Quest for Quiescence

Woohoo! 2012 has arrived! I’m shifting gears in a major way this year, but before I get into that, lets look at December’s Progress.

Each month I post a report of my internet marketing progress. I’ve been posting these reports since October 2010 when I first started making money. Actually I started a little late and then played a bit of catch up. Each report documents the income and the traffic that my niche site has generated and how I achieved both. Today I’ll be reporting on the progress I made in December.

Last month I boasted about doubling my earnings from October. Well check out this month. I more than doubled my earnings from November. I’ll dig more into the numbers later. For now, lets look at what took place in December.

What I Did in December

I decided to start ramping down my effort towards my niche site in December. I feel that I’ve reached a point where I’m not going to see much return on investment for any additional work I put into it. Over the past year I identified the opportunities for revenue generation and built out content to capitalize on those opportunities. Then, over the past few months I’ve been working to build backlinks to that content in an effort to increase my google rankings.

So how are those google rankings doing?

Keyword 1: Position 2 ( from 7 last month)

Keyword 2: Postion 4 (from 7 last month)

Keyword 3: Position 5 (from position 5 last month)

I’ve been able to take these 3 primary keywords (as well as a handful of others) from not being indexed at all, to page 3, to the top 5 in google in a couple of months.

And here’s the thing, I did absolutely nothing in the month of December. No backlinking, no new content, no nothing. Okay, I guess I did have to moderate and respond to a few comments that were left on the site. But that’s it.

Despite not doing any work on the site in December, it was still a record month… by a long shot! This is the beauty of building websites. They are an excellent passive income opportunity. Once you build them, they can keep on earning money month after month without any additional effort.

But that doesn’t mean I didn’t do anything in December. In fact, December was a very busy month for me. Like I mentioned last month, I’m starting a new project with better revenue potential. I’m hoping to build something with the potential for job replacing revenue this time.

I’m still in the early stages. December was focused on market research and defining my niche. There was a lot of digging and a ton of notes. At this point, I’m pretty confident that I’ve identified my target niche and a pain point that I can address. That’s what I’ll be focusing on in 2012.

I’ll discuss my plans for 2012 in a bit more detail below. First, lets look at the numbers for December.

Income Sources

•  Physical Product Affiliate Earnings: $381.29 [Up from $112.19 last month]
•  Ebook Affiliate Earning: $119.17 [Up from $94.92 last month]
• Adsense: Earinings: $24.15 [Up from $11.82 last month]
•  Total For November 2011: $524.61 [Up from $218.93 last month]

Wow! December was a huge month. I wish I could say it was because I did so awesome this month, but I didn’t do anything at all with the site besides approving and responding to the odd comment. The increase in revenue is due to the better keyword rankings and a ton of extra traffic. The extra traffic came as a result of the Christmas holiday season.

Not only did I receive a bunch of extra traffic due to the Christmas season, but that traffic was more focused on buying than usual.  That’s simply because at Christmas time, people are looking to buy gifts for their friends and family. Even the days following Christmas, people are looking to spend cash and gift cards.

I certainly can’t complain about a $500+ dollar month. Especially since I only broke the $100 dollar mark a few months ago. I just hope I can sustain this for a little while before things drop back down to a normal level.

Traffic

• Page Views: 29,672 [up from 12,743 last month]
•  Absolute Unique Visitors: 11,630 [up from 4,840 last month]
•  Number of Keywords: ? [from 2,501 last month] – I haven’t figured out how to determine this from the new Google Analytics interface yet.
  

An outstanding month for traffic (thanks to the Christmas season). The trend here resembles what I saw at Christmas last year (you can go back to the progress report from December 2010 to see for yourself). Just like last year, there was a huge spike on Christmas day that is slowly decaying. I believe this is due to people looking online for information and manuals to go with newly received Christmas gifts. Fortunately, I was much better equipped to capitalize on that traffic this year.

Traffic sources for December

As usual, the number 1 traffic source is google by a long shot. In fact, much more so than usual even. It is a little concerning to be so dependent on a single source of traffic. However, that’s where people are searching from, so what can you do?

Coming up in 2012

Last year I didn’t really place any goals on my online projects. I was still feeling things out and not sure whether I was really ready to commit to anything. This year is different however. I’m confident that there is money to be made and that I have the capability to get my hands on some of it. So, I’ve devised a plan to set myself up with the best possible chance of going big in 2012.

My goal for 2012 is to launch a web application business with 100 users each paying $50 per month by the end of the year.

This simple and solitary goal is designed to encourage me to focus on 1 thing in 2012.  The numbers are there as a measuring stick. They may be too ambitious but I have no way of knowing at this point. At least it gives me something to shoot for.  I don’t really care particularly about the exact number of users or cost of service, but $50 seems to be a good price point for keeping a web app affordable yet profitable without needing a billion users. I chose 100 users simply because at $50/month, that puts gross revenue at $5K/month which should be enough to support my family.

Actually, to be honest, this goal is not a result of the new year. I’ve just reached a point that I’m ready for the next level. I was thinking about starting another niche site but have decided against that. If you look back at the archives of this blog, you would see that I continually hold myself back by setting my sights to short. I’m not making that mistake this time. I’ve already invested a few years into my online projects and now it’s make or break time. I need to take what I’ve learned and give myself the best chance of success that I can. It just so happens to be the beginning of a new year,  so why not turn it into a new years resolution.

The Project

Based on my observations of other successful companies and individuals over the last couple of years, I’ve come up with a list of criteria that I believe will contribute to a profitable project.

1. Utilize a recurring revenue monetization model
2. Target small businesses
3. Focus on a  “Vertical”, “Niche” market
4. Leverage existing interests, strengths and experience
5. Make sure to address burning need or desire
6. Verify that the market is viable
7. Confirm there is existing competition
8. Confirm that the market is not saturated
9. Define a unique selling proposition
10. Make sure your target market is accessible

Once I freed myself from my niche website, I began my research to scope out a product or service to meet all of the above criteria. I spent the latter part of November and all of December flushing it out. For the first couple of weeks I was lost. I couldn’t find anything viable. I was getting very frustrated.

To start with I was identifying broad market solutions and looking for vertical markets to niche down to. For example, I thought about online appointment booking and tried to niche it down to very obscure niches. No matter how hard I tried though, each niche was completely saturated between the broad market solutions and other small micropreneurs with extremely niche products. Plus, I wasn’t passionate about the niches I was looking into.

Eventually I took a step back and approached from a different angle. I tried to start with my passion, knowledge and experience. Each of which happen to be on unrelated topics. In the past, I’ve been unsuccessful at coming up with a monetization model for my passions. I’ve always failed because as a hobby for consumers, no one is willing to pay for information, training or tools. This time though, the criteria above forced me to focus on an offshoot of my passion. In particular, the small business requirement lead me to a service oriented industry that serves the people who share my passion.

Once I identified the industry, it didn’t take long to figure out what the pain points were. There are a handful of old school software companies with solutions but the internet is littered with criticism about those options. I’ve found many potential customers venting about the existing solutions and their shortcomings. This will make it relatively easy for me to swoop in with an alternate that addresses all of those shortcomings.  As I mentioned, I already have a passion for the subject matter. As far as the business side of things, I have about 12 years of industry experience that is related to the solution these people are after.  I believe this niche meets every one of the above criteria to a tee.

Best of all, there are many existing solutions that have been developed in other markets. None of those solutions are directly applicable to this niche. However, I have many examples from other niches that I can study and use as inspiration for my new product.

Well, that’s my attempt at a short update of what I’m working on. I’ve defined the scope of the project fairly well I think. My next step for January is to create a website and online presence and start interacting with people in this niche. I need to start building an email list of potential customers and getting real feedback about what they want most in an ideal solution. I hope to have some good progress to report in early February.

Here’s to a great year in 2012!

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