Websites as Cousins to Realty

I attended the Real Estate Wealth Expo last weekend in Chicago.

Getting to hear people like Robert Kiyosaki, Anthony Robbins, George Foreman and Donald Trump speak was really fun and, at times, quite eye-opening.

I tend to look at the business of internet entrepreneurial as a close cousin to certain real estate concepts. Cash flow is universal, rental situations are close to paid advertising space, land development is similar to the development of a successful website, etc., etc.

In the midst of all this realty talk there was a seminar by a guy named Sean Roach.

A little about Mr. Roach. He apparently has made a fortune in the e-book and eBay markets. He says he buys and sells real estate on eBay and either writes or has written eBooks which he then sells through those single page sites... you know the kind. Here is an example of one of his sites that he showed during his presentation. He stated that it cost him $400.00 (ish) to have the book written and it has apparently paid for itself at least 30-40 times over thus far. not bad.

He also had some great tips about public domain property and the potential for income utilizing that arena... which I have found quite exciting, myself.

In the long run, as most of these seminars go, he was selling his Get Rich on the Internet package... I think it was somewhere in the vicinity or $1000 - $2000 for the package. Needless to say, I did not buy the package that day. Maybe some day in the future though... who knows.

Overall, having sat through the seminar I took a number of notes and left with a head full of new ideas which I plan to begin implementing over the next few months. I noticed throughout the seminar that while he mentioned Blogs as a vehicle for revenue he really focused on a lot of ideas that I personally have never tried... but seem to have been around for quite some time. At some point I looked around and realized just how many people there are that don't know anything about this stuff. I would assume that most people in the room have at least basic computer skills and I know that some were even in the industry of web development or consulting. In contrast to the talk of over saturation in niche blogging and how many blogs pop up everyday I realized that we have yet to see the real beginning of the splogs. Yes splogs. Blogs filled with spam. It's going to get insane soon, mark my words.

As for me, one thing I have begun to do is diversify. Adsense used to be really good to me, as was Amazon before them. Now Yahoo is doing wonderfully, but prior to realizing I have all my eggs in one basket (again!) I have begun to implement a number of other revenue-generating ideas.

Chitika Mini Malls is my latest venture, but only a cosmetic one. The interactive ads get clicked on pretty decently, but the payout is only okay.

I have been working on solid ways of identifying profitable niches and developing fast, original content for very little money. I am reading up on and beginning to study the world of eBay a bit... ad i will keep you posted.

As a side note - I only really got into this whole affiliate / reseller / blog stuff in the last 6 months and have gone from 0 to around $2000.00/month. So while I believe in the whole find a niche you are passionate about and spend the time on good content I also believe there are some shortcuts to be taken.