I have a place in Los Angeles now.
Well, actually it is in Venice, at the end of Rose Ave.

Rose ends and the ocean begins and that is where I live now. The view is nice, and I love it here. It suits me well this place.

I love Venice. Where I am at is where the Venice boardwalk ends and Santa Monica begins.

I do not like cars, but everyone told me how you have to have a vehicle in LA so I got one. I love it more than I can say.

I wash it lovingly and when I am about on it, it turns heads and people compliment me on it literally everyday.

My new wheels?

A 1962 Schwinn Panther

Oh yeah, baby.
I smile every time I see it.
I simply love this bike and it has awakened something in me, what it has awakened in me is easy to guess…

Interior decorating

You see, I have lived most of my life out of a backpack. This place in Venice is the first 12 month lease I have ever in my life signed. I decided I might actually put some thought and time into decorating it.
How have I decorated it?

Schwinnish.

I have a Schwinn theme and before you laugh at me, Schwinn accessories are art.
Seriously.
I have 9 fifty year old Schwinn seats on my wall and don’t lie… They look good. They are bright pretty colors and they are unique and they look fabulous.
I also have a ten foot tall fiddle leaf fig tree. How could I not? I also have a very long and tall papyrus plant….

I love plants. I love Schwinns.

In any case, I am in LA now and will be here and in Hawaii on and off but for now I am here in Venice and loving it.

As I was accessorizing my Schwinn…

Shut. Up.

As I was looking for accessories for my Schwinn I found out a very important lesson.

This is the honest advice part…

I suggest you have a fun project, you probably work your butt off on your online projects and try like poo to monetize them.

My honest advice is to have a second project. Something that you probably will make money off of in the future but for now it is just an enjoyment thing.

You can by all means be strategic about it, and you can have your mind on your money and your money on your mind, but the second project (or the third or the forth depending on how much you are juggling) should be something that will be a great resource about something you are into.

I am not going to leave you with vague advice.

I have a specific way to accomplish a great enjoyable project, that is needed on the web and that with your skills you can make great.

Ebay.

Shut. Up.

Hear me out here…

Go to Ebay and search for something you like. Doesn’t matter what it is.

Wait a minute… a sailboat is going by my window as I write this and the sun goes down…

Do not think money. Do not think keywords. If you like dolls search Ebay for dolls, if you like He-man figurines, search for that.

Here is what you will discover…

There is alot of community around Ebay items. Things are just buying and selling like crazy.

The thing that vibrant communities in Ebay often have in common, and I mean a whole bunch alot often, is a lack of a very good reference online.

Ohh, sorry, the sun is going more down and is pretty…

Okay, back to the advice. Make a reference about something you like…

Let’s talk Schwinn baby, let’s talk about you and me.

I noticed that although there were great resources online for Schwinn history and such, they really were not coherent or all inclusive. Much of the information about vintage Schwinn bikes out there was basically piece meal and incomplete.

When I was searching for a Schwinn model and year, I would not get the information I desired. I would get old ebay auction description mostly.

Why is there no Schwinn reference online? I do not know. I do not care.

I will make one.

I bought the domain schwinncruisers.com and started. I am still working on it, but here is the deal…

What ever your subject is, I am willing to bet you will find the same thing as I found with Schwinn bicycles.

You will find images online, maybe even full images of vintage or classic catalogs. But as we know, Google can’t really read images, so there is no way for them to really return results well for queries, even when that info is out there in images.

Example: There is a Schwinn catalog out there for 1933. It has every page of this vintage catalog clear as day…

In images.

What if I took those images and transcribed them? Hmmm.

Here is the 1933 Schwinn catalog for your enjoyment. I cropped the images and wrote out the text.

It is useful. It is needed, and Google does it itself in a little thing called Google books.

What resources are out there for your interest items? Is it readable by search engines spiders?

If not do yourself and the community a favor. Make it so.

Don’t try to make a million dollars, try to make a superb resource. You will be appreciated if you do and down the line a ways you can make money off of it too.

I made a detailed webpage about Schwinn slimline tanks for example. This is not a keyword phrase that is taking over the world, but it was something (an accessory) I needed to complete my Schwinn Panther. I could not find a lick of info about these tanks online. I eventually found some images of old Schwinn catalogs that had the info I seeked. I alsowent ahead and bought some through Ebay and photographed them. I took the info I learned and created and made it into a page that answered the questions I had.

Now there is an excellent online reference for Schwinn slimline tanks.

I even made a video about it…

That one small page that I made for unselfish reasons has had hundreds of visits and I have received thank you emails from France, Sweden, and here in the USA. It has been highlighted in forums and has gotten some great traffic. I made it so my time researching wouldn’t go to waste. If you know something about something it is generally wise to share it.

When you do, your resource will have traffic.

Find something you like. Spend an hour on it a day.

Answer the questions you have or had.

It will do well.

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