100 a month from one website. However each website should have proper on page and off page optimization to bring traffic. It is important for website owner to know how to SEO their website. There are good free books which anyone can use and easily implement SEO.
12.30.2010
I’m very pleased I’ve happened up your blog Tom. I’ve been trying to see how I can both get my current websites to grow and start making some money, and also how I would approach new websites were I to really start to dig into this.
One point I really agree with is revitalizing old projects that you’ve allowed to stagnate. I have a habit sometimes of doing the same thing – jumping upon the next idea that comes along.
Good luck with the experiment and I’ll be following along!
Cheers.
Paul.
1.7.2011
Great goal for putting yourself out there Tom. Took me a while to recognise your profile pic but Yan’s tip off of the redesign jogged my memory well enough.
Best of luck with your goal. Pat Flynn was a huge motivator in me setting up my first niche site no less, though I’m aware of the distinction between this and your niche blogs.
Best wishes in 2011 and to more of us not having to work as hard to pay rent :)
Josh
1.24.2011
These are some nice little goals…Especially for someone just learning about online marketing. I wish you the best of luck.
$1,000/month is a pretty easily attainable goal and as long as you work hard you should be able to do it easily. I remember my first website made only $20 the first month but by the 3rd month it was making over $3,000.
In the long run though, you’ll want to either have 100+ small niche sites or you should consider having only 2-3 really awesome sites. I feel that the less sites you run the more effort you can put into each and the more $$ they will generate. Although, some people prefer owning hundreds of really crappy sites – I guess that works for them.
Well good luck man!
PS: I’m not a huge fan of Comission Junction – maybe you can find some affiliates that have their own affiliate system or try Shareasale or Clickbank.
best wishes,
AJ
1.28.2011
AJ I can totally see where you are coming from. Because the majority of my online income comes from two of my sites. But I guess what I am trying to do with this goal is to trying out quite a few different niches to try and find the one or two sites that Google seems to like, people seem to love and then I will focus on building them into much more substantial sites – while the others can continue to earn their $50-100/month.
But we will have to agree to disagree about Commission Junction, cause it pays me a tidy sum each month – and I wouldn’t give that up :). But I do work with a couple of independant affiliate programs and as well as Clickbank (which doesn’t seem to convert well enough for me) and Adsense.
1.31.2011
You have a great goal as well a great blog, good luck to reach your goal soon :-)
2.17.2011
I know I’m a bit late for commenting, but I landed on your website and found your posts. It has been really helpful with me as I’m on that same goal and path. I hope to reach $1000 a month, I’ll be following your progress. Goodluck Tom!