Viral Journey

[theoneguy]

I missed a day because I had to get 2 teeth pulled (emergency).

I've been learning how to transfer data in pdf pages to excel because PDF's are where my data is sourced from.

That's taken up some hours to perfect because I've never done something like this with excel and I don't use excel everyday.

Finally, I was able to make my work flow more efficient by learning this excel trick. All I have to do after extracting pdf data to excel is to export as a csv and upload/import it in bulk to my database.

The only thing I can't seem to fix is importing images from excel... I've tried inserting images for each cell and importing but it's not working. So, I have to go back one-by-one and upload images. Ugh... it almost defeats the purpose of bulk importing the data in the first place.

So now, I'm trying to find a solution to the image upload problem. At the same time, I am uploading images to each piece of data separately one-by-one.

The time it will take me to find a solution to the image problem will be much less time consuming than entering each piece of data manually... so I'll be back with an update.

Still in the "data entry phase".

 

[theoneguy]

Yeah, so I was able to import data quiker than I can enter it manually (obviously).

I sent a requested for assistance with this to solve the images not importing issue.

Waiting to hear back.

Until then, I am "semi-manually" importing/entering data into my database now... better than totally manually!

 

[theoneguy]

Okay, fixed the image import problem.

Now everything from excel imports into my database.

Today I am compiling all sets-of-data into excel: get data from pdf --> transform data --> append data --> csv --> then import

It's much more efficient than entering the data manually and it is FREE.

Hopefully by the end of day I'll have ALL the data imported.

 

[giantmetrix]

Hello everyone,

I'm embarking on a journey to the other side.

My goal is to obtain enough money to rent a camper for 3 months and travel around my country, the US, for 3 months straight, all expenses covered, fuel - food etc.

What a dream...

I've been able to travel already, periodically, no longer than 1 month at a time, in a rental car, within the last 3 years, by experimenting with another business adventure I created.

Now, I am pursuing another idea...

Content monetization.

I've chosen a niche and I have a rough idea about how I will obtain traffic and monetize my website.

After about 10 hours of research spanning about 4-5 days, I identified a name and registered 2 domain name variations.

Today my goal will be to complete these tasks:

• purchasing a website theme w/ associated add ons or plugins
• using a A.I. tool to help with initial 10 blog posts for the blog
• making sure SEO is good such as meta & geo tags
• setting up analytics
• Editing main content
• placing ad blocks on pages (I have popads account & monetag to start) ...
• submit request for Adsense
• placing affiliate ads (I'm using clickbank to start because they have alot of offers in my niche)
• Setting up keyword alerts on various platforms that notify me across 9 social channels
• setting up either a social share content locker or url/content locker with cpagrip or both... maybe a subscribe/email locker.
• using a tool to identify trending social posts containing my keyword to kickstart the traffic.
• using A.I. to create video that I will post on my social profiles such as Youtube etc.

The plan of action (could change along the way!):

Traffic source will be free... commenting on trending and new social content associated with my niche/keyword. LOTS OF WORK!

So, to kick off the new website, once I complete it, I'll be using a tool that scans pretty much all social channels and search engines for my keywords, then I'll be visiting each site/social post and leaving a comment about my website or about my social page (on the same social media site) that links to my website.

I will be working on this EVERY DAY along with my day job. So some days I will post late... but I will be updating every day!

Feel free to share your experience or your support!

As soon as I start seeing traffic data or sales data I will post the screenshots here to share the progress!

Sounds super exciting, I wish you the best!!!

 

[theoneguy]

Great news!

Learning excel quickly allowed me to propagate approximately 7,000 cells of data done in about an hour.

I've entered 100's manually and it took days!

What a relief!

 

[theoneguy]

I hit another roadblock.

I started looking through the excel data and noticed only the first page of each pdf was extracted.

I am now trying to find information about how to extract all pages from all pdfs in power query.

I'll be back with an update.

 

[theoneguy]

Okay, so I can't find an excel solution that solves my problem within the hour.

I'm going to have to append each pdf separately save as excel then append each excel into one excel export as csv...

But I found a tool called PDFsam that will show me each page count in the 73 pdfs I have left.

I found 27 PDFs with more than 1 page... the others are just 1 page.

So, now I know that I can use excel power query to combine and transform the PDFs identified with only 1 page quickly.

Then I only have the 27 PDFs I'll have to append each as individually with power query in order to extract each page of data in those PDFs.

I am still saving hours of time.

I should be DONE with database stage BY END OF DAY.

 

[theoneguy]

Well, not done.

I ran into some other challenges.

I have almost all of the data loaded into excel except for the image links.

So, I'm going to google and finding images then copying links and pasting them into the appropriates rows in excel.

I have 1,400+ rows to paste images to so that's what I'm doing now.

Then, all I have to do is upload/import the data in my website and be DONE with this part.

Everything after should be a breeeze

 

[theoneguy]

I've entered in manually ALOT of image links in rows but it's just taking up too much time.

I found HTTtrack will help me get image links that I can copy paste.

This way I dont have to type url, click to specific page, right click copy image link and paste.

All I have to do is copy the appropriate image link from htttrack and paste. I will have tabs minimized so everything is right in front of me and I dont have to bother with closing pages etc.


Will update tomorrow

 

[alexiesoul]

Best of luck !!!!!

 

[theoneguy]

HTTtrack was useless for this.

I did find a web scraper addon for firefox but it did not work for images with forward path extensions.

So, I just ctrl + click each page in tabs and manually right click + copy & paste into excel then copy & paste image link to each row per category.

This leaves me with ALL 1435 rows + 8 columns (including image links).

NOW I need to convert 1435 address to zip/postal codes adding a 9th column.

It has been EXTREMELY time consuming to find a solution to such a simple problem: converting address to zip / postal code.

There are paid services BUT I have a hard time believing there is not a free solution.

I DID find Google Sheets accepts custom script via Apps Script that I tried and it did work but it is limited to ONLY 300 uses.

What a joke... I laughed.

I also ran into another problem with importing the data. I attempted to import the CSV with 1435 rows + 8 columns (without zip codes) into my database but it seems there is some LIMITATION.

I sent a support email to the developer to SOLVE the limitation issue.

WOW. Roadblock after roadblock...

So I am currently waiting for a reply from the developer about the import limitations (another joke) and I am searching for a free solution to convert address to zip/postal code in bulk. If no free solution can be found by tomorrow then I'll will use a paid source I found after hours of researching my options.

After ALL is done, I will have 12,915 cells of data imported, PLUS the 4,050 cells of data that I entered manually into my database, then I can then start focusing on MONETIZATION!

 

[quietamerican]

Do you know any python? I'm not sure exactly what you're doing but between Automate the Boring Stuff and the thousands of tutorials online for rearranging csvs with python it seems like you could save a lot of time. For very simple tasks free tiers of claude or chatgpt will help as well.

 

[theoneguy]

Do you know any python? I'm not sure exactly what you're doing but between Automate the Boring Stuff and the thousands of tutorials online for rearranging csvs with python it seems like you could save a lot of time. For very simple tasks free tiers of claude or chatgpt will help as well.

Thanks.

I've come across this in my research.

To finish converting the addresses to zip codes I'll be using botster (paid).

The developer said the upload limitation could be a hosting restriction.

So, I'll be splitting uploads/imports to ensure ALL data is imported uploaded... today.

 

[theoneguy]

OKAY!

I have completed the 'database phase' of my project!

In total, there is 18,324 data points split into 26 separate categories that I've integrated into an interactive map on my website.

Now I have to:

• Create a landing page containing selectable images of each category that when selected the visitor must subscribe/register and after submitting name and email (or phone number) they'll be redirected to the map they chose.
• Locking the map only to subscribers/members (learning how to do this).
• Converting all of my data into visual graphs, charts etc. and requiring (paid) yearly membership to access it.
• Advertising/marketing my database/website (creating adverts and sales messages etc.)

Instead of monetizing with a third party I decided to monetize directly with membership.

The market is interested in the data I will be compiling into a simple visualization and easy-to-read supporting explanation that will help them make the best informed decision about how and where to spend their money and with who.

There is not any database like mine likely because of the work involved into aggregating all data points together.

The niche itself is extremely competitive. However, I am not concerned with competition because I am not trying to compete... I am doing a service to the niche in which the competitors within it can benefit from as well as the consumers.

I am targeting consumers first.

Will update when the next phase is completed.

 

[MR.Spuf]

I love the energy and progress, good luck with the journey!

 

[theoneguy]

Okay I've researched ways to content lock my data and I have reasoned that it would be more appropriate to directly monetize.

So, instead of monetizing with third party affiliate offers, native ads or CPA networks, I will be selling a yearly subscription for the information I compiled and made useful.

Now that I can see the bigger picture, my database could be made an affiliate offer for affiliates to make money with. (future thought)

After some research, I decided to "lock" my content by requiring paid membership.

I bought a Wordpress membership plugin and I am configuring that now. I'm learning as I go and I still have to integrate my payment processor which is square and my email marketing provider mailerlite to name a few. I also need to configure a new front-end page or landing page or sales page.

On top of that, I still have to use a tool like datamapper to make my data visible and easy to understand following a conclusion to a likely hood or probability of a certain thing occurring based on my visual statistics.

The data is changing every month so the yearly subscription would cover 12 months of updates about new information.

I was first thinking that I will offer 2 subscriptions. One for $15 and the other for $60. The $15 package would get you access to basic data and the $60 package would get you access to deep data insights.

I think I still have to do some market research and identify what the consumers spend on average to get an idea about my pricing. It is extremely useful information to them but I don't want to sell too low and devalue my content. I also don't want to sell too high and not make any sales. So...

Once that is done, I think I'll go out and find some strangers who would be interested in my subscription, and who have a Facebook (or other social media), and give them FREE access in exchange for reviews on social media (most likely Facebook business page because I want to go viral). Then after about 10 reviews I'll go ahead and kick off with a sponsored post like an explainer marketing video with about $100-$200 ad spend. On top of that I will continue with the original plan setting up alerts for keyword mentions on various social platforms and online and sharing the information (my website/database) EVERYDAY to those interested.

Now that I think about it, I think I will start reaching out to local social influencers who's following is likely involved in my chosen niche and give them free access in exchange for a review... maybe a shout out too!

Will update tomorrow.

 

[blogmen]

Nice journey! You seem to be a hardworking person. I'm curious what drives you? Have you done this before and you're confident it'll pay off? Or are you very enthused to try this idea?

Good luck!

 

[k2h2]

What total cost would be for the travel that you want to raise?

 

[theoneguy]

Nice journey! You seem to be a hardworking person. I'm curious what drives you? Have you done this before and you're confident it'll pay off? Or are you very enthused to try this idea?

Good luck!

What drives me is to have more freedom. My day job's are labor intensive and I give ALOT of my time and energy away. I want to be able to travel full time.

I have made money with another online service business I pursued and it did allow me to travel without worry for about 30 days. The previous service business was more involved with customers and there just isn't enough time in the day for me manage that business on top of my day jobs.

This current project will be focused on marketing interests with minimal involvement with leads. I mean minimal involvement as in I won't have to get on the phone for 45 minutes every week or answer up to 100 emails per day.

I am inclined to get this up and going because I am also interested in the data because it helps me make better decisions about certain purchases and I know I'm not the only one interested it's just that believe it or not there isn't anything like it. There are some websites that are close but now that I know how much work involved and all of the roadblocks to bring it into existence isn't cost effective for anyone. The cost would surpass $10k just with freelancers to accomplish it.

I am 99% confident that this will pay off very soon.

So much that I will be working through the night with possibly no sleep becuase that's how sure I am.

 

[theoneguy]

What total cost would be for the travel that you want to raise?

$3k ($3,000 dollars) per month will cover everything.

I'm shooting for $10k ($10,000 dollars) per month.

That's what is in my mind anyway.

If I can make $3k this month then I know I can hit the road in January and manage everything on-the-road.

Hopefully for up to 3 months.