Make Money Online with Brandon Hopkins

Here is my dilemma, I have about 100 active websites. Most are small niche websites, about 85 of them have full sites, the other 15 or so are just domains right now.

13 of them are blogs.

1 is a forum.

71 are static html/php.

So what do I do? I can’t regularly update 13 blogs and could never update 71 static html sites with any kind of regularity. Here are how I see my options and the pros and cons of each choice:

1. Sell most of the sites and refocus on a small group of 2-5.

Pros: If I sell the sites, I won’t stress about trying to update them all of the time. I know if I try to update them all, I’ll fail. Selling would get that monkey off my back. With 2-5 sites, I could definitely write 2-4 posts for each site, every day.

Cons: Some of the sites are valuable as they stand, but most of them are just great targeted domains with huge potential in the future. Most of the domains are 2 years old max, some are really young. Selling now would negate all the time and energy I’ve put in so far.

2. Never update them.

Pros: I’m already doing this. No extra work. I could start this option immediately.

Cons: Won’t make me feel any better about letting the sites stagnate. I’ll still feel inclined to update them semi-regularly (monthly) which won’t help with anything, but makes me feel slightly better.

3. Hire 20 writers to write for all of the sites.

Pros: Sites will be updated.

Cons: Huge initial cost (investment) that I don’t know if I can justify. If I only pay to update 50 of the sites regularly (1 post per day) cost will become prohibitive. 50 sites X $5 per article X 30 days/month = $7500 per month! Not to mention all of the administrative work involved with running such a huge network. Also, paying $5 per article I’ll have a lot of turnover, if I pay more per post it will definitely get too expensive. I don’t know how much income I’ll be able to generate per site, and in the beginning I definitely won’t be breaking even. Most networks with 50 sites have at least a few people on the payroll included graphic designers and coders. I don’t know if I could handle it all.

What else can I do? I need either some votes for my current ideas, or some ideas I haven’t thought of. Leave a comment and let me know what you think.

12 comments

This blog is going to be undergoing a change. A change for the better. It is going to be more of an insight into my life online.

Here is a little about me:

I’m married with one daughter who is almost a year old. With this new addition to my life, I know it is going to change. My wife is a wonderful woman, and I couldn’t have designed a more beautiful, understand, supportive and loving woman. She is perfect, and perfect for me.

Here is some info about my life online:

I have about 100 websites, all in very tiny niches. The goal of all of these websites is to generate revenue. With this revenue I live my life. I do have a 40hr/week job, but this is my hobby and passion. One day I would like money from my websites to equal or exceed my day job. I wouldn’t leave my 40hr/week job because I enjoy what I do. This would just be a wonderful addition to my income. The most money I’ve ever made in one month is over $3k, and the least I’ve ever made in one month was about $60.

Tools I use:

I’m a Mac convert. I never thought I would be, but I am, and I can’t go back to a PC. There are too many time saving shortcuts and programs that I use on a daily basis. I can do almost everything (except typing) without using my trackpad, that saves me hours every month.

Aside from the MacBook Pro in general I use:

Cyberduck (FTP)
Smultron (text/php editor)
Adobe Photoshop CS2
Adobe Illustrator CS2
Dreamweaver 8 (Don’t really use it much, but I have it)
Final Cut Pro (still learning)
Quicken 2006 (not recommended for a business) for my business because it came free with my MacBook Pro
Firefox 2 (whatever the latest version is)
iTunes
iPhoto
iMovie HD
iDVD
Microsoft Entourage (work email and the full Office 2004 suite)
Gmail (personal email)
x3mac (accountability software)

40/hr week job apps (I work in education so many of these are edu specific):

Apple Remote Desktop (I manage 800+ clients and 5 servers)
Onyx
PlistEdit Pro
TinkerTool
Automater
BatChmod
ffmpegX (convert video files from my HDD camcorder)
Iceberg (makes .pkg’s for deployment
NetRestore (Thanks Mike Bombich, you’re a life saver)
ActivStudio (for Promethean interactive white boards)
Retrospect
Roxio Toast 6
Stuffit 10

That is about it. I use just about all of those at least once a week. Some save me time (NetRestore, Iceberg, BatChmod) and some cost me time (Final Cut Pro) and some help me ease my mind (Photoshop).

I’ll be posting earnings from my life online and hopefully giving you a few tips that will help you earn more online. After all, there is plenty of room for all of us!

p.s. I have mastered the art of finding niches so look for about 1-2 free niche’s per month, and ways to exploit as much potential out of them as possible. In other words, put me in your RSS reader!

22 comments

So I was at the store trying buy some hair gel. One every bottle I looked at was a ridiculous claim of how well this particular gel would hold hair in place. Some were “Ultra Hold” some were “Mega Hold” and even some were “Super Ultra Hold”. Once you get away from the words, you get into the numbers. Some are 9/10 and some are 10/10, but there are a few crazy ones that are 11/10. They apparently hold better than the perfect 10/10.

In these crazy terms I don’t know which is the best so I pick one that is blue because I like the color more than the others and all the hold claims mean nothing to me anymore. When will this nonsense end?

I figure that by the next time I need hair gel, they will just start putting glue in the bottles.

You can buy glue that you put in your hair and be done with it for a few weeks.

No comments