Welcome to my September 2011 monthly report!
Every month I write a detailed report about my online businesses.
I do this not only to help me keep track of my progress, but also to show you what’s working for me, and what’s not.
In my monthly reports I always include an extremely detailed breakdown of the income I’ve earned online and I conclude with some of the more important things I’ve learned during the month.
I do this to motivate and to be transparent. Plus, I personally feel that if a person is publishing information about making money online he or she should show all sides of the equation so that the readers can make honest decisions based on honest information and common sense, not on hype.
As always, I don’t consider myself a “guru” and I use my own experiences, experiments and case studies as my teaching tools, and that’s usually what I write about.
I hope you enjoy this month’s report 
Important Going-Ons in September
Most of September was dedicated to preparing myself for my first public speaking engagement. As I mentioned in my last post, which includes a video of my half-hour presentation, I really wanted to do well and knock it out of the park.
Public speaking is something I’ve always wanted to get into and I know that if I can master the craft my entire business will benefit because of it.
As a result of all of my preparation I didn’t focus as much as usual on my online businesses, but that was a conscious decision I made.
I took my own advice and made sure to focus on one thing at a time.
My presentation was my number one priority and after going up on stage and doing my thing, I’m happy to say that all of the hard work definitely paid off.
One of the best parts about it was reading all of the tweets that people posted during the presentation:
And there are literally hundreds of tweets like this. It was such an amazing and humbling experience and I just wanted to once again thank the entire personal finance blogging community for their kindness and support, and also thank you, the SPI reader, for listening to me worry so much about it leading up to it.
Now it’s time to shift gears and prepare for my presentation at Blog World Expo in November, which will be longer and more technical. But – now that I have my first presentation under my belt I probably won’t stress as much.
I say that – but we’ll see what really happens.
Interestingly enough, even though I focused less on my actual businesses my overall income continues to grow. The reality of passive income was not only apparent during the one day city-wide blackout that happened in the beginning of the month, but it was also illustrated during the month in whole.
I love the fact that I can take breaks or focus on other things (like public speaking) and my business can still run and function on its own.
Security Guard Training Headquarters
For those of you new to SPI, I recommend you check out The Niche Site Duel to see exactly how I built SecurityGuardTrainingHQ.com from scratch.
The little work I did do on some of my income streams included experimenting with the Adsense ads on this niche site. With 400 to 600 uniques a day it’s a perfect platform to run these types of tests on.
Back on March 2nd, I ran an experiment that dealt with where the ads were placed on the site. This resulted in a 139% increase in revenue, which over a long period of time can add up to huge amounts.
I had honed in on the proper placement of the ads, concluding that having a horizontal text link ad across the top and a large rectangle ad block justified to the right within the first paragraph of text in a post were the best for my site.
All sites react differently to how and where the Adsense ads are placed, and the best thing you can do it test, test, test!
This month, my experiment dealt with how the ads look.
I will write a more detailed post about this soon because I know it’s something a lot of you are interested in, but changing the font, font size and font color of one ad block increased my click-through rate (for that one ad) from 2.87% to 5.02%.
This is why even though I had about 5000 less pageviews on the site in September vs. August (even though I still maintain the #1 ranking for security guard training), I was able to increase the income generated from this niche site from $1,498.39 to $1,585.50.
Ad optimization is extremely important, and like I said I’ll write a more detailed post about exactly what I did in the near future.
Other Niche Sites and Ranking Changes
Many of you know that I also have other niche sites which are also bringing in an income each month through Adsense and affiliate earnings.
Please respect that I do keep these other niche sites private. I would love to reveal them but I’ve already learned from revealing the security guard niche site that there are people out there who will go into the exact same niche, create a site that looks very similar, and publish content that is 95% the same as mine.
Not cool – especially because I followed the rules and did the research to create the unique content on my own.
Anyways…
One of my niche sites, which was previously ranking at #3 for its target keyword. It had been at #3 for the past few months, until I saw a sudden drop in rankings a couple of weeks ago. It moved from #3 all the way down to #62.
I had hired a temporary VA from Odesk to run through The Backlinking Strategy that Works to try to get closer to #1, and apparently Google didn’t agree with something.
From my previous experience, when something like this happens the best thing to do is to just keep going (as long as you’re following the plan as you should). I did not tell my VA to stop and all I did was write 4 more articles (over 500 words each) and posted them on the site in 4 consecutive days. By the 5th day, I was back in the top 10 and now the site is sitting at #2 for the keyword, higher than it was before.
Apparently, there needs to be some sort of balance between the content published on the site and the backlinks pointing to it. As we all know, content plays a major role in search engine rankings now and a site that lacks content, or one that hasn’t updated for a while, runs the risk of being “temporary penalized” if all of a sudden new backlinks are appearing out of nowhere.
Of course, this is all speculation based on my own experience, but to me this makes sense.
So, if your niche sites sees a sudden (and significant) drop in rankings, try adding a lot more unique content to your site. If you do that and are patient with it, you might climb back to where you were.
Smart Passive Income
The numbers for SPI just keep blowing my mind.
In September, SPI surpassed 4 million pageviews and 1.75 million visitors since its birth.
The number of subscribers surpassed 30,000 as well. I’m not sure if I’ll reach my goal of 40k by the end of the year, but it should be close. My exposure at Blog World Expo should help with that.
Affiliate earnings keep growing too, and to know that this is happening without any active promotion in a month where all I did was essentially write more blog posts, is amazing.
SPI also flirted with the #1 spot in Google for “passive income”, surpassing Wikipedia every now and then throughout the entire month. This has only recently started happening ever since upgrading the website to the Thesis Theme.
Lastly, I also upgraded to a better CDN (content delivery network). I switched from Amazon CloudFront to MaxCDN.com, which increased the site’s speed even more.
The page load time is now close to 3 seconds.
Sweet!
Okay, let’s get to the numbers…
Income Breakdown
Disclosure: many of the links below are affiliate links that will earn me a commission if you purchase through them. If you do, I absolutely appreciate it and if you have any questions about any of the products or services please let me know!
Also, please note that a lot of these are figures from reports from each individual company for the previous month. It does not necessarily reflect the actual payment which, for some of the companies listed below, come 30 to 60 days later because of potential refunds.
- GreenExamAcademy.com Product Sales:
- Total: $3,629.25
- Last Month: $3,423.40
- Difference:+$205.85
- Last Month: $3,423.40
- Total: $3,629.25
- SecurityGuardTrainingHQ.com:
- Adsense: $1,574.76
- Job Board: $10.74
- Total: $1,585.50
- Last Month: $1,498.39
- Difference: +$87.11
- Other Google Adsense (includes other niche sites, YouTube and infobarrel)
- Total: $421.24
- Last Month: $393.63
- Difference: +$27.61
- Total: $421.24
- Affiliate Earnings:
- Market Samurai: $4,900.98
- Instant Article Factory: $373.00
- The Best Spinner: $2,003.73
- Blog Blueprint: $1,803.11
- Unique Article Wizard: $2,990.88
- Bluehost.com: $12,600.00
- iPhone Apps w/o Experience eBook: $487.47
- Chris Guthrie’s Amazon Niche Profit Course: $210.58
- Easy Azon WordPress Plugin: $21.24
- Affiliate Marketing for Beginners by Corbett Barr: $474.30
- Joseph Archibald’s 40 Day Challenge: $261.27
- Other Niche Site Affiliate Commissions: $62.03
- Thesis Theme for WordPress: $671.00
- Aweber: $524.18
- Elance.com: $413.00
- 99Designs.com: $27.00
- Virtual Staff Finder by Chris Ducker: $385.00
- Beachbody Products: $65.07
- Legalzoom: $44.55
- Blog World Expo: $88.36
- Total: $28,406.75
- Last Month:$25,764.23
- Difference: +$2,642.52
- Last Month:$25,764.23
- iPhone Applications:
- Paid Apps: $1,829.00
- Free Apps: $720.53
- Total: $2,549.53
- Last Month: $2,954.75
- Difference: -$405.22
- Gross Total in September: $36,592.27
- Last Month: $34,034.40
- Difference: +$2557.87
- Expenses: $5,479.87
- Major expenses this month include travel expenses for the Financial Blogger Conference, virtual assistants, hosting account for SPI (dedicated server), the new Content Delivery Network, and recurring payments for tools like Unique Article Wizard and Article Samurai, which I’m now exploring but cannot yet recommend. Attorney and CPA fees are included here as well.
- Net Total in September: $31,112.40
Another incredible month, and my Bluehost earnings are just through the roof. I’m so thankful!
As I mention in all of my reports, I’ll be the first to admit that significant percentage of my income comes directly from this blog, mostly from the products that I offer as an affiliate (about 15-20% of the income listed under “affiliate income” does not come from this blog). To be honest, it was never my primary intention to make money from this site. My primary intention was and will always be to help other people understand how businesses and blogs work on the internet, and for them to be better at it after reading, watching or listening to my material, which all comes from the wins and fails of my own real-life case studies and experiences without pushing or promising anything.
I know that I’ve created a wonderful resource here on SPI with a ton of free information about all kinds of things related to online business and blogging, and the fact that people are kind enough to offer me something in return – whether it’s by going through an affiliate link, encouraging me to create a product of my own to sell, asking me for mentorship or advice, or even just thanking me for helping them earn more money online or get more traffic to their website, I am extremely grateful for and I will continue to give back with valuable content and my experience in return.
Things I Learned in September
In September, I was reminded about the importance of relationships. Online, there needs to be some level of trust between you and your readers before you can expect any type of transaction to happen – from clicking on a link to clicking on a buy now button.
If you haven’t noticed, a lot of the articles I wrote in September were about the importance of building relationships:
- SPI Session #26: Two Types of Relationships You Must Develop Online in Order to Succeed
- How to Manage Relationships Online Like a Pro (for Free)
- R.A.O.K. Friday
- And you could even include part of my presentation from the Financial Blogger Conference
Content, design, SEO – those things are all important – but they should each be guided by the relationship you want to have with your readers.
Another thing I learned was just how much people appreciate transparency.
I hear it all the time here on the blog and via email, but a lot of people came up to me in person last week, shook my hand and just thanked me for being honest – which is weird because I ask myself: does that mean everyone else is being dishonest?
I guess in the industry I’m in, people don’t necessarily “lie” (although some do, straight up), but most tend to “bend the truth”, and that scares me. Although I’m happy that being honest helps me stand out of the crowd, I wish everyone were transparent so that we could all feel safer about the decisions we make online.
Transparency is trending and you even see big brands using it as a marketing tool. Domino’s Pizza, for example, has recently been producing commercials and YouTube videos that reveal customer testimonials about their pizza, including the bad ones, and then explaining that they have to do better.
I like it.
To finish up, I’m currently working on my first paid product for the SPI community and transparency will play a huge role in my approach and how it’s marketed. It’s not for everyone, but its in high demand and it’s going to be awesome.
Thanks for all of your support, and here’s to a happy, healthy and profitable October.
Cheers!
R.I.P. Steve Jobs
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Pat,
My mother and I were discussing my being an IMer. While I am not yet making much online, my hopes are to eventually generate enough money so that both my husband and I can be stay at home parents.
Mom of course asked me how we would then take care of our insurance needs – specifically medical insurance.
I have no ideas reguarding this.
I’m fairly new to your blog and you and it gives me much encouragement that it is possible.
Thank you,
Melody
You would just pay for it yourself with your income. Go to an insurance broker. When you’re self employed, insurance is just another bill you have to pay, such as: rent/mortgage, automobile, groceries, cable, internet, etc.
You need a minimum of two people who are employees of your company (you and your husband) to obtain a small group health insurance plan. Of course you have to pay for it, but the nice thing is that unlike individual plans, you can’t be rejected for any pre-existing conditions.
There are several bloggers I follow religiously. I take everything in with a grain of salt, although in Pat’s case, I am sodium free. (Still use real sugar in my coffee).
When I first delved into this MMO world, I bought a twitter product based on a well known blogger’s review and after devouring most of their blog’s content. The product was sub par and DID NOT live up to the hype. I went back and reviewed all the posts regarding this product. I broke out my calculator, crunching all the facts & figures that lead to my buying decision. The information did not add up. I was not happy.
Because the product was being updated, I did not return it. I did not publicly berate the blogger online. I did email them expressing my disappointment. I shared this discontent with several other bloggers, but without mentioning the blogger who was “less than truthful.”
This blogger was how I found Smart Passive Income. Initially I measured all of Pat’s content through corrupted rose-colored glasses. Other MMOers practically spammed my inbox with “Buy This Now – Limited Quantities Available.” I asked Pat, “Hey? When are you going to sell me something via email?” His response was something to the effect of, “Check out my resource page.”
Pat has proven himself numerous times. That he allowed Howie’s rant to stay posted (well…enough said).
That Tyrone Shum made a public announcement and chaos reigned. Anyone and everyone who had linked themselves with Tyrone went under my microscope, even Pat Flynn.
I did not stop following Tyrone Shum’s blog. Instead I raised the standard by which I measured all MMO bloggers. At least when it came down to purchasing products based on their recommendations. When I need to buy a product, I first check affiliate links on Smart Passive Income (my way of saying Thank You).
Should we vilify Tyrone? Perhaps a public crucifixion is in order? He made a mistake. He confessed. He knows he has a lot of work to do, in order to get back in the good graces of the Global MMO Community. But it was his mistake.
Because Pat didn’t severe his relationship with Tyrone, should we lynch Pat as well? A good ole’ fashion neck tie. Are you kidding me?
I still don’t see how you are holding Pat accountable for Tyrone’s past deeds? But you were ok with a short term notoriety method to gain instant traffic to your blog, which just happens to be an MMO-type blog. It figures.
There are times when Pat doesn’t respond to my (comments, social media and email). I have never taken it personal. As an adult with an average IQ, I understood right off that Pat puts his family first. Based on his subscriber numbers and his social media reach, I knew he is constantly busy with 1000′s of people vying for his attention (common sense 101). I also don’t set unreasonable expectations on someone else’s (life 101) and then cry “FOUL” when I don’t receive pampered treatment. (Although if I’m ever in San Diego I expect Pat to pay for a day spa).
Pat and I said our peace through private email. Disagree with the approach, but I’ve shot many bloggers emails/comments-just like Pat. For people who swear by transparency, my major problem is that he was granted access to, not just one, but many, top-tier personalities and brands with little to no consequences or repercusions—all while, long after he “apologized”, continuing to do the very thing that he apologized for (others have mentioned how sales copy remained the same, and it did). Perhaps it was an accident–you would think that resolution of sales copy would be priority on a list of a person who just confessed to networking, orchestrating, and perpetuating a $10,000/month deception for many months.
“But you were ok with a short term notoriety method to gain instant traffic to your blog, which just happens to be an MMO-type blog. It figures.”
Being that my last blog post was in April, due in part with the overall frustration with this industry, you are sadly mistaken when you insinuate with “it figures” that it was all about gaining traffic. Yes, I just so happened to have a MMO blog. Had I wanted to REALLY capitalize off of the traffic, there were many many other things that I would have/could have done—-that I didn’t do. Namely, I would have updated the blog with new content, or tried to actually sell something in a front page post. And, trust me, for the serious backlash I took for taking a stand when the industry (no less than 10 bloggers) willfully opened their brands, with absolutely NO screening, to someone who used their platforms to perpetuate a lie—well, isn’t worth any surge in traffic I did/may have gotten.
The only explanation was that I really, genuinely, felt it was wrong for Pat, and many others, to open up their brands so willingly. Everyone seems to love transparency, and accountability–at least until it comes to issues such as these.
“Because Pat didn’t severe his relationship with Tyrone, should we lynch Pat as well?”
Nope, I’m not some cape crusader attempting to police the streets of Gotham from all the evil ones. I do have a serious issue, though, when all those bloggers, themselves, capitalized off Tyrone’s “brand” and story, just like he networked and capitalized off of theirs. His $10,000/month deception appears everywhere–in blog posts, podcasts, and even eBooks. From Pat, all the way down, there was ZERO screening. Yes, as a person in IM/MMO niche, I do have a serious problem with this and the ‘image’ that is conveyed.
Outside of a small amount of money I’ve raised for my readers, I’ve earned nothing from my blog–nothing. I don’t care. I’ve had many many opportunities to REALLY capitalize, but I didn’t take them.
In all of this, I had simply wanted Pat–someone/anyone–to say what he did was wrong. With that, again, we said our peace and it’s behind us.
Best to you.
Btw, in the spirit of transparency, I do appreciate the fact that Pat allowed my “rants” to stay. He certainly didn’t have to. This very post speaks of transparency, however, some commenters here appear to be happy when transparency is had with the GOOD things, however, its shunned when something like this surfaces. Transparency works both ways, IMHO.
He also didn’t have to spend his time responding to my emails, especially when he’s inundated with many others daily. Even months later, it did at least show me that he cared and wanted to resolve things. I think he knows that I held him to a very high standard simply because I DO respect him immensely.
Caveat Emptor !! Even the best judgement of someone you trust can be flawed for totally reasonable cause. Complete due diligence is almost impossible – we all need to be aware of that fact and each choose to accept the associated risk or not balanced against the general overall benefits available. Everyone needs to maintain a certain degree of personal responsibility for the decisions and choices they make and recommendations they follow.
I remember when all of this first took place and can honestly say I do like the transparency of everything. Even though I completely feel that what was done, was done, and this new “discussion” was quite juvenile to go on another rant months later in another one of pats posts.
Understood, Shaun.
While you feel my incessant rants were junvenile, I believe they were necessary.
Yes, it may annoy some, however, up until this post, I had never heard Pat or any of the other bloggers involved publicly decry what he did. Many seem to be all about “accountability” in blogging, under shadiness like this creeps in, everyone relinquishes partnerships (interestingly enough, subtly validating my point in the first place), and refuses to even say it was wrong.
Let’s face it, of the hundred or so comments one of Pat’s posts typically receives, we are in the serious minority when it comes to the difference between those who read and those who actually comment. For every one person that comments, I’d guess that several thousand people are actually reading a blog post.
My point is….
There are many impressionable people out there. To the casual onlooker, the impression could be had that, by all these bloggers partnering/networking etc with him, that this kind of behavior was actually accepted and tolerated. I’ve been doing IM for a long time, and this is the impression it gave me.
Call it “juvenile”, but those same months that went by were also months where many people chose silence over standing up for something important.
Once again, Pat and I have said our peace. If even in a comment, it was good to finally hear him say, publicly, that it was wrong. And, for those who think I’m a heartless individual who wants nothing better than to crucify Tyrone, Pat can attest to the fact that I spent countless hours crafting an email displaying, step-by-step, what could be better done to help empower Tyrone to succeed, by building a business from the ground-up, like many struggling individuals are doing in a down economy.
I took no response from him as being ignored. I admit, this upset me. Apparently, he had forwarded it on. With this, there was a little miscommunication. I am glad that that email was able to make it to him. Trust me, had I wanted to “just capitalize” off of this situation, I wouldn’t have ever spent those hours crafting that email. For obvious reasons, the email will never be posted here, however, I assure you, I’m not just some cold-hearted individual trying to crucify others despite my own faults
Laurent, I have to say you are wrong about Pat. I sent him an email once asking about some of the plugins he uses on his WordPress and he did answer back. It did take him a while, and I was amazed he kept track of my email for that long.
Here’s the thing: Pat gives out lots of information for free. He is very helpful to a lot of people, but since you are not paying him a salary or a consulting fee, he is under no obligation to answer you or me or any of the rest of us when we drop a note in his in-box with a question. I think he answers as many as he can, and I’m sure if he sees a common question he uses it as a topic for a blog post so many people get to read the answer and benefit from it. He tries to be as helpful as he can be, but he’s just one person with the same number of hours in his day as you, and he has lots of other things he has to do as well.
If you want help right away, you might better hire a professional consulting firm. But if you want honest, genuine answers from a nice guy, stick around here awhile and read all of the excellent posts (and listen to the podcasts) while you’re waiting for Pat to respond to your email.
Great to see your monthly breakdown yet again Pat. Like that you included the net position too. You are definitely an inspiration!
Oh yeh I installed Rapportive. It rocks! Thx for the heads up
Thanks Pat ! You’re great i just wanted to test the impact of a bad comment on a blog and your answer was quick and clear;) i’m still a big fan and i hope to hear something from you soon.
I don’t know about anyone else – but I don’t buy your spin Laurent. You don’t go around slagging someone’s integrity in public on THEIR blog especially, just to “test” some vague little notion of your own. My first thought on reading your most recent comment is “who the he!! do you think you are ?” …and somehow you still think you deserve Pat’s personal time and advice? LOL – some frickin’ nerve dude !
Maybe try a contrite “mea culpa” apology for your nasty and direct libel rather than this “I’m still a big fan and I just wanted to attack you personally on your own blog because I’m a rocket scientist psychology blog hero testing a mysterious theory for my own jollies” approach……
Agreed, Chris! When a discussion online starts going south, the instigator’s first backpedaling attempt often involves the “it was a social experiment!!!!!!!!!!” thing. That’s what this looks like.
Woww, I envy the bluehost earnings haha! I’ve been trying to get passive income from that or other hosting companies, but only get few trickles of sales a month. Great job!
Another great month Pat! Great Job man! Your presentation was amazing by the way. Very inspiring and helpful. I can’t believe you reached 1.75 million visitors. That is an unbelievable number. 2 million soon, I would think.
Hey Pat: As a relatively new reader/listener of your content since mid-summer, I must say THANKS! The podcasts are great, the income reports are SO INSPIRING, and the other free content, and real “community” here are amazing. It’s really quite extraordinary the amount of money that your ‘world’ has generated! Bravo. I am indebted for your podcast I heard this summer that sent me to investigate article writing at InfoBarrel (wrote 43 articles there to date and 13 at HubPages). Now I’ve started my first niche site, and also landed a freelance writing job creating blog posts for an iPhone app company. And I still have a FT job, and PT side-job, but my entrepreneurial spirit is fueled by my online “experiments”. Thank you for all the great content and very inspiring numbers! You were right with the idea that article writing is a good place to start AND LEARN!
Thanks again Pat for sharing such personal information with us. You are an inspiration. Great job on your speaking engagement, major kudos to you.
Good luck and God bless you, your family and your business.
Hey Pat, quick question. Do your bluehost earnings also include recurring income each month or annually from each referred customer?
Nope. Quit surprisingly, these are for all new signups each month, I believe.
This is great information. Thank you for being so detailed in your report it is really nice to see someone that is not afraid to detail everything out and not just put up clickbank screenshots. Great information, and kudos.
Hi Pat
It is nice to to see someone tell it how it is, I applaud your honesty.
Coincidentally, I was in the middle of a post, one of my rambles about what I hate about IMer’s when I received your email.
Things do tend to get in the way somtimes, but you should always treat your subscribers properly, they are the reason you are successful.
Dee
Pat,
It is clear that your success comes down to your willingness to be transparent,
You deserve all the success that comes your way,
In my own blog I am attempting to replicate you, fingers crossed!
Hi Pat,
I’ve been you’re avid reader for a quite awhile and you’re story is so amazing… How I wish that I could monetize my blog the way that you do… Anyway, keep up the good job!
I am looking forward for more valuable posts…
Cheers,
Irish Pring
Pat why don’t you tell people why your alexa shows like 45k on a site that should have like 300k alexa at best. You clearly get a lot of traffic from when you link here in your smart passive income blog. There is no way a normal person could make $1400 in adsense off a keyword that only gets 9900 exact searches a month, and in Alexa it shows pretty much all your traffic comes from that keyword alone.
Are you really 100% confident in the products you back? I wish this blog was run by someone with REAL success online.
I caution users to use their due diligence when purchasing any products off this site.
Jed, duck
incoming.
The sickoffants wont like you calling him out. :-0
I dont agree with th e9900 not being able to make $1400 it sure could but only in inusrane or medical.
whats happening here is very clear, people ar efollowin gpeople. and so they see all the great THIS WORKS IM RICH stuff and dont look at a 1 year+ old technique in his most popular post. Nor the FACT that the blog sfowatre no longer is effective.
As to teh hosting Yer they are the best NOT. and where sthe recomendation to find coupons before youbuy hosting!! Bluehost is way to expensive for the average user.
Market samuri is full of bugs and requires constant patching.
And how many actual blogs has pat built less than 5 based on his open income statements
people dont even read them. With out the affiliate income Pat would be no different to anybody esle. a few thousand a month at best. peanuts.
Ofocurse if he’s building loads of adsense sites and not disclosing them here well fair enough.
I totaly support the due dillegence comment.
Now good luck to pat where all here to mae money but it would be good if people thought and analysied thet data also.
If you want to se real adsense income headover to adsenseflippers (40K+ infilpps this year alone) or bichepursuits ($15k a month on asesne alone!)
Helmet on arse tucked in. ready to recieve incomeing
Hey Jimmy,
Justin with AF here. While we appreciate the mention and are big fans of Spencer with NP as well…SPI has been a huge source of inspiration to us. I don’t know Pat personally but check in here and just love some of the amazingly killer content he delivers. His email list is one of the few I actually read and look forward to. Maybe some of the tools he uses are outdated but I think people come BACK to his site to buy as a thank you to him. A rare marketer indeed that can build that kind of community.
It’s not unreasonable to me that Pat might have other income streams…we disclose AF income but don’t do the same with our outsourcing company. With the great stuff he puts out, I couldn’t care less. I think the fact that Pat has haters just shows how well he’s doing!
Lastly…our income was great last month but will be much lower this month. I don’t think comparing income reports is a very good measure as to whether the content is useful and actionable…the stuff I really care about…
Hey Justin, thanks for stopping by, and thanks for your nice comments too. I’m very familiar with your site and I love what you guys are doing. Good stuff! Cheers!
Your comment is appreciated Jimmy, you don’t need a helmet. You’re all definitely entitled to your opinion.
Like I mentioned in my response to Jed, most of my traffic (for sgthq) comes from 4500+ long tail keywords, not my primary keyword. I’ve written about this several times before in my niche site report posts.
If I didn’t have my affiliate income, that’s fine. I wasn’t even ever expecting to make money off this site when I first started it. If this site was for making money, I’d be pushing products to my list like everyone else is out there, but I don’t. Even without the affiliate income, I’d be making way more than I was in the 9 to 5 job I had.
And lastly, regarding due diligence, I would hope (AND I BEG) that people use due diligence when people think about buying something off this site. Email me, ask me questions, do whatever you can to make sure your purchase is something that you feel is right for what you’re trying to do. If there’s an ounce of doubt don’t make a purchase, I’m not here to force anyone to purchase anything. I just show what I do, what works for me, and that’s it.
Good luck to you too, and I wish you all the best.
Hey Jimmy
This link may help your online pursuits – http://www.dictionary.com It would be good if you analysed the data you find there before you write something.
Poor Pat, first he shows us what his Niche is. Then he gets flamed by you for all of us visiting it.
You are a cruel person, Jed.
Jed, this is the FIRST TIME I’ve ever linked to Security Guard Training HQ on my blog, ever. Why now? Because now that I’ve revealed my site a bunch of people are creating sites of their own in the same niche and stealing my content. I figured now that I’ve been at #1 in Google and getting loads of traffic for over a year now, it’s about time I can link to it to give it some more strength. Why don’t you do your due diligence and read about exactly how this site was built first and see if I actually linked to it before.
The site has had an Alexa ranking close to 45k for a long time now, way before I ever linked to it from here. Also, I’ve written a lot about how a majority of the traffic doesn’t even come from my primary keyword. Most of it comes from the other 4500+ long tail keywords that I’m getting traffic from. Guess you didn’t read those posts either.
YES, I am 100% confident in the products I recommend because I use them and they work for me. I have the opportunity to make loads more money and promote a lot more products, but I don’t because I’ve never used them and I only promote things I’ve used and things that have worked for me.
If you want to talk more about this, please feel free to email me and maybe we can even chat over skype if you wish.
Pat,
Fair enough, I didn’t read your previous posts regarding the security website. Props to you then for your success.
Well said if you truly believe in your products, then what can I say…
Do you have any thoughts of expanding the site to include perhaps more Webmasters? different points of views? Different techniques?
Clearly there is huge demand for ppl especially from the west looking for jobs, I think you could make a lot more if you brought on a ton of pro webmasters and turned the site into a membership site. A community. Either way you got a sick site, go with it to the moon dude and think outside the box. You could make 5 mill a year from this site alone one day.
Think big Pat!
Jed,
If you’re relying on Alexa to estimate his traffic, both overall and for particular keyphrases, then you have a LOT to learn.
Pat
Let me share with you how I found your site. Before I left for work last week I searched passive income in iTunes on my iPhone and found your podcast. I listened podcast #24 and podcast #23.
I actually finished up podcast #23 today on the way home from work today and promised myself to remember to check out your site (great podcasts by the way).
I have to say that I love the site and what you’re doing. The content is amazing and you’ve really made a serious effort to maintain full transparency with respect to your earnings and strategies (something I’m having trouble fully disclosing).
I’m most impressed however with the income you’ve been able to generate…..very impressive. It’s nice to see someone not only talking about making money online but actually doing it in a big way.
Time to check out some more of your posts…….
Cheers
Phil
Hey Pat, greetings from Denmark!
It’s wonderful to see how much you earn every month, and i love the fact that you’re telling us about it all. You don’t hide your sites, stats, earnings etc., and i think, that i will do a danish version of the niche duel, and see how many danes who are interested.
Happy days,
Sander!
As always, you’re an inspiration to all who want to make money through passive income, I’ll never be at the same level as you but I’m going to try!.
cheers
I swear everytime I swing by here to read your income reports, your earnings just keep getting larger and larger. Very inspiring to see your income climbing like that man!
As far as your niche sites, are you working on building more since they success of the security guard training site? I’m still on the fence as to whether or not I plan to build more micro niche sites or a few authority ones. Either way, it’s good to see that has been making a steady income, too. $1,500 average per month on a niche site is stellar!
Bryan
Hi pat, really your income reports are very clear and informative.You are really inspiration to me.
great work as ever Pat. Really loved the breakdown and how you’re building an awesome passive business that grows by leaps and bounds.
Had a question for you, how do you track all your affiliate sales? Are you sent a report via email or do you login to each account and tally a report for the month?
Dwight Anthony
FinanciallyEliteBlog.com
Hey Dwight – I actually do long into each account separately, but I have tools (speed dial 2 and 1password) on Chrome to make this super fast and easy – almost one click to open them all up.
Nice! I knew there had to be a way to check these stats quickly.
I don’t use Chrome so much, i’m going to check if there’s plugins like this for FireFox and post back at a later time.
Thanks for the resources.
Dwight Anthony
FinanciallyEliteBlog.com
Hi Pat – it is just truly amazing how well you are doing online with your websites. I can only imagine making that type of money online right now. I am starting to build up my niche empire now but it is slow going as you know. It takes time to build up my pages and getting them to start to rank in Google. However once they get going I am sure they will be a great success.
Thanks for postings these income statements to keep us motivated.
wow…relly impressive!!!
Hi Pat,
that’s really a lot of money. Congratulations!
Every now and then I try to read your blog. Unfortunately my english is not so good. But I do my best to learn! Thank you for your Informations and your Tips!
Greetings from Germany
Inspirational reading, thanks a lot! I think your site proves quality content is what will keep bringing people back.
Reading your monthly income is just like seeing the sky that has never been reached. It seems impossible for me to reach that but this post and other posts show us how you get there.. I will try to do my best and see what happens next..
Just wanted to say thank you for putting out your blog and website. It has helped a lot in getting me further into this process.
Thanks,
Jeremy
I really looking forward to read you next update, thanks for an amazing website. You are really inspiring me.
very interesting overview to read your income – thanks for sharring. This is really inspiring.
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