The bacons back on the grill baby!

After a short hiatus due to ‘real life’, my experiments in passive and residual income will continue.

I am going to re-vamp the the about section to re-align the goals of this website. Also look soon for a quarterly review.

I am currently working on a new article that should be out later today.

Cheers!

This means that I won’t be able to give this blog the love I intended for a few weeks. :\

I will be back soon.

-Residual Bacon

Residual Income Earnings : Dec 2009

• GraphicRiver.net earnings : $8.00
• Adsense Web Traffic Earnings : $5.62
• eHow Article earnings : $0.44
• Total Earnings for DEC : $14.06

So this is good. I know its not hundreds of dollars, but it is a start. I am still learning and after a year of following my goals I am hoping we will be well into the hundreds each month.

Looking at the Past

My blog has only been rolling for about a month now and those of you who know me I have been making residual income for a little over a year now. My best month from just GraphicRiver was $53.20 way back in February. Lets take a look at the total amount of residual income earned in 2009:

• 2009 GraphicRiver Earnings : $193.80
• 2009 eHow Earnings (1 article for 3 weeks) : $0.44
• 2009 Adsense Earnings (only for December 2009) $5.62
• Total 2009 Residual Income Earnings : $199.86

Now you be thinking. $200.00 in 1 year is not what I am looking for. I want the BIG BUCKS! Well you have to realize that I made this money by doing a little work and never touching it again, and I am still making money on this. If you haven’t read how I ALMOST made $10,000 a year I would suggest reading it. Basically I did about 2 hours of work towards making this 200 dollars, since most of it is from that one file I put on graphic river.

Thinking of the Future

So I made 200 dollars with about 2 hours of work. We are going to be taking it to the next level this upcoming year with continuous work, I am planning on working 1 hour, each day of the week, on my passive and residual income. It may be working on eHow articles, posting a blog, making some micro-stock, whatever. So If I can get the same return for my time (in theory) I will work for 360 hours of work over the next year. Using last years summary of about 2 hours of work for $200.00 this means I am making aprox $100.00 for 1 hour. So in 2010 I should make around $36,000.00 if I get that same return. Lets make it happen!

In 3 weeks I have accidentally made it to the first page of google search. Of course its only when you search for ‘residual income blog’ or ‘passive income blog’. The first time I searched for ResidualBacon on the list when searching for ‘Residual Income Blog’ I scavenged 20+ pages waiting to see it. Never did. 1 Week later I was on the 8th page. 2 weeks later I was on page 2. Now I sit on the first page, and #2 on the list. Here is a Stupid Simple SEO guide.

Crawl like GoogleBot

Googlebot, the robot that crawls the web reading your website, really only has three key functions. These 3 functions are rather simple and here is there definition according to google:

• Crawling – Crawling is the when Googlebot discovers new and updated pages that will be added to Google index.
• Indexing – compile a massive index of all the words it sees and their location on each page & process information included in key content tags and attributes, such as Title tags and ALT attributes
• Serving – search the index for matching pages and return the results we believe are the most relevant to the user

So what can we learn from this? Well that Google just looks at text, organizes it, then searches through it when someone searches for similar text. Simple enough, but how do i use this information to my advantage?

Understand Google Hierarchy

Title -> Description -> Keywords -> Content. I am sure you’ve read before how important your title is when doing SEO, and it is important because that is the first thing Google looks at for relevance. From there it looks at the description, then keywords and finally content. How does google know this information? Through META & ALT tags of course. META tags are placed between the <head> & </head> tags of your web document, and are specifically used to talk to robots like googlebot.

The META Big Hitters:

• Title – This will be the title of your web page and is very important for SEO, try to use keywords in your title.
• Description – This is a short description of your web page. Once again it doesn’t hurt to use a keyword or two in your description.
• Keywords – Keywords are specific words that you are trying to bring users into your site with, if your could sum up your whole web page with one or two words those would be keywords. For instance, keywords for this post would be ‘Blog Tips’ and ‘SEO Tips’

As I said above these live in your web document between the <head> & </head> tags and are specially formated like this:

<title>Your Title Here</title>
<meta name="description" content="Fill This In Yourself" />
<meta name="keywords" content="keyword, more keywords, even more keywords" />

Feel free to copy and paste the code above into your own HTML docuement, if your on a blogging platform like Wordpress you can simply use the All-in-one-SEO-Pack.

My three not so secret, secrets:

1 – Use keywords in your description, and in your title if possible. Its easy to use a keyword or two in your description, but not always possible for your title. Use them sparingly though, you don’t need it repeated over and over or that may actually hurt your page rank.

2 – Use google’s keyword tool to research keywords. The google keyword tool will help you come up with keywords and will show how many queries google recieves for those queries. If your keywords are not getting searched, you may want to re-think those keywords.

3 – Update your website! Many people don’t know that if your page is updated constantly then Google will expect updates more and crawl your website more. (Comments count as updates since there is a change to your web page)

I’m no expert, I just use what works.

I am not pretending to be an SEO superstar. I know there are a handfuls of more information on SEO, like using ALT tags for each image, but to me that is a bit tedious. I have used only the information I have posted here to boost my own page rank and I know you can do the same. Just remember:

• Crawl like a robot
• Understand the Google hierarchy
• Use those META tags
• Research your keywords
• Update your website

As usual I would love to hear your thoughts and comments. Have your own way to improve page rank? Did I miss a tip that can dramatically improve this article? I will update the bottom of this page with the best information from the comments as well as a link to the commentators website.

Lately I have been reading many blogs and I have noticed that a few blogs have figured out the perfect way to interact with their readers through their blog. The kind of post we all want. A post that draws readers, creates subscribers, and gets a massive amount of comments & social media love. I decided to dissect a post and share my findings with my fellow readers and create a list of questions that you should ask yourself before you hit the big ‘Publish’ button.

Simplicity

It seems the pro bloggers have figured out a whole new language that they write in. Its a simple and understandable way of writing that has a nice flow. This means that you should provide the information you are giving your readers in the clearest manner with as few words as possible. There is no need for useless sentences or re-interpretations, they are only truly after your information so give them just that.

Timeless

Is the information you are posting timeless? Will the information or advice you are sharing going to be relevant in 2 weeks, 2 months, 2 years? While dissecting the posts it seems that most of them were published months ago, yet there were comments from only a couple days ago. This will help build readers as well as build trust. So when writing a new post give your reader a nice timeless piece of information they can go back to and reference from.

Broken Down Visibly

Did you ever wonder why it was so hard to read your college text books? Seeing that wall of text is intimidating and you can’t easily pull information from it. The world is on a 5 second attention span and if your not careful with your posting you may have some killer content, but it will go unnoticed if not broken down properly. This information is nothing new, you want your post to be scan-able. Do this by breaking down your content with:

• Use lists like this one.
• Headers that define the following paragraphs.
• Graphics relevant to your content.
• Bolding the most important sentence in a paragraph.

Guide & Reward the Reader

This last information is the most important. Does it guide the reader in anyway? You want the reader to physically or mentally make an action based off of your post, not just be done with the information and start randomly clicking in your website, or even worse, hit the X to close the browser.

You want to reward your readers. Reward them with knowledge they can share, with a good feeling they can relate to. You can even give them an actual reward, many websites have e-books that are rewards for becoming a subscriber. Other websites will reward them with links on their main page. There is a stronger bond between a blog and its readers when rewards are used.

5 questions to ask before you post.

So we’ve talked about the anatomy of a great blog post. Here is a list of questions to ask yourself before you hit that publish button:

• Is my post simple and easily understood?
• Can I pick out the major points and information of the article in under 5 seconds?
• Will the information I am sharing be relevant in 3 days? Weeks? Months?
• Does it effectively guide the reader to take action?
• Is there a reward for reading my post?

Did I miss any key components to a great blog post? What do you think makes a great blog post? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Reader Suggestions:

Lis Sowerbutts : “I rarely post now without doing some keyword research – I like to know what my post is trying to rank for.”
Jason : “Put you’re most relevant information in the first sentence of a paragraph.”
Niall Harbison : “I find the key to get lots of “loving” on social media is…1.Really good title | 2.Easy scannable content | 3.Something that is useful to your readers”

This week I have added a few more article posting sites and a handful more of the Envato Network sites. The list grows:

• Bukisa.com | Props : Reed
• AudioJungle.net
• ThemeForest.net
• Activeden.net
• Infobarrel.com

So this brings the total of the residual income list to ten total ways of making passive and residual income. Lets keep adding to the list and please if you know of something not on this list let me know and I will add it and in return you get a link to your site. Cheers!

It was a usual day of being a freelance hero. I was sitting at my desk reading some blogs much like you are doing right now, when I went to the old trusty browser and loaded up my email. ‘You have been invited to beta test our network’ the email read. Apparently I was chosen to be a part of the GraphicRiver.net pre-release. I was allowed to setup an account and get a jump-start before the site went public. This would allow me to build a portfolio and setup shop so when the curtains dropped I would be able to start making some money.

Fill your tank with the right gas.

I did some browsing of the site, and I saw one fatal mistake that 90% of the users were making. They were all uploading every little graphic they have ever made, nothing that could universally used throughout the design world. I went with the opposite, I sat down and created a Web 2.0 Background Designer, a simple, customizable web background maker. You could easily adjust the colors and pump out different backgrounds you would need. Out of the gate it was an instant success. People with 200 items weren’t getting sales, I had 1 dinky item and made 60+ sales the first month.

I had the right idea, that is where I was successful. I had an original file that could be used time and again, so naturally other designers wanted it.

Step on the gas!

So i thought I was going to begin my life on easy street. I thought to myself, make 3 files like my background maker a month and let the cash start pouring in. I mean one dinky file sold over 60 times resulting in $60+. If I could make an average of $54 dollars a month per file, and add 3 files a month I thought to myself:

• 1 file x 54.00 = $54
• 3 file x 54.00 = $162
• 6 file x 54.00 = $324
• 9 file x 54.00 = $486
• 12 file x 54.00 = $648
• 15 file x 54.00 = $810
• 18 file x 54.00 = $972
• 21 file x 54.00 = $1,134
• 24 file x 54.00 = $1,296
• 27 file x 54.00 = $1,308
• 30 file x 54.00 = $1,620
• 33 file x 54.00 = $1,782
• 1 year = $10,594.00

All of this is great in theory, and I knew all things wouldn’t sale so well, but maybe some would be an even bigger hit. Lets not get ahead of ourselves though, for there is one more part of the equation, for this isn’t how I made $10,000 in one year, its how i DID NOT!

Total Engine Failure!

You want to know what that last part of the equation was? It was me. I never did another god damn thing to help build my portfolio on graphic river. Hell I barely even logged into the site for a few months. Call it procrastination, call it being dumb, call it what you want, but needless to say my sales dropped off. At the start since I was getting so many buys and portfolio views that my item was constantly at the top of the list. When you sorted by sales alone I was second to the top, but I neglected my shining star, and the result:

Sales dropped dramatically. So as you can see this adds no where close to $10,000. In fact it adds up to a couple hundred dollars, but the potential was there.

Lesson: Know When to Capitalize

In retrospect it could have been so simple. Have a goal, make a goal-plan, follow that goal-plan, check the effectiveness of the goal plan and tweak it as necessary. All the puzzle pieces were in the right place but I failed to capitalize on the moment. I just had dreams in my head and never put them into action. That is half of the reason I started this blog, to give me an external source of motivation. To have a place to mark my accomplishments. So please, learn from my mistakes and take this advice:

• Keep eyes open for oppurtunity, it is out there you just have to see it.
• When oppurtunity is spotted do your homework and give it your best shot.
• Make a goal and goal plan to achieve success.
• When you see results, CAPITALIZE on them.

Like my story? Have a similar story? Maybe some advice so others do not make the same mistakes? Share your thoughts and ideas in the comments.

*note – this blog post was written for a challenge from SimplyZesty, but is a very true story.

The items added on the list today are mainly the most well known. I am still constantly searching and have more to put up but was hoping to review them first. The items that made this list this growth spurt are:

• E-Junkie
• Google Adsense
• ClickBank
• eHow

I also have a new idea to add. If you know of a source of residual and passive income not on The List by all means please support the RB and share the information. I will give you props in both an update post to list growth, as well as add a Submitted By (your name & website) to ‘The List’ itself. Giving you some nice link-backs as a thank you for helping me.

There are plenty of ways to earn passive incomes out there, and different people find success in certain areas. Lets help everyone out by making this list nice and large. Once the list grows enough I will break it down into sub-categories, like Micro-Stock Sites, Article Posting Sites, Advertising Sites, etc.

Hope these new list items help new comers and old comers alike. Cheers & Happy Holidays to everyone from the RB!

Good, Great, GOAL!

It is not hard to just come up with a goal. It is quite easy as a matter of fact. You can come up with them all day long, but lets pick one apart, in fact, lets pick my goal apart. “I wan’t to make $1,000 dollars of residual income each month.” So we have our goal, but is it realistic? Is it measurable? Here are a handful of key terms that come to mind when goal setting:

• Written
• Challenging
• believable
• specific
• Measurable
• & Have a Specific Deadline

I think these terms sum up a goal rather well, but you do not necasarilly need all of them to make a goal a good goal. Some of the terms like believable and challenging are relative terms that may differ to person to person. While I think all goals must be measureable in some aspect otherwise you will never know if you are making progress. Specific deadlines depend strongly on the goal, it may be a lifestyle enhacement goal that really has no end. A good way to look at goals is think if they have a good plan involved. One that if follwed offers a reasonably high probability of sucess.

Lets break down my goal of “Making $1,000 a month of residual income” and see it attacked by these definitions and see if we can carve a better goal plan for it:

• Written: I have written my goal down here, as well as made a new page on the blog to remind myself what I shoot for by the end of 2010, so I have passed the first term with ease.
• Believable: I do personally believe the goal is acheivable, I read other posts and blogs that have earned and surpassed $1,000 dollars a month of residual income. The key here is the goal setter must believe, and in this case I do!
• Challenging:this will definitly be a challange for me. I have no long record of earning passive income and I am exploring new ways of doing so.
• Measurable:My goal is measurable as I will be breaking down the amount of money made each month and reporting it on this blog. Money can always be measured
• Specific:Now my goal could probably use a little love here. Clearly its specific in the long term, but could probably be a little more specific.
• Deadline: My goal does have a deadline, but in reality if I don’t meet my goal’s deadline I won’t just stop trying, as well as if I meet it earlier then the deadline I won’t keep trying to improve it.

So after looking over my goal I think I can challange myself with taking this goal on, but I am going to need to make a good goal plan that I can follow. This is what tests the true integrity of a goal, for if your goal doesn’t have a plan for sucess then its just a pipe dream.

Create a Goal Plan!

Now we need to make a goal plan that we can follow to achieve our goal. We can do this by breaking down our goal into stepping stones that lead us to our big goal. It is important to make these smaller goals to help us achieve a feeling of accomplishment while we are working on our larger goals. In this goalplan we are going to identify :

• Your Goal
• Starting Date of Goal
• Ending Date of Goal (if there is one)
• Obstacle: People, events, cirumstances & anything that may hinder your progress on obtaining your goal.
• Task: Mini-goals that hurdle obstances as well as other items that help pursuit your goal.
• Obstacle 2
• Task 2

The idea here is simple. Create a formula that you can follow that will keep you on track to your goals. Identify the things that prevent your goal from happening and the taks that will hurdle the obstacles and keep you going. These little goals will help you keep motivation if your goal takes more time then expected. Here is a sample of goalplan for my goal:

• Earn $1,000 of Residual Income
• January 1 2010
• December 31 2010
• Obstacle: Making money with eHow.
• Task: Write 3 eHow articles. (monthly)
• Obstacle: Affiliate Marketing Income.
• Each month research and use one product an create sale page on blog, research keywords and setup adwords campaign(monthly)
• Obstacle: Generate income through GraphicRiver.
• Task: Create 3 items for my GraphicRiver portfolio (monthly).
• Obstacle: Generate More Reader for Blogs
• Task: Create 3 quality content posts. (weekly)
• Obstacle: Monthly Income review
• Task: End of each month review what has been working, what has not been working, make necassary adjustements.

Now I will be following the above formula to help obtain my goals for the 2010 year, but there might be soem hiccups and that is ok, just keep trucking and working on your goals. Remember that it is ok to make changes to your goal and goal plan, review it and fix it and go back after it!

Go make your goals and lets work hard this upcoming year to achieve our goals!

]]> http://residualbacon.com/blog/set-your-2010-goals/feed/ 14