Introductions Thread

Welcome!

This forum is a great place to find inspiration and motivation. I'm in a similar situation as you saw from my intro thread, making it in the marketing industry but looking for more.

I'm definitely a techie and systems guy myself, but to your point of content length mattering, I'm lucky in that I've always been able to spew out lots of words. I just need to learn more about how to make quality content. Or at least optimized content...
 
Quality can be hard to define it seems. I would guess it should be a combination of informational, entertaining, with some good copyrighting thrown in!
 
I asked the mods to move this into the Intro sub section because I posted it in the Orientation section by mistake. It looks like @en3r0 's response didn't transfer, as well as one of the images in my post.

I was able to edit the post once, but cannot seem to do so again to re-add the picture (the link could have also been broken because I didn't bother to re-host it). Short of finding the edit page in my browser history, is that supposed to be like that?

I should probably start staging my content, and everything really to avoid so many edits, but I'm a do it live kind of guy, I cut through red tape like a warm knife through butter.

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I've been and will be indisposed for a few more days, but I've been trying to check in. I edited your broken picture out because it created a URL link for some reason. It was a .webp file format that didn't register either. But I edited it to get rid of the link. Sumimasen!

And while I was at it en3r0's post broke a rule so I deleted that too. But I did manage to move your thread. 1 right doesn't fix 2 wrongs...

Anyways, welcome! I read your post and found it interesting. It's not often you see someone with current success wanting to or even being willing to jump into the void. Usually comfort is too much of a friend and enemy. Your experiences and exposures make it sound like you could certainly make it happen, especially if you do it along side your day job work and outsource as much as possible. In your case I wouldn't recommend just taking the leap, because the cash flow is a far greater asset to have than having more time to work. Because the cash buy's other people's time, and yours will be of short supply regardless. 16 waking hours is only 16 hours. It runs up fast.

Wasn't localcasestudy the same guy as humblesalesman? I'm not sure if you're aware but @localcasestudy gave us a Christmas present, which I think is the currently most viewed thread on the forum: Currently over $2 million in annual revenue and how I got here. He was one of the earliest member of the forum.
 
I hope you are well, and indisposed means on vacation, but if not (and even if so), my best wishes to you.

I have admittedly missed a lot. Speaking of Localcasestudy... Funnily enough I operate in the Local SEO space exclusively... currently. I knew humble wasn't out of nowhere -- I just couldn't place the writing style. But I knew he either was from here, or would end up here.

I'm sure you can pinpoint my company, I won't shamelessly promote here, this is my safe space. I posted it from an unmasked work IP that is most definitely tagged by many data providers. I'm extremely proud of where I work, however there are still MAAANY more miles of track to be lain before I say my farewells. We go up against giants daily, some of whom have taken on multiple rounds of funding 20 to 30 times our (meager) total sum of debt equity -- and WE WIN. It's exhilarating and inspiring, but the grind is real. I live in the digital mines, and have only recently been able to come up for air (and it was almost too late)

But I exist on the business side. My first love is tech, well my real first love is the food and hospitality industry, but business, and more specifically the transmission of ideas, data, information, and most importantly value from person to person, by any means, really, has always "spoken" to, and called to me. Partnerships and synergy and all that word salad ambiguity plus the thrill of success -- or the crushing depths of defeat -- are the hardest, most rewarding parts of my job. And If I can master any part of that -- I win.

And I love my fucking job. I scored.

I'd like to say I planned it, and looking back maybe I did, unconsciously. But in reality there's no fate but what we make for ourselves.
NoFateCap2.jpg

I elbowed my way in the fucking door and took my rightful seat -- I just got lucky in that it was the right door.

I'm actually an extremely lucky guy and if I can do one thing here, I want to pass along hope to passersby who are intimidated, or think they can't cut it, or they don't have the tech chops to "make it" in whatever they want to do.

I want to do this because in the depths of my black hole I painted a picture of what I wanted my life to be like, and now that it's real, I have to paint a new one. What a fucking problem to have, right?

I want to be a Bob Ross in this industry. Or a Mr Rogers. There's fucking hope goddamnit.

Because you guys were a form of that for me.

Why now though? What's different about this "time"? Well I could Lawyer you and argue about time and now and everything else, but the truth is, I've been struggling with mortality for a few years, for many reasons, and a close friend and co worker passed away a two weeks ago.

He was (is) a tru Zen Master: unassuming, humble, well-spoken, kind, I could go on and on. A sleeper agent on the battlefield. He closed a MONSTER deal the day he died.

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But he took a nap and never woke up. Freak medical thing.

If and (let's be real) when I go, I want to have no regrets. And If I don't do this now, nothing else will ever make up for it.

I'm making a new painting.
 
Op, this is a great forum, when I'm not drunk and terrorizing the mods I'm usually soaking up as much as I can. The only person who I haven't figured out is ryry, other than that I've done business with almost every moderator or senior member here. If it wasn't for grindstone I'd not even be here, I trust that man and he referred me to here. Good place to be.
 
Just joined after being told about the community a few months back.

Started SEO in 2010, dabbled with some affiliate sites but then fell into the depths of agency life/quick money. Now, I need out of the agency game, bad.

Currently have a few sites on the go, all small time:
  • 1x established affiliate site doing around $1000 a month, which I want to grow to $5k.
  • 1x fresh affiliate/Amazon Associates site, generating nothing right now
  • 1x local rank and rent site, just getting off the ground now. Could be an interesting model to repeat on, but it is less passive than the affiliate only sites.
I'd really like to be in a position where I have say 3-5 sites doing around $5k per month, but I know it'll take time.

Here to learn a lot, and have my eyes opened to all of the opportunities I'm not seeing.

Thanks for having me
 
Welcome aboard. We've had a good number of people wanting to bail from agencies lately in order to do their own thing. I keep saying that I think keeping that job until you replace the income is the ticket, because you'll have cashflow to immediately invest and scale time. You can't scale your own time, but you can buy other's time, which will help your site grow a lot faster than trying to bootstrap it (which is what I did on this last round, it's been a long ride).

What I'd consider is focusing on the established site with 80% of your time. It's already a proven concept and getting it to $5k a month would impact your life far more and be easier than the harder work of getting the fresh sites to $1k a month.
 
I definitely agree. I was in a place recently where jumping ship to start my own web/seo agency sounded like a great idea compared to my current workload. I'm a full time student (summer school right now) in addition to my position as the business process/systems analyst at an SEO SaaS company, and have recently been working a side job too for some extra income. I initially wanted to hone my web development skills through building everything myself, but the advice from @Ryuzaki to use my limited time to manage my projects, rather than own every piece of them, struck home.

I know more than enough to be dangerous, but I can use my experience to lay solid groundwork via outsourcing to the right people for the right price. Not to mention the networking/consistent income/etc. that comes with a regular paycheck, benefits and everything else.

It's like the difference between working on cars in your garage for fun, and starting a serious auto shop business and investing in your own knowledge and ability to lead and manage. But of course, staying as involved as possible with every piece and building for scalability are key.

I know that feeling of needing to get out badly. I had to take some time off recently to attempt to rebalance my work/school/life balance, and it's going OK so far. But if you can float for awhile and your sanity depends on it, only you know if it is the right call.

I would also add a grain of salt, and everyone's experience is different.
 
Thanks @Ryuzaki and @Saleasy. I'm in no rush to get out - but I have a strong drive to get out. I had my f-this event late last year and it really took a while to work out where to focus. I've told myself by end of 2019 is the time I'll make the switch (if not sooner)

But in the mean time I've switched a few small clients for 1 decent sized client who takes around 25% of my time, and that is plenty to live from.

Ryuzaki, I note your suggestion to grow the cashflowing site first. Currently it's a high maintenance site that converts well but if there was a scenario where I couldn't work on it for 2 months, the income would dip. I want to change this business model a little and make it more evergreen. This should increase income in the process.

My rank and rent site is kind of "divisional" - no one rents the entire site, but instead portions. All going well, the whole site should end up rented by November.
 
Hey everyone!

My name's Vladimir and I'm a 24 year old marketer from Serbia. I've stumbled upon this forum a week ago and I was really impressed with this community and content you're sharing.

My favorite thread is digital strategy crash course and the whole laboratory section, especially the 0-10k in 3 months follow along thread by @Charles Floate. So much value in those threads, thank you!

I first got into digital marketing after playing an addictive game, World of Warcraft. I used to play it a lot and then started to sell in-game characters. I used to buy it for cheap, play to improve it and then resell it.

That's when I've created my first website back in 2008. The website is still live since I've used Blogspot to host it, you can check it out here: http://wts-wow-accounts.blogspot.com/. I can't believe it's been 10 years :D

Ever since then, I was learning about digital marketing and tried to launch a micro niche websites on $50 budgets. It was mostly failure back then but I've learned a lot which got me a digital marketing internship in a popular Serbian startup in my first year of college (now owned by GoDaddy).

I quit college after 3 months and my intership got me a next job through recommendation. I worked in 3 different startups since than and eventually in 2015 I got a job as growth marketer in ~150 people company with B2B SaaS product.

That latest job finally got me a decent income and budgets to start with affiliate websites again. I've created a photography niche website which I got to $800 per month in passive income and than got hammered by Fred update. Few months later, I started a new multi niche project inspired by the success of 10Beasts and it's now 8 months old earning $300 / month.

I plan to create a follow along thread here and my goal is to grow this project into $5k in passive income so I can quit my job and try out some of 20 other business ideas I have in mind :smile:

I'm looking forward to participating in this forum and meeting you!
 
Welcome to the forum!

vbestic said:
World of Warcraft. I used to play it a lot and then started to sell in-game characters. I used to buy it for cheap, play to improve it and then resell it.
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I played that for a while in college. Was a top tank on my server. Our guild eventually brought in a rogue with incredible gear and okay skills at playing for our raid team. It soon became clear that he had no idea about the basics of the game and had bought his account.

Did you manage to make any decent money? Buying them and making them better is a fun flip idea, like websites.

vbestic said:
I've created a photography niche website which I got to $800 per month in passive income and than got hammered by Fred update.
Click to expand...

Did you determine what it was about the site that got it slapped? Were you largely focused on review style posts?
 
@Ryuzaki - Thanks!

Yes, most people just buy characters and think they'll dominate but skill is everything :smile:

Did you manage to make any decent money?
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I used to buy characters with just basic gear at $80-$90 and flip them for $250 - $300 after a few months. It's not much money but considering I was 15 years old who would play the game anyways it was significant for me :D

However, in a long term, this changed my life because that was the thing that pushed me forward to learn about online business & marketing.

Did you determine what it was about the site that got it slapped? Were you largely focused on review style posts?
Click to expand...

I'm not quite sure what was the cause buy my estimation is that it was a combination of factors:
  • Too much affiliate links in article. I've used AAWP plugin which auto generates box in which lots of elements link to Amazon. This is actually amazing plugin I still use but I've used it in a wrong way.
  • I've used target anchor text too much. This ranked my money page #1 for 8,100 volume keyword above PCmag & similar sites but lasted only 2 months.
  • I had 23 money pages and 8 tutorials. My opinion is that this is still okay as long as you serve user intent well and don't use too many affiliate links (based on my interpretation of Google guidelines).
  • I've used high DA "guest posting" service which were actually posts on community pages of high DA websites. I've noticed a trend that a lot of people now call any link they can get a "guest post" because it's a popular white hat strategy now. The content they've provided was junk too.
I'll hopefully avoid penalties with my new project. So far, I've survived Aug 1st update and got little boost from it. I'll probably start a follow along thread here on that project :smile:
 
Welcome @vbestic .

Right before I got into digital marketing in 2010, I was also evaluating how I could make $$$ by selling MMORPG characters and in-game gear for real world money. At the time, I was seeing HUGE dollar amounts being exchanged on eBay for this kind of stuff.

At the end of the day, I saw that how much I could make was tied to me actually playing the games. That meant I couldn't scale.

Luckily, I went the internet marketing route and haven't looked back since. It's a wild ride.
 
Thanks @stackcash! I agree, selling in game characters is not really scalable, only makes sense if it's more fun than business but a good way to start :smile:
 
Hi everyone,

I stumbled across this forum from I don't know where and was pleasantly surprised at the quality of content on offer here. A couple of guys, Ryuzaki and CCarter have definitely stood out.

Anyway, I am Gurbir, an SEO from India. I work at an agency which is focused on Magento website development and SEO of e-commerce websites. Right now, my main responsibility is Technical SEO but I absolutely love(or believe in) link building. I have been in the SEO industry for about 9 months now.

I am looking forward to learning and if possible, helping the people here.

Cheers!
 
Welcome. I believe in link building too, but only if the on-page SEO is in place, with the icing on the cake being the technical SEO. Really, you either have all of the variables covered or you're wasting a lot of time, energy, and money.

That's pretty wild that you work in an agency with such little experience, relatively speaking. I'm sure you're doing a great job or you wouldn't be there. I'd have thought, like most places, they would demand a year or two experience up front.

Are you working on any projects of your own in your free time?
 
Thanks Ryuzaki,
I have good theoretical knowledge from blogs, paid courses etc. which helped me in getting the job. However, I won't lie. The lack of experience does hinder my work. I guess that can only be helped with time.

Unfortunately, I have no projects of my own ATM. I am looking into starting selling on Amazon + Amazon SEO to supplement that. Also, I have identified an easy niche for an Amazon Affiliate website. But, I have to admit. I am not the type who hustles a lot. Probably need to get off my ass and start grinding.

What about you?
 
@wkid, I've been in SEO and web development off-and-on for almost 20 years now, and have been full time, work from home for I'm guessing 8 years or so? I can't even remember at this point.

I have built sites and got them penalized, built PBNs and sold links, recovered penalized sites, built sites and sold them... the full shebang. Right now I'm focused on working on my own main authority and I have a couple side projects that I ignore. I also distract myself by taking on web development jobs for authority sites for others.
 
Wow, 20 years is a long, long time. If possible, could you share your authority website link or is that a big no-no?
 
wkid said:
Wow, 20 years is a long, long time. If possible, could you share your authority website link or is that a big no-no?
Click to expand...

I recommend never sharing your sites on a public forum, and to be very careful about sharing it with individuals. SEO attracts a lot of people who will copy or attempt to destroy your site, simply because they can do it anonymously for the most part.

Back in the day, myself and another member had someone DDOS both of our sites at the same time for no other reason than we were being helpful on another forum through case study threads and it must have generated some envy. The amount of work that must have gone into investigating bread crumbs to eventually find our sites must have been on the realm of psychotic.

Even today, people are still trying to track members of this forum's sites down, even though we don't make enemies.

If your site relies on SEO, then it's best to keep it a secret.
 
Hey guys,

Buso is not new to me. Been in the game since 2010 ever since the era of wufo & wicked. Provided services here and there and Ive failed more than 10 times in the SEO game, transferred to 11 different houses. We are always getting kicked out, lights being cut, kicked out again and again :tongue: I forgot my old email and password, I remember i made a journal here as well.

Anyways Ive tried the Digital strategy course 2x already. First was around August 2016 and My last try was around march 2017. I got soo focused in the game and after a year and a half I can say that It was really a hit. I have literally did not have a chance to go back to the forums because I was so engaged in the system I am in.. It was a lot of effort and studying the niche In and out and it finally gave me and my family all the things we need and want. Upto this point Im still studying everyday, upgrades, system maintenance and a lot more. It was hard but fulfilling. I did not get into the market of SEO as the marketing research is pointing out in the course but I went a different direction and it paid off.

Im coming back for 2 things.. 1 to say thank you Buso. You guys gave me direction. I know its with me and my efforts but without BUSO and the course, I still might be working a 9/5 or being kicked out our home. 2nd To hire writers cause Im ready to expand :tongue:
 
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Glad to hear it worked out for you. You prove that its not just about having a dream or even being persistent (though you honorably had both). You have to have the right information and work methods. Spray and pray simply doesn't work out these days like it did in the late 90's to 2009. Working hard is only half of the equation. Working smart is the other half, and the depths to which we can continue to dig for better knowledge and ways to execute on that knowledge is nearly endless.

Congrats on your success and for coming back to share the good word.
 
Hi everyone,

Mackem reporting for duty!

For the last five years I've been Digital Marketing Manager a retailer here in the UK.

During that time, we've built and launched a transactional website (the first in our industry at the time) and we've grown it from 0 monthly users and sales to over 2,000,000 monthly page views and over £1,000,000 in monthly sales!

Not bad for a marketing team of 12.

Enough bragging.

I've decided that the time has come to attempt to practice what I preach and see if I can build my own website and drive a steady stream of traffic to it without the big budgets that I've become accustomed to.

I'm strongest with marketing strategy and technical development, however, I have little experience with link building, so getting some practical hands on experience with this will be a huge priority.

For the last month researched a niche that I'm "passionate" but where I feel that I can add value and has cash flowing through it. I've registered a domain, configured hosting, installed Wordpress + theme, optimised it for speed and tweaked the design as much as possible which means than now it's time to put in work.

Anyway, I'm rambling but I am looking forward to getting to know everyone here, helping where I can and sharing my project with you all.
 
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