The origins of the Niche Site Journal

I am reading a lot of  Pat Flynn‘s Smart Passive Income Blog these days.  I have have been listening to his podcast for about a year now and just recently started reading through his old blog posts.  In the podcast and in his articles, Pat frequently talks about his Niche Site Duel (www.nichesiteduel.com) with Tyrone Shum.  

I figure I might as well follow along with my own niche site while I read through Pat’s progress in an attempt to create a profitable niche site.

My plan is to post once a week on my progress.

These posts will include my current web traffic, how much I made that week, how many hours I put into the site, what I did in those hours, what worked, what didn’t, and what I learned during my niche site creation. In essence it will be my very own niche site journal.

Hopeful outcome of my Niche Site Journal

To outline my goals I am using “SMART” Goal criteria from Wikipedia 

Goals:

Specific:

    • What: To earn $2,000 every month.
    • Why: So I can work full time on Niche Sites & spend time with my family.
    • Who: My wife and me.
    • Where: We will accomplish it all from home
    • Which: Time and Money are the attributes that are important. Limiting time to only 2 hours a day or 14 a week.

Measurable:

    • How much: $2,000/month
    • How many: 6 months
    • How will I know when it is accomplished: Will create an income report

Attainable:

Relevant:

    • Does this seem worthwhile? Yes
    • Is this the right time? Yes
    • Does this match our other efforts/needs? Yes
    • Are you the right person? Yes
    • Is this acceptable for correction? Yes

Time Bound:

    • When? 6 months from now.
    • What can I do 3 months from now? Figured out ways to make money and double it.
    • What can I do 6 weeks from now? Post articles and promote website.
    • What can I do today? Create a plan.

As you can see from the SMART List I hope to be making $2,000 per month. I will accomplish this goal in 6 months (from September 13, 2012). I also want to limit the number of hours I put in because I have a busy schedule. Also, I plan on spending as little money as possible since I’m currently financially struggling as an artist.

A team effort

Since I will be dedicating my time to create an income from niche sites, I figure that I should drag my wife into this experiment as well. We will not be having a duel between us but instead working together.

As a team we will be choosing a niche, writing posts, creating video, marketing, etc, etc,

After talking it over, we have decided the best way to proceed is to use different internet marketers’ techniques in different sites, learn what works from each experiment, and start a new niche site every 6 months.

For the first experiment we will be using Pat Flynn’s approach from www.nichesiteduel.com and the next one we will use Tyrone Shum‘s.

RULES:

  • No paid advertisement to get traffic.
  • We will do this as cheap as possible (we are broke, so no problem there).
  • Spend no more than 14 hours per week (average 2 hour per day) between the two of us.
  • Work on the first one for 8 weeks, then switch to working on the second niche site.
    After switching we are allowed to put in 1 hour per week on the first site to maintain & optimize.

Site 1 (Articles)

The plan for this first niche site is to use written blog posts and SEO to bring in people to the site. Once there, I want them to click on an ad or an affiliate link. Meaning that I don’t need them to stay on the site for a long period of time; I just need them to get on and then back off through a ad link.

Site 2 (Video)

This site will be primarily made up of videos with just a few written posts. The hope will be to build up very passionate followers and than find things to sell them. I can also have ads on the YouTube videos.

Hopeful outcome

I have been putting off working on a Niche site for a long time.  By being public with our websites we feel that the idea of other’s watching us and the expectation will force us to complete the tasks we have set out to do. We hope to share our experience and give other beginners in internet business an opportunity to see our process, learn from us, and to see if Niche Sites are worth doing. We currently have no followers, no email lists, and no experience creating income from niche sites.

Follow along on my journey

If I post weekly for 6 months I will eventually have 24 blog posts on this site.

To make navigation easier I will update this post with a link to every update after they are released.  You might consider subscribing to my RSS feed at http://www.nichesitejournal.com/feed/

Thanks for following along with my niche site journal and if you are interested in making money online, you should start your own niche site journey and a journal as well.

My Niche Site Journal: