I've been around for a while, mostly just reading stuff. I registered here when I was out of high school and I was learning web development. I really liked the idea of making money online. Back then I was really desperate but had close to 0 money to invest.
My first serious attempt was youtube + clickbank which actually succeeded (kinda). I made a crappy video, got sales, made my investment back. But then I stopped. Why, you ask? Long story short, I got a job - my first real job. It gave me a positive feedback. Somebody was satisfied with my work, and was willing to pay for it. Back then I even considered it good money. For the first time in my life I didn't feel worthless. My family also stopped bothering me about my unemployment.
But, while I was busy with my job, the links I have purchased to rank my video got pushed out of the first page of the blog they were posted on. My ranking dropped and so did my earnings. I didn't care at the time, as I had a stable source of income. But, I have seen that I can actually make money online, which gave me this sense of comfort - if things go badly, I can make money online so at the very least I don't starve, haha.
What changed / why now?
As I write these lines, I have been working as a web developer for 4 years. I can be considered successful at what I do. I'm at a big company now, actually my 4th workplace so far. I like it here, but every time I'm forced to switch I get reminded that no matter how much you like working at a company, these opportunities come and go. You may think that you are friends with your co-workers, but the moment the company can't afford you, you get laid off. Of course, this is how things work. It's just business. But the last one hit me harder than I expected, and it reminded me of my long forgotten goal of financial independence.
I want to work on my own projects, on my own terms. No more stupid people telling me to change that popup to yellow and such, haha
I have also come to the conclusion that no matter how high my salary is, having multiple income streams is always better.
While I did purchase some services here over the years, they were mostly for clients. This is my first serious attempt in years.
Why Amazon affiliate?
To put it simply, because it has a legitimate business feel to it. You can actually help people find the products they need, plus there are other methods you can use to earn money once you have an established site. Another big reason is because I want to learn how to build a site from 0, and I also want to learn SEO. In the past 4 years I have worked on a number of sites. E-commerce, news site, travel site, company websites, you name it. But, they were always somebody else's site, and never my own. I want to work for my own benefit now.
Goal of the journey
The ultimate goal of the journey is to raise this 1 site from absolute 0 to make 1000$ / month in a year. Based on what I've seen over the years, this feels realistic. Other people may be able to do it faster, but I'm still learning SEO, and I also have the initial google sandbox to deal with.
Why 1000$? Because it's a nice number, and it's almost as high as my current salary (I live in eastern EU). If I manage to reach this, it would mean I have almost doubled my monthly income, which would allow me to invest even more money in the future. Basically, it would be the first step toward my financial independence.
I have posted the first articles on the site at the beginning of August, so the deadline is the August of 2019.
What have I done so far
As of now, my site has been online for nearly a month. I managed to get a pretty brandable domain for it (at least I like to think so). I've also put an SSL certificate on it, as I think https will be a must in the near future. Set up webmaster tools and analytics. Purchased a logo from the marketplace here, and also a premium theme from uhhh, themeforest maybe? It's the Newspaper theme for those of you who are interested.
I have used my skills as a web developer to create custom category pages. Basically, it's just a category page but I can customize it like any other page. Very convenient.
The site has a broad niche (think "kitchen tools" instead of "blenders"). It will be divided into these smaller sections (the categories). Each category page has a short description on it (300 words) to give it some topical relevance, and to help google better understand what it's about.
I have about 10 such categories planned so far, but I only created 3 for now.
The first step will be to add 2-3 "pillar articles" to each of these categories - these will require some link building to rank. However, every category will have at least ~20 support articles to help drive traffic to the main articles. These are 1000 words long, and are focused on low competition longtail keywords using the Keyword Golden Ratio, if you have heard about it.
This has multiple purposes. For one, ranking these should be easier, and once they do rank it will get my site some recognition from google, making it easier to rank the more important articles. Secondly, having these should allow me to earn some money even before I rank the bigger articles, as I interlinked them pretty well.
Currently, the site has a total of 18 posts published, out of which 5 are pillar articles. These are 3-5k words long, top X review type articles. I have also created pages like privacy, contact us, about, and added an affiliate disclaimer to the footer.
What's next?
The site only got indexed about 2 weeks ago, so there isn't any traffic to speak of, apart from the occasional 1 visitor that bounces instantly.
I want to get more traffic. Once I get a stable 10-20 a day, I'll apply to amazon affiliates (haven't done so yet). In the meantime, I'll continue working on my articles. Some are written by me, most are outsourced. But I still have to upload / format / add images / etc.
As I write these lines, I have 2 new articles on the way.
Objectives
As I have previously said, the ultimate goal of this journey is to reach 1000$ / month. However, there are some smaller landmarks I want to reach on my way there:
First sale
Well, this is it for now. I'll update this thread at least once a week, possibly more. I hope we can learn something together
My first serious attempt was youtube + clickbank which actually succeeded (kinda). I made a crappy video, got sales, made my investment back. But then I stopped. Why, you ask? Long story short, I got a job - my first real job. It gave me a positive feedback. Somebody was satisfied with my work, and was willing to pay for it. Back then I even considered it good money. For the first time in my life I didn't feel worthless. My family also stopped bothering me about my unemployment.
But, while I was busy with my job, the links I have purchased to rank my video got pushed out of the first page of the blog they were posted on. My ranking dropped and so did my earnings. I didn't care at the time, as I had a stable source of income. But, I have seen that I can actually make money online, which gave me this sense of comfort - if things go badly, I can make money online so at the very least I don't starve, haha.
What changed / why now?
As I write these lines, I have been working as a web developer for 4 years. I can be considered successful at what I do. I'm at a big company now, actually my 4th workplace so far. I like it here, but every time I'm forced to switch I get reminded that no matter how much you like working at a company, these opportunities come and go. You may think that you are friends with your co-workers, but the moment the company can't afford you, you get laid off. Of course, this is how things work. It's just business. But the last one hit me harder than I expected, and it reminded me of my long forgotten goal of financial independence.
I want to work on my own projects, on my own terms. No more stupid people telling me to change that popup to yellow and such, haha
I have also come to the conclusion that no matter how high my salary is, having multiple income streams is always better.
While I did purchase some services here over the years, they were mostly for clients. This is my first serious attempt in years.
Why Amazon affiliate?
To put it simply, because it has a legitimate business feel to it. You can actually help people find the products they need, plus there are other methods you can use to earn money once you have an established site. Another big reason is because I want to learn how to build a site from 0, and I also want to learn SEO. In the past 4 years I have worked on a number of sites. E-commerce, news site, travel site, company websites, you name it. But, they were always somebody else's site, and never my own. I want to work for my own benefit now.
Goal of the journey
The ultimate goal of the journey is to raise this 1 site from absolute 0 to make 1000$ / month in a year. Based on what I've seen over the years, this feels realistic. Other people may be able to do it faster, but I'm still learning SEO, and I also have the initial google sandbox to deal with.
Why 1000$? Because it's a nice number, and it's almost as high as my current salary (I live in eastern EU). If I manage to reach this, it would mean I have almost doubled my monthly income, which would allow me to invest even more money in the future. Basically, it would be the first step toward my financial independence.
I have posted the first articles on the site at the beginning of August, so the deadline is the August of 2019.
What have I done so far
As of now, my site has been online for nearly a month. I managed to get a pretty brandable domain for it (at least I like to think so). I've also put an SSL certificate on it, as I think https will be a must in the near future. Set up webmaster tools and analytics. Purchased a logo from the marketplace here, and also a premium theme from uhhh, themeforest maybe? It's the Newspaper theme for those of you who are interested.
I have used my skills as a web developer to create custom category pages. Basically, it's just a category page but I can customize it like any other page. Very convenient.
The site has a broad niche (think "kitchen tools" instead of "blenders"). It will be divided into these smaller sections (the categories). Each category page has a short description on it (300 words) to give it some topical relevance, and to help google better understand what it's about.
I have about 10 such categories planned so far, but I only created 3 for now.
The first step will be to add 2-3 "pillar articles" to each of these categories - these will require some link building to rank. However, every category will have at least ~20 support articles to help drive traffic to the main articles. These are 1000 words long, and are focused on low competition longtail keywords using the Keyword Golden Ratio, if you have heard about it.
This has multiple purposes. For one, ranking these should be easier, and once they do rank it will get my site some recognition from google, making it easier to rank the more important articles. Secondly, having these should allow me to earn some money even before I rank the bigger articles, as I interlinked them pretty well.
Currently, the site has a total of 18 posts published, out of which 5 are pillar articles. These are 3-5k words long, top X review type articles. I have also created pages like privacy, contact us, about, and added an affiliate disclaimer to the footer.
What's next?
The site only got indexed about 2 weeks ago, so there isn't any traffic to speak of, apart from the occasional 1 visitor that bounces instantly.
I want to get more traffic. Once I get a stable 10-20 a day, I'll apply to amazon affiliates (haven't done so yet). In the meantime, I'll continue working on my articles. Some are written by me, most are outsourced. But I still have to upload / format / add images / etc.
As I write these lines, I have 2 new articles on the way.
Objectives
As I have previously said, the ultimate goal of this journey is to reach 1000$ / month. However, there are some smaller landmarks I want to reach on my way there:
First sale
- Have an average of 10 visitors / day in a single month
- 50 visitors / day average
- 100 visitors / day average
- Have at least 50 articles published
- 100 articles published
- Rank one of the pillar articles on the first page for its main keyword
- Rank a pillar article in the 1st position for its main search term
- Make my first guest post
- Have a month where I sold something every single day
Well, this is it for now. I'll update this thread at least once a week, possibly more. I hope we can learn something together