[Journey] Complete beginner tries SEO for the first time

[rawreligion]

Hello my dears!

I read a lot of journeys on the forum that inspired me to begin my own journey. What's the point of reading all these journeys without even trying it on your own at least once, right?

Basic information about me:

• I am complete noob in the SEO. I never tries it even once
• The only way I earned money in the internet was getting adult traffic and freelancing (I have some programming skills, made bots for TikTok). I made with adult traffic a little less than 1000$ but then my scheme died so I've given up on that. With freelancing I made only maybe 500$. Of course this is still option for me but I'd try something new. So here I am.

My initial goal would be get at least 100$/day by the 21.10.23. I give myself 6 months for that. Maybe it's too big goal for me as a beginner but I think the higher goal I set the more efforts I will put into this so eventually I will make more money.

My current subgoals are following:

1. At first because of my inexperience I will just find a course on SEO (which I already found) and watch it to just get first glance at the new field.
2. After watching the course I need some practice. So I will pick some niche
3. Make a website in that niche
4. Write articles on that site
5. Do the SEO on the site
6. Analyze the statistics, change something, repeat

Throughout my journey I will also divide all these subgoals into even smaller once, but that's just the initial plan.

Wish me good luck on that!

 

[Mr. Blackhat]

Good luck! It's not all about on-page and off-page SEO however. Make sure you look up how to choose a good niche and how to do keyword research. If your niche and keywords are too competitive you will have to invest a lot of time and money in order to rank. I remember my first site ever, it was a medical site about back pain, at most I made $10/mo on Amazon and then Google came with the medic update and I got obliterated.

What course are you looking at? Have a look at the members download section and see if you can find something helpful for your project.

 

[rawreligion]

Good luck! It's not all about on-page and off-page SEO however. Make sure you look up how to choose a good niche and how to do keyword research. If your niche and keywords are too competitive you will have to invest a lot of time and money in order to rank. I remember my first site ever, it was a medical site about back pain, at most I made $10/mo on Amazon and then Google came with the medic update and I got obliterated.

What course are you looking at? Have a look at the members download section and see if you can find something helpful for your project.

Thank you very much.

Yeah, the first try is always special and will be memorized for a long time. What do you mean by "medic update"? Google forbid making medical sites or something like that?

I am looking the course that explains the process of building the money making site from the beginning with explanations even for dummies like me (link building, how off page and on page seo is done, how to do keyword research, how to pick right niche, how to make a website, etc). Not necessary all that in one, but the more information I get the better perspective I get.
I will look at the download section, thank you for a tip.

 

[Darzori]

Good luck!

 

[rawreligion]

Thanks!

 

[Mr. Blackhat]

Thank you very much.

Yeah, the first try is always special and will be memorized for a long time. What do you mean by "medic update"? Google forbid making medical sites or something like that?

I am looking the course that explains the process of building the money making site from the beginning with explanations even for dummies like me (link building, how off page and on page seo is done, how to do keyword research, how to pick right niche, how to make a website, etc). Not necessary all that in one, but the more information I get the better perspective I get.
I will look at the download section, thank you for a tip.

Well, it's only called the medic update but it was a broad core update rolled out in 2018 that affected YMYL sites massively. It completely wiped out a lot of medical and financial sites in just a week. The site was already poorly built so I didn't even bother trying to resurrect it. Don't get me wrong, these niches still work today and make a lot of money, it's just super competitive and require great focus on SEO.

Another tip is try to stay away from seasonal niches. While golf for example has a lot of fanatics who like to spend big on expensive gear, these type of sites go down in revenue a lot during winter. Are you interested in affiliate or ad revenue mainly?

 

[rawreligion]

Well, it's only called the medic update but it was a broad core update rolled out in 2018 that affected YMYL sites massively. It completely wiped out a lot of medical and financial sites in just a week. The site was already poorly built so I didn't even bother trying to resurrect it. Don't get me wrong, these niches still work today and make a lot of money, it's just super competitive and require great focus on SEO.

Another tip is try to stay away from seasonal niches. While golf for example has a lot of fanatics who like to spend big on expensive gear, these type of sites go down in revenue a lot during winter. Are you interested in affiliate or ad revenue mainly?

Interesting story. What did you switch to as the next target? And how much did you manage to do until this update? Do those update happen very often?
Sorry for a lot of questions, I'm just very curious.

About affiliate or ad revenue... This is a question I am thinking about. In the future I hope I will make my own info products about programming and sale them, I guess the revenue in that case much bigger when promoting other's product.
For now I think I will look on affiliates market to search something that interests me, otherwise I will lost the motivation very quickly. When I will not find interesting offers I will pick just a general niche and plan for ad revenue.

 

[rawreligion]

I already tried to get some traffic with referer spam technique but as you can see there was not so much success.

 

[Mr. Blackhat]

Interesting story. What did you switch to as the next target? And how much did you manage to do until this update? Do those update happen very often?
Sorry for a lot of questions, I'm just very curious.

About affiliate or ad revenue... This is a question I am thinking about. In the future I hope I will make my own info products about programming and sale them, I guess the revenue in that case much bigger when promoting other's product.
For now I think I will look on affiliates market to search something that interests me, otherwise I will lost the motivation very quickly. When I will not find interesting offers I will pick just a general niche and plan for ad revenue.

I had the site running for 8 months and made maybe $100 max during that time. When building that site I didn't know anything at all about keyword research and SEO, I just tried to copy the concept of another site. When that site crashed I lost courage and gave up for a long time, eventually I started my second site in the outdoors niche which is still running today even if I haven't done anything in almost 2 years and only have around 50 articles.

SEO is not easy, Google will try their best to drop your rankings. It's a long-term approach unless you do link building to speed up the process. Realistically I would say you need a full year or more to see the full potential of a website, it's not impossible to earn $100/day in a years time but it will require dedication and a lot of content.

 

[rawreligion]

I had the site running for 8 months and made maybe $100 max during that time. When building that site I didn't know anything at all about keyword research and SEO, I just tried to copy the concept of another site. When that site crashed I lost courage and gave up for a long time, eventually I started my second site in the outdoors niche which is still running today even if I haven't done anything in almost 2 years and only have around 50 articles.

SEO is not easy, Google will try their best to drop your rankings. It's a long-term approach unless you do link building to speed up the process. Realistically I would say you need a full year or more to see the full potential of a website, it's not impossible to earn $100/day in a years time but it will require dedication and a lot of content.

I see.
Did you use affiliate networks to promote some offer or get that revenue by ads?
Could you maybe recommend me some affiliate networks, I registered on clickbank and look for offers but they all seem to me shitty.

 

[achiever2011]

This journey thread will have lot to learn for new members of BHW who want to do seo for own projects.

 

[Mr. Blackhat]

I see.
Did you use affiliate networks to promote some offer or get that revenue by ads?
Could you maybe recommend me some affiliate networks, I registered on clickbank and look for offers but they all seem to me shitty.

I only used Amazon, no ads on either of the sites as the number of visitors is so low it would only generate maybe $2-5 extra per month. Except for Amazon you have Walmart and other stores as well as shareasale. In most niches you have specific affiliate programs for products, just look at the major stores for the affiliate program link in the footer. When it comes to digital products I'm sure there are other members with more experience that can chime in.

Do those update happen very often?
Sorry for a lot of questions, I'm just very curious.

Forgot to answer this one. Google drops new updates all the time, most of them are small and you won't notice anything. It used to be once per year or something that they dropped a major core update but lately they've been going hard. I think last year we had 5 major updates between may and December, sometimes 2 going on at the same time. Just don't spam or buy bad backlinks, these sites will always get hit in the next update.

 

[kalpana007]

Following the journey. Good luck.

 

[rawreligion]

This journey thread will have lot to learn for new members of BHW who want to do seo for own projects.

Exactly

I only used Amazon, no ads on either of the sites as the number of visitors is so low it would only generate maybe $2-5 extra per month. Except for Amazon you have Walmart and other stores as well as shareasale. In most niches you have specific affiliate programs for products, just look at the major stores for the affiliate program link in the footer. When it comes to digital products I'm sure there are other members with more experience that can chime in.


Forgot to answer this one. Google drops new updates all the time, most of them are small and you won't notice anything. It used to be once per year or something that they dropped a major core update but lately they've been going hard. I think last year we had 5 major updates between may and December, sometimes 2 going on at the same time. Just don't spam or buy bad backlinks, these sites will always get hit in the next update.

Okay thank you. What about buying expired domains? Will Google penalize me for an expired domain?

Following the journey. Good luck.

Thanks!

 

[rawreligion]

[Update]
Okay I looked at a lot of offers on clickbank and all of them were shitty in my opinion, so I decided to pick a general niche in which I have some experience and interest. My revenue will come whether from google ads or I will promote some products on Amazon associated with my niche.

Now I will do a keyword research in my niche. I found here on the forum 2 useful guides for complete beginners which were written by the same person @PHPInjected:
https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/guide-tutorials-a-short-beginners-guide-to-blackhat-seo.1134018/
https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/guide-tutorials-a-short-beginners-guide-to-blackhat-seo-part-2-3k-words.1424475/
There are a lot of content so now I will just read it carefully, make some notes and literally repeat the process shown in these 2 guides.

 

[rawreligion]

Hello again!

I took a pause because had some problems in my life but I am ready to continue.

As for now I bought domain (not aged one though) and set up my site. I used free GeneratorPress plugin and ready to go mockup from the store. Then I registered my site in search console and already have some impressions even though I did not do anything


When I started I thought the process would be much harder to be honest.

Now I already did keyword research and I have some good themes write articles about. My biggest question should I use AI to generate an article or make it fully on my own? I heard that Google penalizes sites with AI content. I will try both options and see how google will react to that.

 

[Hubery]

Hello again!

I took a pause because had some problems in my life but I am ready to continue.

As for now I bought domain (not aged one though) and set up my site. I used free GeneratorPress plugin and ready to go mockup from the store. Then I registered my site in search console and already have some impressions even though I did not do anything
View attachment 253987

When I started I thought the process would be much harder to be honest.

Now I already did keyword research and I have some good themes write articles about. My biggest question should I use AI to generate an article or make it fully on my own? I heard that Google penalizes sites with AI content. I will try both options and see how google will react to that.

Hi dude, I bookmarked this post and hope to grow with you. I have seen some methods of automating AI-generated articles in forums, which have attracted a lot of traffic in a short period of time; I have also seen some people being punished by the Google algorithm for updating AI articles, which seems difficult to choose.

 

[TechEinstien]

Just focus on On-page SEO and quality content. It will do wonders with a little off page SEO.

 

[rawreligion]

Hi dude, I bookmarked this post and hope to grow with you. I have seen some methods of automating AI-generated articles in forums, which have attracted a lot of traffic in a short period of time; I have also seen some people being punished by the Google algorithm for updating AI articles, which seems difficult to choose.

Hey! Could you send me links to these methods? It would be nice to see it. Thanks in advance and good luck with your path!

Just focus on On-page SEO and quality content. It will do wonders with a little off page SEO.

Okay, thanks for the tip. I really appreciate it.

 

[seomaster5]

You should read other blogging related journeys on BHW. Many members explained use of SEO there.