Introductions Thread

[Ryuzaki]

Welcome aboard. We aren't very guarded here at all. There's enough room for everyone to win.

If you take a year to do some learning, I absolutely agree that spending that time studying will be an absolute waste of time. The only thing you need to learn is the solution to the problem that lies directly in front of you. Anything else is theoretical knowledge that you'll have a harder time learning and remembering. This is why colleges and high schools have laboratory sessions. That's when the practical learning takes place.

Do you have any projects going yet? How long have you been involved with internet marketing, even just finding your footing? Any successes yet?

 

[nickstraffic]

Welcome. Sounds like you're figuring out your direction. That's good.

Something that stood out to me in your post is:

"I'm a part of Traffic Think Tank, but it's not enough. Everyone's too guarded even still."

This, along with the overall tone of your post, sounds like you're searching for knowledge you think you don't have yet. And that once you have it, you'll more easily find success. That thinking is incorrect. Everything you need to know, and everything you want to have, will be yours when you do. Start doing, and keep doing. Do that and everything will unfold.

Thank you for this sound advice, Sutra. I've always approached anything new that I'm looking to learn with: learning from your own mistakes is an expensive lesson. I look for guidance from people who have gone through those loopholes so that I can reduce the number of costly mistakes I make. That's why I take in as much as I can first before I hop on. I do understand where you're coming from however.

And thank you for the welcome! Happy to be here.

Welcome aboard. We aren't very guarded here at all. There's enough room for everyone to win.

If you take a year to do some learning, I absolutely agree that spending that time studying will be an absolute waste of time. The only thing you need to learn is the solution to the problem that lies directly in front of you. Anything else is theoretical knowledge that you'll have a harder time learning and remembering. This is why colleges and high schools have laboratory sessions. That's when the practical learning takes place.

Do you have any projects going yet? How long have you been involved with internet marketing, even just finding your footing? Any successes yet?

Hi Ryuzaki, thank you for the welcome!

I have two projects right now. One is ecommerce, selling face masks. Profitable, but sad I came into it late when the market was beginning to get saturated. Few sales now without push, and even when I do, they're few and far in between.

The second one is also ecommerce. My brother has an inventory of beauty products that he wanted to start a business with, but with COVID, his salon brick and mortar plan got slammed. Now it's strictly ecommerce. This one I've just begun work on.

 

[ORMAgencyDude]

Welcome. Do you have a goal in mind? Building sites for yourself or growing an agency? I'd do some freelancing to keep the money flowing but I'd partition at least 50% of my time (maybe more based on your 14 months savings as you said in another thread) for planting seeds that will free me from trading time for money.

Thanks,

Planning on freelancing for a while and maybe building up 2 sites every few months

Welcome to the board my friend. Sorry to hear about the impact COvid19 had on your business.

You work online however. You should def be enjoying what great opportunity has landed upon us internet service owners.

You're definitely in the right place to learn and connect.

Do you have a lot of client contacts? Were your clients high end as they sound?

Have some client contacts, but not all/many. Some where high end enough to be "Instagram famous"

 

[LongPipe]

Hi everyone my name is Joe. I have been fiddling with internet marketing since 2014. I have had some good and bad experiences but, haven't we all? So one day I was sitting around having a terrible day, miserable no money in my pocket a pregnant wife, an elderly mother and just a shit ton of what I called at that time problems. Turn's out those problems drove me to work so hard that they turned into super fuel for my goals. One day my mom got really sick and I had to run with her to the hospital. Turn's out she has a condition of the pancreas that can not be pin pointed, it causes excessive diarrhea and she looses all normal levels of potassium, blood sugar, and her pancreas enzymes shoot through the roof.

Long story short, they said she would have to stay a few days for observation and she asked me to stay with her at least 1 night. So I ran home, got a change of clothes and my laptop. I started reading about self motivation, the secret, how to change my mindset etc. By the next morning I knew exactly what I wanted to do. And it had nothing to do with what I ended up doing. I started reading about a certain subject which I am happy to discuss via PM. This subject interested me very much because many people online where hyping it at that moment and time. So I started studying and talking to people on the phone via email etc. We are now on day 4 of my moms hospitalization.

Out of the blue while I was on my journey to figure this out I identified a gap in the industry. The gap was there where an abundance of people who sold this item or service. But, none of them knew how to advertise at all. So they ended up buried in forums, ill prepared craigslist posts. So, I decided to register a domain, watch some videos about word-press and start building and being the middle man. My mom was in the hospital a total of 11 days. I launched on day 8 and by day 11 I had $4600 in profit in the bank. All bank deposits, bank transfers etc. My mom recovered and she still has what we call episodes where she will spend a few days ill while her pancreases does what it does.

By the end of the next month I was on my way up. Profiting at minimum $7500 per week, the spread was incredible. Buying at $200 selling at $1200 and it sold itself. I rented an office in downtown, not really a big executive office or anything just a nice little chill spot to work and not have customer data at home, that very important, a lot of rules and regulations once you expand. I was able to get setup with credit card processing at this point and then the money started rolling in like it was an open tap.

Success did not last long for greed bit me in the ass so hard I can still see the tooth marks on my butt cheek. As anyone who is super obsessed at that point with success I thought I was unstoppable, nothing could end the streak I was on, I upped my prices, looked for cheaper suppliers and bigger buyers. This is where I tripped over my own ding dong. One day i am just setting around playing xbox in my office, phone rings I pick up. A customer want's to make a $60,000 order but, not on the website he want to talk to someone to make sure he does not get screwed over.

So, I sell this man what he want's he make a deposit in my account and the rest split on 5 credit cards. At this point my margins are so high credit card fees are not even crossing my mind anymore as a salivate and look at the money rolling in. I turned to the only supplier who totally off of trust and maybe 10-15 $3000-$4000 orders had always done right by me. Deposit her cut in to her account as we always did and off we go.

A week passes customer calls to check on order, then I called her no answer long story short I had to run to the bank, get a substantial loan re purchase and supply this customer but, when it was all said and done, it would never be the same again. He had already filled 5 charge backs, and a investigation in the bank for the funds he transferred because he basically thought I was going to screw him. I was able to arrange a refund with my processor but, the damage was done. They now required 25% hold of funds. Immediately after that everyone started doing the same thing and I basically said screw this I am done and walked away.

I had enough to be ok for a few months so I wen't home and just chilled. One day a buddy of mine talks me into starting a painting company like painting houses and buildings ETC. I used what I had earned in advertising and applied it to that. We hired some pretty good contractors that did everything for us but, a few months down the line, I wanted to take a vacation and suddenly my partner had a problem. So, I said to myself this is exactly why I do not want to work for or with anyone.

I had no purpose on job sites yet he insisted I be there when I really had to be advertising, and I figured it out towards the end. He could not handle the situations as they came up so he cracked easily under pressure then flipped the script to make himself feel better and all of a sudden everything was my faults. ZZZ I was out like scout. Spent a few months on perpetual vacation, searching within myself for another idea and how I would move forward. It was a real struggle, do I keep trying or just get a job like the rest of my friends who drive Honda accords and live in 2 bedroom apartments with no future.

I spent the next year or so writing some eBooks on the previous subject, my experiences, how people should go about not being scammed in this process and basically how to do all of this on your own without paying people stupid amounts of money. This did very good for a while, I was making a sustained income that paid for my basic expenses and allowed me to continue trying new things and exploring new opportunities.

I actually scaled my book to about $20k per month and then google decided my website inhibited inappropriate or unlawful behavior and basically I went from spending $2k a week on ads to 0. Traffic wen't from 300-400 clicks per day to the little organic traffic I had coming in the site. Not long after that charge backs again caught up with me. I went from 0.3% to 3% in a short time. The reason was I wen't from making $20k to $2k but, when I was at $2k I still had 0.3% charge back rolling in from the previous months $20k. Processor did not want to hear it.

So here I am now, I moved my eBooks around and found a sources where they now generate $2k a month and I am trying to get back to the $20k a month. I know it is possible because I have done it twice online and twice offline. Difference now is I found a place with like minded individuals and I do not intend to sell my own products but, affiliate offers. So, hopefully this time around the spaghetti sticks to the wall and I don't have to find myself in this position again. If anyone needs PPC help I can assist but, I no longer do them myself.

My goal is to build many affiliate websites with income even if small. I just do not want to depend on 1 source of income it scares the living daylights out of me. I want to do this using either expired domains old keywords and fresh content or by using any and all low comp keywords for each niche. So to whomever read this all the way though, that is my story and where I stand now.

Thanks

 

[Ryuzaki]

Someone ordering across 5 credit cards is a giant red flag. They can't afford it and couldn't even get qualified for the right line of credit to get it done. Big red flag. Customers that can't afford what they're buying are the most ancy and skittish. Big lesson learned is that you can fire customers just like they can fire you. A day jobber can fire his boss by quitting, etc. You have to know when to say no. Sucks. At least you made a fat wad of cash in the mean time. I'd have kept going even with the 25% hold on funds. Your profit margin was well beyond that.

That sucks about your partner on the painting business. You could have switched roles with him and let him be the marketer or something. There was probably some kind of solution. I don't intend to read your mind, but just based on what you've typed you seem to hang up your hat at the first sign of friction. None of this is meant to be easy. Fighting through the hard times is what leads to break throughs in the business and your bank account!

Why do you think chargebacks increased 10x? What changed? Even if Google stops ranking you and letting you run ads, could you have kept selling with other advertisers like Facebook? I get that the payment processor kicked you to the curb though.

Welcome aboard and thanks for the thorough introduction. It really let us know your history and what you're about.

 

[GNews]

2 wise quotes I've heard in my time:
1 - Never keep all your eggs in one basket
... multiple bank accounts
... multiple credit cards
... multiple facebook accounts
.... multiple paypal accoutns
..... multiple streams of revenue
..... multiple forms of assets
EVERYTHING YOU CAN! Multiples

2 - "its in you, not on you"
. Sounds like you got paid off big time but didn't have the assets properly aligned. Keep at it. You didn't do all that by luck.

If you have another solid idea and just need a little investment OR if you can scale any ecomm project..... feel free to inbox me.

I went througha major struggle last year myself ..... it made me realize how great i do by myself to be honest. Call me a hermit , not just b/c I hate company many times but because my focus when alone ot me living ona tropical beach within 1 year and i am a-ok by myself walking in the sand

 

[MattRP]

How many people title their intro Goodbye? That's what I was thinking because I couldn't think of anything better to be honest.

I'll keep this short because honestly I don't know what to write and I don't want to waffle.

I'm 27 living in London, new to all this, minimal experience coding html/css, no experience with IM. I got a degree and did nothing with it. I paid something like £7500 total for a couple of OMG seo courses about 4 years ago and didn't do anything with the knowledge I gleaned and even then to be honest, I didn't actually watch all the videos. I'm still at the same day job I have been at for the past 10 years and I have a laugh here and there, the money is fine, I'm satisfied I guess, I don't want to work there for the rest of my life (something I've been saying for a few years now).

What I'm trying to say is.. I'm fed up. With the way I keep starting and stopping. I've lacked consistency and commitment. Reaching the 10 year point at my job has made me realise I need to make a change before it's too late. I've gotten too comfortable with the way things are and I'm scared if I leave it much longer, my ship will have sailed.

So that brings me here, writing my first ever introduction in the online world. I need to make this work.

 

[Ryuzaki]

Welcome, @MattRP. Sadly you could be 4 years deep into at least one website and be sitting very pretty. Fortunately you're only 27. Your ship hasn't sailed but your complacency and contentment seems to be outweighing the pain of potentially being content until you retire.

Right now it's just a virtual, imaginary pain. If you wait until the pain outweighs the desire, you'll never get started. You need to have some core reasons why you want to strike out on your own. They have to bolster your desire and they'll be there when your motivation drops and you have to summon real discipline, all things you're saying you've lacked.

It's a tough position to be in, having everything be fine. Everyone I know tells me they want to start a business of some sort and never do it. The just keep telling me about it over and over, and that's because they're in the same position of doing just fine. There's nothing more potent and dream-crushing than being lulled into being comfortable and foregoing your desires.

 

[Milton]

First of all thanks to whoever posted about Builder Society somewhere else on the web, it's been a great find!
Like many here I spent time on WickedFire back in the day (I left after a poll determined 80% of members were virgins...)
I've changed my username to something less personal and went with this since I've just read Of Mice and Men.

In around 2009 I used to do freelance web design and also flip a few small-time websites/domains.
Since then I've been to university and then worked agency and client side in digital marketing / analytics.
I currently work freelance as a web analyst fixing clients' Google Analytics etc.
While I've achieved some great results at my jobs, I've basically been out of the DIY game for 10 years.
I own literally one domain name and so am coming starting from scratch.

Thanks to everyone who has posted here so far and hopefully in future I will be contributing also!

 

[Ryuzaki]

Welcome, @Milton, glad to have you. Tell your friends about us!

What exactly is involved in fixing a client's Google Analytics? Setting up views and goal tracking or whatever?

 

[Milton]

Thanks for the warm welcome @Ryuzaki

Fixing tracking is sorting out companies' data pipeline.
From start to finish, this is typically:
1. The data layer (JavaScript object on website for structuring data to send to a tag manager)
2. The tag manager (a tool to send data to multiple platforms eg. Google Tag Manager)
3. The analytics tool or ad platform (eg. Google Analytics)
4. (Optional) Reporting tool (eg. Data Studio)

 

[LongPipe]

Someone ordering across 5 credit cards is a giant red flag. They can't afford it and couldn't even get qualified for the right line of credit to get it done. Big red flag. Customers that can't afford what they're buying are the most ancy and skittish. Big lesson learned is that you can fire customers just like they can fire you. A day jobber can fire his boss by quitting, etc. You have to know when to say no. Sucks. At least you made a fat wad of cash in the mean time. I'd have kept going even with the 25% hold on funds. Your profit margin was well beyond that.

That sucks about your partner on the painting business. You could have switched roles with him and let him be the marketer or something. There was probably some kind of solution. I don't intend to read your mind, but just based on what you've typed you seem to hang up your hat at the first sign of friction. None of this is meant to be easy. Fighting through the hard times is what leads to break throughs in the business and your bank account!

Why do you think chargebacks increased 10x? What changed? Even if Google stops ranking you and letting you run ads, could you have kept selling with other advertisers like Facebook? I get that the payment processor kicked you to the curb though.

Welcome aboard and thanks for the thorough introduction. It really let us know your history and what you're about.

I could have kept going using bank deposits ETC, which I did but, I just honestly got tired of dealing with the type of customer that came with the niche so I dropped it after a while. I did use the knowledge to write a couple of ebooks which made me some good money last year plus another constructions "brokerage" thing I was doing.

And about the painting, there are other personal things I did not mention which was just easier to move on from then attempt to sort. I don't know if it is me or what but, every time I start something with someone else it always turns to shit.

I do know for a fact I drop things very easily. I can sit here and give you a list of projects I have started on and would have been able to push further but, decided to not deal with the issues. And the problem is I always find myself not liking what I do or just not being interested.

I have just always noticed that I gravitated towards online marketing. I guess that is why my projects have always at least had a good run for whatever time it may last. I guess we will see what the future brings and if I can stick to this and make it work.

I am working on a few affiliate sites now, although I think I should have started with better niches, I started the work based of of SEO clerk keyword research. I do great at on page technical SEO and content but, I just now started diving into doing keyword research on my own.

Anyways, thanks for your reply hope to see you around!

2 wise quotes I've heard in my time:
1 - Never keep all your eggs in one basket
... multiple bank accounts
... multiple credit cards
... multiple facebook accounts
.... multiple paypal accoutns
..... multiple streams of revenue
..... multiple forms of assets
EVERYTHING YOU CAN! Multiples

Amen to that.

2 - "its in you, not on you"
. Sounds like you got paid off big time but didn't have the assets properly aligned. Keep at it. You didn't do all that by luck.

If you have another solid idea and just need a little investment OR if you can scale any ecomm project..... feel free to inbox me.

I went througha major struggle last year myself ..... it made me realize how great i do by myself to be honest. Call me a hermit , not just b/c I hate company many times but because my focus when alone ot me living ona tropical beach within 1 year and i am a-ok by myself walking in the sand

I did get paid off very well, I just F@@@@D it all away and ended up right where I started. But, hopefully I can use that lesson in the future.

If you have a text ads project let me know I can always give you some tips to improve.

Yea, I am not antisocial but, I need to work alone. I just can't deal with all the extra issues other people bring to the table. I try to live drama free, stress free and just do my thing so you are not the only hermit in here lol.

Thanks for your MSG hope to see you around..

One of the best intros I've read here. Hope you achieve your goals. Welcome!

Thank you so much!

 

[jpaulhendricks]

Hi everyone! I've been a community lurker for some time. Member of some of the FB groups, IMG, etc.. Heard about Builder Society through the Reach Creator crew a long time back. But I was reminded what I was missing in Clint Butler's last video. Glad I'm here!

I'm a finance tech industry refugee that's shifting (back) to digital business pursuits. Not my first go-around (was the 'web guy' at a NYC design studio in '95). Cut teeth on JS 1.0 and still tweak my markup. But I pretty much left my coding and dev skills in the 90s.

Now I'm focused on applying my biz dev/product management experience and process obsession to niche site development, investment, etc. Business writing, content development (on page) and communications has always been a comfort zone as well. So, I look forward to learning pretty much everything else from this awesome community.

 

[Ryuzaki]

@jpaulhendricks, it sounds like you're in perfect shape to succeed. You know and understand enough code to customize whatever you want or can pick it up easily, you have management and process-oriented skills, and you understand on-page SEO.

Add marketing chops or the ability to outsource it and you're ready to conquer whatever niche you set your eyes on, within reason and reach.

Glad to have you hear and hope you'll continue to post and share with us some of your knowledge and experience.

 

[jpaulhendricks]

Everything you need to know, and everything you want to have, will be yours when you do. Start doing, and keep doing. Do that and everything will unfold.

Love this.. timeless truth. It's astounding to me how, after multiple decades of exploring and hiking up mountains of knowledge seeking expertise or mastery in some new area, I still put off the doing too long. The moment you start, the learning process is magnified.

And teaching (or sharing/explaining/supporting) can compound those results even more. Once you get a few clicks down the path I find the education process can scale even faster when we try to help others (that may still be a few steps behind).

100% white hat is where its at.
Fuck the haters.
Big Daddy Google isnt as mean as most people make them out to be.
Just weird and hoop jumpy.

Amen! "Weird and hoop jumpy" ..love it.
Btw.. love the sheeter, Mr. Dad.

I've bought five domains, installed Wordpress on a few of them, realized a couple were stupid "chasing a squirrel" moves, and installed a theme on one and started customizing it. I wrote a couple of posts too but I think its way too tiny of a niche to spend a lot of effort on.

It was already said by some others, but I would urge you to follow through and get these to some limited stage of completion. I have far more than 5 unlaunched domains, and I got tired of renewing them; swore I would get at least some basic content pages up, request indexing and start the clock ticking.

At a minimum, just doing will help sharpen your skills (for me, it forced me to build processes and workflows to speed things up). You may not ever build them out further...or you may realize the mini site has other use. But if you have a year left before renewal you can at least sell it for a few bucks on Flippa or whatever.

Doing is experience and experience is education (read: value). And sometimes the output is an actual sellable asset.

 

[CaptainHustle]

Hey,

I have been lurking on this forum for a while. I remember reading some intro threads where people were talking about leaving their careers for digital marketing and feeling so vindicated. I think I will fit in here.

A little about me. I am a 22-year-old law student from a third world country looking to get into the world of digital marketing. I have always been thrilled by the idea of an online business, although I knew I couldn't pursue it seriously until I got into a good college and pursued traditional education to its logical end. I have about 2 years left in law school and I don't plan on getting a job after and sell my soul to a corporate law firm.

My aim is to be able to support myself with my online business. Anyway, law firms in my country pay less than $1200 a month for a fresh law graduate. So I know if I get a job like that, it is always going to hold me back while I do something that is not really interesting or rewarding. I don't find law uninteresting, it just doesn't give me the sort of thrill I get when I make a sale or build out a site.

While it is only now that I am getting serious about digital marketing, I have some experience in content writing and know a little bit about blogging. I worked as a content writer for different blogs for over 8 years. Nothing too big or interesting, just enough for pocket money for school and college.

For the last 6 months, however, I have been reading, researching, and executing everything I can in relation to SEO. It culminated in me deciding to start my own tech blog at the beginning of May.

Over the last month or so, I have written some 20k words of content. The amount of learning that happens when you start doing instead of reading is crazy (I know people always say it but you don't always realize it until you do). I don't have a lot of (or any) capital to spend on links or content, so it's just me hustling as of now. I don't have any issues with that though because I love writing content and I am learning to love all the processes involved in building a long term site including link building (#HAROFORLIFE).

With all the talk of Sandbox, algorithm updates, and pageview requirements for the premium ad networks, I was not hoping to make any money with my fledgling site for a VERY long time. I was prepared for the worst because I have struggled with the idea of delayed gratification all my life.

However, I have already started making money with Amazon, with around a sale a day. I achieved this by approaching only keywords that are looking for answers to a problem that can be solved using some product. I have plugged in those products on those pages that have neatly converted. I have 50-60 users a day on my site which I think is decent for how new it is. I achieved this by consciously working against my instinct of filling out all sections of my site and instead, doubling down on things that worked while spending some time every day leaking traffic from Reddit.

I instantly felt the urge to start another site to pursue the same strategy but decided against it as I want to work on this site for at least a year to see how far I can scale this. I will only start the next site when I feel like this site has reached its saturation point OR if I find another niche that IS MUCH better.

I know most people have a problem with Amazon and their commission rate changes but those commission rates in $ are gold in my country. If I can make $2000 a month from my site, that is enough money to live in the nicest neighborhood with all the luxuries. So I am not complaining.

How do I plan on achieving that?

For starters, I will focus on Amazon with the angle I talked about earlier and scaling info content to meet Mediavine's requirement of 50k sessions. I want to sign up for Walmart and BestBuy affiliate program but I haven't heard very good things about them so I am still exploring my options.

I want to try Pinterest but my intuition says that it won't help my site much. Anyway, I don't want to spread myself out too thin by trying to do too many things.

I think that should get me to the target of $1000 a month from my site within a year? (Correct me if I am being too unrealistic). I don't plan on selling my site at all if it meets my income targets because I am a sucker for that passive income while I build my site network.

Once I have some money, I want to throw a youtube channel into the mix. I don't think I can start a youtube channel for my site because I don't even have access to the products I talk about because they don't sell here. Maybe a personal youtube channel? Maybe I am jumping the gun.

For now, that is all I have on my mind.

What is my mindset?

I am generally positive about my plan but I do get sad when pageviews don't grow or if I go without a sale for a day. I want more validation in the form of consistent income before I decide to go full time. I do feel lost sometimes, especially with keyword research, which I have come to realize is a giant rabbit hole.

Thankfully, I have two years in college. Two years during which I am ready to work very hard for the life of my dreams. I am excited to see where I would be in two years from now.

------
I also want to thank all of you for the amazing value you provide free of cost while less successful people are busy shoving courses in people's faces.

 

[Cash Builder]

I think your target of $1000 per month is very realistic, especially as you are already generating sales. That’s validation that what you are doing is working, all you need to do is continue grinding out the content and more sales will follow.

Content alone won’t make you money, so it’s good that you’re traffic leaking from Reddit. Try and find another couple of platforms for leaking, there’s plenty of ideas on this forum.

I’d say it’s wise to focus on a single site at the moment, as long as there is enough money in your niche. You are still learning and will make mistakes, so you don’t want to have 5 sites and then have to fix the mistakes on all of them.

Focus on one site, get a strategy for creating content and marketing, and build it out until you are happy which the processes. Then you can scale and build more sites.

Two years should be plenty of time to make it full time, although at some point you’ll have to decide where your time must be spent. I got to the final year of my degree and the workload was huge, so I decided to drop out and focus on my business full time. It was a tough decision and everyone thought I was crazy, but it’s been the best decision I’ve ever made.

Good luck!

 

[Ryuzaki]

I want more validation in the form of consistent income before I decide to go full time.

This is wise. If you graduate college and haven't hit a full time income, I think it'd be smart to go ahead and accept a law-related job. Some might say that it's better to take the leap and have the extra time to go hard on your site, and sometimes that can work. I was forced into a situation like that.

But what people don't mention is all of the other stressors that come with not having enough money while putting in tons of work and not getting immediate gratification in the form of pay. That will wear on you fast.

On the flip side, if you have a day job, you can buy that extra time by outsourcing. Then you'll be saving a ton of energy and fast-forwarding into the future. And in this way you can focus on being the entrepreneur and manager of the business instead of the employee.

I think that should get me to the target of $1000 a month from my site within a year? (Correct me if I am being too unrealistic).

It's not unrealistic for someone with experience. Also, there are definitely people that come right out of the gates and create winning sites. $1,000 a month isn't exactly a win in the USA, money wise, but it's proof of concept. Getting to the first $1,000 per month is a lot harder than getting it to $2,000. You might be the person that can knock it out of the park on first go. But be prepared for the other possibility, which is much more common.

The good news is that if you continue to learn lessons and apply them and accept the feedback from Google and your users, and keep iterating, you'll get to where every nearly project is a success of some sort.

I don't plan on selling my site at all if it meets my income targets because I am a sucker for that passive income while I build my site network.

Yeah... me too. But I've also been doing this for around 15 years and 10 years full time (I think, probably longer). Eventually, as an SEO, you'll realize how volatile the algorithms are and how devastating new search features can be, etc. The best move is always to liquidate your sites at their best possible performance under you and take that extra money (typically 3 years worth of current monthly profit).

Then you have a war chest to do things like pay off a car, buy a house, and fund the next project. Once you've secured your future in tangible assets we all have to have, then you could mess around with accumulating passive income. The risk/reward scale gets re-balanced over time. But taking the extra money and reducing your expenses while positioning yourself for more future wins is generally a great idea.

 

[Creator]

Yeah... me too. But I've also been doing this for around 15 years and 10 years full time (I think, probably longer). Eventually, as an SEO, you'll realize how volatile the algorithms are and how devastating new search features can be, etc. The best move is always to liquidate your sites at their best possible performance under you and take that extra money (typically 3 years worth of current monthly profit).

Then you have a war chest to do things like pay off a car, buy a house, and fund the next project. Once you've secured your future in tangible assets we all have to have, then you could mess around with accumulating passive income. The risk/reward scale gets re-balanced over time. But taking the extra money and reducing your expenses while positioning yourself for more future wins is generally a great idea.

Thank you so much for posting this. This is something I've been trying to wrap my head around for long and this post just cleared everything for me.

 

[Encrypted]

Yeah... me too. But I've also been doing this for around 15 years and 10 years full time (I think, probably longer). Eventually, as an SEO, you'll realize how volatile the algorithms are and how devastating new search features can be, etc. The best move is always to liquidate your sites at their best possible performance under you and take that extra money (typically 3 years worth of current monthly profit).

Then you have a war chest to do things like pay off a car, buy a house, and fund the next project. Once you've secured your future in tangible assets we all have to have, then you could mess around with accumulating passive income. The risk/reward scale gets re-balanced over time. But taking the extra money and reducing your expenses while positioning yourself for more future wins is generally a great idea.

Very well said. Its getting harder to keep SEO websites stable nowadays and it doesn't matter anymore what "hat" you wear.

SEOs are usually good at analyzing / predicting what algo updates are about but i think we're getting to the point where few people really understand what Google is doing.

If someone is willing to pay you 2 - 3 years worth of profit for today's algorithm , you should really consider it.

 

[secretagentdad]

Try Pinterest and try it hard.

They’re currently watering their ad accounts especially for video kinda like facebook did when they were suckering us all into building pages.

It’s a subsidy from big tech investors.
Take it while it’s hot.

 

[CaptainHustle]

This is wise. If you graduate college and haven't hit a full time income, I think it'd be smart to go ahead and accept a law-related job. Some might say that it's better to take the leap and have the extra time to go hard on your site, and sometimes that can work. I was forced into a situation like that.

But what people don't mention is all of the other stressors that come with not having enough money while putting in tons of work and not getting immediate gratification in the form of pay. That will wear on you fast.

On the flip side, if you have a day job, you can buy that extra time by outsourcing. Then you'll be saving a ton of energy and fast-forwarding into the future. And in this way you can focus on being the entrepreneur and manager of the business instead of the employee.

This is a great idea and an interesting way to look at things. However, I am still not going to consider it because I know I perform the best when my back is against the wall. The more and more I think about this as a backup, the less and less motivated I will be to pursue this seriously.

The idea of a day job makes me feel depressed. I founded my own startup at 19 to sell fish using the internet because I was obsessed with being an entrepreneur.

I know that the pressure is going to be intense once I graduate. This is especially true in my country where men who are not "settled" after college are viewed in very poor light. That is why I have given myself two years to learn the ropes and build my sites.

It's not unrealistic for someone with experience. Also, there are definitely people that come right out of the gates and create winning sites. $1,000 a month isn't exactly a win in the USA, money wise, but it's proof of concept. Getting to the first $1,000 per month is a lot harder than getting it to $2,000. You might be the person that can knock it out of the park on first go. But be prepared for the other possibility, which is much more common.

The good news is that if you continue to learn lessons and apply them and accept the feedback from Google and your users, and keep iterating, you'll get to where every nearly project is a success of some sort.

This is great advice. I am prepared for the worst. In fact, that is why I have set a very reasonable and realistic goal of making $1000 a month from my blog (I would have set it even lower but I think $1000 is a good amount that keeps me excited.

Be that as it may, I am constantly trying to cut the learning curve by asking questions ad nauseam every chance I can. Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of people to reach out to because no one here even knows or understands what I am doing. Hopefully, my skills as a lawyer will help me network and open some doors in the future.

Yeah... me too. But I've also been doing this for around 15 years and 10 years full time (I think, probably longer). Eventually, as an SEO, you'll realize how volatile the algorithms are and how devastating new search features can be, etc. The best move is always to liquidate your sites at their best possible performance under you and take that extra money (typically 3 years worth of current monthly profit).

Then you have a war chest to do things like pay off a car, buy a house, and fund the next project. Once you've secured your future intangible assets we all have to have, then you could mess around with accumulating passive income. The risk/reward scale gets re-balanced over time. But taking the extra money and reducing your expenses while positioning yourself for more future wins is generally a great idea.

Till now, I was planning to play by the rules in an attempt to dodge any impact from penalties or changes in the algorithm. I now realize that it might be a good idea to sell and get some cash that can then be used to build more sites while also securing my real life.

I have done my fair share of partying, wasting money and fucking around, the time has come for me to embrace some frugality to build my dreams. Every penny I get from my blog will be reinvested to scale. I don't care if I lose money either, I know it will all pay off in the long run.

I think your target of $1000 per month is very realistic, especially as you are already generating sales. That’s validation that what you are doing is working, all you need to do is continue grinding out the content and more sales will follow.

Content alone won’t make you money, so it’s good that you’re traffic leaking from Reddit. Try and find another couple of platforms for leaking, there’s plenty of ideas on this forum.

I’d say it’s wise to focus on a single site at the moment, as long as there is enough money in your niche. You are still learning and will make mistakes, so you don’t want to have 5 sites and then have to fix the mistakes on all of them.

Focus on one site, get a strategy for creating content and marketing, and build it out until you are happy which the processes. Then you can scale and build more sites.

Two years should be plenty of time to make it full time, although at some point you’ll have to decide where your time must be spent. I got to the final year of my degree and the workload was huge, so I decided to drop out and focus on my business full time. It was a tough decision and everyone thought I was crazy, but it’s been the best decision I’ve ever made.

Good luck!

Thank you for all those words. It makes me feel more confident with what I am doing and makes me want to work harder now that I know my site is not a dud.

I will be working on the same site to learn content production and marketing as you said.

Congratulations on your success. For a second I like to think that you were standing where I am standing today. Makes me feel inspired to work even harder.

Try Pinterest and try it hard.

They’re currently watering their ad accounts especially for video kinda like facebook did when they were suckering us all into building pages.

It’s a subsidy from big tech investors.
Take it while it’s hot.

I'm sorry if this is a dumb question, are you suggesting that I run ads on pinterest with videos promoting my blog or the money pages?

What I had in mind for Pinterest was designing 4-5 pins for every post and then adding them to several of my own boards regularly. Then to seem like a normal user, pin (repin?) other people's pins too.

I tried using Tailwind tribes but it didn't seem that useful to be honest although I heard some good things about it.

 

[Terry Power]

Terry Power here. I got my first Certification back in 1994 (Certified Internet Webmaster) and began looking into SEO around the turn of the century. I now have had my own agency for a couple of decades, have a group I mentor in SEO, have spoken at conferences, continue to learn and test, have built a couple of pieces of software,etc...
I enjoy riding my motorcycles when I'm not on a PC, love playing with many of the possibilities Clouds offer and expect to both learn some things here and contribute when ever I can to discussions here.
When I had trouble this year with indexing, I established my own indexing company which continues to thrive. This is not unusual. My mindset is, if I need something and cannot find it, others probably need it too. Is there some way I can help others and myself simultaneously?
Again, glad to be here and looking forward to connecting with this community.

 

[Ryuzaki]

@Terry Power, Welcome aboard and thanks for the great intro.

You're right about indexing. That's a huge issue right now for a lot of people. Not only in indexing bulk amounts of URLs but even smaller amounts of higher quality URLs. Google swears there's no bug, but we aren't so sure. It could be that they're indexing less garbage these days and need to be prodded in some fashion to take a URL into consideration. I hear a lot of indexing services aren't successful these days too. So if you solved that, good job!

I hope to learn a lot from you as you continue to share.

 

[secretagentdad]

Suggesting you use pinterest unless it really doesn't work for your niche for some niche specific reason.

Been growing their easier than anywhere else because they actively try to help participants on their platform grow atm.

Especially so for short form video. Looks like they want to be a video platform.