My New Project: Scotch Whisky!

Photo courtesy of Kirti Poddar, flickr

In my last post, I talked about having a new passive income project that is being started with a good friend of mine. Since the project is well started and progressing well, I am ready to talk a bit about it.

We decide to start a website dedicated to tasting and rating various scotch whiskies. It is an interest we share and we feel that there might be a profit to be made there from affiliate sales.

Where are we at right now?

• We did some keyword research using market samurai and found out that the keywords "scotch ratings" seemed to have a nice potential to bring a decent volume of traffic. These keywords also seemed to have relatively low competition so getting to the top spot in google should be relatively feasible.
• We registered our domain and started configuring wordpress on it.
• We started writing and posting reviews and tasting notes of various scotch we have tried.
• We have added more content such as distillery pages, indexes and stuff like that...

We are currently still adding content to the site and even though I would like it to go faster, I feel it is moving along nicely. In order to eventually generate some passive revenues, we have contacted a few online spirits resellers inquiring about possible affiliate programs. So far we did not get any luck. We have one lead that might open up to something but they are currently waiting to see our website in a more complete state. My goal is to contact them again once we have around 15 reviews online and all the distillery pages associated with these reviews.

So the next steps are:

1. Content, content, content... we need to add more reviews, articles and distillery pages
2. Finalize a deal with an online liquor store. If we don't manage to do this, it will be much harder to monetize the site. It is still a fun project regardless of money, but getting a few bucks from it would be even more fun.
3. Start building references to our site. In order to push our site up in the google rankings, we will need to build links to our site on the web. We have a plan for that and I will discuss it at some point in a future post.
4. Spread the word! Twitter, facebook, whatever... we will need to draw attention to our site. Google referencing is great, but word of mouth can also be a great way to build traffic!
5. More content! Al through these steps, we need to keep adding content to make sure that site is interesting to viewers! A reader who thinks your site is worthless won't bother following your affiliate links!

So as you can see we still have lots of work to do. The site is up and running, but it is far from complete. Still, if you're curious, you can see our scotch ratings site in all it's current, incomplete glory at http://www.scotchratings.net

A multitude of projects

As if my already existing niche site and my top secret project were not enough, I decided to start off another project with a good friend of mine.

What is that other project? It's basically another niche site targeting a niche we are both pretty passionate about. I won't reveal what it is exactly just yet as we are in the early stages of the project.

Actually as of now we have decided what the niche is and we have laid out the basic task division between the two of us as to who will do what to get that web site online and keep it running.

One of the things that are in my court is doing the keyword research. What is keyword research? Well, basically it's doing some analysis to see what keywords would be best to allow you to:

1. Be found by people searching on google or other search engine for the niche products of your site
2. Have a low level of competition meaning you have a realistic shot at getting on the first page of search engines for people searching for the topic of your niche site.

All of this sounds a big complicated and esoteric, but there are actually tools that exist and make your life a whole lot easier. One such tool is Market Samurai, a software that provides a great and intuitive user interface that makes doing the keyword research much more simple.

All of the information you get from Market Samurai can be obtained for free using the various Google tools, but for me the time saved using this software is well worth the price.

Now back to my new project, I will post more about the details of the niche site once it's online. In the meantime, if you are curious to give Market Samurai a try, they offer a free 12 days trial and, as you have probably guessed, if you buy it through a link on this blog, I will receive a commission. 

Happy new year!

A happy new year to each and everyone of you!
I wish you all health, happiness and success in all of your projects and endeavors.

For my part I want to keep this blog updated more regularly throughout 2012 and keep working on my various passive revenue streams.

The beginning of a new year being a time to reflect on the last year, I think it's time for me to do a bit of a recap of where my various projects are and where I'd like them to be.

I wanted to get started on the whole passive income idea and I think I managed to achieve that. Sure I am not generating income yet, but I have my first niche site that is starting to climb up the google rankings despite my lack of effort. That slow but steady rise through the rankings has me hoping something can be achieved by this site.

I also started this blog, though I don't really expect it to be a big revenue generator, I like having this place to discuss, chronicle and share my findings and progress.

And then there is this third initiative I am not ready to discuss. No, not even with my best buddies! You will have to be patient to hear about it.

So all in all, even though I can be a bit impatient at times, I like where I am at, and more importantly, where I'm headed.

Why heart rate monitors?

As I mentioned in my last post, I recently created a web site dedicated to the review of heart rate monitors. Why did I choose that subject?

Well, fitness has become one of my growing passions. Something I read more and more about and ever since I started using my Suunto t6d about six months ago, the use of these devices and the tremendous help that they can bring to an average Joe trying to get in shape (like me).

So what's the link between all this stuff about heart rate monitors, fitness and generating passive revenues? Well, first of all, one of the things that were made obvious for me while listening to the smart passive income podcast is that if you have an interest in which you are willing to invest time and money, chances are that others are also willing to do it.

Another point that brought me to get my feet wet with this subject is that while it is a growing interest, I don't have as much expectations with that one as I do with other projects of mine. This basically means that I do not mind making newbie mistakes while working on this site. I actually expect to have my share of failures with it and that is part of the goal! As long as I learn from these failures and enjoy the process, creating that review site is a positive experience.

And who knows it might bring in a few bucks at some point or even help someone buy the right product for his needs!

Back from vacation

Well I am back from a great vacation in Mexico well rested and more motivated than ever to get this train rolling. Wouldn't it be great to be able to have this view for more than a few weeks a year?

Well, sitting on the beach, a margarita in hand, it occurred to me that this is the type of things passive income can allow you to do. And boy was that a motivating thing!

Now don't get me wrong, I like my 9 to 5 job and don't plan on quitting tomorrow to concentrate full time on my few projects. But am I not allowed to dream a little?

So what is the goal right now? Well, at this point I still have my target of $5,000 of passive revenues for 2012. Now to reach a goal, you have to lay out a plan and that's what I'm working on right now. I am still putting some work in my first niche site and I am happy to see that it is climbing the google ranks slowly but surely.

After that I have a few more ideas of blogs and other niche site I want to start rolling out, probably sometime in December. I am not ready to discuss what these are for various reasons, but rest assured that the readers of this blog will be the first to read about it. Speaking about this blog, you will have noticed that there are ads on the right hand side and that a new Bluehost ad too. These are some simple way to try to monetize this blog (although the main goal of the blog is to chronicle my progress through this adventure, wouldn't it be nice if the blog itself could generate some passive income?).

Bluehost is the hosting service I am using for my first niche site and so far I've been pretty satisfied with it. LOVE the 1 click wordpress install! Disclaimer, these bluehost links and the banner are all affiliate link, meaning I will get a commission if any of my reader should decide to subscribe to bluehost using these links.

Now about my niche site. It's been a while since I've talked about it and even though it's in a very "work in progress" and incomplete stage, I've decided to talk a bit more about it here.

Inspired by my recent physical training and the use of my Suunto t6d (again, affiliate link, commission, thank you very much!) I've decided to start a heart rate monitor review site. If you go visit the site right now, it will seem pretty simple and light and you will most likely wonder how in hell could this empty shell generate any sort of revenues. Well, come back to it in a few days, and again in a few months and you should see much more content. The goal here is to provide useful reviews of a nice type of product and hopefully people who feel compelled to buy one of these products using a link on that site and thus generate a commission from amazon.

So, if you're in the market for a nice heart rate monitor as a Christmas gift to yourself or a loved one feel free to buy it from my review site! ;)

What have I been up to?

It's been quite a few days since my last post so I think an update is definitly due! The last few days have been really busy and all that stuff about creating passive revenue streams (and blogging!) has taken a bit of a back seat. Thing is, I went out of town for a cousin's birthday, then the mad rush began.

I am leaving on Saturday for an overdue vacation. I am going to spend a week in Mexico around Riviera Maya with a good friend of mine. In itself this should not have prevented me from working on my income streams, quite the opposite actually, it has motivated me to do more before I go for a week. Problem is, my day job has been an intense sprint to make sure I close as much stuff as I can before going away. This along with the (let's be honest) intense celebration of the last week end, has left me pretty drained.

So my niche site is currently in an incomplete mess, this blog has been left out quite a bit, and I won't be able to work on all that much next week. Well... at least I hope a nice trip report comes out of this! Oh and of course, preparing this trip brought me passive revenues ideas I might explore a bit (and blog about) when I come back.

My take on passive revenues

Generating passive revenues is a subject that has fascinated many people on the internet for quite a while and that is already discussed at length on many websites. Actually, my inspiration for starting on these projects comes in part from many of these websites! Heck the techniques I use also come from stuff that has already been written down by people who know much more about the subject than I do.

So what do I have to bring to the table by writing this blog?

I hope what can make this blog interesting is the fact that I am like you, an average Joe who still knows little about niche site, advertisement, monetizing blogs, eBooks and stuff like that. I hope that what can make this blog interesting despite the ton of information already available elsewhere is my journey as I go from zero passive income to (hopefully) making a few bucks to complement my 9 to 5 job.

Through this journey I will try to provide as much details as I can about how I go about it, the challenges I meet and my emotional ups and down as I fail and succeed.

THIS is what this blog is about and hopefully you enjoy it. If not, then all is not lost since I am already enjoying chronicling this endeavour.