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In the past three months, I’ve been on a bit of a buying spree. (One big incentive has been the near-parity between the U.S. and Canadian dollars. It caused me less pain to purchase stuff with my Paypal funds then to withdraw the money and actually see a “loss”.)

So now I have a hard drive that’s crammed even more full of stuff. One of my reasons for starting Niche Marketing Journey is to start getting a handle on all this stuff. 2008 is the year I begin using everything that I’ve bought. And I will post about the various projects and results here.

Of course, I don’t make things easy for myself by starting up this blog right in the midst of my busy season offline. Since I’ve done minimal promotion, I figure it’s okay to get off to a slow start. And anyway, my idea of blogging has totally evolved. I let go of the “having to blog every day” idea, and it’s worked out well.

So here are some of the things I’m going to be posting about in the near future, as I start working through my list of projects.

1. Building my VRE empire. For this, I’ll be mainly using JD Swanson’s Six Months to Six Figures approach. I’ve already started posting about this.

2. Using my PLR content. And I have lots of it. The problem with PLR content, of course, is that it’s never as good as you can write yourself. But I like to look at it as research, and when I have the research in front of me, it doesn’t take me very long to write the content.

3. Email lists. I have some. That’s about all I can say about me and the subject of email lists. But with echoes of “the money is in the list” in my ears, I’d like to start doing something with my little lists. Like, build them into bigger lists. Maybe even … make money from them.

4. Using my pre-built websites. I am a member of two different membership clubs that provide me with completely built websites. I have yet to put any of them online. I intend for that to change.

5. Traffic. None of this works without traffic. I have a number of blueprints on my hard drive detailing methods of getting traffic. I don’t have a clue how well any of them work, but I’m going to put each one to the test.

6. Various ebooks. I have various ebooks that outline various blueprints and systems. On the off-chance that one of them might very well be the Holy Grail of Internet Marketing that I’m seeking, I will be applying each blueprint and/or system and seeing if anything actually works.

7. Authority sites. I actually have the makings of quite a few of them! Some of my early domains have been showing signs all year that they’re ready to grow up and move to the next level. So this coming year will be all about me giving them just the nudges and pushes that they need.

That’s quite a long list - I didn’t realize it would be that long when I started writing this post. It makes me realize that I already have a lot of stuff. And by taking this Niche Marketing Journey, I think I will finally start doing something with it all.

I’m not sure why this didn’t occur to me before, but I just realized something last night.

Right now, I’ve been finding niches using various “idea generating” sites, like 43Things and Magazines.com, as well as niches that come to me off the top of my head. I’ve purchased a total of 13 domains in 5 niches.

None of these niches are related to each other, which is perfectly fine.

But right now, I have a handful of sites that are working really well for me. They’re generating income, and because I’ve been working on the content and spending time on promotion, they’re growing.

Most of these sites are also very broadly niched (you might even say, for a couple of them, not niched at all).

So shouldn’t I be searching for niches which are actually sub-niches of these sites?

This makes a lot of sense to me. I’ll still be able to give the whole VRE Empire concept a try, but at the same time, even if a site fails to make money, because I’ll be doing some promotional efforts for it, and it will be indexed, at the very least, I will have a site that is relevant to one of my existing “big” niches - providing me with relevant backlinks.

So, even if the site itself fails to generate much passive income, I’ll still reap the value of the backlinks. And it will only cost me the domain renewal fee each year.

Somehow, after seeing this so clearly last night, it actually feels easier today to work on my VRE sites. I’ve always disliked putting a lot of work and effort into something without knowing whether it will be successful. But with this approach, I go into creating my sites knowing that none of the work will be “wasted”.

It works for me!

My membership to JD Swanson’s VRE challenge started about a week and a half ago, but of course, wouldn’t you know it, I got an avalanche of offline deadlines and haven’t managed to do even a quarter of what I had planned.

Here’s what I’ve accomplished this past week and a half:

1. Two sites built (I will, of course, be adding more quality content to them over time). All articles written by me.
2. Began promotion of these two sites (not nearly as much as I’d hoped to accomplish, though).
3. Nine more domain names bought - sitting quietly in my head, waiting for time to work on them and get them launched.
4. Keyword research for these nine sites all done.
5. Bought and received ten original articles for one of the nine yet-to-be-built sites. I’ve done a quick check through Google to make sure these are original. They are, and the writing is very very good, so I’m hopeful that I might have another writer to add to my outsourcing list.
6. Found about 101 CSS-based templates that I might use sometime in the future.
7. Converted one of these templates into one that uses php includes.
8. Finally reached the ten-article mark at EzineArticles and applied for my upgrade. Received word today that I have Platinum status (yay!)

So here are my results so far, after a week and a half:

1. Two sites built.
2. One site has been indexed with MSN. The other one isn’t indexed at all.
3. I forgot to put in my tracking code, and I’m too lazy to go look at my AWstats, so I can’t tell you how many visitors I’ve had so far. However, according to Adsense, I did have three page impressions yesterday to one of my sites (not the one that’s indexed).
4. Um, no, no money made yet!

So that’s my update so far. I’m looking at another two and a half weeks of deadlines, so I probably won’t be able to put a ton of work into this VRE Empire plan for a little while yet. But I’m trying to do a bit of stuff every day - and at the top of my to-do list? Install those tracking scripts!

Sometimes I look at all the PLR article packs and ebooks and reports I have on my hard drive, and I think to myself, “Wow. I should be able to DO something with all of this.”

And then sometimes I look at it all and I think to myself, “I’m not going to even go near guestimating how much all of this junk cost me over the past two years.”

So Niche Marketing Journey is about putting PLR content to the test, too. Is it worth it to purchase PLR content?

I will be doing a lot of article marketing to promote my sites. In fact, I started in earnest last night. And I’m discovering one thing about PLR content - they make writing an article for the article directories a lot easier. It’s like the basic research has been done for me.

So in terms of a launch-off or brainstorming writing tool, PLR content works for me. Of course, another key question is, does article marketing work? I’m ready and willing to find out!

Since I’m determined to develop a system, I’ve decided to start this phase of my online career the right way: I’m getting organized.

I have several spreadsheets set up. I have a different spreadsheet for each “system” or blueprint I’m testing out.

I also started a spreadsheet yesterday for my PLR materials - and that has been quite the illuminating (not to mention time-consuming) experience. I’ve barely made a dent in my PLR folder. I hadn’t realized I’d collected such a huge stash of materials. They will come in handy for my VRE Empire sites, where I have to write unique content. I find that PLR materials are great in terms of basic research for a niche.

I don’t know what makes me feel happier - finally getting into the action thing and testing out these different systems, or finally finding some use for all this PLR stuff I’ve bought over the past few years!

I signed up for JD Swanson’s 6 Figures With Your Own VRE Empire last week, and this past weekend, the membership forum opened. It’s been quite an experience so far, and it’s only been four days into the challenge.

And while the word “overdeliver” is highly overused within Internet marketing circles, right now that’s really the only word that comes to mind. JD provides a complete system - exactly what I’ve been searching for. And the best thing (for me) is that he’s adamant about not deviating from the system, and that works for me. If it weren’t for that, I know I’d already be adding variations, tweaking, what have you.

Instead, I’m plugging away … building sites.

Since all the details are confidential, I’ll only be blogging about my results. I don’t have any sites up yet, but soon I will!

This is an exciting first post for me. Three years ago, I ventured online to explore the world of affiliate marketing. I wanted to know if it really worked - if you could make money online with affiliate marketing.

Since then, my online business has grown, and I found myself making a decent part-time income with sites that marketed physical products for affiliate commissions.

So that answered that question - does affiliate marketing “work”? And I know that it does.

In Niche Marketing Journey, I’m excited to be starting on the next level of my journey: exploring niches, email marketing, developing my VRE (virtual real estate), product creation and basically, finding out if there’s a system out there that will help me to achieve a passive income and build a successful full-time online business.

So, welcome to Niche Marketing Journey!