Matthew Allen

Making Money Online – Ask Matt – September 2016

September 30, 2016September 29, 2016 by Matthew Allen

Welcome to this months edition of Ask Matt! Because I blog publicly about ‘making money online‘ and ‘passive income‘ – I tend to get a lot of questions from people about various related topics. Although I don’t formally ask for these questions – they inevitably come in randomly. Sometimes by email, sometimes in blog comments and sometimes on Facebook or in a forum somewhere.

I try my best to answer quick questions whenever I can. But some questions deserve a longer and more detailed answer. In the past, I would find myself ‘wasting’ far too much time answering questions privately. So… now I save them up and answer the good ones in the form of a blog post. This way all of my readers can also benefit not only from my answers, but from the great questions that others ask! This is a win-win-win for everybody! Let’s check out some of the questions that came in this month…

How I Used a [Mostly] Content Only Strategy to Grow a Brand New Site to 400+ Daily Visitors

January 12, 2019September 5, 2016 by Matthew Allen

If you hate link building like I do and plan to use a content only strategy for your niche site – then this post is for you. Starting a brand new niche site on a brand new domain is definitely NOT a get-rich-quick plan. I should know. I’ve started plenty of them. But, if you want to build a long-term and reliable passive income producing website – you shouldn’t be thinking about getting rich quick anyway. Sure, we’re all in this for the money. But think of the fairy tale about the tortoise and the hare. Every single time I read the story – the tortoise wins!

This is the approach I’ve taken with the one main niche/authority site that I’ve been building out for over a year now. In past posts on this blog, I’ve referred to this site as ‘My ONE Thing’ site. In a post I wrote about a year ago – I declared that I was going to FOCUS on just ONE thing – and that ONE thing was going to be this particular niche website. My traffic and earnings for this site have continued to increase, slowly and steadily, as a result of deciding to stick with the long-term strategy.

Within this post – I’m going to show you how I’ve grown the site to an average of 400+ visitors (sessions) per day – and even as I write this post, that number continues to slowly increase!

Passive Income Ideas and Answers – Ask Matt – July and August 2016

August 29, 2016 by Matthew Allen

Passive Income Ideas - Ask Matt - July - August 2016

Welcome to the 2nd edition of my “Ask Matt” series! In case you didn’t see the 1st edition, check it out if you want to read details about why I started this series. Basically, I got tired of wasting time answering questions privately via email and figured I might as well answer questions publicly on the blog. I figure, if one person has a question they need answered, surely others have the same (or similar) questions. So why not publish my answers so that everyone can benefit?

The previously undisclosed intent was going to be to publish these Q & A posts monthly. And I certainly had enough questions to create a separate post for July… but I slacked off and didn’t make the time to get the post written and published. So… August is almost over and I’m about to hit publish on this post which includes questions for July and August. Feel free to read the entire thing. Or just scan the subheadings to see which questions might apply to, or interest you. Hope you enjoy and I hope this helps (at least in some small way).

Okay. Here are the questions and answers…

The Internet Entrepreneur’s Guide to Relaxing on Vacation

August 20, 2016 by Matthew Allen

For the better part of the past 6 years or so, I’ve been working on this side hustle internet business thing. My family and my day job have always been higher up on the priority list – but early mornings and as much as I can on weekends, I’ve worked to build up my various streams of internet income. I’ve taken several vacations with my family throughout this time period – but I’ve never really unplugged for the entire vacation. I’ve thought about it. But with the convenience of technology – smart phones and laptop computers, I always find myself doing at least a little bit of ‘work’ during my vacations.

I’ve been able to easily justify ‘working’ during vacation because I really enjoy working on my websites and trying to figure out new ways to extract money out of the internet. It really is a lot of fun for me. Who doesn’t like to have fun on their vacation?

Relaxing on Vacation

Having fun and relaxing aren’t always the same thing though. Sometimes you just need to take a break and get away from it all. Really relaxing on vacation means removing yourself from your typical day-to-day responsibilities. And who are we kidding – when you are running an internet business (or businesses), you absolutely have those types of responsibilities and commitments.

Don’t Buy a Niche Site Course Without Evaluating the Source

January 22, 2020August 6, 2016 by Matthew Allen

Do you know what it feels like to have money randomly deposited into your Paypal account? I do. And let me just tell you – it is freaking awesome! Random income generated from work done in the past is the essence of what this whole passive income thing is all about.

Almost all of my passive income, though, is generated by selling or promoting other peoples products. This includes affiliate income from this site and from my niche sites, Adsense pay-per-click income, as well as Amazon affiliate sales from my niche sites. All other peoples stuff. I say almost – because I did create some service based income in the past (selling keyword packages). But that wasn’t exactly passive. What that experience did for me though was showed me my potential and gave me a taste of having random people pay me for something that I created.

[Dumb] Passive Income Update for May 2016

July 30, 2022May 15, 2016 by Matthew Allen

Blogging – Niche Sites – Amazon FBA

Since I stopped publishing regular monthly income reports at the end of last year, I’ve gotten lots of emails and comments from people wondering what the heck has been going on with me. How is my passive income journey going? What’s happening with my niche websites? Am I making any money with Amazon FBA? What’s working for me and what isn’t? What about my ONE Thing FOCUS strategy that I talked about last fall?

I admit – I’ve kind of neglected this blog and it’s audience for a couple of months while I concentrated on other things. So it’s definitely time for me to write and publish a decent update. I’m going to try to keep it quick and short. I’m typically terrible at that and tend to ramble on for several thousand words. Below, you’ll find the things that I’ve been working on, broken up into different sub-sections. A LOT has been going on with me. And NO – I still have not hit the internet jackpot. But income is on the rise and things are headed in the right direction. Let’s do this!

FreshBooks Reviews from Around the Web

January 22, 2020March 10, 2016 by Matthew Allen

As my own online passive income efforts continue to expand and grow and my internet business becomes more complicated – I’ve found myself with the need (or desire) to find a more robust accounting solution. FreshBooks is one of the big names out there – so I knew I definitely wanted to check them out. There are a LOT of reviews and advertisements out there for FreshBooks on the inter-webs – and I have a bunch of them opened up in different tabs in my browser right now. So I thought… why not write a quick post and share my research with readers for my blog!

I’ve looked at several videos and a whole bunch of different blog post reviews. Below is a compilation of some of the best that I’ve come across…

Looking for Better, Faster, Safer and More Reliable Web Hosting?

February 26, 2016 by Matthew Allen

It’s been almost two years now since I’ve moved this blog (and most of my other sites) to the best (IMO) managed WordPress hosting company that exists. Sure – I pay a bit more for hosting than most people do. But I’ve never looked back. As the old saying goes… You get what you pay for. I’ve certainly found this to be true when it comes to web hosting. I want to share with you a short 2-minute video about the most reliable web hosting company that I use which offers the best, fastest, safest and most secure WordPress experience.

WP Engine - See Pricing Plans

How Much Money Can I Make Online?

January 22, 2020February 3, 2016 by Matthew Allen

Including: Yearly Income Numbers – Never Shared Before

It’s funny now – when I think about this question… How Much Money Can I Make Online? It makes me think about the people who are asking this question. Maybe you are one of them! People who are just curious or people who are just getting started with trying to make money online. You want to know the realistic possibilities of how much money can actually be earned online.

All of us who make money online wondered the exact same thing at some point. We all had to start somewhere. We were all beginners or newbies – whatever you want to call it. But for those of us who have been making money online for awhile – it’s sometimes hard to relate to newbies. It’s not easy to recall how little we knew back when we, ourselves, were newbies.

I try my best to remain conscious of this and I try to keep it real here on this blog. There are lots of people who work full-time online and claim to make insanely unbelievable amounts of money. There are even more who work really hard (part-time) and earn next to nothing. That was me for the longest time! I currently fall somewhere in between and I’m about to share some annual numbers that I’ve never really shared before.

Private Label Products to Sell on Amazon FBA – Getting Started

January 22, 2020January 9, 2016 by Matthew Allen

I don’t know if you’ve heard or not – but there is a LOT of money being made by people who private label products to sell on Amazon via the FBA platform. Yeah! I’ve heard that too. It’s been really hard to ignore over the past year or so if you hang out in the “make money online” spaces like I do. I read blogs and I listen to podcasts. Most of my focus over the last few years has been around blogging and building niche websites. But even most of the people that I follow in that space have either dived in, or at least talked about private labeling products and selling them on Amazon via FBA.

Throughout most of the past year, I have had to purposely ignore all of the talk and the hype around Amazon FBA. I had specific reasons that I didn’t want anything to do with that type of business. At least not at the time. So, what were those reasons and why did I change my mind? Why am I jumping into the business now?

Getting the Thin Content Penalty from Google

March 15, 2021December 31, 2015 by Matthew Allen

This will be an interesting blog post to write to end out 2015. I’ve always stated that I share both my successes (with internet income) and my failures on the blog. But truthfully – I haven’t exactly been eager to share my failures. Why not? Well. To be totally honest – I might have gotten a little greedy. You see, affiliate income from a blog like this can be quite lucrative. When I share tools or services that lead to success and income and show my exact results – people buy those tools or services through my affiliate links and I make money. Sharing my failures (like a thin content penalty) won’t lead to affiliate income – so I simply didn’t write those posts for quite awhile.

I feel like I need to apologize to my loyal/regular readers and subscribers. I’ve totally not been fair to you regarding this matter. And that’s about to change right now. I’ve learned some of my best lessons, when it comes to internet marketing, by failing. Somewhat recently – I experienced one of my biggest failures yet! I might have learned my lesson – and it’s time for me to share it with you so that you don’t make the same mistakes.

[Dumb] Passive Income Report for November 2015

December 13, 2015 by Matthew Allen

Welcome to my [Dumb] Passive Income Report! This blog is all about what I am doing to create several different passive income streams. This monthly income report details my results. I work very hard and dedicate many hours each week to working on my different online endeavors in an attempt to create passive income. So why do I consider it passive income then? Because I am not trading specified amounts of time for a predetermined amount of money like I do at my day job. Most of the income you will see in this report results from work I have done in the past.

Why am I sharing my income publicly? Hopefully to gain credibility with you (the readers) and to maintain a certain degree of accountability for myself. I could blog all day long about what I am doing to create passive income online, including some of my unique strategies. But why would anybody trust me and believe that what I am doing works if I don’t prove it by sharing my results? This is what I mean by gaining credibility and this is one of the main purposes for sharing my income. I also share my failures on the blog, which holds me accountable. Knowing that I will be publishing a monthly income report will keep me motivated to keep pushing forward and plugging away on the things I need to do to create future passive income.

Relaxing on Vacation

Blogging – Niche Sites – Amazon FBA

Including: Yearly Income Numbers – Never Shared Before

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