Introductions Thread

Hi,
Happy to be here. I've read through many of the posts and am impressed with everyone's involvement. I found this site through Jon Dykstra's newsletter. I am a newbie to building websites, but have been "playing" with making money online for over 10 years now, I think. I'm an engineer and I have a major case of shiny object syndrome. I've found myself overwhelmed by the amount of debt I have accumulated with my kids going through college and have been trying to make extra to cover the expense. It's daunting. My goal has been to pay the kids college loans off, but have never focused enough to get there. I struggle with it everyday.

Enough of that. I believe that it is still possible. I started going through the Digital Strategy Crash Course and Day 1 hit me in the face, especially @Satvrn add on about Stop Fucking Around. Love it!

My goal would be to build up a portfolio of cash flowing assets. Let's do it!

Thanks for the opportunity.
 
Welcome aboard, @belrican. Glad to have you. While there's not much we can do about shiny object syndrome or a lack of focus and discipline, we can absolutely share all of the knowledge of how to succeed. We can light the path, but you've got to walk it yourself! As an engineer you most definitely have the chops. Just gotta buckle down on the right thing, optimize everything, and scale to the moon! You could have it in a year's time, no exaggeration.
 
Entre Eyes said:
I remember recently lurking on a Black Hat SEO website you all may be familiar with. It is basically a Pirate Ship. :smile: And on this pirate ship all they do is discuss ways to exploit other sites but on that Pirate Ship they adhere to strict rules!
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Doesn't it sound familiar?
1*BArwiczvwUqxWu9OB1e7Sw.png

Genuinely thought we were talking about BHW tho

bernard said:
Warrior Forum was peak boomer.

BHW was peak zoomer.
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Millennials being forgotten once again in inter-generational fights
 
Hello hello,

After hearing rumors of this website, filled with folks who know a thing or two about creating info sites, I had to join and take a peek myself.

So here I am, and this is my unimpressive introduction.

I'm a freelance copywriter. But I admit, I'm a bit tired of outsourcing myself for an hourly wage. Even though the pay is not bad, I feel the need to build something. To apply my writing skills to something greater than writing sales copy for someone else. To build my own thing, you know.

So that's me. A noob, a beginner, someone with a site that does $0 in revenue.

In any case, I'd be happy to meet others doing the same thing here, learn a bunch, make mistakes, and create an actual business. And not just create my own job.

That's all.

Cheers!
 
Welcome aboard, @Cedilla. Have you seen our Digital Strategy Crash Course? The reason I point it out is right now you're wearing one hat, the hat of a content provider. When you move into operating your own website, dealing with SEO and technical stuff, link building, marketing and everything that comes with it, it's an entirely different ballgame. The crash course is the fastest way for you to see the forest from the trees and get a quick bird's eye view of the land so you don't get lost and overwhelmed.

Good luck. We're all here and ready to support you in your journey.
 
Ryuzaki said:
Welcome aboard, @Cedilla. Have you seen our Digital Strategy Crash Course? The reason I point it out is right now you're wearing one hat, the hat of a content provider. When you move into operating your own website, dealing with SEO and technical stuff, link building, marketing and everything that comes with it, it's an entirely different ballgame. The crash course is the fastest way for you to see the forest from the trees and get a quick bird's eye view of the land so you don't get lost and overwhelmed.

Good luck. We're all here and ready to support you in your journey.
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Hey! Thanks for the warm welcome. I saw someone link that crash course a few days ago, and that's how I discovered BuSo. I'll study it.

Up until now, I've binged a lot of strategy videos from Passive Income Geek and Shaun Mars (on YouTube). But this lesson series seems a lot more structured. Thanks for recommending it to me.

As a copywriter, writing won't be hard for me. Finding consistency and motivation is trickier. Also, it's a little scary to commit to writing a hundred articles and not knowing if I'll succeed. Maybe becoming more informed will ease off that anxiety.
 
Hi Everyone.
Im Tony from Australia.
I have found this forum from the r/juststart subreddit and wanted to get back into online earnings.
I have been floating around BHW and WF for over a decade and made dollars in failed attempts - mostly I would jump from one idea to the next with little thought to the process. While I have no websites cuurrently to my name in this aspect of online earning I am looking to make a fresh start and approach in a more focused and simple way (not that I think the process will be simple - only that I will keep it that way to start).
Im hoping to gain knowledge as well as help in ways that I can on my journey.
Ill continue to poke around the site as I have already found some real nuggets of truth that resonate with me already.
Look forward to hanging out with you all.
Take care.
 
@FitFatTony, welcome to BuSo. Make sure you check out the Digital Strategy Crash Course if you haven't. You should be able to get a lot out of that and help organize and focus concepts in your mind. Best of luck. If you've bounced around enough you're now free to choose one plan of attack and stick with it, and that's when you'll start making some real money. Getting specialized is way better than the jack of all trades mentality.
 
@Ryuzaki Thanks. Yeah I was having a look over the Crash Course after signing up. Its well set out (the cynic in me automatically thought In was going to have to jump through some hoops to get access.
I recognised that after some time I kept wanting to give each idea i had equal time rather than driving towards one success. Quick way to fail as Im sure many have seen before.
 
Million dollar question.

Are you fat or fit?
 
Welcome mate. I'm in a similar spot to you and what I've picked up so far is exactly what you e said above - make a plan and follow it.
 
Hi all,

Came across the site from r/juststart and am loving the content so far.

I was a freelance writer for a few years while living abroad and it lead me to SEO. I'm currently a software engineer and enjoy my job but want to work for myself and manage my own time. The thought of being 40+ years old and a company owning my time and having to ask for time off work just scares me.

Earning money online fascinates me because with a lot of hard work projects can scale rapidly. The multiplier of sites is also incredible. One successful project can help propel the rest of the business going forward.

First Site

I created an affiliate site based around a sport I was into. Spent 40+ hours on keyword research, logo design, and website design. Decided to teach myself to code and didn't write a single article.

Second site

Last year I started a site around tv shows and movies with a mate. We were going for the clickbait type articles and wanted to use as arbitration on quizzes and listicles to make money. We didn't do keyword research as we were going to promote the articles on Facebook and other platforms. The content was garbage as we were basically just finding popular articles, rewording them, and posting. We wrote 85 articles and average 7-9k page views a month which gets around $12-15 a month in AdSense. We didn't realise the specifics of arbitrage and got banned by Google AdSense for a month after promoting a quiz we made via Facebook ads.

The site has been a flop but a great learning experience. We focused way to much on things that didn't move the needle. Site speed, site styling etc. The lack of keyword research also means that very few articles are ranking at all.

The previous two failures have taught me an enormous amount. Mainly the important of keyword research and hammering content.

New site

At the end of June I started a new site in a fairly competitive niche. The goal is to create an informational site and monetize it through ads.

Unlike before I've spent next to no time on the design, theme, and logo. I've gone with GeneratePress free theme and barely customised anything.

The goal is 200 posts in the first year. I'm happy to write all the content until money starts coming in. The aim is to scale using external writers and VA's. From what I've seen on here, outsourcing and creating processes is the only way to make serious money.

I'm using the underserved content approach that's become popular and choosing low-comp keywords.

I've written 26 articles in two months which isn't great but I had a two week holiday in July. First aim is 100 articles by the end of the year which is a fairly steady pace of 4 a week.

Once I hit a 100 articles I'll revisit the appearance of the site, apply for advertising, and fix the logo.

I have a milestone of $1000 a month but realise this isn't a large amount.

The long-term goal is to have to completely replace my current income by making money through information content sites. Ideally I'd have this spread out over two or three sites to offset risk

I'm sure I'll run into some trouble along the way and will no doubt be leaning on you guys for advice!
 
secretagentdad said:
Million dollar question.

Are you fat or fit?
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A little from column A and a little from column B :smile:

FunMoney said:
Welcome mate. I'm in a similar spot to you and what I've picked up so far is exactly what you e said above - make a plan and follow it.
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Thank you mate. Its a bit daunting to finally be able to get over my analysis paralysis so moving on now seems simpler that I am looking at one project at a time. No doubt the ideas will continue, Ill just be a bit more selctive on when to pursue them - if at all.
 
Welcome, @getRichOrBT.

getRichOrBT said:
I created an affiliate site based around a sport I was into. Spent 40+ hours on keyword research, logo design, and website design. Decided to teach myself to code and didn't write a single article.
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I won't say their name but we had an absolute killer on here that was poised to make it big, and they did a similar thing: sold their first site at the first opportunity instead of continuing to grow it, lost the money to a scam, and then decided to become a coder instead. Lots of time spent, lots of time lost, zero progress made.

Being a jack of all trades is nothing to the world. Everyone can know a little about a lot. Being specialized is where the money is. Few people have the dedication and intelligence to become a master of a single thing. That is where you command lots of money.

getRichOrBT said:
We wrote 85 articles and average 7-9k page views a month which gets around $12-15 a month in AdSense. We didn't realise the specifics of arbitrage and got banned by Google AdSense for a month after promoting a quiz we made via Facebook ads.
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I really don't think, but don't quote me because it's been a long time, that it's not against the rules to buy qualified and interested traffic to your site if you have Adsense on it. $15 a month isn't enough for Google to even notice and ban. If you didn't have high quality content and had aggressive ad placement that might be a different story. They're much more liberal with what they allow now in that regard and even suggest it with their Auto Ads, but they'd ban for it back in the day.

getRichOrBT said:
I'm using the underserved content approach that's become popular and choosing low-comp keywords.
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It's funny how cyclical things are. This approach isn't by any means new. You should have seen the crap we'd pull with exact match domains and long-tail keywords. I once had about 100 sites at one time. I knew a guy that was at 500 and another guy that was at about 1000.

Back in the day, we had a little group called Adsense Farmers, and while I didn't buy into the philosophy I was added and enjoyed how methodical it was. These guys would do math formulas about how much money they could make if they could get each site making a dime per day, etc. After expenses, if you had 1000 sites doing this, you might clear $2500 per month. It was really stupid and a waste of time. You wouldn't be surprised to hear that almost every single one of these people is now into cryptocurrency and other similar get rich quick by not offering value schemes.
 
Thanks @Ryuzaki appreciate the response.

I agree with your jack of all trades comment. I went on to learn software development as I knew it would provide me with an income steady enough to start other stuff on the side, and grow from there.

The 7-9K traffic at the moment is organic. I think we tried it too early on and our site went from like tens of visitors a day to thousands when we ran the campaign which may have caused the ban. Good lesson either way!
 
Hello, I'm new here. Some of you may recogise me from various Discord groups or the Fat Stacks forum.

I've heard great things about BuSo, had to check it out!

I'm relatively new to monetising content sites - just over a year. I have a small portfolio. Low traffic sites, nothing to write home about.

Looking forward to learning and sharing here.
 
Liked cuz hell yeah fat stacks.

What’s the crown jewel of this small portfolio?
 
Thanks!

Yeah so my main site isn't quite a crown jewel yet - it's more of a coin you find underneath the Coca-Cola machine.

In a competitive niche that I probably wouldn't choose if I was starting over. It pays well, but finding good keywords is much trickier compared to other niches I'm in.

On that site, I'm earning approx. a 50 / 50 split between display ads and affiliate. That's not a deliberate diversification, it's just the way the cookie crumbled for me.

My other sites are only at the beginning stages of growth.
 
Potatoe said:
Hi @Atwork, welcome to the forum.

Offloading some of the monotonous stuff is essential to take things to the next level, it's just a leap of faith at a certain point, no matter how much you prepare for it. You'll hire some duds, and you'll hire some people who outpace you and go on to do crazy things. It's just part of it. Some of it will be your fault, some of it won't be, but you'll get it figured out.

The biggest way that people seem to get taken for a ride when hiring is if they're not paying any attention, and suddenly they've dropped beaucoup bucks on copy paste content or barely-functioning code that breaks and nobody else can manage to fix. If you hire someone, do your best to train them, then keep an eye on their work as they go and as you build up trust, and adjust as needed. You're really not putting too much at risk this way.

You're taking a much bigger risk to your chances of succeeding each day that you try to do everything on your own.

If your site is really slowed down by a fancy theme and Elementor, it can be like trying to run with a parachute and a weighted vest on. Changing that up may have some minor losses in the short term as The Gorgle recalibrates things, but then you'll be sprinting with no resistance before you know it.

You can try to just push through it until you hit your milestone, but depending on how bad it is (and how it compares to your competitors in particular), you could be trying to drive with your emergency brake engaged.

@Ryuzaki has said it all better than I ever could, check out this post about page speed and then see how much of the kitchen sink method you can run through before wanting to off yourself and you'll be in great shape to keep those traffic charts pointing skyward.
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Hi and thanks

I have read both of those posts and have a question but not sure where to post it but I will start here.

If I remove elementor can I go into each post and just click go back to editor or will this still leave lots of CSS and bloat?

Do I need to copy all the content manually to new posts on a new theme using a child copy and then going live in one go?

I have bought kadence.

Should I wait until after Q4 to change it as I have around 200 posts and I don't want to take a hit during a peak?
 
Atwork said:
Should I wait until after Q4 to change it as I have around 200 posts and I don't want to take a hit during a peak?
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I don't have answers for your other questions, because I haven't used Elementor. But I would definitely wait till after Q4 before making changes of this magnitude. It's not that your content will change much but all of the HTML surrounding it will, and that can trigger some fluctuations for sure.

What you can do in the mean time is copy the site over to a staging server and do all of the work and tests you need to do there, then copy the new version of the site back live on January 1st.
 
Hey everyone,

I'm new to the BuSo community, but I'm excited to be here!

A little bit about me:
I also work full-time as a pastor and I'm in grad school. The goal is to build up enough income so my wife can stay home full-time with our 5mo old. For us, that's taking $2-2.5k/mo in profit from $10k/mo in revenue. That's the dream!

I started my first site in the personal finance niche back in 2017. Learned a lot but didn't do much the first two years. I was only halfway committed and it was more of a hobby. Spent 2019 freelancing for a massive PF site and learned a ton.

I took the money I made freelancing and launched a site in the food space. From day one I was super focused on hiring and outsourcing. It took me a year to go from $0-1k on a brand new site. Things ramped up quick and I went from $1k-$5k in four months.

I've spent the last 8 months on a roller coaster. Went from $5k to $7k, got hit by an update and had a sitewide tech issue and went down to $4.5k. Fixed some stuff and I'm now back up to $6k.

I've been reading a lot and strategizing on how to scale well! I think I went too broad too fast and now I'm going back and building out my content categories to try to regain some topical authority. My main site is nearly DR 40 and gets around 80k organic. I've also got two other sites that I'm working on.

Questions for those still reading:
Best advice on finding someone to edit content (both new and old)?
What's your process for either deleting or updating old content?
 
Congratulations on your progress so far.
Sounds like you’re already done with the hard parts and onto the downhill portion of making a living doing this.
Any lessons or observations from your partial recoveries you think might be helpful to others?

I really like deleting and replacing old content.
Especially on pages that get crawled a lot but don’t rank. Had some strangely good results with some pages.

For editors there are multiple great people you can hire on this forum. WordAgents and Potatoe have a verifiable history of making their clients from this community rather impressive returns.
We also got some new guys this year with really competitive prices and guarantees. You can find them in the bst section.
 
Hey, @HowardVent, welcome aboard. Good job with your projects!

HowardVent said:
What's your process for either deleting or updating old content?
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Unless you know you published complete trash, there's no reason to delete content. Content can be high quality and receive little Google traffic for a number of reasons, such as being content that demanded freshness but is no longer relevant (news articles), optimized for low volume keywords, not optimized at all, and so forth.

Deleting content is a last resort. Improving bad content is a good move but not everything needs to be improved either. It's usually better to publish more content than to try to cycle through your library of articles updating them for no good reason other than seeking more traffic. Because most queries don't require freshness. Queries like "Best ___" and "___ Reviews" do. I'd identify what might need updating and do that, versus doing it across the board.
 
Hey all,

I actually heard about Builder Society on the /r/juststart subreddit, and I figured I'm come and see what the fuss is all about. Allow me to introduce myself. :smile:

My name is Jonathan, I'm a 20-something student in Belgium. An avid fan of tech, writing, and good food. I've also managed to find my way around SEO, but I've only just started my own journey into building a display ads website with the goal of $1,000 monthly recurring revenue. Month two so far, and I think I'm pretty satisfied with the results, but it's still early, of course.

I've posted two case study updates on Reddit, and I'm hoping to post my future updates here as well.
 
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