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.