It’s the first Monday of the month, which means it’s time for another income report!
Each month I write a detailed report about my online income – how much I’ve made, where it comes from, and most importantly what I did and what I’ve learned along the way. I do this not only to help me keep track of how my multiple online businesses are progressing, but also to teach, inspire and show the world that a regular person like myself, with some hard work and smart planning, can do some wonderful things online – and so can you.
These monthly reports have grown to become the most popular and most visited posts on the blog, so as long as you still feel they are useful, I will definitely continue to publish them. And as always – thank you for your support!
Let’s get started. Click to continue…
Woohoo!
I’m excited to announce that my Getting Started with Smart Passive Income page is now live!
A month ago, I wrote about how there seems to be a missing element on most blogs online, including my own: a proper starting point, both for brand new visitors and people who just want to get the most important information – all in one spot. I finally got around to completing this task, and I’m really happy with the results.
Since this particular page may become the first page that people use to really get to know me and the SPI brand online, I decided to go the extra mile with it. I shot a couple of new videos and spent a lot of time making sure it keeps readers engaged and takes them through a journey, rather than just piling a ton of random information on them. Click to continue…
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In this session of the Smart Passive Income Podcast, I explore the world of video and start from scratch with YouTube to show you exactly how I make sure I give myself the best chance to get the most views and have the most impact for my business and blog.
As I mentioned in a previous article, Are YouTube and Podcasting Worth the Effort?, YouTube has been huge for me not only for traffic, but for engaging my existing audience and reaching brand new ones. I still get emails every day from people who say they have found me through YouTube, and it’s no wonder because 2 billion videos are viewed on YouTube every single day.
Whether you’re on YouTube already, or have yet to create your first video, make sure you listen to this session to get the most out of your efforts.
Click to continue…
In mid-2010, I committed to a 90 day extreme home fitness program called P90X and it literally changed me. Physically, I was in the best shape of my life, and mentally I was more energized and pumped than ever before – which had a direct impact on how I executed my businesses and how I lived my day to day life.
I shared my P90x results with you on the blog, complete with before and after pics and detailed stats (Warning: I am shirtless in those pics!) and since then I’ve apparently inspired several others to follow suit and achieve similar results. Being able to inspire and help others through my blog is why I do what I do, and to realize I could help people not only with their businesses, but with their health and fitness too, is such an amazing feeling.
Health, fitness and diet are so important because without our health, we cannot enjoy life to the fullest.
After finishing up P90X, I decided to go through the program again. I started round 2 in December, but after a few weeks I found myself getting bored and stopped my day to day regiment. My diet slowly started to include food on the “do not eat” list (the Holidays did not help!) and although my physical appearance did not change, my stamina and mental endurance did.
I caught myself slacking and started over again, only to go through the exact same pattern: start off strong, but lose energy over time.
What was happening to me? Click to continue…
Last week, an SPI reader named Anne emailed me the following question:
Greetings Pat. I am a reader of your Smart Passive Income blog and want to say thank you. I want to do like you and start a blog and start writing but this is a problem because I am no good at writing and with my english. English is not my native language and it is because of this I give up before. I want to try again but I ask you for help. Please what can I do because my english is not even perfect?
Instead of replying directly to Anne’s question, I thought it would be more beneficial to share her email publicly on the blog (with her permission, of course), because I know there are a lot of other people who are in a similar situation, and also because the awesome and active SPI community here would be more than happy to offer some advice and encouragement.
I know for a fact that a good percentage of my readers are from outside the US and English is not their primary language, yet several of them have successful blogs and online businesses of their own too. Click to continue…
Blogs are for those who like to read,
Audio is for those who like to listen,
And video is for those who like to watch (and listen too, for the most part).
When building a BIG personal brand online, it’s smart to expand onto other mediums to deliver content because it’s true – people enjoy consuming content in different ways, and at the same time you’ll expand your reach on other platforms as well. I’ve spoken about this many times before, especially after I learned how expanding my blog onto iTunes and YouTube drastically increased my traffic and subscribership.
However, there’s one thing that a lot of people miss when creating audio and video, and that’s the opportunity to include a transcript.
A transcript is important for many reasons: Click to continue…
This is a guest post by Christina Crowe.
It’s late at night and you’re still tapping away at your keyboard, writing up a post for your blog. The clock is ticking and you know that time is running out.
How am I going to pay the rent this month? You wonder, as you can feel the precious minutes tick away, slowly draining and never to return.
You pick up the pace.
You can feel minutes turn into hours as you continue to write long into the night, this time working on an eBook to sell to your readers.
You recently got laid off from work. Unable to find a job, you decided to try your luck as an entrepreneur. However, it hasn’t been going well. It has only been 3 months since you got laid off, and you’ve already gone through all of your savings. To top it all off, you’re barely making any money at all with your business.
Somehow, you have to make this work. Click to continue…
As much as I enjoy writing and sharing my income reports, I also occasionally write a traffic report because as we all know, traffic is the lifeblood of a website. It’s important to understand how people come to our sites and what people are doing when they get there, so we can analyze and make improvements or adjustments if necessary.
In the past, I’ve been using Google Analytics to keep track of my stats. Lately, however, I’ve been using a new tool called Clicky Web Analytics – and it’s amazing.
The most noteworthy feature of Clicky (which is free for your 1st website) is that it can show us stats in real time. Click to continue…
A blog or website that does not use images is like a restaurant absent of decor – uninteresting and uninviting. And as much as good food can keep people coming back to a restaurant regardless of what it may look like inside, we all know that people choose where to eat for the atmosphere and environment, as much as the actual food that will be consumed there.
The same goes for our sites.
It’s important to use images and graphics on our websites for several reasons:
- To add something interesting and relevant that breaks up the sea of text in our posts.
- To attract attention and pique interest even before any text is read.
- To hold people’s attention while reading through our posts.
- To strengthen or enhance a point, argument, fact, opinion or statement.
- To help keep our posts memorable and easily distinguishable from one another.
And now, more than ever, it’s important because of things like Facebook updates and new-age RSS readers (e.g. Flipboard for the iPad) that utilize the images within our posts. Now we’re talking about actually driving traffic to our sites because of the images within our posts. Click to continue…
Thanks for all of the recent get well messages – I’m still sick but I should hopefully be back to normal by Monday.
In the meantime, I’m happy to announce that Tyrone and I are publicly accepting applications once again for our Niche Site Coaching Program.
Our first round of training, which ran from January 2011 to mid-March, was a major success – both for our students and for ourselves. We were thinking about using our recorded information to create a digital product, but we had such a great time interacting with our students, keeping them on their toes and watching them succeed that we just had to do it all over again for another group of students.
It was one of the most fulfilling things I’ve done online thus far, and although coaching is a totally un-passive way to generate an income, I’d gladly trade some of my time to work with students this closely and help them succeed and begin their online empires. Click to continue…
No, I'm not a millionaire, but I am living off of passive income made online. I'm here to show 
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