#2 The Gameplan
Ok folks…. so here’s what I plan to do to make a million dollars in one year. I have a small number of existing web sites - these really aren’t earning me any cash right now, although the content for some of them is pretty much “ready to roll”. I have also purchased a few domain names and will be starting these off from scratch.
The plan is to create 10 web sites (listed below), pretty much all in different niches. I’ll work on them - and maybe some other methods - solidly throughout the year. Some of these niches are big and popular - others are as obscure as hell! I will try out practically every marketing method I can think of - from viral video to email marketing; every method of driving traffic, and several avenues of monetization - from pay per click, affiliate schemes to my own digital products.
Some of this stuff I know how to do - some of it I’ll be figuring out as I go along.
The diversity both in the content of these sites and in the requisite methods to promote them, will give a ton of ideas to readers of my blog - and hopefully will really show what works and what doesn’t. Laugh your ass off if I screw up. At the very least, we’ll get an education. I’m sure you’ll copy my ideas if I succeed. I’ll break down my techniques and you can follow suit: Please don’t steal my intellectual property though, of course. 
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Now, although I am broke right now, I actually have some good resources. I have no money, but I have a ton of study behind me, have created some good content - and have ideas, some of which have been brewing for months or years.
All these things are assets - and ultimately many rich people have said that if you took all their money away they could get it all again.
This is because their money is a byproduct of their wealth. Think about that. Your money stems from your wealth as a person.
It’s a strange situation I find myself in: Flat-ass broke and yet truly believing that I am poised for victory - both at the same time.
I also have a strategy: and this has certain fundamentals based on reading that I have done.
I am determined to make my million in a way that helps people out, doesn’t scam anyone, and is not “parasitical.” I am determined to play by the book, as clean a game as I possibly can - and hopefully show others that this is the way to go. I’m not going to use “black hat” or any of that stuff. I’m going to try to get there by providing quality content, “adding value” and giving a lot of stuff away.
Business, ultimately, is about providing solutions for other people. You don’t make money by trying to take it off them. You make money by solving their problems, uplifting them, helping them.
Anyway, that’s my theory and I am going to try that. We’ll see what happens and you can judge for yourselves.
Here are the sites:
i) www.PXR8.com - this is my music web site, I’ve had it for a few months and it’s everything to do with my music career. It currently has PR3 and is starting to pull search traffic. It’s funny, looking at google analytics, when you learn what it is in your content that is actually getting the traffic. It’s not always what you think it is going to be. I put a bunch of my old graphic art up as 1920×1200 wallpapers just as a free gift: I thought I would see if I could get some Google Images traffic using Eli’s checkmate method. However, I seem to be picking up search traffic for terms like “1920×1200 art”. I currently am getting about 2,500 organic uniques per month from this site and I have a few bidvertisers on there making about 10c per day!! I plan to sign up with CDBaby and put out some of my original tracks, get them up on the digital download sites such as iTunes, see if I can make a few dollars… I’ll keep on giving some away for free though as well - they’re up there now, go help yourself.
ii) www.money-while-you-sleep.biz - this is going to be the site where I release my eBook about making money. I have however written about 80% of the book: currently over 100,000 words (it’s gonna be a blockbuster baby!). I will also have a series of “free guides” which I will give away as (hopefully) viral PDFs. I will also use email marketing to promote this site; and release the book as a Clickbank PDF.
iii) www.criticalmetals.com - this will be a straight ahead info site with a page dedicated to each of the “critical metals” and some links to further resources. A critical metal is one required by industry for which there is no substitute - such as rhodium; without which you cannot make catalytic converters for combustion-engined cars. The term is fairly obscure but I am gambling on the fact that it will generate some interest soon due to recent rapid price gains in some of the critical metals. I might just have scored, getting a “keyword dot com” domain - there aren’t many of those around for ten bucks! So I have something of a responsibility to make the content authoritative. 
I have an interest in metallurgy so this will be sweet - I get to research something I love! I always recommend this: The best way to learn about something is to have to write a good article about it. So pick subjects you would like to learn about, and make these the features of your original content and your info sites. So far domain name acquired, no other work done on the site.
iv) www.troy-ounce.com - another straight-ahead info site. This will start life as a one-pager. I am going to try to get it to rank at the top for the term “troy ounce” and monetize with ads. It will be interesting to see what happens. As gold and silver are weighed in troy ounces, and there are new investors buying gold and silver for the first time, I imagine that there will be some organic traffic for this term, which will then move on to places that sell bullion. So far domain name acquired, no other work done on the site.
v) www.outerspaceringtones.com - seeing as I am a synthesizer programmer and player, I had this idea for making a bunch of pretty electronic bleepy futuristic ringtones and either giving them away or selling them. Put up a lot of free ones, drive traffic, see if I can get ranked for ringtone, ringtones, etc. Maybe create youtube viral videos featuring all the free ones. Tips and advice on site for different phones? So far domain name acquired, no other work done on the site, and I know nothing about ringtones other than how to use itunes to make one for my iphone.
I might create some wacky spin content and comedy branding about aliens landing and giving us cool ringtones to tune in our astral bodies to the cosmos. Maybe I’ll go all Da Vinci on the kids and use just intonation in the ringtones and actually encode the music of the spheres into them for global healing. Or maybe not, I probably just go diatonic and equal tempered.
Hmmm… I just read on Shoemoney’s blog that the ringtone market is getting flooded with fraudulent activity. Is it now considered one of the web’s “bad neighborhoods”? I hope not. I want to put ads on my pages, but I really don’t want those ads to be scamming people. Anyway, I’ll research this one and post my results.
vi) www.air-purifiers-online.com - This site I have already built. I was sending it cheap one-cent PPC traffic and monetizing it with adsense - and it was starting to pull in $25 profit per day. I thought I was away! Then I got banned from adsense before my first payout and I lost the lot. Bummed. The reason why I chose this obscure niche in the first place was that I did a bunch of research last year on what are the highest paying keywords. (Using Keyword Country.) Turns out that the air purifiers niche has a bunch of really high paying keywords. I figured that I would do my best to make this a great, content-rich site and it would be sure to make some money. It’s a great site and I’m quite proud of a few of my articles. It’s currently barely getting traffic though. I haven’t done any linkbuilding yet. I need to work on the search traffic; maybe some new / linkbait authority content. Top tips / secrets articles etc.
vii) some dating site. I have this wacky idea for a book about dating. It’s completely original, thoroughly cheeky and fun, and unlike any of the others I have seen. I have a killer title. I have no domain yet; I have written a couple of pages of notes on the topic. That’s all. If David DeAngelo can make millions per year in the dating niche, so can I!
viii) www.amillioninoneyear.com this site, of course. This one is the hub of the wheel the thing that ties it all together - and my main link to the outside world. I’m going to be spending a lot of time staring at the screen this year. I’ll need my friends to keep me sane.
ix) www.synthlearn.com - another info site. I have this idea to build a site with pages which are a bit like “squidoo lenses” for synthesizers. I can keep building synth “lens” pages… the more I do, the better it will get. I can make it very linkable if I can develop niche authority - by creating clear, functional, attractive pages with genuinely useful content - and not entirely smothered in ads. Youtube videos for traffic? Include a lot of links to other authority sources, reviews, tips… plus my own hacks etc. Hmmm.. the challenge with this is that it needs a ton of work to rank and develop authority. I am not entirely sure that this site will justify the effort. We’ll see.
What I can do is make it a lot more attractive than all the stupid ugly synth sites out there - and actually a useful resource. Maybe creating some viral youtube videos might do well.
x) www.fantasyfutureworld.com - This is a fun idea for a site. Just an idea at the moment although I have secured the domain name. I might set it up as a 2.0 community but if so, I’ll need some backing and a team before I can go there. The idea is this; people create a home page where they describe their fantasy world of the future. Make it all the things the world should be. Describe how and why it will work. Include wild inventions, impossible concepts or completely tangible ones - etc. Give the futurist dreamers, cyberpunk visionaries and utopian idealists a voice, and a place to share their positive ideas, their art, their visions. I might offer up a grand prize for the best one - also donate a bunch of money to charity. I might see if I can get endorsements from forward thinking organizations, innovators, etc. Part of the inspiration behind this site is to get people thinking and focusing on what we want to create in the world, rather than all the stuff we are trying to run away from.
OK! So which of these ten ideas do you think I will do well with - and which ones are going to suck? I’ll try to get round to them all.
The scene is set. The game’s afoot. The die is cast! Place your bets: What do you think? Am I going to win the bet?
[ Update May 6th 2008 - it looks as though I may need to refine my strategy slightly after reading this excellent blog post from The Rich Jerk. Good ole’ RJ breaks it down: The real money is in the niches subcategorized under health, wealth and relationships.
I think he is right - up to a point: Ringtones doesn’t fall into any of these categories - and has made some people rich. Google doesn’t fall into any of these - and look how rich they are!
I’ll keep my ten web sites. Every theory needs to be tested. But I’m mentally prepared for the fact that synthlearn.com might be the runt of the litter - and I anticipate that I’ll be putting more effort into the likely contenders. We’ll see. It will be fun to find out whether I can make any real money with the obscure sites. ]
