Building a Steady, Safe, and Secure Income Stream

[tooAlive]

My main reason for getting into IM is the desire to create a solid income stream that will continue to make money for me years from today - even on the days I don't work.

The first thing I tried was setting up a few MFA micro-niche sites, as well as some Clickbank promotional sites. Now, as you may all be familiar with, there are thousands of affiliate products to promote out there, and to be frank, many of them are garbage.

They have flashy squeeze pages, and get high conversion rates, but in reality don't offer the consumer any significant benefits. (I'm sure that's not the case with all affiliate programs)

So, is that how I want to build my rock-solid income stream? Personally, I love helping people, and I'm passionate about it. Which is why it's so hard for me to feel passionate about promoting a product (with the hopes that people will spend money on) that I know isn't really going to help them.

My main focus at this time is to be able to create a secure stream of income while providing genuinely helpful content to my audience, and that I can feel confident about talking about/promoting, because I know it works.

Aside from creating my own products (which I have no idea where to even begin right now), would starting an authority site in the niche which I'm most passionate about be the best starting point?

I understand that building an authority site takes a lot more time than a micro-niche site, but with regular quality content, and a growing list of subs, I'd assume it's a lot more stable than a micro-niche relying on half a million backlincks to remain #1 on Google, only to be nuked to page 20 when an update rolls around.

I'm still very new to the IM world, and haven't made any real money yet, so my opinions may not hold much water. But I'd love to hear some feedback from you guys as I start to get my head around things, and find out what I should start focusing my efforts on.

Thanks for your time.

[Mark Owens]

I feel you as I was in the same position. Most of the products on Clickbank or whatever are not so good in terms of the usefulness of information. So what I did was to hire an expert in the industry to create the product for me (eBook, videos, interviews etc) and started promoting my own product. This allowed me to make more money as well as knowing that I'm providing quality

[colinph970]

You will succeed in IM simply because you have the right attitude.....make people delighted with what you offer and the money will follow. Best of Luck!

[TBInternetMarketing]

Originally Posted by tooAlive

My main focus at this time is to be able to create a secure stream of income while providing genuinely helpful content to my audience, and that I can feel confident about talking about/promoting, because I know it works.

I share your sentiments exactly! I only EVER promote products that I actually use myself and would recommend.
No exceptions.

[Harvey M]

Fact of the matter is, you're never safe with IM. One day you could make $3k and the next, you might make nothing. You should try to use this inconsistent income from IM to generate a more stable income either through a more stable form of IM or a different industry altogether.

[JeremiahSay]

Stable income in IM is oxymoron.. There's no such thing as a stable income. It's not like working in a 9 -5 job and expect to get paid $3,700 every 10th of the month.. In IM you may be making $10,000 this month and might only make $1,000 the next..

Great, I see that you love helping people.. It's important that you provide solid information and products to your audience and make sure they learn something from it.. if you are able to master this (helping people), you're able to rock on the IM world..

of course, there are also a lot of other factors to consider like: Your copy writing, conversion rate, support system, handling of customers, sales page, design, etc etc

Nonetheless, it's your mindset that's your greatest asset, in your case, you love helping people! That alone will be able to lead you thru all the obstacles you face along the way, and ultimately I have no doubt you'll succeed in your IM journey.

God bless you,
Jeremiah

[Marx Vergel Melencio]

Originally Posted by tooAlive

Aside from creating my own products (which I have no idea where to even begin right now), would starting an authority site in the niche which I'm most passionate about be the best starting point?

Any business, to be profitable, must fundamentally offer something of value not found elsewhere to a group of people with problems and needs that can be solved and satisfied by what the business offers. Working on this fundamental principle:

I'd then identify the subject areas where I have specialized expertise in. I'd then zone in on a set of subject areas where a lot of frequent Internet users find it difficult to search and purchase online effective solutions for their related "hair on fire" problems and immediate needs...

I'd then check and test if there are effective affiliate solutions that I can promote on my site. If there aren't any effective affiliate solutions and it would require a lot of time and financial investment, that's out of my budget or doesn't have good projected ROI timelines and net profit margins compared to my existing time and financial investment budget, to develop my own solutions, I'd focus on another niche, but if it's well within my time and financial investment budget, then I'd develop my own solutions...

If there are existing effective affiliate solutions that I can promote, I'd formulate content and supplemental product development ideas that can give my target audience more benefits on top of the benefits they can gain from using those affiliate solutions. These content ideas can then be my site's free and paid content. For my site's paid content, I'd develop a written guide and post it as an affiliate product with a 90% or more commission percentage per sale, so others can promote this guide and send buyer traffic to my site and my mailing list. Other product ideas can be video tutorials, software applications and service offers among others...

[tooAlive]

Thank you all for the kind replies, it's great to hear many of you share my same feelings (and are still making money).

And by stable income I'm referring to one that you can control yourself, or at least anticipate what it will be. Unlike a 9 to 5 where you can work your tail off, and your check will be the same as the guy who didn't do half as much as you.

Thanks again guys, I'd love to hear some more of your thoughts.

[LilBlackDress]

You certainly do have a great attitude.

What do you want to do? Do you like the idea of starting an authority site? If so that is a good place to begin.

It is also good to have diverse streams of income. So you may want to sell recurring products, use Adsense, create products etc. But one thing at a time. Pick a starting point where you want to get going and take consistent action.

[Coolstro]

I understand the feeling of not wanting to promote garbage products..it hurts your reputation and the value in the eyes of your followers. Who is your mentors online? who actually helps you? do they have an affiliate program? Clickbank handles the transactions but there is a lot of affiliate programs setup to handle their own transactions and offer a much higher quality product.

[NicheDad]

Build micro niche sites to earn money to fund your authority sites. It's a simple concept a lot of people don't seem to get.

Building authority sites takes money... on top of your passion, time, and commitment.

[tooAlive]

Wow, I've gotten much more encouragement from this thread than I was expecting! Hehe..

One thing I did notice is that vast majority of you are "War Room Members." If there's that many, it must be worth it. Guess I'll start there.

And about MLM's - I'm only 21, but have been in about 3 offline MLM's and honestly can't see myself getting into another. Haven't made a single penny, and felt like I was ripping people off every time I was pitching them the line. And I can sell.

I'm not familiar with "MLM Online," so it may be something completely different than what I'm used to.

[bluebrain]

Originally Posted by talfighel

Yes, most if not many of the products on CB are junk.

If you want to help as many people as possible why not get into MLM online and help as many people succeed there?

UGH, don't! Stay away from MLM, it's all about foolling people to give you money for the opportunity of them fooling other people that in turn will give them money, and you as well. Don't go for it, it's a scam!

[bluebrain]

MLMs online are even worse than offline ones, as they don't really have a product of value for you to promote. It's just the website used to attract people and some crappy product at a huge cost (ex: GDI sells really small hosting for like $10 a month, while at hostgator you can have the moon for $10/mo)

[mjb13815]

I think its good you don't feel right about promoting products that you know are garbage. Setting up an authority site would be a great idea especially when creating one around something that interests you. This is also make it easier for you to generate the content for the site. You will also gain more trust from your visitors because you will obviously know what you're talking about.

[al graham]

Authority site all the way... brings better value to the customer and that's what it's all about.. good luck

[Randall Magwood]

Make sure you get your own website, and an autoresponder. With that, you can set up a squeeze page, generate leads, and then market to your leads with an affiliate offer from Clickbank... or a product that you have created yourself.

[Jasonsc]

You're attitude is refreshing indeed. Far too many people wish to simply glorify a product and push their readers to the buying page in the masses.

And many people have made a lot of money doing this, but I personally couldn't live with myself and find it a bit immoral. Also, the days of this tactic are coming to a close as the Google Pandas nose becomes ever more sensitive to the scent of low quality content.

Any website can have authority in a niche - so long as you pick the niche correctly! Make a website with the intention to work with it for several months, building page upon page of high quality and UNIQUE content which offers real value to your visitors. With Google on a never ending search for higher quality and more relevant content I think you can easily beat most internet marketers if you just apply yourself, work hard and really aim to offer true value to your readers. Lucky for you, these are some virtues you seem to possess.

You don't nexcessarily need to make a website about something which you're passionate. Sure, it'll be easier to write content if you do ... but we're in this game to make money and if you can't make money from your passion, then it's perhaps best to choose something else. Will it be harder to write about something else? Perhaps. Do your research for a good base of knowledge and you should have no problem providing good high quality content. You may not be enthused to write about the subject as you would about your passion ... but you're enthusiastic about helping people so channel that into providing high quality content no matter what the subject.

And who's to say you can't start a second website about your passion? Write about your passion and see how it goes. It could take off and you could make money from writing about what you love - how awesome would that be. What I'm saying is, do your niche research and make the correct monetary choice even if it isn't your passion. Keep your passion on the side (definitely give it time of course) and then perhaps bring it to the centre when the time is right. If you spend a lot of time writing about your passion for no money - then it's really just a hobby.

All the best!

[tooAlive]

Originally Posted by Jasonsc

You're attitude is refreshing indeed. Far too many people wish to simply glorify a product and push their readers to the buying page in the masses.

And many people have made a lot of money doing this, but I personally couldn't live with myself and find it a bit immoral. Also, the days of this tactic are coming to a close as the Google Pandas nose becomes ever more sensitive to the scent of low quality content.

Any website can have authority in a niche - so long as you pick the niche correctly! Make a website with the intention to work with it for several months, building page upon page of high quality and UNIQUE content which offers real value to your visitors. With Google on a never ending search for higher quality and more relevant content I think you can easily beat most internet marketers if you just apply yourself, work hard and really aim to offer true value to your readers. Lucky for you, these are some virtues you seem to possess.

You don't nexcessarily need to make a website about something which you're passionate. Sure, it'll be easier to write content if you do ... but we're in this game to make money and if you can't make money from your passion, then it's perhaps best to choose something else. Will it be harder to write about something else? Perhaps. Do your research for a good base of knowledge and you should have no problem providing good high quality content. You may not be enthused to write about the subject as you would about your passion ... but you're enthusiastic about helping people so channel that into providing high quality content no matter what the subject.

And who's to say you can't start a second website about your passion? Write about your passion and see how it goes. It could take off and you could make money from writing about what you love - how awesome would that be. What I'm saying is, do your niche research and make the correct monetary choice even if it isn't your passion. Keep your passion on the side (definitely give it time of course) and then perhaps bring it to the centre when the time is right. If you spend a lot of time writing about your passion for no money - then it's really just a hobby.

All the best!

Thank you so much for your kind words of encouragement, and everyone else as well! I'll definitely be coming back to this thread every time I'm in need of some motivation.

You've all definitely given me plenty of food for thought. Now all that's left is to take action, and stick to it. Hopefully I'll be able to give back to the community as much as you all have given me.

Best of luck to everyone.

[rangga_ryuuzaki]

micro niche sites are a good start to make. Hopefully you can achieve whatever your goal, dude!