Stop thinking small

[DunderMannen]

Ever since I started this online shit I got beat in the dick over and over again until my mindset shrunk to "being able to survive". After about a year of grinding I finally got to the survival point and was super happy about it. Of course since my mindset was set solely on "being able to live off this" - I stopped working once I was. I made €4k per month from my SEO assets with literally 0 work - why would I scale it?

This was back in 2022, then 2023 came and it continued working the same. I barely worked, well I did, but I never risked anything as this was my living bread, how could I risk 1k to test something? I spent 0 on backlinks, 0 on content and 0 on employees. Well, that kept me in the same place for those 2 years, and I was completely fine with it.

2024 came and I started getting really scared because of all the chatter everywhere about niche sites being dead and "SEO is dying" was all I was telling myself in my brain. I got so scared in fact, I sold my entire portfolio of sites (making 4k/mo), for a seriously minor amount due to some core updates during the selling process. Which is fine honestly, as that portfolio of sites actually didn't take too much time to build. But at the same time - fuck me I was so scared and really thought everything was falling apart.

During summer I focused on everything but creating cash flow, making good looking sites, tried social media again, listening to niche site twitter, starting a shitty ecommerce site that looked really good. Basically - I tried everything else but the thing I was actually good at, SEO. I started panicking about 3 months back, realizing the bank balance is running low, I will only be able to live off that exit for a couple more months. So? I decided to do it differently this time, fuck it, test everything I can and go all in once a concept is working. During these last three months I went from 0 MRR, to double my peak month of all time. All because I took some risks.

Moral of the story? If it works - go all in. And stop listening to all the grifters on the web, niche sites won't be dead for another 5 years, nor will SEO.

 

[BakerStreet]

It is really important to be rational when you run a business. You heard anxiety producing news and sold your businesses. That wasn't rational. That was emotional. What I suggest is you get a business partner. It is always easier to talk things through with someone who has a vested interest in the company just like you. It eases these worries. That's why Y Combinator only allows founding teams of at least 2 people. You need the emotional support.

Also, what I learned recently is that the world is an uncertain place and will be even more uncertain. A healthy organisation is one that responds quickly to changes. New update negatively affect your site? Quickly run through the kitchen sink and do everything to fix it. Site not getting indexed? quickly do everything from backlinks to new sitemap etc to fix it. No time to learn and theorise. Just move quickly.

This is at the startup level or even at the multi-million dollar company level. Everyone needs to respond to the environment fast if they want to adapt and stay alive.

good to see that you got your shit together.

Also, are you saying that you went from 0 to 8k MRR in 3 months with SEO? Is this real?

 

[DunderMannen]

It is really important to be rational when you run a business. You heard anxiety producing news and sold your businesses. That wasn't rational. That was emotional. What I suggest is you get a business partner. It is always easier to talk things through with someone who has a vested interest in the company just like you. It eases these worries. That's why Y Combinator only allows founding teams of at least 2 people. You need the emotional support.

Also, what I learned recently is that the world is an uncertain place and will be even more uncertain. A healthy organisation is one that responds quickly to changes. New update negatively affect your site? Quickly run through the kitchen sink and do everything to fix it. Site not getting indexed? quickly do everything from backlinks to new sitemap etc to fix it. No time to learn and theorise. Just move quickly.

This is at the startup level or even at the multi-million dollar company level. Everyone needs to respond to the environment fast if they want to adapt and stay alive.

good to see that you got your shit together.

Also, are you saying that you went from 0 to 8k MRR in 3 months with SEO? Is this real?

1. Yes, very true, I should’ve listened to my dad. He told me to think and act rationally instead of being so scared, but I did not as you say…

2. Yes, it’s true Newly registered sites seem to be flying like no other these days, honestly I’m surprised myself. I’ve been in the SEO game for 3+ years and never seen such results this quickly before, it’s like something is broken almost…

 

[Ryuzaki]

Newly registered sites seem to be flying like no other these days, honestly I’m surprised myself.

What kind of site are we talking? Content site? eCommerce? SaaS? News?

 

[secretagentdad]

1. Yes, very true, I should’ve listened to my dad. He told me to think and act rationally instead of being so scared, but I did not as you say…

2. Yes, it’s true Newly registered sites seem to be flying like no other these days, honestly I’m surprised myself. I’ve been in the SEO game for 3+ years and never seen such results this quickly before, it’s like something is broken almost…

The winners are noticing. Outer -_-

Isn't it fun playing to win and with fresh domains.
Reg fee to profitability in months is a heck of a lot more fun than playing the wait years or pay up to gamble with somebodies marked up left over domain games.
The question remains how long will they allow this. Eventually the crowd catches wind and they have to close paths to keep the spam under control.

Typically I'm a lazy ass hat. Right now I'm working overtime.
The outlay to get up and running has never been lower. With AI assistance for design and content plus new regs getting fairer treatment than historically we're seeing the first swing back towards indy webmastering as a biz model in years. My schizo babble guess is the reputation abuse updates have lowered the barrier to entering the upper index for category specific page rank brackets of some sort.

Don't feel bad about selling your business. Liquidity right now is primo and you got to start in the best window we've had in years. You'd likely have ended up stuck sorting out penalties on the old one anyway with the way the black hats have taken over.