Anyone who uses goals as a barometer of their success, are often dissappointed in their results… thereby taking the negative attitude of exactly what was accomplished. A mid year update is often looked at with trepidation of the results being put to paper. Did I meet my goal?

We’re now half way through 2006 and as I look at it on paper, I am quite pleased. The goal to buy or build 100 new sites by the end of the year is exactly on target. We presently have acquired or built 50 new websites. Our list of websites is getting quite extensive!

My main concern with it though, is that most sites were purchased, and not built. I find that a site built by us has a better chance of success, then a site purchased, for the most part. There have been a few exceptions to that, and a couple of those 50 new sites, are already cash flow positive.

Some of the better cash flow websites built or purchased this year include:

Genealogy Books
First announced in this post, this was a no-brainer for Judy and I. Built using an Amazon AWS script, we were quickly able to build a book site devoted to genealogy using Amazon. While this has already proven to be a profitable move on our part, I want to continue adding deep links to the content of the site, to make it even more profitable. The monies made from this particular website, are going directly into Access Genealogy to aquire additional content. This site has now obtained a PR of 4 in the latest Google update.

Native American Gifts
Native American Gifts was another no-brainer for Judy and I. An extremely large portion of the audience for Access Genealogy are Native Americans, or Native American Wannebee’s (those who are trying to prove their Native American Ancestry.) We call this the Wannabe Tribe. Built also using an Amazon AWS script (a different one this time), this website has produced sales for us, albeit, at a dissappointing rate.

Diet Help Files
I’ve mentioned this website many times here, as it has been a great success for us. While still not profitable, due to a higher then normal cost, it has proven to be a great jumping off point for deep linking into Track Your Diet’s, Diet Book Section. More then just diet books though, also featuring health books on various subject matters, I can utilize other websites for further deep linking. The content of this site is original, and is its strong point. Almost all traffic to it, is natural SERP traffic. My goal in the next six months for this website is to continue building credible back links to it, and adding additional original content.

Track Your Diet
Our largest expense so far this year, Track Your Diet has been a great success. I don’t expect to break even on this site for some time to come, but I’ve taken major steps in reducing costs, while still building the user base, and ad revenue. My projection is at the rate we’re going we’ll begin making money on the purchase of this website in early 2007. Part of the success in this website, has been my ability to get free traffic from search engines, where in previous times the traffic was almost all paid. The greatest expense for the website, was the paid search listings. Removing that obstacle to profitability, has made this site a great income producer.

Depression Help Files
An article site providing basic knowledge of Depression, and how to cure or cope with it. Depression is not an active search online, and I never expected this site to be a raving success. But I am finding that it manages to eek out a profitable amount each month, even while we contine to use MSN’s Ad Network with it.

StatsCode
A website counter site can be an easy method for a webmaster to establish a tool that naturally gains PR. This is what the PR ranking of Google is suppose to be about. The quality and quantity of links to a particular website are suppose to reflect the strengths of that websites content. A free counter site, by its very nature, builds quantity in linking, because every counter, whether visible or invisible, produces a link back to the website. The ability for StatsCode to provide an invisible counter script with a whole host of features, has allowed this website to produce numerous sales this year.