State the fate of what I’ll create in 2008

DiceFollowing Al’s lead on his action plan and goals I thought it a good idea to jot down my aims for 2008 also, a nice reference point for myself in the future to check on, once you put info like this public it ads extra incentive to achieve it regardless of whether someone reads it or not.

So for 2008 my main goals are as follows.

1/ Like Al the majority of my income has to date come from one main website so I intend to have 4 sites or domains that generate at least $1k each individually. If my main tattoo site makes $10k I would still like 3 others doing $1k each per month.

2/ I would like an off-line venture that can bring in income and show good growth, as with everything I look at now time is critical so I have to make sure anything I take on is low maintenance or short term effort for long term gains as there are only so many hours in a day, I am part the way along this road so hope to have something to report on soon.

I feel it is extremely important that I diversify income streams across different sites and methods so that I can maintain an income that will keep my whole family & home.

3/ I would like one seriously good .com domain to invest in and build on, preferably one that I can buy for around up to $10k just now, something that I can build on to ensure it will be worth 6 figures and be looking for a sale after year 3 to 5.

Not an easy task but .com is king and although I have some good UK domains like the recently bought TVs I crave a truely great .com with future potential so magazines like New Scientist may help uncover something for me.

4/ I would like to progress with leasing a bit more so would look to have at least 2 domains or sites leased out on long leases to expand on what I have started there and prove to myself it can grow.

5/ Start generating income from affiliate sales, not something I have touched much in the past, e-sales, subscriptions, leasing a domain and Adsense have been good but seeing the possibilities available at December from Al it is clear that to capitalise on it you need to start early and I intend to get my feet wet with affiliate sales, no monetary targets in ’08.

6/ Add a couple more .co.uk domains to the portfolio, I started by trying to buy anything that sounded good and then quickly realises that I needed to work smarter and secured some good one’s in 2007 for development that were product based with good search volumes, so I will only be looking to buy domains that are extremely good value, I don’t want a thousand domains so trim of some lesser domains and keep a tight portfolio.

7/ Get a top 5 listing for a client, I generally avoid clients and working for other people, it just is not me and I prefer to work for myself, over the last 2-3 years I have had a few offers to work on websites SEO/SEM type of stuff but never knew how to price such work and more than that I have not been interested in it generally.

However I was asked in November to work on one website for one search term - I pondered it and decided that if I was to do it I would have to make it worth my while so said I would but for $1600 per month + expenses, this was agreed to by my client so that is a nice addition to the income and a new source and I have enjoyed it so far.

The site was a few years old and ranked about 200 for it’s search term, it is now ranked 20-30 so I would like to get it in the top 10 by the middle of the year and top 5 after that.

————

I think I should stop there!
If I achieve all that then I will be very happy and well on my way in my overall 3-5 year plan.

I have an action plan and I have been working on some of the things listed already, naturally if you want to be making 4 figures a month from new sites you need to get them up in some form as soon as possible and build on them so should get a few ticked off within the first quarter of 2008 and most if not all by December.

If you want to be kept up to date on how Al and I go then feel free to subscribe to the feed.

About Scott Jones

Scott hails from the north east of Scotland and started earning online at the end of 2000 building websites for local businesses during which time he won an award from Lord Alan Sugar for Excellence in Enterprise. After having quite a bit of success with domaining Scott mainly runs educational evergreen websites which generate over 3 million visitors per month but is always on the lookout for a fresh thinking out of the box way to turn a buck. Follow on Twitter.

Comments

  1. You have a good set of goals there. Good luck with achieving them!

  2. I’ve been looking at you blog for a while and have decided today to subscribe to your feed so i can monitor your progress. I too am a UK internet-tinkerer trying to make money online and find your articles and progress updates inspiring!

    Keep up the good work

    Chris

  3. What’s this domain leasing you refer to? Does it give you much income? How do you do it? What have you learnt from doing it?

    Thanks!
    Dan

    • I made a posts here about leasing Daniel and afterwards leased my first domain for $1000 per month. The added value was that I ranked the domain for its main keyword first and then leased it to someone in the industry. I plan on trying to replicate that again this year.

  4. I note your now doing seo/sem work freelance. What are your main methods of link building?

    • Just the one client Ian for the one keyword which is as far as I am likely to go with that. I use everything at my disposal and have picked up a few sources and tricks through the last few years that I cannot share I am afraid, I will say this though - almost everything still works regardless of the scare stories and mis-informed blog posts throughout the last couple of years.

  5. I was hoping you would write a post like this Scott. However I had hoped to see more projects like your “rinse and repeat” post.

  6. I found this blog via Acorn Domains where Scott is a bit o a regular. A few of the things he has written there have resonated with my thinking so I am looking forward to seeing how you both get on in 2008. Good luck

  7. That’s a pretty crazy amount for one search term! It had better be pretty darn competitive :)

    • It is quite competitive, product based and 50 million results coming back but very achievable, the end game is a no.1 place which will soon more than pay back my fees. Into the top 20 now so doing well.

  8. Someone really paying you $1600 a month to rank for a single search term? If so, what ranking are they aiming for and what timeframe and budget have they allocated to you. Is this a big corporate or an individual?

    • Yes, I get paid up front and have had 3 payments so far. They are aiming for No.1 spot eventually however I have said I would expect top 20 by Feb/March and then aim for a top 10 by April. Expenses come to around $600 per month.

    • Actually, I think $1600 is fairly cheap for SEO services. Even if the aim is just to rank for 1 term, the SEO will no doubt help with countless other terms. I know of companies charging $3000-$6000 a month for SEO, and they have big lists of clients paying that money (and in all fairness, they aren’t that great at SEO either)

  9. Whats your current earnings from the tattoo site?

    • I don’t have a breakdown of that site but it is enough by itself for my family to live off, which has given me the flexibility to then try new things.

  10. &600 a month budget sounds quite a lot. I don’t think you should have much of a problem to rank high unless the term is super competitive.

    I know companies pay employees very good salries to do SEO work for them. The truth of the matter is a lot of webmasters would do a better job. However, the problem with webmasters is that they are too busy working for themselves and don’t really find time to work for others.

    But being paid $1600 is a really nice side income.

  11. I think no. 2 of yours goals is the most important one.

    I believe it’ll be easier for you now to work on an offline project considering that you have an online backup.

  12. Thats good to write own goals somewhere its easier then to reach them, very good article!

  13. A lot of good goals here. I’m still working on mine. Last year, I primarily focused on one site and that was pretty foolish. A lot of my income was lost when Google decided to do a little dance. Like you, I’m going to expand on my revenue source and look for additional ways to make money.

  14. Some good goals, there. I too, am working on developing a new site - I don’t want to end 2008 still relying on one website to generate the majority of my income.

    - Martin Reed

  15. Wow that was long.

    good luck scott

    I think I should ask in May/August and check how far you’ve gone.

  16. Hey, I just visited Ink Crazy and clicked on the big “Fast and FREE registration” button but it goes to a 404 error page. Thought Id let you know :)

Trackbacks

  1. […] couple of weeks ago I made a list of my goals for 2008, today I get to cross off number 2 on the list. 2/ I would like an off-line venture that can bring […]

  2. […] the start of January I stated a list of 7 goals I wanted to achieve in 2008, so far No.2 on the list has been achieved - to get involved in an […]

  3. […] I guess for the affiliate sales part I am up and running, another goal achieved, No.5 on my list was to start affiliate sales and although small… it’s a start. Related Posts:Finding old domains for a new […]

  4. […] January 2008 I put in my to do list for the year “I would like to progress with leasing a bit more so would look to have at least […]

Leave a Reply