Cory's Passive Income Blog

The internet marketing world is abuzz once again with the latest update to Google’s ranking algorithm.  Google has stated that this is an update to the dreaded Panda algo change, and it has hit a lot of IM’ers pretty hard.  Several of the good folks over at The Keyword Academy have stated that their incomes have been hit very hard for some of their established sites, particularly those that were created with the “old” TKA methods (i.e. mostly keyword-stuffed “fluff” articles).

So, how have my rankings done with the new algorithm? Continue reading →

I was hoping that my niche site updates would be all about how my newest niche site’s meteoric rise through the SERPs, right up to #1 in Google.  Of course, it has been less than two months since the launch of the site, so hitting #1 for even one of its primary keywords would have been incredibly lucky, to say the least.

So, no, this update isn’t to celebrate my newest niche site’s success.  Sure, it’s getting a trickle of natural, organic search engine traffic, and all four of it’s primary keyword phrases are on the first two pages of Google.  One is even on the first page, bouncing around between #6 and #8.  The simple fact, though,  is that I’ve got a while to go before the site will start getting enough traffic to produce passive income for me.

What has pleasantly surprised me, though, is that my second niche site, www.goodpetsforkids.com, hit #1 for its primary keyword phrase in Google while I was away on vacation.  It is also bouncing between #1 and #2 for the semantic equivalent phrase good pets for children.  I had taken AdSense off the site some time ago, as it was not getting any clicks and was dragging my CTR (Click-Thru Rate) down, which could lead to lower CPC (Cost per Click) rates on my newer site. Continue reading →

My First Click

Early this week, my new niche site got its very first AdSense ad click.  While $0.42 is nothing to get too excited over, it came from only the tenth person to reach the site through an organic search in Google.  I will definitely need to get a a much larger sample of visitors before I can get an accurate idea of what the average click-through rate (CTR) is going to be for the site, but at least I know that my ads are placed where people are looking at them.  I’d love to get a CTR of 5% or higher on this site once the traffic starts coming in, and I think the AdSense ads so far have been relevant enough to the searchers that I will be able to achieve that goal.

Long-Tail Traffic

The site is already drawing organic search traffic every day, even without any of its primary keywords showing up on the first or second page of Google’s search results.  People are definitely searching for this kind of info on a regular basis, and it will be awesome when I succeed at tapping into that traffic stream.  I’m going to be very focused on getting those first-page Google rankings!  That, of course, means lots and lots of link building. Continue reading →

I will attempt to post updates about the performance of my newest niche site every Friday.  This is a public test of the methods and tools provided by The Keyword Academy, a subscription-based service designed to teach users to build a passive income of at least $1000 per month online.

The Site Is Live

Let me start off by saying that my keyword selection process was much more refined this time around than it had been for my last two attempts at creating niche websites, thanks to the instructional material and tools offered by The Keyword Academy.  I began my search by picking a few broad, one-word terms and feeding them into the Google Keyword Tool.  After Google returned a list of suggestions (several hundred of them), I then took that list and fed it back through the tool, one hundred phrases at a time.  The final result was a list of about 5,400 keyword phrases.

Continue reading →

As I said in one of my posts back in March, I am currently trying out The Keyword Academy.  I have not produced any content along their suggested guidelines since joining, so I can’t yet testify for or against their advice.

What I can do is share my experience of going through their process with you.  A recent addition to the instructional materials has convinced me that the methods TKA advocates are very workable, and that I have the potential to generate a lot of keyword-targeted content quickly.  Additionally, TKA has some very sensible, practical (at least as far as I can tell) methods for SEO backlinking strategies that don’t involve horrible link-spamming on garbage blogs with companies like SEO Blueprint.  I like the idea of doing my link building right along with content creation, as opposed to the massive backlink bombs I’ve seen advocated so many times.  I have seen with my other sites that manual, content-based link building can be easier, cheaper, and more effective than trying to shortcut the process with automated tools. Continue reading →

For anyone who follows my blog, it’s obvious that I’ve been less in the mode of “working had” and more in the mode of “hardly working” so far this summer.  For some reason I have been just plain lazy since college let out.  I haven’t been working much on my blog or niche sites, or even bothered getting myself a part-time job for crying out loud!

I could chalk it up to burnout from school, but the reality is that being lazy for a couple of months was what I really wanted to do (though I wouldn’t admit it until now).  I said I wanted to be really productive.  I said I wanted to update my blog regularly and produce a lot of niche site content.  When it came right down to it, though, I put relaxing at the top of my to-do list, and it shows.

I think it’s out of my system for now, though.  I’ve been getting bored and stir-crazy, so I will (hopefully) use this as an opportunity to kick my sorry behind back into gear.  And this time, I have one really cool incentive to motivate me: One of my niche websites, Good Pets For Kids, has hit #2 in Google for its exact primary keyword! Continue reading →