Updates
Is it All Just Luck?
A glance at the calendar for the coming weeks highlighted St. Patrick’s Day is fast approaching. When I was a kid I loved St. Paddy’s day — to me it meant getting to wear green and see little shamrocks everywhere. But as I looked over the calendar this year I thought about how we’re supposed to focus on “luck.” Is it really just luck that gets us where we want to be?
It’s actually surprising how many people seem to think that others who have more than them, or who have what they want, got “lucky.”
It’s Not Luck
Let me be completely blunt here. It’s not luck. People don’t get money because they’re lucky. They don’t make it big in business because they’re lucky. They don’t have a great body because they’re lucky. They don’t have a great marriage because they’re lucky.
People get those things because they work at it.
One my sites is in the pregnancy/childbirth niche. I have had great pregnancies and births and encourage other women… I get a lot of people tell me I’m “lucky” to have had fantastic births with my kids.
Nothing could be farther from the truth.
There’s no “luck” in it. I’ve worked — every day, for nine months (and even before conception) — to have those great birth experiences.
It Takes Willingness to Work and Be Persistent
Success takes hard work and diligence. There are other factors, too… honesty is a big one.
But don’t worry about luck when you’re building your business, choosing your niche, etc. You don’t have to have “the luck of the Irish” — you make your own success, and you make your own luck. Dress up in green all you want on St. Patrick’s Day, enjoy it. But don’t expect a lucky break to come your way.
Buckle down, decide on a plan of action, and stick with it. If it doesn’t work, fail (and fail fast) and move on to something else. Something will work, and you will find your success. Success comes from hard, diligent work. Are you willing to put in the time?
Photo by somewhereintheworldtoday
Crack Writer’s Block: Writing the First Draft
A lot of writing. That’s what I do. In fact, a lot might be an understatement. Some people think that writer’s block doesn’t happen to me because I write so much, but that’s not true. I often find it challenging to write.
In fact, it’s often really challenging to write something that’s, well, challenging. I’m talking about writing a sales letter. Writing a contest entry. Writing yet another article in a niche I feel like I’ve written an encyclopedia about already.
I have a lot of different solutions for writer’s block, but today I’m going to talk about writing that you find hard because it intimdates you. For instance, I don’t have trouble with article marketing articles in the same way I do a sales letter.
A sales letter is scary. This is a sale on the line. It could be the difference between getting my product into someone’s hands who really needs it… and having them pass by a great product because my letter, er, sucked.
A guest post is scary. A contest entry is scary. All of these things get more scrutiny than an article marketing article – than even an article on your blog. The rejection stings a little more. Maybe it pinches your wallet a bit more. So they’re harder.
Cracking the Block
Here’s my secret. I tell myself I just need to write the first draft.
That’s it. It doesn’t really matter how much it sucks. I’m the only one that’s going to see it!
I know that after I write that out, get that initial draft down on paper, I will be able to go back and make changes. I can craft it and hone it into something that I’m reasonably pleased with. The most intimidating part is getting that first draft down.
Then I have raw material to work with. Words are like a sculpture that can be finely honed into something you’re proud of, something to show off.
But it starts at the beginning. Just sit down and write the first draft. Nobody else will ever see it. Then you have something to work with, something to work on.
Pound Those Keys
I tell myself, as I sit down to get that first draft out, that I need to just do it. Sometimes it literally feels like I have to pain-stakingly chisel out every word… they don’t come easily. In those cases, I remind myself something I learned from Site Build It! when I created my very first website. Ken Evoy, author of the guide, related a scene from Finding Forrester, where the advice given is to “pound the keys.”
So in the words of Sean Connery’s character and Dr. Ken… “pound those keys, dawg!”
(Click here to get a free copy of that writing book)
Photo by matryosha
Designing Your Life on Purpose
The concept of goals is an age-old one. The concept of “lifestyle design” is a bit newer. Both come from the same place, though — creating what you want in life on purpose.
Most people end up getting a job, acquiring some “stuff” and then living out their lives without much direction. A huge TV in the living room and some frozen dinners in the kitchen amount to their goals. In the end they look back on their lives and, well, they did get that TV.
You Want More
Face it, when you get done with your life, you don’t want to look back on a marginal job and the latest in television technology as your biggest accomplishments. Do you? If you do, that’s fine — but you’re in the wrong place. Save your time and close this page now 
Still here? Me too. I want more than that. I want to look back at my life and know that I lived it with a purpose, that there was a reason for me to be here.
My hubby has told me before that he doesn’t feel like he needs a “reason to be here” — that he’s just here and that’s just fine. But I know he’s wrong. I’m privileged, and I see what he wants and what he hopes for. He doesn’t want to just look back and see himself on the couch. He has a whole set of dreams.
I think he’s trying to say he doesn’t need some “greater purpose” in the religious or humanitarian sense that people often spout off. You don’t need that to design life with a purpose (that can be part of it, though).
Decide What You Do Want
So what do you want? When you think about your life, what is you want? Do you want to live in a cubicle while somebody else raises your kids? I’m not trying to be harsh, but sometimes you need somebody to give it to you straight.
Do you want to build your boss’s dream, or the dreams that your company CEO and owner have?
If you can get your dreams while you build yours, that’s fine. Some people don’t want kids, some people don’t want a family. That’s fine. But if you look at it honestly, you probably want more.
What do you want? What kind of lifestyle do you want to live?
I don’t want a huge house, big cars, and mixed drinks on the beach. That’s often what the “internet lifestyle” is pictured as, and I don’t want it. I don’t want to be traveling the world constantly. That’s not me.
What I want (plus a couple more babies) Photo of us by Ritter Photography
- I do want to raise my family and own our own little bit of earth (to the tune of a hundred acres of so).
- I want a dairy cow and chickens, and I want a house big enough for a pile of kids.
- I want to be able to buy any curriculum I see fit to teach our kids at home.
- I want to show them great places in our country, and maybe take them to a few other countries over the years.
- I want to raise them up to be entrepreneurs, to love God, and value family.
- I want to love and respect my husband with all I’ve got.
- I want to tithe and I want to give money to charities I feel are worthy.
That’s what I want my business to fund.
What do you want yours to do? What do you really want?
Design Your Life Around What You Want
I wrote a post on pushing yourself — and to get what you want, you need to push yourself. It’s probably going to take a lot of work to get where you want. But you’re not going to get there if you don’t define where you want to go.
Stop sitting on the couch with your microwave dinner and feeling jealous of the people who are making it big. Get up, get to work, and grab your dreams.
I feel really great because a lot of my dreams are already there — I have a great family and a hubby who will probably let me have another baby :p I’m home with my kids and I homeschool them. Sometimes they drive me a little nuts (maybe I see a mother’s helper in that future vision…) — but our day-to-day life is so close to what we want. Right now I’m striving for that house and land and a trip to see the Rockies.
It feels good to have a purpose, to know that it’s mine, and to know that everything I do is working towards that.
It’s okay if what you want is different than what everyone else wants. You’re you. What’s your dream? What are you doing to reach it?
Photo by Sarah_Ackerman
Static Website vs a Blog: Which Makes More Money?
One of the first things you realize when you decide to make money online is that there’s a lot of debate on the best way to do it. Huge debates center around your website. Should you generate passive income by being a blogger or by setting up a static website? I’ll go over some advantages and disadvantages to both in this article.
Static Websites
A static website is a site that’s built with the basic coding languages of the web, HTML and CSS. These languages create websites that stay the same — they don’t change in reaction to your visitor. They can and often are quite beautiful, but they’re not “dynamic.”
Understanding basic principles of HTML and CSS is important for any internet marketer, and a static website gives you a great introduction that that.
Static sites tend to be simpler to organize and their layout and navigation is often optimized to build a strong site that will become an authority in your niche (your area of interest). Because of good central, visitor-focused navigation, these sites are often easily “crawled” by search engine spiders and get indexed into search engine listings.
Static sites generally load very quickly and are less likely to get bloated or bogged down, though it can happen.
You need to either use a text editor and code your website by hand, use an HTML coding program, or use a website builder to create your website. Most hosts provide a website builder, but the host you choose will determine how high quality of a site your site builder can create.
Some people also find it harder to update a static website, though others find a lot of freedom in being able to create it the way they want to, using some dynamic elements such as server-side includes.
Dynamic Blogs
The most common type of dynamic website is the blog. Blogging is very popular nowadays, but if you want to make a lot of money from your site, a traditional blog setup may not be best. Organizing your site as a strong authority site, with some blogging elements is probably best.
Blogs dynamically generate a page by pulling information from a database as soon as a visitor hits your site. They bring up, or render, your page in HTML and CSS when your visitor sees it, but there’s a dynamic language powering the back-end (PHP is the most common on the web).
You can usually use a “theme” on your blogging platform to instantly change the look and feel of your site — no coding required. It’s also usually quite easy to enter new content. Most blogging platforms have a visual editor that you write in just like a word processor.
Plugins are small scripts that can be added onto your blog to give it added functionality. These plugins can add great features that enhance your site, but they can slow down your website or possibly make it vulnerable to hacker attacks. Keeping your blog installation and plugins up-to-date can decrease these problems.
Blogs tend to be organized simply by categories, tags, and archives, rather than the logical and topical order of static websites. This is fine if you’re keeping a personal blog, but if you want people to see and utilize the information in your archives, it doesn’t work so well. Being purposeful in organizing your blog will help immensely.
It’s sometimes hard to customize your blog. Trying to work within the rules of your blog’s script and theme can make you pull your hair out! It’s good to know some basic HTML and CSS to help you get what you want.
Which is For You?
So which option will make the most money? The question depends on your level of experience and your business model.
If this is your first niche website, you set up a blog because it’s “easy” — but you’ll probably be more successful if you take the steps needed to set up a well-organized static site. You’ll learn the basics of HTML and CSS, and you’ll also discover the best way to organize a website so you drive traffic to where you want it to go (your money-making pages). If you’re setting up an “authority site” that will have lots of information and money-making sources, a static site is a great option.
If you want to make money as a traditional “blogger” by simply voicing your opinions and tutorials, you can go for a blog. A blog is easy to set up — you can generally be up and running in a few minutes. If you’re building a small niche site, a blog may work best, especially if you’re planning to set up a whole network of these sites rather than becoming an expert in your niche.
What you choose and what works for you will depend on your model and your experience — but both types of site will have a learning curve and will require that you work at them.
Photo by Sam Bald
Push Yourself
When I was a kid I’d wake up in the middle of the night and scream. I wasn’t having bad dreams. I just had particularly horrible growing pains. I would wake and my legs would hurt so badly. I remember one really bad night when I got out of bed to try and ease the pain. I ended up falling asleep, whimpering, in the doorway to my room.
My mom always told me these were growing pains. Maybe I grew really fast at that point. I don’t know, but I do know this — even today, growing tends to hurt.
If you want to grow your income, grow as a person, as a business, as a husband, wife, mother, father, friend… you’re probably going to have to push yourself. And yeah, it may hurt.
Hey, It’s Work
Why does it hurt? First and foremost, it hurts because you have to work. That’s right my friend, you have got to make some effort. A lot of people say that the only real way to make money is to work a 9 to 5. That’s not true.
The real truth is, most people can get away with “working” 8 hours a day by doing a little bit of work and a lot of twiddling their thumbs (or checking Facebook and playing mini-games). They’re really not having to put a whole lot of effort in. Then they can come home and claim they “have no time” The funny thing is, they say that while they’re sitting on the couch watching TV or playing a video game. Funny how “time” is a relative thing.
The real problem is they don’t want to put in the sustained, intense effort it takes to change their lives and their income. They don’t want to spend their extra hours (long hours) building business systems… even if those systems will replace their full time income in a year or two. They don’t want to put forth the initial effort. So they settle for a mediocre job that they really don’t like now, in the hopes of what, a cake and a watch 20 years from now? If they’re lucky, maybe. Chances are great they’ll actually just end up with another mediocre job in a few years.
Push Yourself
In the end, it takes hard work and a lot of effort. You can make a lot of argument for privilege and how somebody had the right circumstances. But a lot of people have the right circumstances. Really, they do. There are only a few people who will take the reigns of circumstance and run with it.
Get to work. Push yourself. Move beyond your comfort level. If you’re comfortable doing it, you’re probably not going to get the results you want.
I didn’t say it won’t be enjoyable. I get a huge rush at the end of the night when I write my journal post recording what I did that day. But I’m usually really tired, and know that I’ll get up again the next morning and do it all over again. I still see some places where I need to work harder and be more efficient.
I could go on and on, give you analogy after analogy – but in the end, if you want the success, if you want to see your dreams come true, you’re going to have to work hard. Work hard today for what you want tomorrow. It takes work to get to the top.
What are you waiting for? Get up and get going.
Photo by jam343
A Review of the Stallion WordPress SEO Theme
You know that you need a premium theme if you’re serious about creating your business with WordPress. But with so many choices out there, it’s hard to know what to pick. I recently set up a niche site and decided to give the Stallion SEO Theme a test-drive with my site. I’ve been incredibly impressed with the power and versatility built into this theme, as well as the responsiveness of the developer.
Easy Out-of-the-Box Setup
Click 'Activate' and it's ready to go!
Stallion is a piece of cake to get installed on your server. I did have to upload it via an FTP program. It’s packed with features so the file size was more than my WordPress back-end wanted to upload. No problem, I just unzipped the theme file and uploaded them into my themes folder. Once I did that, it was one click to get it set as my theme.
The first place I visited was Stallion’s general options. You’ll notice right away that everything there is to do with Stallion is extremely well-documented. I have used other premium themes that have their own custom configuration menus like Stallion. The difference is that David, Stallion’s developer, has given instructions on each setting. If the settings are more in-depth, there’s a link directly to the help pages on Stallion’s home site. David has taken the time to set up help pages for every feature of Stallion. It’s very friendly, even for newbies.
The general page lets you register your copy of Stallion and input all your credentials for the built-in Adsense, Clickbank, and Chitika integration. Yeah — that integration is all built in, along with integration for some major SEO plugins and other monitization services like in-text ads.
Any Color You Like
After setting up my Adsense and Clickbank, I headed right over to change the layout and color scheme. Stallion has tons of different color choices. It’s easy to pick a color scheme that matches your visitor’s expectations and fits well with your brand.
There are a lot of customization options beyond just color. There are quite a few built-in headers to choose from, or David gives exact instructions for adding in a custom header. I designed a custom header with my niche site’s branding on it and had that uploaded and selected in Stallion’s settings in a snap.
You can also easily change your background color to a new color or seamless texture. Again, there’s exact documentation on how do that and I had mine changed in seconds.
You can also choose from a wide variety of layouts with just about any column configuration you wish. I wanted a two-column layout with a wide sidebar on the right (there are three column layouts, too). All it took was one button click 
It took me a little longer to figure out how to work with my column in the WordPress widgets panel. This is where I found out personally that Stallion’s developer David is quick to give personal response and very open to user feedback. I was impressed!
There are instructions on how to use WordPress’s new custom menus with Stallion and the integration worked perfectly with my top navigation menu.
My Stallion theme now looks really fantastic and fits my site’s niche and branding perfectly.
A little peak at the start of my niche site...
I also want to add that Stallion inserts pictures into posts beautifully, with a border and nice padding. It looks professional… something that other “premium themes” don’t do so well. Images are a big deal in blog popularity now — they should look good.
Custom Ad Layouts
One of the powerful features of Stallion is the ability to place ads just about anywhere you want in your theme’s template. I immediately used the widget to add an Adsense box to my site’s sidebar and a small horizontal link unit just under my navigation menu.
Just some of the built in Adsense customization options
Adsense in WordPress is honestly one of the biggest pains when setting up a site. You have to remember to manually add the code… or you have to use “shortcodes” to add it into your theme (which you also have to remember), or something doesn’t look right, or this or that. Stallion takes all that pain away.
You can choose where you want the ad to be in each post, and it will just be there! You also pick the size you want and you can choose what colors you want your ads to be. There’s even a search box feature where Stallion will build a custom Google search box for you.
I haven’t tried the search box yet, but I have inserted a large ad into the content of each of my posts and it works really nicely.
I did run into a problem… I wanted a static homepage for my site, and I didn’t want an ad block in the same place on that page. I looked at the Page Templates provided with Stallion and was thrilled to see “Static Page, No Ads, Main Content Only.” Bingo. Exactly what I wanted – just my content with no ads and no time/date stamp.
Stallion also has a number of other templates, including a single page, no sidebar template. I used this to set up a squeeze page and it looks awesome — I’ll also use it for a sales letter when I get this niche site’s product done.
You can use Stallion set up your ads for Chitika and Clickbank so those networks can be featured in your ad blocks, too.
SEO and Tracking
There's complete documentation with each of these customization menus
Stallion keeps on going with SEO features and the ability to easily integrate tracking. It was easy to install Google Analytics so I can keep track of my stats. Along with Analytics integration, Stallion includes easy verification of your site in Google, Bing, and Yahoo’s webmaster tools.
There’s also a lot of opportunity for SEO and social networking. Social Networking buttons can be quickly configured from the Promotion Options tab. You pick which networks you want to show buttons for you and you can configure your buttons. You also decide where you want them to appear on your posts – all with the click of a button. I do wish there was an option to have them both at the top and bottom of each post/page.
Stallion gives the ability to set up widgets for your social network profiles, Youtube video feeds, a Google Translate box, and more. Plus there’s set up for custom advertizing (so if you want to show affiliate banners in your sidebar, for example).
This leads to another great feature — built in affiliate link cloaking! This is a great feature, especially if you’re like me and plan to promote affiliate products on your blog.
Stallion makes it easy for you to optimize your main Meta Tags for SEO purposes, and it plays nicely with other SEO optimization plugins.
Summary
I have been really impressed with Stallion. I’ll admit that it took some time to go through all of the settings and get everything working. There’s a lot to it and tons of features, so it really does take focus to sit down and get it all set up the way you want it. I spread the setup over a couple of days as I have gotten my niche site set up, and I still have a little exploring to do
The good news is, it’s packed with features! There’s also tons of help in the help files if you need it, and David has linked all the help files right on the configuration pages. If you mess up, don’t worry. Each config page has a button that lets you reset to default values.
Sit down with Stallion SEO theme and in a couple of hours you’ll have a blog that looks awesome to you and your visitors. You can set up navigation that makes it easy for your visitors and the search engines to explore, meaning you get ranked faster and stay at the top. Plus, it’s easy to integrate Adsense and other monitization modules… so you make the money you deserve
Click Here to read about all of Stallion’s premium features
I think Stallion is awesome, and I want you to know that I do receive an affiliate commission if you grab it via my link – I appreciate it
Why WordPress Sucks for Niche Sites (And What To Do About It)
You know that WordPress is super-easy to install. It’s a 1-click thing with most web hosts. It’s easy to enter content. You just type a title and then type the content. What could be easier to use to set up an army of niche sites? There’s just one problem. WordPress blogs suck for niche sites.
Wait… I can hear you now “Kristen, you just told me how great WordPress is, and now you say it sucks?!”. That’s right. See, the problem is, WordPress is a blogging platform, but your niche site is probably not a blog. It’s an informational site geared to get your visitor to sign up for your list, click on an ad, or buy a product (yours or an affiliate product).
The Bad News
Now a crummy blog may get someone to click on an ad just to get away from you, but do you really want to build your brand around that? No? I thought not. To get someone to sign up for your list or purchase a product, you need to build some trust by showing them you have quality info on the topic they’re looking for. A blog probably isn’t ideal for this.
The search engine spiders also have a hard time getting a good feel for your content if it’s organized as a blog. You need a solid, logical layout. Otherwise, your quality content and vital information get lost in a sea of newer posts.
The Good News
I’m not going to leave you lost in a sea of jumbled categories and newest posts while that brilliant tutorial you wrote last month gets lost forever. In fact, WordPress is a powerful tool you can use to create your niche site.
First, you can create a Page-driven, logical layout. Pages are different than Posts, in that they’re created to be enduring content.
WordPress has awesome features that let you order your pages into a content pyramid. So your page giving a general overview on dog grooming leads to a page on giving your pooch a bath, and another on tools you need to keep your dog well-groomed. Another page on your menu features feeding your dog. That page leads to a page on puppy feeding, another on feeding the mature dog, and another on best dog food reviews. Check it out:
This isn’t all, though. Wordpress makes it easy for you to create custom menus so you can highlight recent content, popular pages, etc. Plus, if you want to have a blog-style page featuring news and opinion pieces, you can set that up, too. It’s very powerful, if you do it right.
My Niche Site Challenge
I spent today planning the organization of my new niche site. I did the planning first, before adding content to my site, so I can have a well-organized site.
My content isn’t going to be very deep — I really want to drive visitors to sign up for my mailing list (I’ll probably have Adsense too, and maybe some affiliate/Joint Ventures in the future). But it is going to be organized and of good quality. It will give my visitors a good overview and a sense that I’m an expert.
Tomorrow I’ll get content added to round out the structure — the content will be centered around the keyword research I already did.
By the way… I didn’t figure all of this out on my own. I used Lisa’s WordPress guide. I refer to it over and over again for every site I set up (including here at Milk and Mud). Lisa gives much better explanations than I do, including pictures. Plus, she takes you step-by-step through setting up a WordPress site your visitors and the search engines love.
If you’d like more info on setting up your site to win with visitors and the engines, click here to check out Lisa’s WordPress Guide.
Keyword Research Tutorial
Keyword research is important to planning out your website and the pages that you write for your website. Below you’ll find a video that I recorded on how to do keyword research. Here’s my recommendations before you watch the video:
1. Go ahead and download your Free Trial of Market Samurai, which is the tool I use in the video. You’ll be able to follow right along with me as I demonstrate different tactics. If you decide to buy the pro version I’m using, you’ll get a discount
2. Please watch in full screen so you can see everything that’s going on well!
3. I cover a lot of concepts in this video, so go ahead and pause it if you need to. Go back to a section that you’re interested in or not sure about. Feel free to follow along with your own keywords as you watch me explore my niche >^.^<
Keyword research is incredibly important to your work online. You can build a site without paying attention to keywords at all, but targeting keywords helps you to be more focused in your efforts and increases the chance that you’ll get good returns with your search engine optimization (SEO).
You saw me find two possible niches in the video — I started with a really broad concept and drilled down to two related, but easier to conquer, keywords. One of them is suitable for a nice niche site and can use a lot more keyword research to find related phrases to build a site around. The other is better for a mini-site (which I don’t really find worth doing). But, having the option to explore both is good, and it gives you a handle on your market.
Use your keyword research to find an entire site concept like I demonstrated, then continue to find related keywords to build other pages on your site. Order these logically into a site that your visitor finds valuable and the search engines will also like your site! This becomes a great “blueprint” for what you want to do and guides in you in the initial construction of a great website. It also gives you great ideas for products (yours or affiliate products) to feature on your site.
Thanks for watching! Be sure to get your free trial of Market Samurai at http://www.milkandmud.com/marketsamurai
WordPress Categories vs. WordPress Tags
Did you know that from a search engine optimization perspective, WordPress categories are the same thing as WordPress tags?
I didn’t know that!
In your WordPress database, tags and categories are treated exactly the same, and the search engines see them as essentially the same.
That means it’s redundant to have a tag and category with the same name — if you do, you’re essentially just applying the category to the tag. Some themes use tags and categories in different ways, but the database still stores tags/categories the same.
Here’s an analogy that WordPress uses to explain how you should use them:
Categories: “Baking” and “Cookies”
Tags: “Chocolate,” “Macadamia Nut,” “Gluten-Free”
The categories are the broader, well, categories. The tags are something descriptive about ingredients. Somebody looking for all of your chocolate or gluten-free recipes could search by tag, and get recipes regardless of category.
I’m going to be doing a niche site case study over the next few weeks and talk more about organizing and planning out a WordPress site for search engine optimization. This quick tip provides something of a foundation to get started with
Don’t want to wait for my case study? I used Lisa’s WordPress guide to help set up this site and I’ll be working through it again throughout the niche site case study. Click here to grab it for yourself now.
Photo by feeliz
Profitable Keyword vs Passion: Which is More Important?
When you get started making an online business you hear a lot of different things. The advice comes from all different directions and on any number of topics. There are so many ways to make money online! Two of the most common things to hear are “follow your passion” and “it just takes good keyword research and a niche.”
Which one of these do you pick?
They seem at odds — do you follow your interests and passions, or do you just go to where the money is?
Show Me The Money!
It’s an overused phrase, but it sure is a good one. You want to make money — preferably passive income that keeps working for you long after you’ve stopped working hard to make it. You want your business to show you the money!
Doing keyword research based solely on how profitable something is makes a lot of sense when you think about it from this viewpoint. You want to make money, so you’re going to pick a topic that you know makes money!
It’s Got to Have Passion
Of course, you also want to do something you’re interested in. Is it really worth slaving day after day, month after month, year after year over something that you really don’t enjoy?
How are you even going to build a business around something that you don’t enjoy? Is it possible? Surely people do it every day, but how fulfilling can it truly get?
Strike a Balance
What’s important is that you balance things. There are always going to be needed services that it’s hard to get passionate about — how many people truly feel passionately inspired to be dry cleaners? But if you want to build a business and see it through the early months (years) of scaling it up, building systems, and seeing a profit, you should be interested in it.
How can you do that and still make money?
Write down what you’re interested in. Don’t stop there, though. Write down what your problems are! What are the top 6-7 things you’re interested in? What are the top 6-7 problems you’re facing?
There’s your jumping-off position, your starting place. Start narrowing down those topics. Research them. If you have the interest, somebody else does, too. If you have the problem… yep, somebody else does, too!
Take a look at what others are doing in your areas of interest and with your problems. What solutions are out there? What online businesses are built around them? Are people pulling in passive income from this?
Don’t be afraid of a little competition… if other people are making money, you can too.
Now you have a solid foundation for your research — based on something that relates to you, personally. You’ll be able to keep going with this project much more easily than if you just picked something for profit. At the same time, however, you’ve built a pool of possible topics so you can select the most profitable one to build a business around.
A Foundation
Make that interest a small niche site to learn the ropes of passive income. Or, realize you hit a winner and scale it up into a solid authority site. Build out a mailing list. Create a product. You’ll figure out what to do with it and plan the next profitable steps to your journey.
By the way, if you’re interested in getting more information on how to profit from your passions (and how to know when your passion is profitable), Site Build It’s system is the best I’ve seen. It guides you, step-by-step, through sorting through your own unique interests (and problems) and figuring out which one you can scale into a rock-solid business. Click here to get more information on how it can work for you.
Photo by bikehikedrive
I'm Kristen - a wife and mother in a house that's always rocking (literally!)
