I was on a phone conference a few days ago with a non-profit organization that I do consulting work with from time-to-time. The organization is going through some changes and challenges so I mentioned the topic of outsourcing some of their work. The goal? Save some money and more importanly - save time that could be used for mission critical tasks. A question arose:

“What type of tasks do you outsource and what can you use outsourcing for?

You can outsource any task that does not require the person’s presence in your office. That is a wider range of activities than you might imagine. I have several “virtual assistants” or VA’s in India. My VA’s in India perform many tasks such as; transcribing audio files, adding graphics to my power point presentations, creating excel spreadsheets, creating websites based on my specifications and doing research on topics that I do not have time to do.

When I use the word “research” I am using it broadly. For instance, a virtual assistant could research the top 10 Italian restuarants within 7 miles of your office and then call to make the reservations for your next business meeting. I have had mine find local recording studios where I could record new digital products. Once, I had them call downtown hotels with the specific ameneties and price range that I wanted, and find a date where I could get the best rates for a short mini-vacation (so you know, I needed a place with high-speed internet access, a health club, and that would accomodate my cat and a guest)

Recently, I had them start sending emails for me. There were about 30 organizations that I needed to contact about purchasing their contact lists and I did not have the time to do so. My VA sent the emails overnight and I began getting replies the next morning.

To get some more information about outsourcing, including specific recommendations and companies to use, see the Web Whisperer’s prior posts on outsourcing: 1) Finding a Virtual Assistant and 2) My first Virtual Assistant.

Next week I will give some recommendation and sample requests for making the most of your virtual assistants.

*By the way - Many people have the idea that outsourcing is an industry that mainly occurs in India. India is the largest source of outsourcing in the world, but many, many countries are getting into the act, including, Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, China, Portugal, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Czech Republic, Thailand, and China. Expect the list to keep growing.

Today I was reading a book (Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion) by one of my former Arizona State University social psychology professors, Robert Cialdini. He discussed an experiment that a university professor did some years ago. The professor sent Christmas cards to strangers. He got a number of cards in return. This illustrates the principle of “reciprocity.” That is, it seems to be built in to human beings and social systems to give back when someone gives you something.

In another experiment, a confederate pretended to be a research subject and brought some of his fellow subjects a soft drink during the course of the experiment. After the experiment was done, the confederate asked the other subject to buy some find-raising raffle tickets. The subjects who had received the soft drinks bought significantly more raffle tickets. Reciprocity again.

Give to Get Passive Income

We use this principle in Internet marketing by giving away free content and bonuses on our blogs, when people sign up for our mailing lists, and so on. The nice part about this is that everyone wins. The people who receive your free material get something valuable for no cost. You get more name recognition and perhaps, a new person on your mailing list.

What could you give to create passive income?

What are you giving away to increase your reach and your passive and residual income? What could you give away to build your mailing list, get more people to visit your website or blog, or to build your reputation as an expert?

Keeping with my new-found idea of creating passive income while leaving the laptop computer at home, I am writing this post from a public-access computer at the Salt Lake City Main Library. My laptop is at home feeling unloved.

The New York Times is no longer charging for online content

In a nod to the growing income potential of internet traffic, and the ability of search engines to draw traffic to a website, the New York Times is no longer charging for its “Times Select” service. I was fascinated by the Times’ decision because it speaks to the ability of internet traffic to bring in revenue through google adsense and other online advertising services. The newspaper reportedly made about 10 million dollars per year on subscription fees. It seems to think that it can now make that money through online advertsing. I would tend to agree.

Can google adsense be a meaningful passive income stream?

When google first came out with adsense, I remember several bloggers scoffing at the idea and saying that simply putting ads on your website was never going to pay your bills. They mentioned that adding adsense to your sites did not a business plan make.

They were right and they were wrong.

They were right because most niche blogs and websites do not get enough traffic to make more that a few dollars per month in adsense revenue. They were wrong because websites are cheap and easy to create and take little to maintain. Ten websites making ten dollar per day is a $100 per day in passive income. It’s a start. Plus, if you DO get significant traffic you can earn substanitally more.

What is google adsense and how much money can you earn with it?

To refresh your memory, google adsense is a program that automatically puts clickable advertisements in selected areas of your website. When someone clicks the ad, google gets a paid per-click (called pay-per-click or PPC) and you get a portion of the revenue. How much per click? I have recieved as little at 3 cents per click and as much as 2 dollars per click. You can get more or less.

Pay Per Click Revenue

The amount of money that you can earn wiht PPC is largely a factor of how much traffic that you recieve. My sites have click through ratios of 1% to 6%. That means that for every 100 visitors, 1 to 6 people click on the ads. For the sake of comparison, lets say that the ads generate 50 cents per click. On a site with an average click-through of 2%, I would be getting 2 clicks per day and, earning on average, $1.00 for every 100 visitors.

Does is add up? Assuming the above numbers, a site getting 100 visitors per day earns $1 per day and $365 dollars per year. A site getting 1000 visitors a day gets $10 per day and $3650 per year. If the site gets 10,000 visitors per day it will earn a solid $100 per day. Congratulatons! You now have a part-time job making you $36,650 dollars per year. Even better, you can skip work for a few weeks or even a few months and you will still be making that income!

Interested? Me too. In fact, I am going on a three month tour of some remote areas in South America - paid for by my google adsense checks. But not yet! I am still in the processing of setting up some more revenue generating websites. Bill and I (Ryan Nagy) will be telling you more about it in the days and weeks ahead.

Cheers for now! - Ryan

Earlier today I went to the gym to work out. Before I hit the treadmill, I logged into the gym’s public access computer and I took a few minutes to check up on a new website that I recently put up on the subject of “Golf Instruction.” Interestingly, I found that Google listed a page on my site about “golf lessons.” I didn’t remember creating a page on that topic.

When I clicked on the link it took me to an empty page on my site. Then I remembered - I had created a page a few days ago and then deleted it. Whoops! My immediate thought was, “I had better run home after my workout and re-create that page. If it’s already on google, I need to create some content for it.”

Then it hit me - Why go home?! The website is built on a modified “Wordpress” blogging software. All that I needed to do was, log-in, create the content and save it. Somehow this blindingly obvious fact had not occured to me before. When I build my new websites on a Wordpress “core” I will not need to have my laptop with me to create content and change it. Why does this matter?

Passive Income and Your Life of Freedom

Not needing to lug around a laptop is a huge advantage when designing one’s life of freedom from job and location. It doesn’t matter whether your are in La Paz, Bolivia or Bangolore India - as long as you have access to the internet and a computer, you can create the content that will help you increase your passive income streams. You do not need your own computer, any will do, and you do not need to have FTP software, nor an HTML editor or dreamweaver. Just tune in, log on and create.

Now, I hear someone saying:

“I want a ‘real’ website for creating passive income not just some crappy blog.”

Well, the Web Whisperers will teach how to make your blogs stand up, sing the blues, cook you a hot meal and then draw you a bath. The Wordpress blog software that we use is called “Semiologic” and you can add “static pages” just like a regular website. In fact, you can delete the blog section if you want to and it will look just like a regular website. Outsource your computer tasks to India and you can have some create a custom “skin” for your blog that will make it look uniquely yours. With a blog, you can do everything that you need to do to create passive and residual income. You can podcast, optimize it for the search engines, insert google adsense (to create advertising income), sell Amazon books, sell your own digital products - the list goes on an on.

The first step is to get used to creating content on a blog. Go to your favorite search engine and type in “wordpress” or “blogger.” These are two services that will give you a blog for free. You do NOT need to be a programmer. You simply need to know how to use the internet and email. If you can do that, you can blog. Once you get familiar with the process, you can learn how to modify the blog for your own needs. If you want a little help, come to one of the Web Whisperers 5-day internet marketing bootcamps, or sign up for our eCourse for creating passive and residual income.

And when you go to South America (Or Europe..or Asia) to enjoy your new life of freedom. For god’s sake leave the damn laptop at home!!

The Web Whisperers blog is up and running again. We had a few technical difficulties and the old URL is still down..but we are here…