How to Prosper by Expanding Beyond Virtual Real Estate Sites

By Kamau Austin, Stay-at-Home Dad and Searchpreneur©

In my last series of articles on “Prosper with Virtual Real Estate and Digital Assets – Parts 1, 2, and 3 I defined virtual real estate and digital assets.  We explored virtual real estate (VRE) sites as sites primarily embedded with Google Adsense™ or Yahoo Publisher’s Network (YPN) ads.  The purpose of these sites is to be monetized with PPC advertising from Google, Yahoo! and new players in this industry.  We did try to discuss this new industry with the realism.  We revealed the love and hate relationship Google and the other search engines have for these sites in this regard.

For a recap of this series visit the Search Engine Plan Blog at:
http://www.searchengineplan.com/blogs/seoblog.htm


Despite the fact that these VRE sites may make Google close to 4 Billion dollars this year it is in a war to stem the tide of Adsense™ with quasi-content or duplicate content overwhelming quality and unique sites within the Google index or database.  In short it doesn’t want duplicate or low quality content miring its organic results within the search engine result pages (SERPs).  Needless to state the resistance to Adsense™ focused sites by Google will make it difficult for most people to make a windfall of cash within the program despite the assertions of some Internet gurus who claim to generate hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in the Adsense™ program.

Furthermore, I explained despite the aforementioned difficulties generating VRE cash, at least with the assistance of Google’s free organic search results, this industry was here to stay!  Google and Yahoo! will soon be generating 5 or 6 billion dollars with these burgeoning industries.  Moreover, since most people only check up to the first two or three pages of the SERPs this gives the search engines somewhat limited inventory that has high value.

With only 3 pages worth bidding on (although for a seeming unlimited amount of keywords) the search engines need publishers to provide them unlimited inventory to display their advertising.  In short Google and YPN need online publishers in order to expand and make more money for their stockholders.  Google will never make its targeted goal of 100 Billion dollars in revenues without a ubiquitous visibility on the over 20 million business websites presently online.

The ambiguity in which Google™ views and treats VRE sites has created tension within the Google culture (I call it the warring souls of Google) and threatens to tear it apart.  For many in the web marketing community Google seems to be almost schizophrenic demonstrating a multiple business personality.  On one side you get the kinder “do no harm” Google and on the other side you get the all power seeking “Google Gods”.

Despite these challenges, in my last series of articles I suggested ways to prosper with VRE sites using deficient search engine marketing.  You can see those articles for the next month on the front page of my blog at:  http://www.searchengineplan.com/blogs/seoblog.htm

Most importantly we developed a working definition of what is a digital asset.  I hope you would agree that VRE sites could qualify as digital assets.  This is because they can work to make money for you -- without you physically having to be there working.  As we pointed out in our last series of articles digital assets and virtual real estate making just a few hundred or thousand dollars a month can generate as much or more cash flow as traditional real estate.  Just think about it, you would have to invest tens of thousands of dollars and commit to a mortgage of hundreds of thousands of dollars to rent units that generate the income of even small VRE sites.  Plus with VRE sites you don’t have the landlord tenant issues.

But there are even other digital assets that can be developed beyond VRE sites online.  Of course affiliate sites and sales or mini-sites can also be lucrative digital assets.  On your VRE sites net sales expert John Reese suggests also building an email list with an autoresponder course.  The purpose of this autoresponder course is to increase the sales conversion of infoproducts that are within the theme and content of your VRE site. Usually you can only get 1% - 3% sales conversion on infoproducts when site visitors first check out your site.  However an autoresponder course can increase your sales to more like 20% for people who sign up.  In other words a good autoresponder course can be a good digital asset because it will put more sales in your pocket on autopilot.

Once you find or develop infoproducts that are proven sellers I like to then put them up on PPC programs to generate even more revenue.  Again once they are set up they sell in an automatic fashion therefore qualifying as digital assets within the framework of my systematic business.  But in the whole scheme of developing digital assets think outside of the box.

Before you spend a lot of time and money building a VRE empire of 50 to 100 Adsense™ or YPN sites think about marketing on other search engines.  For example if you have good affordable writing sources rather than building so many websites consider if you can take the same amount of time and money and develop ebooks and printed books to be sold on Amazon utilizing their A9 search technology.  Or write your blogs in a logical fashion that later can be converted to a book or ebook.  Walt Goodridge a best selling author on Amazon and who self published “Turn You Passion into Profit” (www.PassionProfit.com) has retired to a south Pacific Island on his 12 books which sell on Amazon.

Remember e-tailers like Amazon, Barnes and Nobles, Borders, and Click Bank are sales machines.  Their focus and automated search technology like A9 aren’t slowed down with ambiguous feelings towards its publishers like Google.  They don’t on one hand want you to make money, but on the other hand become concerned you may overwhelm their search results like Google or Yahoo!  They don’t care how many titles you have as long as you sell books.  They have a one track mind – to sell as many books, infoproducts, and other products as they can.  Looking at virtual real estate creatively could become having many titles on Amazon you are selling and promoting.  You have to realize Amazon in the past has generated almost as much money as Google and Yahoo! combined.  Furthermore even the printing, publishing, and delivery of paper bound books can be automated with print on demand services (POD) like Lightning Source.  This service makes the printing and delivery of printed books almost as easy as having downloadable ebooks for sale.

Lastly sell some of your virtual real estate not only to Google, YPN, or on Amazon think about link brokering.  Many of my clients and my sites make hundreds of dollars a month selling links on our sites.  You can sign up with a service like Linkworth.com and market your links from your virtual real estate sites if you know how to build decent Google PageRank™.  Some sites they make as much doing link brokering as they do reselling ads for Google and YPN.

Planning and executing a campaign to develop diversified digital assets and virtual real estate will for many savvy web marketers become as valuable as having a stock portfolio and physical real estate.  If you are now seriously marketing online there’s no reason to be caught behind this important money making trend.  Until next time I hope you are always on top in both your personal and business affairs.


Kamau Austin is a stay-at-home dad and Searchpreneur(c). He is Author of "Always On Top - How to Get Your Website on Top of the Search Engines Every Time!" Austin is also the creator of the Search Engine Efficiently Maximized eBusiness or (S.E.E.M.e) training system. Download the eBook version of his book with streaming video at http://www.AlwaysOnTopBook.com . For the Printed Version and CD visit http://www.AlwaysOnToptheBook.com .