Your Internet Marketing Virtual Vending Machine Route
Copyright 2010 by Willie Crawford
When I’m being introduced at seminars and tele-events,
the emcee often points out that I have over 1600 websites.
This usually grabs the attention of audience members
who have to wonder why I have so many websites, and
how I manage them. So, let me enlighten you.
First of all, I have friends who talk about wanting to
set up 500 to 1000 profitable websites, each earning as
little as $1 per day on average. If this can be
accomplished, then my friends would be at or above the
income level that they really hope for, and if it can
be done in a way that requires very little maintenance,
then it would also afford them the lifestyle that they
want.
That’s part of my thinking too, but I’d like to have
2000 niche mini-sites, each earning an average of just
$1 per day. That’s $2000 per day ($730,000 per year).
I am working on accomplishing this by the way.
I see having something like this as being equivalent to
having a vending machine route, where the average
machine isn’t in the busiest location, but each one is
profitable, and they require very little maintenance.
I want my websites to be my virtual vending machine
route.
I think that what really pushed me to actually start
setting this up was listening to my friend David Perdew,
founder of the Niche Affiliate Marketing System. He
teaches something similar. You can listen to an
interview that I did recently with David where we
discussed this very topic at: http://timic.org/DavidPerdew
People listening to David and I talking, have to wonder
if it’s even possible to build 500 or so mini-sites in a
reasonable amount of time, without spending a small
fortune. The answer is yes, especially if you build them
on the easy to set up, optimize, and maintain WordPress
Blog platform.
I personally can install and customize a WordPress Blog
in under 10 minutes, and that includes uploading my own
custom header graphic. I’m talking about a blog that has
several dozen plug-ins also installed, configured and
activated.
I’ll admit that I “cheat” when installing the blogs. I use
a piece of software that automates much of the process. A
programmer friend has created an installer that only asks
for my domain log-in info, and it uploads and configures
the blog for me automatically.
My friend who wrote this software pointed out that since
there are millions of WordPress users, hackers and criminals
know all of the default settings, so his installer changes
the default settings AS it installs the blogs, making your
blog installation much more secure.
I know, you’re wondering how you can get your hands on this
miracle blog installer… and how many hundreds of dollars
does it cost. I’ve actually convinced my friend to GIVE
you a copy of his installer. Like many programmers, he
likes having his work used, so he’ll give it to my readers
if you’ll just visit http://timic.org/111
Many of my readers are also paying $20 a month or so to
host their sites, plus they are paying extra for each
domain that they add onto their hosting account, so when
they do the math, they calculate that hosting just 500
domains has to cost over $1000 per month. They can’t
afford to spend that kind of money at this point.
I CAN afford to spend that much on hosting my sites, but
I don’t. In fact, I spend less than $500 per YEAR to host
up to 5000 domain names. That hosting is spread across
5 different pairs of IP addresses, so I can cross-link
some of my related websites, and it doesn’t look to the
search engines as if I’m just linking to myself.
Here’s where I get that fantastic hosting deal:
http://timic.org/112
If you check out that url, you’ll see that when you get
hosting where I do, that the very same blog installer that
I use is included 
Now, you also have to wonder how I manage so many sites.
My answer is two part…
First of all I keep my sites fairly streamlined, and I
use automation a lot. I’m also very organized and very
disciplined. I do things on a schedule, and that makes
sure that I can properly manage all of my sites.
Secondly, I don’t do it all myself. I maintain a help
desk, and have links on most of my sites pointing to
one centralized help desk. Tech/Customer support
personnel log-in regularly and take care of 95% of the
support tickets that come in without any input from me.
In fact, my help desk personnel have pre-composed answers
in a drop-down menu for 99% of the questions or requests
that they get. So they can respond to the typical
request (something like a misplaced download link) in
under a minute.
Before you object to the expense of operating a help
desk, or having someone work for you, remember that my
goal is $2000 per day. If I spend even $500 of that per
day for others to do the work for me, I’m still left with
over half a million dollars per year… before taxes.
I think that I can manage to live on that and that the
average person can too. In fact, I’m aggressively setting
most of it aside for a rainy day… I live a fairly simple
life-style and have other income streams… such as my
offline consulting and joint venture brokering
businesses.
Another part of this strategy though is that as you
build out all of these mini-websites, some of them will
naturally blossom, and be worth a lot. When I have a
site that suddenly grows to where it’s worth say $5000
or even $10,000, my plan is to sell it. $5000 for a
site averaging $1 per day is nearly 14 years worth of
income, so to me it will make sense to sell off many of
those sites.
You see, I view it all as a well-thought-out business.
I do have a complete plan, but it’s fairly close to
what David shows you in a video posted on his site,
at the first url that I mentioned above.
The only other mystery may be, “How do I get traffic to
all of these sites?” That’s something that I’ve spent
the past 14 years really mastering. It’s also the topic
of another 10-part article series that I wrote.
If you’d really like to learn how to plug traffic into
your websites, using all free and low-cost methods,
grab the traffic generation course that Doug Champigny
and I recorded.
Doug Champigny has been online for about as long as I
have, and we recorded an MP3 where we spent over three
hours explaining 15 different ways that we plug traffic
into our websites. You can download that MP3 to your
iPod, or burn it to a CD, and then you can listen to it
while out exercising or on a long drive… or commuting
back and forth from that J-O-B that you want to leave.
You really can set up a series of mini-websites that
are very much like having your very own virtual vending
route.
How long this will take you depends upon how much time
you have to devote to it, what tools you use, and how
willing you are to get someone to help you. Even though
I’m very good at setting up mini-sites, I don’t do
everything myself.
I also don’t spend a lot of cash, even when I get someone
else to do 90% of the work. Instead, I just make them a
partner, and use software to track sales and
automatically share the profits with them.
How much you can actually make from doing this
depends upon so many factors that I can’t even begin
to guess. Probably the biggest factor is how well
you research your niches, and confirm the profit
potential before you even start.
Most of the time that I spend on many of my sites IS
doing that research before I even decide on the niche.
Putting in the time to actually do the research (or
feasibility study) is what ensures that I don’t waste
a lot of time. Admittedly, I’ve been doing this so
long that a lot of it is now intuitive. So, you may
have to spend a little more time doing the research
than I do.
Anyway, I’ve just laid out a big part of my retirement
blueprint. Once I get those 2000 mini-sites “clicking”
then I quite literally could have someone else take my
“operations manual”… my notes…. and run things for me,
while I spend all my time just enjoying life… or should
I say enjoying “The Internet Life-style?”
———————
Willie Crawford has been running online businesses
since 1996. To continue learning from him simply
visit his main website and subscribe to his free
newsletter at http://WillieCrawford.com
Tags: Build Mini-Net, David Perdew, Doug Champigny, Free WordPress Blog Installer, Hub And Spoke Website System, Hub And Wheel Website Layout, Inexpensive Web Hosting, Niche Mini-net, SEO Optimized Hosting, Top Traffic Tips, Virtual Vending Machines, Website Mini-Net, Website Traffic Generation Tips, WordPress Blog Installeer