Over the past month, I’ve dedicated the vast majority of my time to family life and have not put much focus on My Online Income Projects. Now that the new year is well on its way, I am refocused and willing to dedicate a little bit more time towards working on a new income project and get back on track with my 2012 goals.

Here is a quick recap of what I’ve been doing over the past couple of months;

Original Income Project Recap

Roughly one month ago, My Niche Site Proving Ground Project was completed. That is to say, I completed all the short term goals I believed I should have accomplished in order to get 3 niche sites off the ground and earning cash. Even though I’m not earning a significant income from any of these sites, I did learn many lesson during this project. Let’s face it, we would all like to see some more money in the bank, but we should not gauge success on monetary earnings alone, the lessons learned have a value which will benefit all my future projects. Therefore, My Niche Site Proving Ground was a success and I will continue to work on these sites in order to hopefully turn them into earners over the next several months.

Most Recent Income Project – January/February 2012

In late January I had the idea to launch my own classified ad network. After deciding upon the niche I would focus on, I was fortunate enough to be able to get my hands on a seasoned domain which was an exact match for my target keywords.

Although this project has been fun, it has also presented many challenges of which I wasn’t anticipating. For instance, I hadn’t taken into account how I would target individual locations. Eventually, I decided upon creating multiple sites using Word Press Multi User. This solution allowed me to dedicate one site for each major city throughout my country.

The ClassiPress theme is what really made it possible to create my own classified ad network. ClassiPress is an excellent all-in-one theme which integrates everything you would need in order to operate your own full functioning classified ads network. Considering this is such a huge project, I will continue developing it while I work on other Income Projects.

My Next Income Project

Over the next couple of weeks I will begin my next income project which I mentioned in my Goals post earlier this year. My plan is to use the Dating Factory Private Label dating platform in order to create 1 dating website. This site will be very specific in location and theme. My focus will be on a very small number of individuals who will hopefully purchase ongoing memberships to my dating site, I will be paid %50 of all income generated from new and recurring subscription.

I’ve had a great deal of success with Dating Factory over the past 2 years, earning several thousand dollars during that time. Dating Factory has a great set up, simply choose your domain, customize and launch one of their prebuilt themes, and then start driving traffic. Once you begin converting, you will collect %50 of all payed subscriptions for life.

Over the next couple of weeks I will get into greater details as to how I plan to create and promote my new Dating Website. Unlike my last project, I will be judging my overall success on earnings. My goal will be to convert at least 1 new members within the first 30 days of launch.

If you are interested in following my next income project please subscribe for updates.

Jeramy

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In my last post, I mentioned that I asked Weh-Ming Cho (from The Blognostifier) to come and do a guest post here at My Online Income Project. If you recall, Weh-Ming was responsible for the Snowblower Kijiji Ad which went viral overnight, in late November 2011 - peaking at roughly 500,000 visitors in just a few days. Weh-Ming, being the nice guy that he is, graciously accepted the opportunity to write for the Online Income Project. Below you will find his tips on how he constructed his epic Kijiji ad and how he pumps out posts for The Blognostifier on almost a daily bases. Enjoy!

Submitted by; Weh-Ming Cho

When Jeramy asked me to do a guest post for him, my first thought was “Why didn’t I think of that?  Why am I slugging away at my own blog when I could be out there asking other bloggers to write something for me?”  It was at that moment I realized I was dealing with an evil genius.  I knew I had to write something for him to stay on his good side, and also because maybe he would send me a password to the secret section of his site where I’m pretty sure he’s keeping all the really juicy advice on stock tips and race horses.

Here’s part of what he said to me:

I’m impressed at how you’ve pumped out quality blog posts day after day and would love for you to write a short guest post for my blog MyIncomeProject.com

Well, who could resist that?  Somebody NOTICED that I was writing, and thought it was of high enough quality to give me kudos on it.  What writer doesn’t want that?  I’m not easy, but I’m cheap.

In keeping with the theme of this site, I should start by saying that I’m as much in the dark as you about most of this.  I’m using Google Ads on my site, but not so much because I think it’s a quality product (which I’m sure it is) but because it’s a default setting on Blogger (where I host my site) and while I was once on the cutting edge of being online (well, maybe somewhere on the side close to the handle, but at least I was on the blade) it’s all voodoo to me for the most part now. I haven’t collected any actual money from my site yet, but I’m getting close.

But that’s not why you’re reading this, or at least that’s not why Jeramy asked me to write this and is paying me to do this.  (See how I did that?  Now he has to pay me for it or he looks like a jerk!  Take notes, there will be a quiz.)  This article is supposed to be about being able to write a lot about stuff and making it engaging enough that people will want to come back and get more.

Yes indeed.  How would one do that…

First of all, don’t try to just increase the size of your font and double-space.  That might have worked in high school, but you can’t put your website into a clear plastic Duo-Tang (did you know that Duo-Tang was a brand name? Me either.) and hope to fool the teacher.  Plus, it’s bad for the environment.

Before I even get to the writing, you need to read.  You need to read so much.  I cannot stress the importance of reading, and reading in great volumes.  Do you know how many successful writers there are that aren’t fanatical readers?  None.  At all.  “Oh, but Kanye West put out a really successful book and he doesn’t read.”  Ah, but Kanye West has something you don’t have: a built in audience that well gobble up whatever tripe you put down for them and ask for more.  Remember that: No readee, no writee.  Also, I’m not judging you if you read his “book”, but I am forming certain opinions about you and how you are part of the problem with society.

The best advice I can give you is to just write.  Write lots and lots and lots.  Write many words, put those words into sentences, and then cram them together into paragraphs.  Try to make it all about one general theme or idea, it’ll help you seem like less of a crazy person later.  Seriously, you need to write, and you need to write every day.  The more you do it, the easier it becomes and the better it gets.  I was going to say it’s like exercise, but I don’t exercise so I can’t claim first hand knowledge of that.  So it’s like…drinking.  The more you drink, the easier it becomes.  (If you’re under the legal drinking age and are reading this, good for you! You are the future!  Also, instead of drinking, pretend I said playing Pokemon or Pogs. Are those still a thing?)

“But, Weh-Ming, I don’t have time to write all the time!  My hand gets all cramped up and I my pencil keeps getting dull and whenever I make a mistake I sometimes tear the paper when I erase it!”

Here’s the surefire method for being ABLE to write a lot:  LEARN. TO. TYPE.  It’s the 21st century.  If you have to look at the keyboard while typing, then yeah, it’s going to take you a long time to do it. If I said to you, right now, to hit the letter “u” on your keyboard could you do it without looking?  If no, then you’re at a disadvantage.

If you aren’t in school anymore and can’t take a typing class, find someone that will teach you.  There are tons of programs and websites, or you may even be able to find a flesh and blood teacher that will stand over you and say “A, A, A. Semi, Semi, Semi” over and over and over.  I cannot overemphasize the value of being able to touch type.  A buddy at work once switched the keys on my keyboard around.  It was months before I realized that anything was amiss, simply because I never look at my keyboard.  I average around 75 words per minute, and for a while I topped 100.  At 100 words a minute, it’ll only take you ten minutes to hammer out a thousand words.

“But I don’t know what to write about and besides that, I don’t know how to write good!”

Many people look at writing as a chore, something that they have to get through.  They probably didn’t have very good experiences in school and are forever scarred, thinking that they can’t do it.  I say “Poppycock!”  Also, it’s “write well”, not “write good”.

If you can talk, you can write.  How do I write?  I think about something, pretend I’m going say it out loud, but then I write what I was going to say (god, I’m clever).  You talk all the time.  Really, you do.  People have complained.  Write it down instead.

I am a problem solver.

This next part is vital:  Don’t read what you’ve written.  Don’t look back, don’t even think about it.  Just keep writing.  Don’t read anything you’ve written until you are done.  Only then should you go back and begin the editing process.  If you try to edit on the fly, you’ll just get bogged down trying to be clever and you’ll never finish anything.  If you wait until the end, it means that you are done no matter what. It might be full of mistakes, but you can fix mistakes a lot faster when you have an idea of what you’re overall piece is about.

I’m not going to get into grammar and spelling, but I will say “do not use Comic Sans Serif as the font of your article”.  You will instantly lost any credibility you may have had.  If Einstein had written in Comic Sans Serif, he would have died unknown instead of traveling through time in a DeLorean.  (See how I did that?  Because Einstein is the name of Doc Brown’s dog in Back to the Future, but you thought I meant that other Einstein!)  (These are the jokes people, try not to think too hard about it.)

So what have we learned here?  To get quality, you have to write a lot.  To write a lot, you have to learn to type.  And you need to crack open a book.

Does that answer the question of how to write a lot of quality stuff?  Maybe, I don’t know.  Try it out, and if it works send me a cheque.  If it doesn’t work, it probably means you did something wrong and you should send me a cheque for wasting my time.

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Reviewing Month one  - My Online Income Project

That’s right, MyIncomeProject.com has officially been live for just over 1 month and I couldn’t be more pleased. I’m enjoying the experience much more than expected, and I’m looking forward to sharing more projects over the next couple of months. I’m beginning to believe that the best part about building a personal blog, is watching as people visit, read, and comment on your posts. There is definitely a great satisfaction in knowing that people are enjoying what you write and are willing to come back for more.

Today I’d like to take a look at some of  the highlights from the past month. This is a good practice to get into – when you take the time to reflect on your own short term accomplishments, it will keep you moving ahead. I’ll be covering; most popular Income Project posts, some social statistics, plans for what’s coming in the near future.

My Online Income Project Highlights

Popular posts – After reviewing the analytics, it has become very apparent that the majority of  visitors shown a great interest in my current Niche Site Project. Although these statistics aren’t exactly surprising (this is My Online Income Project), it has been an eye opener. Analytics help you realize where your viewers interest lie, and what you  should be focusing your attention on. Here are the  four most popular posts from December and early January;

1. Niche Site Proving Ground
2. Online Income Project Goals for 2012
3. Niche Site Project Backlink Strategy
4. How I Severely Screwed Up My First Niche Site

Traffic – Like I’ve mentioned, the best part of writing My Online Income Project has been watching the traffic slowly grow – it is always very exciting. Over the past 2 or 3 days, there has been a steady rise in search engine traffic – meaning My Income Project’s posts are starting to rank in Google for certain keywords. Generic search engine traffic is a good sign and definitely nice to see.

Twitter – Before launching My Online Income Project, I’ll admit, I wasn’t much of a Twitter user.  However, over the past month, the benefits within the community have become abundantly clear. If you’re engaged, you will redoubtably meet interesting people, find inspirational content, and be introduced to resources that you would’t have found otherwise. For these points alone, Twitter should always be a staple. Here are my current stats;

-          816 followers

Subscribers  - Some people always find it difficult to convince readers to subscribe to their blog feeds. Creating a following is obviously something that will come with time, therefore keep plugging away and always try to provide the best content possible – don’t take short cuts. My Online Income Project currently has;

-          8 Subscribers

What’s Next? – The next month is starting to look very exciting. Along with completing my Niche Site Project, I will also be posting the details for my next upcoming income project. If you are interested in getting a little hint, please check out my Income Project Goals for 2012. On top of  the next project, I’m looking forward to the possibility of having a couple of guest posters. For instance, I’ve been in contact with The Blognostifier – Weh-Ming Cho, who became an overnight sensation when his epic Snowblower Kijiji ad went viral last November, attracting roughly half million hits in a matter of days. This individual obviously has a great talent for putting words on paper and hopefully he will grace the pages of My Income Project sometime in the near future – check out his blog at Blognsotifier.com.

That pretty much takes care of the first month of My Online Income Project, I hope that you enjoyed it half as much as I did. Until next time, take care!

Jeramy

Image: David Castillo Dominici / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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My Niche Site Backlink Strategy for Week 3 and Beyond

My niche site project is coming to an end – 22 January will officially be the final day. What does that mean? Only that MyIncomeProject.com will be changing its focus. Right now I’m completely focused on these niche sites. Starting in late January, I’ll switch gears and begin dedicating my time to my next income project.

For the remainder of this project, I will be dedicating my spare “computer time” to this backlink strategy. I’ve decided to go with a backlink wheel which will contains two layers of links;

• The Anchor layer –  web 2.0 sites which link directly to my primary niche site, and
• The Indirect layer – articles and social media/bookmarking which link to my web 2.0 sites in the anchor layer.

This will be my first time attempting any type of backlink strategy. If you wish to read more or gain a greater understanding of this technique, please visit The Smart Passive Income Blog.

Anchor Layer Step #1

Earlier this week I began creating the Anchor layer for my first Niche Site.

My Anchor layer will be composed of blogs, hubpages/squidoo lenses, and article directory submissions. Each will contain a page with 2 separate text anchored keywords pointing directly to AlarmInstallations.org. One of those links will point directly to AlarmInstallation’s home page and the other will go to a related article within the site;

• Blogger.com
• Live Journal
• WordPress
• Weebly
• Tumblr
• Yola
• Possibly others…

And;

• HubPages
• Squidoo 

Anchor Layer Step #2

This step will be composed of submitting new and unique articles to article directories and creating backlinks on websites I currently run, comments, etc. Here are a few examples of the directories I will be using;

• EzineArticles
• GoArticles
• ArticleDashboard
• ArticleCity
• EasyArticles

Next week I will begin this step by making article submissions to the above directories.

Indirect Layer

The final step will involve linking to my content within the Anchor Layer. At this point, I will begin spinning my articles with The Best Spinner. This particular product is not free but I believe you get what you pay for and The Best Spinner will allow you to create several dozen unique articles in the span of  just a few minutes. These articles will then link directly to my anchor layer and will be submitted to article directories using an automated submitter such as the Directory Site Submitter. Here is a quick video demonstrating The Best Spinner creating content and passing the CopyScape or Plagium test;

That just about covers the backlink strategy I’ll be using for my Niche Sites.

Next I plan on revealing the plan for my next Income Project and I also plan on sharing the technique I’ve been using to write informative article, on any niche, in about 20 minutes or less.

Take care everyone,

Jeramy

Image: KROMKRATHOG / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

(full disclosure – there are affiliate links on this page, so I will make a few dollars if you decide to purchase the software)

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How I Severely Screwed Up My First Niche Site 

Yes that’s right, I screwed up my first niche site. Is all lost? Nope, this is exactly why I’m doing this project; to make mistakes, learn from them and them move onto the next project.

“An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.”

- Niels Bohr

Some food for thought – If you don’t make mistakes, you will never gain the experience necessary to become an “expert” in your field…

Anyway, let’s take a look at where I went wrong during week 2 of My Niche Site Project – pay attention, there is an obvious theme…

During my first week of the Niche Site Proving Ground challenge, I was very specific about the guidelines that I would follow in order to achieve my goals – I called it “Building the Niche Site Foundation”. Here are some of the key points from that post;

and,

Overall, I somewhat stuck to the plan and complete all of the above guidelines, but that wasn’t good enough, I had to keep going – I forgot to keep things simple. I decided to try and use all the “best” plugins and complete everything at once. Before I even realized it I had made the following mistakes;

 Building The Site

• I didn’t take my time to choose an appropriate theme. Basically, I chose the first one I saw Twenty Eleven. While not a bad theme, there are many out there which are better suited for my purpose. Two days ago I actually changed themes and decided upon using the free Graphene Theme which comes with great customization capabilities and a built in slider. This leads me directly into my next mistake, my original theme didn’t have everything I needed or wanted, so I started installing plugins to compensate…

• At this point I installed and activated over twenty plugins. There was very little rhyme or reason to my choices and the unfortunate result was that some of them ended up doing similar jobs or just being plain unsuitable for my site.

• Finally, I didn’t take the time to adjust my Wordpress or Plugin settings properly. For example, I simply used the default permalink and then ended up changing it several days later to display “mysite.com/category/title/”  and this was after all my pages were indexed in Google. Also, I didn’t think about what to noindex and nofollow so yesterday I installed the Robots Meta plugin to customize these settings.

Content and Promotion

• My thirty articles were posted the same day that they were delivered from my Freelance writer…Can you guess why that was a bad idea? Well first of all, this was my first time I worked with this particular writer, therefore I had no idea about the quality of her work – I should never have made the poor decision to trust her blindly. Luckily In the end, this mistake wasn’t that bad – the articles did pass the plagiarism tests that I conducted at Plagium (inexpensive alternative to Copyscape) and they were grammatically correct. 

• I Purchased 3000 backlinks. This sounded like a good idea at the time – the price was right and the individual came recommended with great reviews. The job was carried out as promised and I was sent verification of the backlinks within 24 hours. Sounds good right? Well the problem is, there is now way these backlinks will look natural to a search engine – 3000+ sites linking to a site which is less than 1 week old is unnatural. Will these links hurt my niche site ? Maybe…. but the point is I shouldn’t have made the decision that could potentially have sabotaged my efforts. This was my original plan – from my Niche Site Proving Ground post;

What was the Common Theme and What Did I Learn?

The common theme was a lack of patients – I wanted instant results and I potentially sacrificed quality in order to achieve that end. Each decision I made was based upon emotions and my desire for instant success.

Considering My main goal during this Niche Site Project was to learn, everything has worked out perfectly. My goal was achieved and the next time I launch a niche site I will have a flexible game plan that I will stick to from beginning to end.

So success or failure? Overall, week 2 was a success and my title may have been slightly misleading. Week 2 wasn’t severely screwed up, it was actually a fantastic learning experience. If I hadn’t made these mistakes I wouldn’t have been able to benefit from the experience. They say “patients is a virtue” and I believe it will probably help with my niche site construction to.

Check back later this week for another update on my Niche Site Project. Also, I hope to have little surprise in store over the next couple of weeks for MyIncomeProject readers. Take care everyone!

Jeramy

Master isolated images/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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My Income Project Goals for 2012

Most of us realize the importance of creating goals. Goals give us a direction, they keep us on track, and they ultimately make us more productive individuals. Since it’s that time of year again, when everyone is sitting down and making plans for 2012, I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to do the same for MyIncomeProject.com.

Setting goals is an imposing task but don’t let that deter you. Setting a goal means you are making a commitment to yourself, and that is exactly why creating goals works so well in helping you achieve your ambitions. It’s all about commitment – when you are committed and you have decided and believe that nothing can stand in your way, you will achieve what you have set out to accomplish. I’ve seen it happen and you probably have too.

My plan is to create a series of income project goals over the next year which will serve as building blocks – meaning each goal will assist me in accomplishing my larger, long term goals. I’ll break my goals down into 3 categories;

-Short Term Goals

-Medium Term Goals

-Long Term Goals

When I create a strategy like this one, I will be using my short term goals in order to prepare myself to achieve my medium term goals and then eventually my long term income project goals.

If each of my goals is SMART I should end up looking back at a very productive and successful year.

Here are my Goals for 2012;

Short Term Goals

- Complete the Niche Site Proving Ground Challenge – This will be my first goal of 2012. So far I’ve only completed 3 weeks and I still have another site to launch and then i’ll be doing a great deal of work implementing a backlink strategy in order to make everything come together. Once I complete this project I will be ready to move onto my second Income Project of the year.

- Create a Niche Dating Site – This will be an interesting project and one that i’m quite excited about. My plan is to use the well established Dating Site Platform DatingFactory.com to create a dating website which will cater to a small niche market. The plan is to have the site launched by the end of February or, at the latest, mid March 2012.

Medium Term Goals

- Complete Four More Online Income Projects before August 2012 –This goal will include the Niche dating site project and then 3 more projects broken down into four or five week blocks.

- Launch an iPhone App – This goal will also complete one of my Online Income Projects in 2012 and I’ve already begun researching and planning. This project is mainly meant to “break the ice” regarding app development. The app will be simple and affordable, my main goal is to learn the process in order to release more apps in the future.

- 200 MyIncomeProject Subscribers by June 2012 – This gives me six months to convince potetial readers that I’m taking My Income Projects seriously and that I do have something valuable to offer them. Gaining two hundred subscribers would be a huge milestone and I can’t wait to achieve this goal!

Long Term Goals – The culmination of all my hard work.

- Publish an eBook – I believe this goal is worthy of “long term goal” status, and i’m very excited to create some great content and gain valuable experience over the next 12 months. My eBook will include all the lessons i’ve learned completing various Online Income Projects throughout 2012.

- Create $2500 Monthly Online Income By 2013 – I am not apprehensive about this goal in the least, I actually believe I am being quite conservative. I truly believe it’s your attitude which will determine if you are successful or not. Over the past few years i’ve seen that it’s possible to create LOADS of money online – i’ve done it and i’m still collecting checks from work I did back in 2009. This internet marketing stuff is the real deal, you just need to be willing to put the time in to learn how to do it right, and I plan to do just that.

There you have it – this is what my income project goals look like for 2012, all I can hope for is that you are there to share it with me. Happy New Year!

Jeramy

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The Pros and Cons of Outsourcing your Niche Website Articles

So here is the question; “should you be outsourcing your niche website articles?” Well, if you’ve been following my niche site proving ground challenge or read some of my updates from last week you’d know that i’ve decided to give it a shot and outsource most of my niche website content writing over the course of this challenge. So far, this has been a simple task to accomplish. Without going into to much detail, here are the basics in order to get you started;

Step #1 – Create an account at a popular outsourcing community such as Freelancer.com

Step #2 – Post your project, at which time it will be open for bidding to the freelancer community.

Step #3 – Award contract to the freelancer who best meets your needs.

Step #4 – If your potential freelancer accepts the job, she will begin work.

Step #5 – At the agreed upon completion date, you will review the agreed upon work. If you are     satisfied, the transaction will be completed.

That’s it, the process is surprisingly simple.

Now let’s take a look at the positives of Outsourcing your Niche Website Articles? Here are just a few important points that come to mind;

Pros

• Money - First and most importantly, you should consider what your time is worth. When you do this, you’ll discover outsourcing can potentially be quite cheap. For example, my time is worth around $40/hour. For this particular project, i’ve paid $60 in order for someone to research and write 20 articles on various keywords which I provide. Considering this work would likely take me several hours to complete (possibly much longer), it is no brainer for me to outsource these articles
• Timelines – time may be of the essence. If you were under tight time constraints or simply don’t feel like waiting, you could potentially hire several individuals to complete one project in just a fraction of the time it would take you.
• Writing skills – If you know you’re not a great writer and even have a difficult time writing a grocery list, then maybe you’re a perfect candidate for outsourcing your articles.
• Subject Expertise - Maybe you can hire an individual with more expertise and knowledge than yourself within your niche. Expertise may be worth the price tag as quality often is.

Once again, I’ve only listed a couple of the positives which I feel are particularly important – but of course for each positive there is a negative. So let’s take a look at some potential negatives of outsourcing your niche site articles;

Cons

• Initial Cost – Whenever you hire someone to do your dirty work, a payment for the service is inevitable. The amount you are willing to pay will ultimately determine what type of quality you can expect when outsourcing your niche site content. Remember, you usually get what you pay for. So, for someone who doesn’t have some extra cash lying around or isn’t willing to make that initial investment – outsourcing your project is probably not going to be an option.
• Reliability – Let’s face it, if you want something done right, do it yourself. When you place your niche site project into the hands of a stranger, you won’t be able guarantee things will turn out the way you hope. In a perfect world, you could trust a freelancer to pour his heart and soul into your project and do it right the first time…but this is planet earth and it’s far from perfect. If you decide to outsource your niche sites articles, at the very least you should check them for plagiarism with copyscape or a similar resource like Plagium.
• Control – If you are a control freak, don’t outsource to someone who lives 6000 miles away. When you outsource your work, you are in essence giving up a certain amount of control. Ok fine, you will still have the last say on what is posted on your niche site, but let’s say you plan on rewriting everything yourself just to make it “perfect” – just save yourself the hassle and do it yourself the first time.

Regardless of the potential negatives of outsourcing, I still feel I should give it a fair chance. My time is very valuable to me and if I can make outsourcing work, it’s worth the initial investment. Also, I’m quite certain there are many more positive and negative points which could and should be said about outsourcing, so if you think of any, please by all means add your thoughts into the Pros and Cons of Outsourcing your Niche Site Articles comment section. Stay tuned, I’ll be sure to update MyIncomeProject.com as my articles start streaming in. Until next time, take care everyone.

Jeramy

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If you fail to plan, you’re planning to fail.

When you think abou it, not much work is needed in order to plan your next blog post. Actually, creating a simple plan will most likely save you time in the long run. When I sit down to write a new post for MyIncomeProject.com, I do it with a well thought out plan. Each paragraph has already been outlined in my mind. I believe strong organization leads to increased productivity and quality. I’ve already discussed this once in my article; Creating Structured Blog Post, but I feel so strongly about the importance of proper planning that I decided to touch on it again today. So how do you plan your next blog post?

In order to plan your next blog post, try using these five steps.

Step 1 – Choose a clear and defined topic.

It doesn’t matter if your topic is iPhones or Niche Websites, you need to have this clear in your mind. When you’ve decided on your topic, take the time to write it down.

Step 2 – Decide upon the key points you would like to address.

What is your goal in writing this article? Is there specific information that you would like to share with your readers regarding the topic you chose in step 1? This is where you define these key points – once again, take the time to write them down.

Step 3 – At this point, you’ve decided upon your topic and chosen the key points that you will want to discuss. Now it’s time to decide how to present that information to your readers. We do this by creating an outline and planning what each paragraph will focus on. Here are some examples; paragraph 1 – introduce you key points and why you are discussing them, paragraph 2 will focus strictly on your first key point, paragraph 3 will focus on key point 2, etc.

Step 4 – Write your blog post following the outline you created in step 3.

This is the step where you actually begin writing your first draft, by using the outline we created in step 3. Remember that your outline is only a rough idea of how you would like to present your information. Your outline isn’t written is stone and should be flexible enough to change on the fly.

Step 5 – This step is all about reviewing your content, and is probably the most important step.

After you complete step 4 – save your draft, get up, walk around, or grab a coffee. At this point it’s important to separate yourself from your work and take a short break – try doing this for at least 20 minutes.  At this point, come back to review and proofread your content. After this small break, you will hopefully be able to look at your writing feeling fresh, making it easier to pick up on those simple mistakes or the sentence that just “doesn’t sound right”.

Remember to take your time with step 5 and save yourself the embarrassment and hassle of posting an article that lacks quality and is full of obvious mistakes – it will only negatively impact your credibility and make you look unprofessional. Take step 5 seriously. 

If you decide to try these steps the next time you sit down to write a blog post, remember to be flexible. These steps are just rough outlines which you should be easily changed on the fly. The idea here isn’t to give you a concreate set of rules to follow, but to help get your creativity ball rolling and give you a simple plan for each time you need to put your thoughts onto paper.

Thanks for taking the time to visit MyIncomeProject.com – please feel free to share your thoughts and opinions in the comments section, I would love to hear from you.

Jeramy

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Niche Site Challenge Week 1 – Review and Lessons Learned

The first week of my niche site challenge has been great – it was fun, productive, and I’ve learned much more than I anticipated. Today I’ll give you a quick recap of what my goals were for week, and a progress report including lessons learned. Also, i’ll mention a big change which will cause me to deviate from my original plan over the next few weeks.

The Original Plan

In my Niche Site Proving Ground post, I outlined 4 goals which I wanted to accomplish in week 1;

These were the first 4 goals I needed to accomplish in my 35 day niche site challenge. Because this was my first real experience with niche sites, I didn’t have a clear idea as to how long it would take me to accomplish each goal – therefore I allotted myself an entire week to complete the task but ended up finishing in just over 2 days.

The first day was a breeze, I decided on my niche for each sites, did some research with Google Keywood Tool and then purchased my domains – trying my best to meet the specifications I listed above.  After purchasing my domains, it was only a matter of hours before I was working on choosing a WP Theme and designing some custom headers.

Lessons Learned in Week 1

The major lesson learned this week was simply – don’t rush.  Take your time and choose carefully. When hunting through domain names, write a few down and come back to them – don’t make hasty purchases, there is no need to rush this process.

Unfortunately, I was hasty and the first domain I purchased will likely end up collecting dust for the next twelve months before I allow it to expire.  My hasty decision likely cost me $10 – no, it doesn’t break the bank, but I plan on learning from this mistake.

Lesson – be patient, but realize that you will eventually need to make a decision.

The same argument can be made when choosing your theme. Taking your time and researching what other people are using will pay off in the long run – there really isn’t any need to stray off the beaten path, choose something that has worked for other people in the past. Here are a few suggestions;

- CTR Theme

- ClickBump 

- Socrates

* These are not affiliate links*

What Now?

The truth is, I wasn’t looking forward to spending hours each night researching and writing articles for my Niche Sites. I’m heading into my holidays and i’d like to spend as much time with my family as possible.  Thankfully Rich Buggy from www.NicheSiteGuy.com mentioned Freelancer.com yesterday on Twitter. For anyone who isn’t familiar with the service, they claim they’re the world’s largest outsourcing marketplace – you simply post a job and freelancers from around the world will bid to secure a contract with you. After checking it out, I decided to post a job and outsource at least some some of my articles over the next 4 weeks.  Thanks Rich!

That’s it for now – please subscribe and feel free to leave your comments, i’d love to hear some input and i’m not too proud to take advice.  Cheers,

Jeramy

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Day 3 - Niche Site Proving Ground

Building a Strong Foundation for my Niche Sites

Today I’m going to go over the foundation I’ve created for my Niche Sites. This foundation will act as the basis for my site in terms of functionality, cosmetic appeal, and usability. My Niche Site Foundation will be build with a powerful Content Management System, a sleek and simple theme with some custom graphics, and of course a few choice plugins and widgets.

WordPress was the obvious choice. WordPress sets up fast and is extremely simple and straightforward. WordPress also boasts a huge community with an ever growing directory of useful and versatile plugins and themes to fit every taste.

Design and Theme

When choosing a theme, my strategy was to pick something clean and simple which also contained the following features;

-          2 Columns (preferred)

-          Custom header option

-          Neutral  colours

For my first niche site, I was satisfied to use the default twenty eleven theme with a customized header I created using GIMP.  Total time commitment was roughly 1.5 hours while I was also watching TV with my family. The end result is very aesthetically pleasing, original, and simple.

Plugins

The plugins I chose were decided upon by reviewing what has worked for other niche site developers, personal experience, and personal preference – here are the plugins I chose to run as default on each of my 3 Niche Sites;

-          WordPress SEO

-          Advertisement Management

-          SEO Auto Links and Related Posts

-          Collapsing Categories

Each plugin will be used on a trial basis and possibly disabled or replaced – as mentioned, the collection of WordPress plugins is always evolving and growing therefore if I find something new, I’ll test it out and report the results here.

Widgets

I believe widgets are useful for several reasons but should be used sparingly when building your Niche Site Foundation. Therefore, for the time being, I will only be using these 2 widgets ;

-          Search

-          Categories

I recommend not going overboard on widgets when building your Niche Site Foundation – although useful, they can make your Niche Site look cluttered and draw attention away from what is important –your ads.

What’s next?

Content! I`ll  begin writing my articles tomorrow.

Thanks for taking the time to follow me in my pursuit for online wealth at MyIncomeProject.com!

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