The end of excuses. The one hour income stream.
Tuesday, May 8th, 2007 - 11:07 am
What’s your excuse for not having multiple income streams?
I launched a new income stream with less than an hour of total work over the last couple days. I’ll give you all the details in a moment.
We live in a time where you can launch income streams in an afternoon. At no other time in human history has that been possible.
It’s a virtual paradise for entrepreneurs!You know all those ideas that hit you in the middle of the night or while you are playing with your kids? Figure out a simple way to act on them. Even if 9 out of 10 ideas don’t take root don’t sweat it. Keep going. Failure is a part of this business, but failure has never been less expensive thanks to the Internet.
The below example is an income stream I launched for my family during the past two days - and I promise I’m as busy as ANYONE right now with the same stuff that keeps us all busy.
The reason I’m busier than usual is that Andrea (my wife) is visiting our next adopted daughter in Guatemala right now. She had a chance to go meet her for a few days and we have the freedom to jump on such opportunities. It’s quite a blessing. We hope to have our first daughter home before Christmas this year.
While my wife is out of the country (she has been for several days, but comes home tonight THANK YOU GOD) I have all four boys (age 4,4,7,10) myself. The only reason I’m able to do this article is that my mom and dad are over helping out today. The boys and I are having a blast since it’s “just the guys”. We’ve been doing things like playing outside, setting up sheet tents in the living room, trashing the house, staying up late, and watching Sponge Bob.
I think I may have said too much there… …BUT one of the side effects is that Dad isn’t getting hardly any work done! Over the last two days working a few minutes here and there I managed to pull off the following though (it takes longer to write this article than to do this stuff): I had an idea while I was playing outside.
When a I had a couple of minutes I did about 2 minutes of research on this site:
http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/
…and found a topic that gets about 20,000 yahoo searches per month related to my idea. There are literally thousands of such ideas available that you could take.
Next, I bought a domain name related to that keyword. Total cost under $20 for two years. Thank you GoDaddy.com. Then I wrote a simple but informative short article on a topic related to my domain name and posted my article to the site I’d bought. It took maybe 15 minutes. I could have used a free article from ezinearticles.com as well.
The next step was to monetize my site. Show me the money, right? For this I simply added Google Adsense code. Couldn’t be easier. It’s all copy/paste simple. Maybe 3-4 minutes on this step. Done. Now let’s get some traffic… I recorded a simple video about my topic and posted it to YouTube.com. The cost was 20 minutes of my time. The video doesn’t show me (although I am strikingly handsome). It’s just text and my voice. Simple. In that YouTube.com video (and in the text description that youtube.com requires) I mention the website and informational article from the previous steps.
Today I woke up to find that my video has already been viewed several times and it isn’t even appearing in the YouTube search index yet. Based on similar videos I’ve seen on YouTube I can easily expect thousands of viewers over the next year if not tens of thousands. I suspect that within a few days the video will have a decent rank on Google as well because they LOVE video over at Google. Google will rank me based on the keywords used in my description on YouTube.com.
I’ve only made 50 cents or so in the first 12 hours, but more is coming I promise. Total projected monthly income: $25-$60 Total time invested: well under one hour
What’s your excuse for not having multiple Internet income streams?
Leave me your thoughts PLEASE- I’d love to discuss it or clarify any step that isn’t clear. Have a way to improve on the idea? POST IT!
Jim Cockrum
Founder: http://www.MySilentTeam.com
Internet and eBay ideas that simply work
Author: The Silent Sales Machine Hiding on eBay
http://www.SilentSalesMachine.com
The all time best selling eBay eBook in the world
When you say the video will have a decent rank on Google will this be pointing to the website that you created or does Google actually link directly to your video on YouTube?
[[reply from Jim]]Google will rank to the VIDEO because they love video. Google doesn’t like one page article sites all that much.
I agree with what you say in principle, but you skip lightly over having a website to begin with, writing a good article and making a video. You have developed skills in your years online that do make that process simpler - and also give you an intuition for what may work (and the self confidence to try again if it doesn’t!).
Having only just taken the plunge with my own site/blog, I can see myself quickly moving to another level of “doing” - putting such ideas into action, rather than just reading and dreaming. Thanks for the article, and many others that have gotten me this far.
Hey Jim,
I love these type of income generators. Can you give us the URL of your video so we can see how you did it, and what the topic was? Not to steal your idea, but to see what you used.. camtasia or ? How did you put the text on the video, or are you talking about a video of text you\’ve typed…not clear on that point.
Anyway, some more information would be great!
[[reply from Jim]]: Can’t tell you just yet about the site I just made…it would blow my stats to tell my subscribers about it. I only want you-tube traffic so I can test it the same way anyone without a mailing list would test it.
Hi Jim,
It\’s great to see parents like you and Andrea so devoted to them.
Very rare in todays world. I\’m soo proud of you :-))
Now, can you post your YouTube username? So, your devoted newsletter readers (like me) can see what your videos are all about?
You mention to us about the video you uploaded, but don\’t give a clue how to find it..
So, as a friend and fellow ebay enthusiast, would you please do that for everyone?
Thanks so much,
Sandy Hall
www.misspellingsmakemoney.com
[[reply from Jim]]: Thanks for the kind expressions Sandy. Always great to hear from you and Jeff. I\’m not wanting to \”taint\” my results be telling my subscribers about it just yet. Once I have enough data to see how it\’s working I\’ll gladly tell all…remind me in a couple months!
This is a GREAT strategy and one I plan to share with my mailing list. I actually add another step to mine, but will have to keep that a secret for my members! ;o) Maybe when I’m as big as Jim, I’ll share!
Keep the great ideas flowing…
Thanks Jim
You just gave me a great idea on how to get traffic to my bankruptcy website, it’s not been getting too many adsense clicks lately
Hi Jim,
Love the idea, quick question..you mention that you posted the article to the site you bought? Can you elaborate on what this site is? I understand you went to overature to find high traffic’d topics and you created a domain from there but not sure what site is that you posted your article. Did you have to create a sales page or is this site provided by godaddy.
Thanks
Tim
[[reply from Jim]]: I’m not sharing the site in order to protect my results from being tainted with newsletter reader clicks on my adsense ads. It is a simple one page informational site with a good article attached. Google likes to see more than one page included when you do something like this though. Another way is to have a blog with an occasional original post put on it. Good content is always good policy. Google will always love good original content.
Hi Jim, great idea! A few days ago I put my first video up on Youtube, Yahoo & Google. So far about 60 views in total and a handful of visitors to my website. Well worth the effort as you only have to do the work once and it then works week after week. I just used Windows Movie Maker with about 20 photos and an audio track. Very easy to do and my best tip would be to put the still image that you want YouTube to display as the static image exactly half way through your video. So I put a title image that included my website URL both at the start and at 1:00 minutes through my 2:00 minute video. Thanks for all your great info.
Explain please how to upload a camtasia video to you tube i can’t.
Good idea also where if you explain how and wich keywords you used to find a 20.000 relates search in yahoo overture or give us some ideas in ither arguments we can research,
Thanks and keep up the good work!!
Paolo Orlando
[[reply from Jim]] to post a camtasia video to youtube you just have to produce it as an AVI file. Use the “production wizard” - it’s simple once you do it once.
Jim,
It really is that easy.
I went to http://officelive.microsoft.com
Put up a FREE site (free meaning free domain, hosting, and web tools). I am an affiliate of the popular ones, SFI…Internet Marketing Center, etc…and your newsletter is on there too.
I put some very good, informative, content on the site. I drove traffic to it by writing three articles and submitting them to ezinearticles.com
And alakazaam! Total time invested: 2hrs about three months ago.
Income? $218 a month average from sales and the like. For two hours effort! With the exception of adding one article a month…I don’t even touch it.
So your right…what is the excuse if you can’t make money on the net?
Joseph Ratliff
P.S. Wanna see the site?
http://www.cashbusinesses.net
I find the ability to create income streams like this very promising. I don’t have your know-how yet, but I hope to find the info needed to begin soon. A starting point or very basic outline would be appreciated.
Thanks, Jeff
Hey Jim,
Way to go. Even buried under in-laws and outlaws you’ve managed to come up smelling like a rose. Now I’ll need to think harder to come up with a “good” excuse for not having multiple Internet income streams. How’s this one? “Someone stole my video camera.”
Absolutely wonderful post. People step-by-step info.
Thanks,
Kenneth
Hi Jim,
Great work!
Maybe I’m challenged in this department, but when you (or other marketers) write “I quickly found a great idea” - my mind goes blank. Do you mind posting a link to your video please, as a real and practical example of such idea/website?
Thanks,
Andrei
[[reply from Jim]]: You could read any off the shelf magazine and come up with 100 great ideas for niche markets to tackle. Pick literally ANY niche market, do a Google search and find some of the top websites on your topic and inlcude them in your simple video and article. Don’t complicate this!
Why would you pay GoDaddy when you can get a website (or two or a thousand) for free with Blogger, Typepad, Wordpress. Granted, they’re blogs, but you can customize them simply and quickly (especially the new Blogger) to make them look great. Just my two cents.
[[reply from Jim]] : great point!
Thanks for sharing this information, and breaking down the process step by step. I am amazed by the amount of money there is to be made by affiliate programs.
Here’s my problem. When I’m actually searching for useful information on the web, I’m sick and tired of finding “empty” sites that are nothing but a income generating shell for someone else. I don’t want to contribute to the piles of garbage on the web.
Are you not concerned with this? I looked at your birdhouse site, and it’s ridiculous. If I was looking for legitimate information on bird houses, I would be real irritated that I took the time to click on that site.
I’d love to hear your input on this topic.
Thanks,
Amy Laybourn
[[reply from Jim]] : I was tired of catching flack for that old “bird house” site so I pulled it down, but with some LEGIT ORIGINAL content you can do this and provide a great service to the searching community. Save them a few minutes of research time by putting together a good summary of the niche. Tell them what resources are available online and leave them better than when they came. Google will love you, the visitor will love you and you’ll make adsense income!
That’s a great idea Jim. I had a similar idea a couple of years ago. My wife finished her graduate degree quite sometime ago, and we went into serious debt by way of student loans. The short of it is her loan was seriously mismanaged, and it ended up costing us a lot more money. It became a very long time consuming ordeal. There are many things a student borrower needs to be made aware of. So, I wrote a book telling our entire story, giving good advice and useful information, as well as resources for students and parents. I called it Student Loans Exposed, I put up a web site by the same name, and ran an ad for some time on EBay. The results were very disappointing, to say the least, there weren’t any. I was kind of surprised that it generated no activity, as I did a key word search on Overture and found that on any given month, an average of 400,000 searches for the words ’student loans.’ If you have any ideas on this, I would most welcome it, as all comments are greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time Jim. Respectfully, Johnny
[[reply from Jim]]: always start with the marketing plan. Find a group of fish, ask them what kind of food they like, go find that food (or make it yourself) and then bring it to them. You started out by creating the product instead of starting out by finding a pool of customers!
Hello Jim,
My reason for not having multiple income streams just now is simple, I simply don’t have the expertise to make a video and am even struggling to get my e/bay ads set up,but I am devouring as much info as possible to make this happen. I am on my computer daily at 4.45am learning so one day it will happen.
Regards,
Albert R.
Great idea. I have heard some negative comments about GoDaddy.com in terms of domain registration. Specifically they can be a bit snarky with the AdSense crowd. I will follow your progress as you post more.
Hi Jim,
Thanks for sharing this information.
I agree with Amy Layourn tho. The birdhouse website is purely to make money. That\’s obvious, and I wouldn\’t want to make a website like that.
However, it does go to show the potential of a site with real content!!! If that birdhouse site is pulling in $10 dollars a month for you, then just think what it could pull in if it actually had great content!
sincerely,
JD
[[reply from Jim]]: that bird house site VERY ugly and I do not endorse creating hundreds of such sites to make a few bucks per month each. I just showed it as an example of what can be done. Some people do create hundreds of ugly sites like that, but I am against that idea as well as you are I am sure. I only have a couple sites like that as an experiment from a couple years ago. If you take the time to create a useful article though with good information on it and links to good resources you can have a very beneficial one page site with some nice income attached to it via adsense. You could even grow a mailing list with it. It is worth trying! The most recent experiment (as mentioned in my blog post) actually contains very useful unusual information and will be well received by nearly all visitors.
I notice the overture.com link doesn\’t seem to work, the search always comes back as \”nothing found\”. I know my searches aren\’t that obscure. I use firefox, would the browser make a difference?
[[reply from Jim]] It seems to shut down for several hours at a time sometimes. Try again…I doubt it is your browser.
Thanks Jim, I got the link to work nicely. As a n Alternative Medicine Physician, I see a myriad ways of using my knowledge in a similar fashion as demonstrated on your bird-house web site. I’m working on a Restless Leg Syndrome website right now.
Someone mentioned using blogs instead of a website. I\’d like to see more discussion on this. Are there any pros/cons to using a blog vs. a website for this type of site? Thanks!
[[reply from Jim]]: you could certainly use a blog to do this…no disadvantage that I see…
Good info Jim. Is there a minimum number of searches a topic should have before it will be profitable? My site is about mortgage acceleration which doesn\’t have many searches yet but as the word gets out it should grow pretty fast.
Thanks,
Jim
[[reply from Jim: I can not tell you a minimum number of searches to use as a guideline. Only testing will tell in a nice like that. Try to use other more populare related terms in your description as well to raise viewership too.]]
Great information Jim! I have several niche sites that can use this tactic on to drive traffic to them. I am stuck on what the content of the video should be. You mentioned the video that your voice provided the audio. What was the visual component of the video? Was it a set of still images in a slide show presentation, or was it screen capture of you demonstrating something?
[[reply from Jim]]: it was a series of screen shots with text on them. Pretty ugly and simple.
Hi Jim,
Very interesting idea-thanks for sharing. I understand the concept of what you’ve done but as a technically challenged newbie internet marketer, I would struggle with the actual processes of setting up the web site, producing and posting the video etc. Do you know if a program exists that explains the whole process in detail?
I have done a lot of research regarding the demand for certain products or ideas that I want to market. I can get the raw numbers for demand (yahoo searches) and supply (google listings) but I never know how to interpret the numbers to judge if it is a profitable ratio or not. I would be interested in learning what kind of guidelines you use for supply/demand ratio.
Thanks and keep up the good work!
Jim
Jim,
Looks to me like Google is not going to allow this type (MFA) sites anymore. I have pasted part of an article here.
Google to Close Low-Yield MFA Accounts
Google is sending closure notices to owners of low conversion “Made For AdSense” (MFA) sites. On Friday afternoon, reports that Google issued polite emails informing several owners of MFA type sites that their AdSense accounts are going to be terminated on June 1 began surfacing at WebmasterWorld.
Google is targeting a large group of people who use the AdSense system to scam monëy from advertisers. Some reports have suggested Google is going after the paid-search arbitrage community though others point out that though many (if not most) arbitragers are going to be affected they themselves were not the actual issue Google is dealing with.
Google is moving to close what are called “MFA” sites. Examples of MFA sites include parked domains, misspellings and faux-search engines, all of which tend to have AdSense advertising on them. When users go to or are somehow driven to those sites, those who clíck on the ads make the site owner (and Google) a little monëy. Though clicks on these sites might only be worth 5 – 10 cents, the Internet allows MFA site owners to run businesses based on huge volumes of purchased and misdirected visitors. On average, MFA site owners make a few hundred per month on their sites though in some cases, site owners can be making tens of thousands of dollars per month.
Obviously, this use of the AdWords and AdSense programs were far healthier for the MFA site owners (and Google’s bottom line), than they were for advertisers or Internet users. For most, the halcyon days of MFA are over and those webmasters will have to adapt to the new rules surrounding ad distribution through the AdSense program.
As for Google, if cleaning up the system makes advertisers more comfortable over the long-run, it makes far more sense for Google to forgo what is to them a relatively minor revenue source in order to create a more stable advertising environment. Assuming Google successfully removes MFA sites from its system, it will have moved a long way towards cleaning up a highly lucrative arena for clíck fraud.
Please comment..
[[reply from Jim]] Google will never be concerned by somone putting up original useful content. Do that and you are in the clear! It could mean years of income for a few minutes of work.
Hey Jim,
Nice tip, but I’m still fighting the battle of
the camera, (Making the videos)(I’ll get it)
You said you used GoDaddy to register the domain,
but did you use them for hosting as well or
your own server/or buy another hosting service?
Ok you find a niche, say “BubbleGum” where is
the best place to start looking for ‘quality’
content to write/video that topic? (Without
copying someone else work!!!)Especially if it’s
something you know nothing about!!!!
Another hot topic is ‘Public Domain’ works
for niches. I tried for weeks to find DNR
topics/articles (State and Federal)on fishing
and hunting/ hunter safety articles with no
luck. (And I know there out there, but
‘where’???)
Thanks,
Bill
Thank you Jim for your informative step by step instructions.
I have been recently widowed at the age of 66 and have no form of income. Having been interested in becoming an online marketer and affiliate for some time I am now going to try my hand at the internet business.
Not being blessed with the natural ability of the digital era I am struggling. Any advice you could give me would be gratefully received.
God Bless you.
Kind Regards
Heila Shepherd (South Africa)
[[reply from Jim]]: I take the responsibility of providing good info very seriously. I filterer out “scams” and do my best to provide solid info on legit opportunities. My advice and tips are here for all to see! Aslo - check out my free newsletter available by signing up in the upper left hand corner of this page.