22
My Side Income is Dwindling
A reader asked me how am I earning a good side income?
Back in early 2009, I listed out my “Goals” for the year 2009. And sitting at number 6 is “Side income of RM10,000/mth by Oct 2009.”
My side income comes from Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising on expired domains and also selling of text links. After the Chinese New Year …. starting in February 2009, I could see a drop in my PPC income. Advertisers were cutting budgets. Advertisers were also reluctant to renew their buying of text links on most of my websites. As a result, my side income took a plunge. Currently, my side income average about RM1,000 a month.
Looking back, there were a few months between July 2008 to September 2008 whereby I was earning more than RM3,000 from my side income. And at that time I was so tempted to quit my job and go full time building on my side income. Luckily for me I was patient enough to adopt a wait and see approach. And now I am glad I did not quit my job back then.
I have now turned to offering Search Engine Optimization (SEO) services to add another income stream for myself. Currently I am optimizing the keyword “Top MBA Malaysia” for a local education institute. This niche industry is competitive as well. However, I do see an opportunity for me to build a business out of SEO and SEM (Search Engine Marketing).
My goals are clear and I just have to find ways to overcome these obstacles to reach my goals.
hi,
May i know which year you started buying expired domains?
In the past few years, most good dotcom domain names were hard to find as almost all were already snatched up fast like hot cakes..leaving only those not so good domain names with long names consisting of 3 words or with dash in between….or your portfolio of domain names include those with dash in between their names and those non dotcom names??
I started buying expired domains about 3 years ago.
You are right, the good dot com domain names are hard to find. If an expired domain has good traffic, sometimes the domain registrar will keep them instead of letting it go for auction. And when the names do go for auction, it’s usually too expensive. This is basically why I have stopped buying expired domain names.
It has been more than a year since I last bought an expired domain. I’m now just renewing the good ones, and letting the bad ones expire. On average, a month I can earn about USD100.
Add A Comment