Summary:


I'm pretty new to the internet marketing scene, have lurked for about a year and tossed up some domains here in there. I've tried marketing some adult referral CPC sites with some success but find that scene pretty crude and want something I can work on anywhere (coffee shops, home, etc.).


I have a few domains, one that's a pretty awesome name I've held onto for a few years. The name is not going to be released here but it's a dotcom similar to a backpage word I feel could really help in the future.


I'm going to start with more of a broad niche site based around things you can do to improve your life as a whole. I'm going to stick with a few topics/categories on the site based around my topic, think finances, health, etc.


My background and full-time job is based around systems administration in the cloud. Setting up load-balancers, scaling sites, mild scripting, and customer support in general.


My domain I'm using for this Journal is a dotcom with those two keywords I mentioned in the domain.


I will be updating this thread with my progress, earnings, money spent, and things I've learned at the very least twice a week.




What I've done so far:


I have my domain purchased and setup on my server with a pretty basic Wordpress theme, I'm using Google Aps for my mail and tracking through Analytics. I'm not sure if really having Google Aps is an unnecessary step I need to take but I've added it there to keep track of my mail across various sites a little easier. I don't want to have a ton of logins to manage everytime I sign-up with Twitter, Fiverr, or any other site out there.


I made a Twitter account with the keywords of my site and uploaded a picture/background. I've tweeted a couple times and clicked on a bunch of people to start following. Under 25 followers at this time.


I've paid a service to write me a few 500 word unique articles, this cost me $3.




What I'm working on now:


I really think I need to plan the site map a little more, I'm using custom permalinks with Wordpress and want to keep the format similar to domain.com/pagetitle/posttitle. I think having these long articles hit the front page on each new post is a good idea but want to have it truncated so someone can click “Read More” to see the full article.


I plan on sticking only with adsense for the ads on my site, I would like to get the site format and the rest of my structure (twitter, mail, youtube, planning, etc.) down first before I toss up ads on the website. Having more than 2 unique visitors/day will definitely be a requirement as well.


I'm going to mess around with my template and get some of the format correct, post a couple more submissions to my article writing service for a bit more content as well. Breakfast is in the works right now so I'm going to fill myself, get some coffee and get a Youtube page up with a few uploads from some related content that is already out there (youtube downloader program).




Money Spent:


Domain Registration: $11
3x 500 word articles: $3


TOTAL: $14




Money Earned:


$0

Good luck ! your project appear to be serious!

What I'm working on now:

Permalink structure is setup how I like it and I really have my theme customized the way I want it, looks like it has some great scaling potential.

I have not added any ads with adsense yet, I think I'll add this today but really need to research what kind of ads will be relevant. I have a tube channel up with a few relevant videos I re-uploaded from others, I added in some extra tags and placed my site name and some relevant words in the description.

Since 1/28/2012 I've had 3 unique visitors aside from myself so far.

I also spent $2.20 on two more 400 word articles.

I really am not sure what I should be working on at this point, I don't even know what to use for my keywords exactly. Time to read up a little bit and try out some keyword research tools if I can find them.

Update:

Well I've optimized the layout of my site a little better, I like the new structure and have my adsense placement in a good spot for now. I have 9 unique visitors from Jan 30th - Feb 10th. I used a Fiverr gig to buy 9000 followers to my Twitter page, I've been tweeting about once a day saying something along the lines of "Check out my new article on #*keyword* LINK"

These followers really look fake, most of them do not have any followers and are following hundreds of other people. I really don't think my tweets are doing anything, waste of $5

What I'm working on now:

I really am at a loss here, maybe some more articles I guess. I will update you guys in the next couple days to let you know what happens.

Money Spent:

$5.20 - 5x 400-500 word unique articles
$5 - Fiverr gig for 9000 twitter followers
$11 - Domain Registration

Total: $21.20

Good luck man I'm with you on 0 to the sky.

Yes, you are correct, the twitter follows from Fiverr are fake and useless. Also your english seems to be good, so you can write the articles by yourself. Save your money for more important investments like seo services, tools, links, etc...And yes, spend some time on your keywords research because this is very important factor for your results. You can try Market Samurai free trial or have a look at the threads for free Traffic Travis. Good luck!

Update:

February 10th - 11th, 0 unique visitors.

I'm trying to go after some targeted twitter followers on my own with some free software. I'm not sure what happened but I found they were not getting added. I can follow people manually on twitter but I don't think it's taking requests from the API with this program. I have over 9k followers (almost all fake) on my twitter account, I really wish I didn't buy that fiverr gig now since it may have screwed my limits up.

I am a native English speaker but I really hate writing my own content, I just got 4 targeted articles back from blastcontent which turned out pretty good. I'm going to post a new one each day to my site I think to keep a steady stream of content for now.

What I'm working on now:

Lots of twitter stuff, trying to see what will work for me. I'm saying something with my keywords and linking to the article it's targeted to.

Money Spent:

$28 - 4x targeted articles
$5.20 - 5x 400-500 word unique articles
$5 - Fiverr gig for 9000 twitter followers
$11 - Domain Registration

Total: $49.20

Update:

February 11th - 14th, 10 unique visitors.

I have my own cloud servers so I'm running most of my software off there. I tried a twitter application and added some followers automatically based on keywords and sent out a bunch of tweets the past couple days.

The trial is over now, I think I'm done with it for now. I have 0 going for me as far as backlinks and a linkwheel, I guess I need some of these huh?

What I'm working on now:

Hopefully trying to knock something out and be productive before I leave on vacation. Looking into link building.

Good luck man. Try the free version of TweetAttacks to build some followers for your twitter account

Yeah, Tweet Attacks is great for followers, looking forward to your progress

Agree...the free version of TweetAttacks is the way to go before you need to scale. Any reason why you don't write your own articles? Look around for Dragon Naturally Speaking here...makes the job super easy.