Made my first 3000€ - [Selling backlinks]

[JakeSantiago]

Hi guys!

So a bit of a backstory. I've been interested in SEO since 2018 and have fiddle'd with it
a bit on and off. I managed to get a job as an outreach "guy" at a large SEO firm during summer of 2020.
The firm mainly deals in buying and selling backlinks.

I started learning a lot of new stuff from my work while also learning a lot from BHW.
About two months after I started working I decided to start my own blog. I really didn't have
a plan for making any money on it. My only goal was to get some sort of traffic, which I had learnt
was possible, as long as I would keep consistent in publishing content.

About a year later, summer 2021, google started indexing quite a few of my pages and I started
seeing the traffic rise (couple of 100s / month). I still wasn't making any money off it and didn't have
any plan on how I would.

I keept publishing content, and now, during december 2022. Roughly 2 1/2 years later, my website
has grown to a couple of thousands visitors / month. I decided to purchase some high quality backlinks.
(Easy to find them via my work). My goal was to start selling home page links on the blogg since I had knowledge
of the area via my work.

Now, just last week, I got my first two customers. I charge 1500€ per link per year. Making me a total
of 3000€ and my total investments are about 400€ and since I published those two links, more and more
requests have started coming in.

This has been a great experience, and such a feeling of accomplishment, that I have made MY OWN MONEY.
Not through working for someone else, but by working for myself.

Why I'm writing this "journey" is to motivate people who might be struggling right now. It took me 2 1/2 years
to start making money, but what kept me going was the fact that I knew that if I keep pushing, I WILL make money
in the end. Even if it might take a while.

I want to encourage all of you reading this, to keep going, to not give up. Most of the ways of making money in IM
is not "easy". It will take time. But I promise you, if you keep at it, you will eventually make money. Once you make
that first money you will notice a positive spiral which keeps you going.

Thank you BHW and Stay strong!

 

[Dopious]

Congratz, love your success.

 

[V]

Congrats, mate, on your success. SEO is a huge industry, and I am happy that you made good money from it.

 

[Elvlin]

grats
if you don't mind where you get the customer? manual outreach?

 

[JakeSantiago]

Congratz, love your success.

Congrats, mate, on your success. SEO is a huge industry, and I am happy that you made good money from it.

Thanks guys for the kind words!

My plan right now is to keep working on the website and try and launch another website.
I don't have any fantasies that every site will work this well but I feel like you need to "fuck around to find out".

 

[V]

Thanks guys for the kind words!

My plan right now is to keep working on the website and try and launch another website.
I don't have any fantasies that every site will work this well but I feel like you need to "fuck around to find out".

I hope you don't fuck around in your neighborhood in real life.

 

[JakeSantiago]

grats
if you don't mind where you get the customer? manual outreach?

Hey, thanks!

I operate in a sort of small country which means that site-owners are constantly looking for
new links. So what I did was simply sent out a few emails to the top affiliates in a few different niches
saying my site is available and this is where I got my customers.

 

[JakeSantiago]

I hope you don't fuck around in your neighborhood in real life.

Haha no worries man

 

[V]

saying my site is available and this is where I got my costumers.

You're doing cosplay alongside selling backlinks? Maybe that's why you're earning so much, lol.

 

[JakeSantiago]

You're doing cosplay alongside selling backlinks? Maybe that's why you're earning so much, lol.

Hahah didn't notice that. But yeah that probably why the earnings are good xD

 

[mcase]

Congratz Jake. Now the next step is to focus on how to scale it up.

 

[tattooedbuddha]

Very inspiring and motivating. Have you worked on your blog consistently over the years, or has it been on and off?

 

[scanningthru]

Congrats. Love hearing stories where things are actually working out for someone.

 

[JakeSantiago]

Congratz Jake. Now the next step is to focus on how to scale it up.

Thanks! My plan right now is to keep working on my site and then starting a second site which I will outsource to work for.

Very inspiring and motivating. Have you worked on your blog consistently over the years, or has it been on and off?

Great to hear that it was an inspiring read!

I've worked on it a bit on and off, but never really took a break longer than a month.

With that said, I havent putt any crazy amount of work into the website. Couple of hours each month. So yeah, I could probably have grown it quicker with more work but this pace felt like a good balance for me.

Congrats. Love hearing stories where things are actually working out for someone.

Thank you man!

Yeah I read a lot of threads where people struggle / feel doubt full so I wanted to contribute to motivating people.

 

[scanningthru]

Thank you man!

Yeah I read a lot of threads where people struggle / feel doubt full so I wanted to contribute to motivating people.

Would love to hear any tips you'd like to pass along since you have the knowledge

 

[bluematter]

Hello OP - Congrats on your success.

Please use multi quotes when replying otherwise you'll get a warning from mods.

Thanks!

 

[GenesisOne]

Is your site niche specific or general content op?
Congrats for your success!

 

[JakeSantiago]

Would love to hear any tips you'd like to pass along since you have the knowledge

Sure I can share a bit. You'll have to ask for specifics if there is anything you'd like to know.

But I can go over my strategy in broad strokes. So what I did was I found a niche wich wasn't really
profitable as an affiliate (or at least didn't have very many affiliates). Since this generally causes much greater competition from people who actually know SEO. @RealDaddy Has a great guide here

After I decided on a niche, I found a few competitors who had lots of traffic but very few backlinks.
I then just made a list of the articles they had written and I started writing my own articles on the subject, but longer and higher quality. If they had written 800 words, I wrote 1000 and maybe added a picture.

In my opinion, when you are first starting out, the most important thing is not to find the "perfect" keyword to write about.
The key is to simply GET STARTED and keep writing. I didn't do very much kw-research (expect for verifying search volume). I simply pumped out content and kept doing that untill I saw result. Sure, I wrote a lot of articles which google didn't even index, but if you write 50 articles, I guarantee that some of those will draw traffic. Which is why it's so important (imo) to put more time into maximizing content instead of spending hours and hours on finding the perfect keyword.

Let me know if there is anything in specific which I should cover more in depth.

Hello OP - Congrats on your success.

Please use multi quotes when replying otherwise you'll get a warning from mods.

Thanks!

Thanks for the heads up!

Is your site niche specific or general content op?
Congrats for your success!

My site is niche specific but within that niche I provide general content.

 

[AmberJones]

I charge 1500€ per link per year.

whats the DA/DR of your site? How many articles all? Handwritten or AI?

 

[Chimerat]

Congratulations on your earnings, you can scale it up now.