Introductions Thread

Ryuzaki said:
Welcome, @nothing. You sound a lot like me in terms of the metaphysical stuff. I try to keep the beginner's mind and keep my cup not-full so I can accept new info. My ego used to cause me to refuse to learn from others, which is about as stupid as it gets.

I wouldn't say affiliate methods are dead, but you're right that having your own product will be a vastly higher ROI, which means you can afford to market with PPC and play the numbers game you're used to. It definitely doesn't have to be a tangible product. Software, courses, e-books, videos, all that is huge money.

You definitely don't have to have a product that hasn't ever been done either. There's so few of those in existence at any given time, and a bunch of those don't even add value. Improving on existing ideas is fine. You can even not improve anything and just do better marketing.

But multi-millionaires are definitely being made with affiliate marketing still. I still have my foot in that game but I've moved on from that for the most part. I don't even sell a product or service on my sites at all and do quite well. Sometimes the content is the product (like Youtube videos, high-ranking posts on Google, etc.)

Best of luck with it all. I hope you'll continue posting. You've had a lot of valuable experience we can all learn from. I'm eager to hear more over time.
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Thank you. Looking back I can tell my negative mindset literally pushed success away instead of attracting it. There's tons of truth in the LoA sphere but because everyone wants easy attention (within the LoA community) they make out like you don't have to do any work... just visualizing success will magically bring the traffic even though you didn't write any content...etc. It took me a while to realize this and I fell for their promises, which is ironic someone who has experienced with copy falling for copy... again the Universe just showing me how full my cup was!

I do have a few ideas and some rather controversial niches that haven't even been looked at by anyone yet. Two in particular don't even have relevant websites yet many reddit users for example. The funny thing about believing in the Universe / Consciousness / God / non duality / whatever is you don't feel too attached to your ideas.
bernard said:
Welcome, I'm looking to learn more about PPC while I already know SEO, so I look forward to reading more from you.
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Thank you. I'm no expert though. I just did the work and made mistakes and learned from them. I like using this username around the web as it reflects what I know....
 
Thought of making a post finally.

Hello fellow builders!

BUS here. I am focusing on building starter sites for people. Hope to share knowledge, and to build valuable assets along with you!
 
Welcome.

Get a marketplace thread up if thats your gig.

There is a ton of demand for this kinda stuff here.

Throw the money you make into some kinda dog food laboratory thread where you use a couple of your own sample sites in creative ways that explore what you can do to make them make money.

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Hah right their with you on the adsense smack down.

I thought I was a real wiz kid until it all poofed to.
 
Like it says, I joined at the end of 2014 and never posted. I wasn't new to the industry but still had a day job I was fighting to leave. That happened in 2017 and now my portfolio of sites feeds my family and keeps a roof over our heads. I'm ready to go from low six figures a year to mid six figures and beyond.

I earn my living through SEO but my tactics have changed. I started with Adsense and still have some sites kicking around with them through Ezoic. I have a few Amazon sites too in the same niche and want to launch a product to replace some of the best sellers and start new, smaller niche sites around the product niche.

I learned much here and want to be able to ask my own questions, give answers, and chat in general. I don't know anyone else in real life doing this, and YouTube isn't interactive. Here's to another 6 years.
 
secretagentdad said:
Welcome.

Get a marketplace thread up if thats your gig.

There is a ton of demand for this kinda stuff here.

Throw the money you make into some kinda dog food laboratory thread where you use a couple of your own sample sites in creative ways that explore what you can do to make them make money.
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Thanks, you are right. Showing trumps telling. I will get something ready.

Back to the dark room and elbow grease!
 
Back when all traffic was desktop traffic and you could split test Adsense block placements to maximize click through ratings, it was a gold mine. Now with most of traffic in most niches being mobile, those opportunities are kind of lost, it seems.

When I originally went full time in 2012 I think, it was with Adsense sites, too. I did the Amazon thing too. Nowadays, all I really care about is having Authority Sites with broad verticals and tons of monetization options. Because then you can pivot however you need to while maintaining the same project. I definitely don't like having handfuls of projects any more. I went from having 30 at most in the past to having as many as you can count on one hand. The trouble is casting enough nets to find the ones worthy of all of your attention.

Glad you decided to join the conversation, @Timmy22.
 
me 3. Adsense kick started it all. Now we’re here.
 
I'm only maintaining 4 Adsense sites now. One makes about $1,500 a month. The others range from $100 to $300. I keep them around because I like to tell myself that "the big one pays for my mortgage, that one pays for our cell phones, that one pays for the power bill" and so on. I don't update them at all and they keep earning so why sell them, but I know it won't last forever.

I wonder how much less money Google makes from Adsense on other webmaster's sites now compared to the 2010 era. I'd wager it's 50% even.
 
Hi gang,

I am still trying to figure out how I stumbled into this community. It remains a mystery but I did stumble into a reddit post with someone who is building up his affiliate empire and as part of his impressive update, the newsletter nugget shared for my email address was the SEO Avalanche technique. Go figure - I had seen it some time back, got busy with my "real" career (using up my time for salary is real?), and got reminded to read that. Goal for today. Thanks to @CCarter I now am fully engaged through his community text platform updates. Bring it on buddy.

About me:

I am the eternal student. Forever studying, forever over-analyzing, forever buying shiny objects to feed my syndrome, and forever never getting started. Until this year. My work is somewhat tied to pandemic related matters but can't get into specifics; bottom-line, I have had their yearning, lust, and dream desire to be - passively - or somewhat in the clear with a sidehustle in the form of a property that fuels display ads and affiliate stuff. I've followed a few sites and paid plenty but have found this forum and a mix of R/juststart, Authority Hacker and a few others very humbling.

My problem continues to one of focus so POMODORO here I come as I write articles based on the ZILLIONS tools, things I must learn and manage with a wordpress site. I feel comfortable with most stuff but it's the plan and execution that gets bungled up. I'm not made of money and I am definitely not a tree. My writing is so so and while I still can't truly determine passions, I built a career in tech startup landed on business and product development with a mix of the old school marketing of days gone by - today it's about ROI, measurement and analysis and lots of the digital we do today wasn't the thing that existed back then. YEs, that makes me somewhat old, but not close to retirement.

I had a career desire for architecture and never did it but always had an interested in design/shapes etc. Am I expert in this? God no. I am faking it till I make it. Does it fuel me with passion - not entirely but it's a big area - this home and garden bucket. Lots to write about and segment into smaller buckets to build the long tail keywords needed for display ads (Ezoic, Adsense) and affiliate stuff (aka Authority Hacker). I'd say those guys are cool and legit but boy did I waste some money on some other gurus and like others, maybe feel a little burned.

Anyhow, I finally made some milestones which for me are important. Got the hosting, got the mythemeshop theme I liked (but if you think there are better ones, let me know! LOL), and have 9 articles. I had an AdSense account setup ages ago and there's like $30 still sitting inside. But they denied my site twice -- I take it to the lack of content and maybe a paragraph or two of duplicate themes, content across articles but didn't have the GDPR Cookie Plugin in there. Anyhow, won't both but a bit of trickle down economics could be motivating.

Those denials phased me for about two weeks. Then the overflow of new information clouded my mind and execution. Content creation is possible -- I think I can write reasonably well - no, this is not GPT-3 but man, is that going to screw us? But I really think I can build some type of a content platform and the experiences of others and "community" really help as long as I avoid my typical paralysis analysis.

Anyhow, just wanted to say hello from Canada and well, I can't afford too much on the keyword tools side (AHREFs) and got Ubersuggest Lifetime (now, hearing it's not great) but seems to provide reasonable longtail guesses to content target. If anyone has other ideas on tools, themes, plugins (at minimum level) and other tactics to stay focused, I'd appreciate it.

I am going to work with small goes - if my mind and writing isn't there today, I aim for a paragraph or two of research and that's that. Long game, I guess. LOL
 
Jesus. So many feels.

After reading your autobiography I can't help but wonder why you can't put the same effort into pumping out and marketing your content.

Ok so what is the plan to get out of student mode and into action mode?

Be specific.
 
MrMedia said:
After reading your autobiography
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LOL. :D

I actually seem to be far better off on student mode to action mode but cutting out a lot of the noise from newsletters, Appsumo deal alerts, and Facebook groups. I am down to a few places. For problem solving, down to a few places: BuSo, r/JustStart, AuthorityHackers and Fat Stacks.

What is preventing me (well, no, slowing me) from action mode:
  • I know these are excuses but: taxing day/career and chronically ill spouse
  • Specifics on action:
    • what I am missing is a content calendar
    • audience profiles (Thanks @CCarter) for articles to cater to
    • A pomodoro process to do a little each day; some days, I just can't write - the above came in one blast as it was about me; I know me. Research in the broader home/design is not me, requires keywords/research and some planning to pump out
    • Producing the articles takes time but doing this but may leverage small budget to outsource content based on above profiles (who is reading this site) tied to long-tail searches and/or Quora/Frase.io questions (Assume AnswerThePublic is a gold mine but have used their free stuff daily to scrape out some ideas)
Naturally action in career is different. Don't do work, don't get paid, lose job. LOL. The side-hustle hive mind is evolving but it's not created a fear which should be there based on the pandemic we're all facing.
 
Hey guys. I hope everyone is having a wonderful day. I decided to stop procrastinating these last few weeks. I bought myself a domain name and a cheap hosting plan. I picked a random niche and I have started to write articles for it. I don't know if I will succeed or not but I'm excited about the potential for the future. I never want to give up. I'm 25 years old and still live with my parents. I simply cannot allow myself to continue down this road. Nice to meet every single person here. I hope I can be of assistance to any of you in the near future

Thank you.

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I honestly feel exactly what you mean. I have invested so much money into learning SEO but I never wanted to ACT. I guess deep down I'm scared of failing. However, I know now that failure is part of the process. I cannot shine away from it
 
Hi @rightsword, I'm glad you're deciding to take action.

rightsword said:
I picked a random niche and I have started to write articles for it.
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I'm afraid of what this sentence above means. You picked a random niche?

Did you inform yourself by doing competitor analysis, look into the demographics, perform some keyword research, and anything else like that before making your decision, or was it truly random?

If you haven't, I would look into the concept of SMART goals. This can be used to create a game plan for you to follow, milestones to hit and celebrate, etc. Every letter of SMART matters. Of course, these aren't set in stone. You'll change it around as you get more data, but the point is is that you need a framework to work from.

In case you aren't aware, we have a free Digital Strategy Crash Course that should help you see the forest from the trees and get a lay of the land.
 
Well, good that you are taking action. It may be the right action, or it may turn out to be the wrong action. But either way it will teach you more than the people who sit on the sidelines and worry about 50 different variables that might mean they possibly will not succeed.

In real life, you will find that there is good and bad about every single project you embark on. Looking back, you might say you should have used a brand rather than a kw domain, or that writing this kind of content first might have enabled you to get links from this particular niche, or that a display ad site might have been better than an affiliate site. But however it turns out, you will have learned more than those who have done nothing. Good luck and feel free to ask along the way.
 
Living with parents at 25 is probably time to leave the nest, but I get that there are many cultural differences here.

In any case, it's good to be young and be able to put in hours and hours of work and still have the energy to go out and enjoy life on the cheap.

Get to work, but don't forget to get out of the house and live life as well.
 
Ryuzaki said:
Hi @rightsword, I'm glad you're deciding to take action.

I'm afraid of what this sentence above means. You picked a random niche?

Did you inform yourself by doing competitor analysis, look into the demographics, perform some keyword research, and anything else like that before making your decision, or was it truly random?

If you haven't, I would look into the concept of SMART goals. This can be used to create a game plan for you to follow, milestones to hit and celebrate, etc. Every letter of SMART matters. Of course, these aren't set in stone. You'll change it around as you get more data, but the point is is that you need a framework to work from.

In case you aren't aware, we have a free Digital Strategy Crash Course that should help you see the forest from the trees and get a lay of the land.
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Thank you Ryuzaki. I haven't done the proper niche analysis. I heard that I should pick a topic that I'm interested in, so I don't burn out later on. My niche is filled with high DA websites. I'm not sure if its even possible to compete against these giants. I might start a second blog and try to developed both. Google puts me in the sandbox for 6 months, I need to write 100 articles before that period end.

ToffeeLa said:
Well, good that you are taking action. It may be the right action, or it may turn out to be the wrong action. But either way it will teach you more than the people who sit on the sidelines and worry about 50 different variables that might mean they possibly will not succeed.

In real life, you will find that there is good and bad about every single project you embark on. Looking back, you might say you should have used a brand rather than a kw domain, or that writing this kind of content first might have enabled you to get links from this particular niche, or that a display ad site might have been better than an affiliate site. But however it turns out, you will have learned more than those who have done nothing. Good luck and feel free to ask along the way.
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Thank you so much for taking the time and encouraging me. First thing I did after paying the hosting cost is I clicked the hide from search engine window in Wordpress settings. they told me that I shouldn't let google index anything until I fully develop the website. Do you agree with that ?

bernard said:
Living with parents at 25 is probably time to leave the nest, but I get that there are many cultural differences here.

In any case, it's good to be young and be able to put in hours and hours of work and still have the energy to go out and enjoy life on the cheap.

Get to work, but don't forget to get out of the house and live life as well.
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That's the issue for me. I wish I stayed up all night partying or doing something with my youth. However, in reality I only played video games or spent time bing watching series/anime. Anyaway, enough with the self pity. I'm motivated to start changing my life.
 
rightsword said:
I wish I stayed up all night partying or doing something with my youth. However, in reality I only played video games or spent time bing watching series/anime
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Nothing wrong with that. Not everyone is an extravert. I still get my kicks with movies while I recharge my introvert batteries. Being at a party drains me instead of recharging me.

rightsword said:
I haven't done the proper niche analysis. I heard that I should pick a topic that I'm interested in, so I don't burn out later on. My niche is filled with high DA websites. I'm not sure if its even possible to compete against these giants.
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You've just explained why you need to do a proper niche analysis. On the flip side, being full of more powerful websites is a good sign it's worth pursuing. While they fight over the high competition and high volume search terms you can go after the stuff they don't bother with and become another one of the giants in time.
rightsword said:
Google puts me in the sandbox for 6 months, I need to write 100 articles before that period end.
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The time frame may vary, but this is a great approach. Get as much done as early as you can. But it's important not to lose momentum. Don't hit 100 articles and stop. You can reduce your output but keep it going so you don't see a lull in your growth as the next 6 month passes. Also, you need to be getting backlinks to your site too, or you won't see nearly the success you would otherwise. You can't ignore links if SEO is what you're interested in.
 
Ryuzaki said:
Nothing wrong with that. Not everyone is an extravert. I still get my kicks with movies while I recharge my introvert batteries. Being at a party drains me instead of recharging me.
You've just explained why you need to do a proper niche analysis. On the flip side, being full of more powerful websites is a good sign it's worth pursuing. While they fight over the high competition and high volume search terms you can go after the stuff they don't bother with and become another one of the giants in time.
The time frame may vary, but this is a great approach. Get as much done as early as you can. But it's important not to lose momentum. Don't hit 100 articles and stop. You can reduce your output but keep it going so you don't see a lull in your growth as the next 6 month passes. Also, you need to be getting backlinks to your site too, or you won't see nearly the success you would otherwise. You can't ignore links if SEO is what you're interested in.
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I appreciate your advice. You're absolutely right. I will do the 100 pages first and try to update the site with 30 articles per month after that. I have clicked non-follow or non-index in my WordPress site for now. I'm thinking I will wait later before I index, Is that a good strategy? Will google penalize me for this? Thank you. This forum seems to be more friendly to noobs than other websites I have past experience with.
 
rightsword said:
I'm thinking I will wait later before I index, Is that a good strategy? Will google penalize me for this?
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If your design is in place, and you have a few pieces of content and your homepage has enough substantial stuff on it, I'd let it get indexed. Time is of the essence.

But if you're still changing themes and messing around with all that, then I'd wait. Once your HTML is settled and not changing around, then definitely get indexed if there's something worth indexing.

They won't penalize you, but if the mass of the source code is changing, they'll keep reprocessing it and your rankings won't settle. It's like resetting the timer each time you change most of your source code around.
 
rightsword said:
That's the issue for me. I wish I stayed up all night partying or doing something with my youth.
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Lol, you're still young. Plenty of time for having the prototypical young person experience.

That's the whole point, but someday you won't be and then you'll not have the energy and video games will no longer entertain you and then you'll kick yourself that you didn't spend your youth better.

So going forward, you should try do only things which will improve your health, social situation and your wealth. Get rid of everything else. Ask yourself: Does doing this activity help my goals of health, social situation or wealth. If not, don't do it. It's not saying you can't play video games, but it's play video games for an escapist break, not play video games, because you're unsure of what to do or bored.

Take some risks, almost everything can be fixed later, just don't get into debt and don't destroy your health-
 
Ryuzaki said:
If your design is in place, and you have a few pieces of content and your homepage has enough substantial stuff on it, I'd let it get indexed. Time is of the essence.

But if you're still changing themes and messing around with all that, then I'd wait. Once your HTML is settled and not changing around, then definitely get indexed if there's something worth indexing.

They won't penalize you, but if the mass of the source code is changing, they'll keep reprocessing it and your rankings won't settle. It's like resetting the timer each time you change most of your source code around.
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Got you. I have installed the template and everything. Any software that can make sure that my HTML or code is not too buggy and perfect for SEO?
I installed generate press free theme and the GP Premium plugin. After that, I imported a template from their site library and done some re-modeling of my own. I used CAVA to create my logo
Other plugins I installed:
All In One WP Security+Imagify+Novashare+Wp rocket+SEMrush SEO Writing Assistant+Yoast SEO Premium+Table of Contents Plus+Broken Link Checker+Asset CleanUp: Page Speed Booster

Please tell me if I need to add anything else to this list. Thank you.

bernard said:
Lol, you're still young. Plenty of time for having the prototypical young person experience.

That's the whole point, but someday you won't be and then you'll not have the energy and video games will no longer entertain you and then you'll kick yourself that you didn't spend your youth better.

So going forward, you should try do only things which will improve your health, social situation and your wealth. Get rid of everything else. Ask yourself: Does doing this activity help my goals of health, social situation or wealth. If not, don't do it. It's not saying you can't play video games, but it's play video games for an escapist break, not play video games, because you're unsure of what to do or bored.

Take some risks, almost everything can be fixed later, just don't get into debt and don't destroy your health-
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I have definitely changed. I mean, I have put more than 8000 hours in Skyrim, 5000 hours in counter strike. However, I can't even play longer than a few minutes now.

I'm spending all of my free time learning and improving myself. Life is too short for anything else. I want to be the best version of myself.
 
rightsword said:
Please tell me if I need to add anything else to this list. Thank you.
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Yes - add a backup plugin like updraft or something similar. Backup weekly and keep backups as far back as 3 months.

Also, try not to focus all your efforts on SEO. Traffic leaking will make you money faster!
 
LinkPlate said:
Yes - add a backup plugin like updraft or something similar. Backup weekly and keep backups as far back as 3 months.

Also, try not to focus all your efforts on SEO. Traffic leaking will make you money faster!
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Thank you. I will add the backup plugin, even though my hosting partner does backups. It doesn't hurt to be safe. Can you explain what you mean by traffic leaking? I should focus on getting traffic from social media and Pinterest?
 
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