Introductions Thread

"I sold about $10K worth of manicure tables as an Amazon Associate, which earned me roughly 35 cents. 8% commissions in a niche I can't stomach . . . fuck that."

Did you make a mistake there? 8% of 10k is $800. Which is good depending on how much time went into making that. Although, yeah, it's draining working on something you have NO interest in.
- - -

Do you use Evernote? I feel that might be a better place to hold those folders. And instead of having it by name, you could have folders by task (e.g. lead generation, conversion optimizing, etc). It just makes it easier to refer back to your resources when you hit a problem.
- - -

"I take failure hard". Is that why you've taken close to 2 years to start something? You can learn while you earn :smile:

Seems like a solid plan, so good luck.
 
Jared said:
I take failure hard, so if this project bombs, I don't know what it'll do to me, or what I'll do next. I can't afford to fail. It will crush me.
Click to expand...

I would consider that as your biggest motivation to succeed, in fact you should completley eliminate the thoght that it ever could fail, often you achive the best results when your back is against the wall and you have no choise when you fight to win with no other option that is when you'll emerge victorious, cus you are ready and willing to do whatever it takes for you to reach that goal.

good luck and stay on the wining path.
 
Hi everyone,

I have been in this two years with a technology blog (news, reviews etc ...) with which the results are still very unsatisfactory.

I hope to learn a lot in this forum, especially to get more traffic and monetize it properly and with it build something great in the future.

The sky is the limit! :D
 
Welcome on board.
How are you monetizing your blog? Amazon and Adsense?
As for traffic, @CCarter is talking about different ways of generating traffic to your site besides the usual suspects Media Buying and SEO, here http://www.trafficleaks.com
 
turtle said:
Welcome on board.
How are you monetizing your blog? Amazon and Adsense?
As for traffic, @CCarter is talking about different ways of generating traffic to your site besides the usual suspects Media Buying and SEO, here http://www.trafficleaks.com
Click to expand...

Adsense only. I will try to monetize product reviews with Amazon.

P.S.: The site is Spanish.
 
Hey everyone, glad to be here. It's a long way from the rest of world here in Australia but not on the web.
 
Welcome. What's your history with IM, SEO, site building, etc? What are you interested in? What are you working on?
 
Hey guys what's up.

I am 27/M living in the Philippines.

I am a long-time lurker even during the WF days. I always get so caught up with all the new information that I freeze and overthink too much on how to do things.

I always thought about doing internet marketing as part of a part-time side-line. Maybe, that'
s where is the mistake is.
 
Hi Ryuzaki,

Thanks for response! Great forum, looking forward to being involved. What I have been doing; covers 15 years of webdev experience, primarily with php/sql, html5, bootstrap, java, site building with most major ecommerce /big data platforms; SEO & web strategies. Also concurrently 20 years in IT Security management (TCP/IP traffic & data analysis at packet level through to design /build /management of major enterprise gateway environments).

Along the way, I made my first million with rehab & rental properties. Current role now as senior partner in top 500 global Private Equity firm, where I have access to capital for startup to IPO level Projects.

Currently working on various projects, always looking for potential business partners &
inspiration.
 
Welcome to BuSo!

I think it most definitely has to start as a part-time gig unless you have a lot of start-up capital for things like buying traffic, content, advertising, and so forth. Especially with SEO, but like @CCarter says, never wait for traffic. Go out and get it. That will be the very thing that gets the SEO stuff done anyways.

Do you have a single project you're most excited about and think that it has potential? If you do, I'd start it, and only it. Narrow your focus to tunnel vision on this one project and push it to completion! We're all here to help too.

Looking forward to seeing you around the forums :evil:
 
Greetings everyone.

Looks like I've got to write a bit about myself...

The skinny:

Lived abroad for two years, wanted to stick around without having a low-paying local job. Learned SEO as I didn't need to make much to meet cost of living.

Now I'm coming up on two years in the grind, work for two agencies, looking to learn to scale more and get some more personal web assets built out.

Looking forward to it folks!
 
Thanks for introducing yourself.

Did you have any special successes in your two years? What kind of stuff did you work on outside of the agencies? What did you do for the agencies? Do you want to spill any secrets you might have learned from them? :wink:
 
Glad to have you here.

I am by no means an expert on scaling efficiently, so take my words with a grain of salt. I tend to start off doing things the hard way. I apologize in advance that this recommendation will sound rather vague.

One of the things I've found most effective in learning how to scale is perpetually asking myself several questions, periodically, throughout the lifetime of a campaign:

  • What have I achieved so far? (Where am I?)
  • What do I still need to achieve? (Where am I trying to go?)
  • What is the core functionality necessary to achieve it? (What will it take to get there?)
Just 3 simple questions. Once I determine the core functionality, I simply break down core components of functionality and I might focus on just one and determining how I can do it better. Maybe you only improve one small part of the process, but you are still making forward progress. One foot in front of the other. Unless you have significant time constraints, for most ongoing work or reasonable deadlines, you can get by successfully with this sort of process.

Sometimes when I simply don't know a better way how to accomplish something, I might start out with the most rudimentary method I know I can successfully use to achieve my goal. I will then assess progress, and continue improving parts of the process. Sometimes efficiency inches forwards, and occasionally you make significant leaps.

For example, say you don't know ANY programming languages at all, but you're trying to accomplish something in an algorithmic manner, that might not be too insanely complex. Worst case, you might be able to start in MS Excel. LOL Seriously. If you're trying to move this over there, and substitute that for this, a lot of simple move, mix, and match functions can be handled in Excel fairly easily. Maybe you'll need to spend a short amount of time searching for answers to problems ("excel extract domain from url" might be a search) before you figure it out, but pretty much anyone can perform those sorts of relatively simple tasks with some simple-to-learn formulas in Excel. So you figure it out and meet your intermediate goal. Great! What about the next time? Sure, you can do it that way again, but each time ask yourself those 3 questions above and really think about whether you can improve on that process.

So the next project comes around. Well eventually, you might decide that the volumes of data you're trying to achieve similar results with is simply too inefficient with that Excel process. Hopefully you're thinking about this and taking steps to improve BEFORE the next project, but you at least know you'll have a fall back method, when there simply isn't enough time to change the game. When you do have time, maybe you might decide to start learning 1 programming language to perform some of those same functions, just in a faster, easier manner. Maybe you have entire CSV's of tens of thousands of rows of data that you're trying to perform that same process with. So maybe you might decide to learn a little bit of Python. You might focus on one thing first, such as combining data points, or formatting them in a certain manner. Whatever it is, you pick that one thing, start searching, maybe read a FAQ or manual a bit, and start experimenting. You could even be doing this for the future, while you're using your tried and true process to get the job done.

I'm kind of focusing heavily at the "implementation" level, but the same fundamentals apply at the strategic/structural, and business management levels as well. Just remember:

  • Where am I?
  • Where am I trying to go?
  • What will it take to get there?
  • How can I get there more efficiently?
 
Thanks for the welcome Ryuzaki.

Your posts and CCarter has always been informative even during WF days. I really hope I can be more active on this project.
 
Hi Guys n Gals,

My first success online was on eBayback in the late 90's selling discontinued and surplus products I would source from local manufacturing companies (clearing anything from £ 400 - £ 1200 per month).

It was a doddle; they didn't want unsold stock taking up space in their warehouses and were happy for someone who would pay THEM to take it off their hands rather than them dumping it in a skip. I later moved into reselling mail order customer returns and shelf pulls etc. I was young (and foolish) and didn't realise the potential cash generator I was sitting on at the time!

Since then I've meandered in and out of IM in one guise or another usually helping employers rank their own sites for THEIR businesses - I've had some limited success with MNS back in 2009 but picked niche that I had ZERO interest in.

I've spent the last two years running my own brick and mortar business which I've just sold and I'm getting back into IM with the intention of bringing in a full time income within the next 18 - 24 months.

I'll be going down the authority site route and I'm looking at building out two site (not at the same time) about niches that I'm deeply passionate about and have a genuine interest in.

I'm looking forward to picking the brains of the members of BS.com and hope that I'll be able to offer a bit of help and advice of my own along the way!
 
Authority site + Passion + some funding from your brick and mortar liquidation = winning scenario!

As long as the niche you pick has money flowing through it and you don't compromise it with naughty links, there's zero reason for you to lose :evil:

Good luck. See ya around!
 
So I thought I'll update my thread after a long time, I've been keep on working on my site and here are a few updates:

1. I manage to see ranking on a few main keywords (located in 100 results)
2. Google webmaster tools shows steady impression share (low but steady)

I'm now trying to:

1. Get more back links to my site, I'm trying to do that by showing activity in my Twitter page and try to contact relevant people for guest posting, etc... - Any ideas how to expend/improve?

2. I'm now working on my long tail keywords, I'm looking at an internal page as a website and building sub pages around it.

Here are my analytics visitors:

xpjlzNs.png


I'm open to hear your feedback's.
 
Same thing as for @BootstrapBill. Look here

https://www.buildersociety.com/threads/journey-to-5k-per-month.1083/page-2#post-13208

You need to get your game up. This is bad, it looks like your not even trying. How about you start working on acquiring traffic?

Look at @built thread, look at mine. @built is in this game for 6 months. I'm in for about 2. We are no pros, but still the results are waaay better. What is your excuse?

How do you even find the motivation to do something? Or are you even doing anything?

What are you doing to get visitors to your site?

Sorry if I rubbed you the wrong way, but this is just plain bad.
 
I agree with @TacoCat I'm working on a site right now that's not even launch ready, what I mean is not even 'minimum viable product' ready... Where all I've done is add content steadily and start building the social profiles and I'm getting that level of traffic - no outright promotion...

So something must be really going wrong somewhere for you!

Are you only doing Twitter + SEO? That would explain a lot in my opinion!

If you head to @built ' thread and see what I recommended about picking a few platforms and testing those you should be able to seriously start making moves.

I don't think your plan with Twitter will make much difference... There's a big difference between having a basic strategy to get going and mashing in a bunch of tactics and hoping it'll pan out.

I have faith that you can turn it around!
 
10 years in online marketing, but not even 40 sessions per day?

Design + code ≠ marketing.
 
TacoCat said:
Same thing as for @BootstrapBill. Look here

https://www.buildersociety.com/threads/journey-to-5k-per-month.1083/page-2#post-13208

You need to get your game up. This is bad, it looks like your not even trying. How about you start working on acquiring traffic?

Look at @built thread, look at mine. @built is in this game for 6 months. I'm in for about 2. We are no pros, but still the results are waaay better. What is your excuse?

How do you even find the motivation to do something? Or are you even doing anything?

What are you doing to get visitors to your site?

Sorry if I rubbed you the wrong way, but this is just plain bad.
Click to expand...

I understand it's bad, and the reason I'm here is to learn and improve.

Regarding traffic leaks, my strategy is SEO this is why after 2-3 month the traffic still low, you suggest me to concentrate on traffic leak?

RomesFall said:
I agree with @TacoCat I'm working on a site right now that's not even launch ready, what I mean is not even 'minimum viable product' ready... Where all I've done is add content steadily and start building the social profiles and I'm getting that level of traffic - no outright promotion...

So something must be really going wrong somewhere for you!

Are you only doing Twitter + SEO? That would explain a lot in my opinion!

If you head to @built ' thread and see what I recommended about picking a few platforms and testing those you should be able to seriously start making moves.

I don't think your plan with Twitter will make much difference... There's a big difference between having a basic strategy to get going and mashing in a bunch of tactics and hoping it'll pan out.

I have faith that you can turn it around!
Click to expand...

Thank you, I'll look now at the thread built mentioned.
 
iam_mine said:
I understand it's bad, and the reason I'm here is to learn and improve.

Regarding traffic leaks, my strategy is SEO this is why after 2-3 month the traffic still low, you suggest me to concentrate on traffic leak?



Thank you, I'll look now at the thread built mentioned.
Click to expand...

In the 2-3 months you could traffic leak until you start seeing some good organic traffic, it will help building links too, I'm not sure what niche you are in so in terms of actual numbers 100k for you could be 1k for me and vice versa.

When it comes to seo I have no idea what to do, Im still learning lol so I cant really help in regards to that
 
I got my start on ebay around the same time.

This place looks cool.

So adealy how's it going over the past ~month? Turbin3 dropped all this knowledge for you I hope you didn't just disappear.
 
Hi guys.
If anyone of you know me probably it's from the ancient BHU forum where i helped as a mod. But for those who do not know me, i had been around selling domains while trying to find my way on the SEO/Marketing world. Currently my main income comes from sites at Health & Finance niches where i aim to spanish countries (competition is a joke if you compare it with english SERPs)...

So I had been a lurker of the community since it was born and maintained on the shadows until now. Probably will keep learning more from the titans in here but hopefully I can contribute with my grain of salt too.

Best regards,
Randall F
 
I know you from The Stand and all of your other manifestations in the King Universe... :evil:

Do you speak Spanish? I'm wondering how not speaking Spanish would impact trying to move into those markets as a smaller operation, versus being able to hire a Spanish speaking worker.
 
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