Back to basics — My new journey

[Alpha1404]

I've had a good start to the year: I got fired from one of the editorial departments where I worked.

I'd been working for them for eight years. After thinking about it, I said to myself, “screw them”. The reality is that this job wasn't my main source of income.

So, I decided to resurrect one of my old blogs, whose domain name I've had for a very long time (since 2011? 2012? Something like that).

I got rid of everything, set up a new site and started from scratch.

I used to write film and TV columns for my old newsroom. But I absolutely had to include IT in my columns. Now I'm finally going to indulge myself and stop going on endlessly about the pseudo SQL injections that make it possible (or not) to hack into a nuclear power plant. I promise you that eight years of writing about it, at the rate of one column a week, will end up going round in circles.

I've almost finished the site itself and put my first articles on it. I'm publicly launching the site next week.

I have several categories, but my most visible part is horror cinema. I must have seen about 300 of them, not counting the horror series.

I'll wait a bit until it's well indexed and gets some traffic. Then I'll monetize it with Adsense. I'm going to add movie quizzes, as they work well enough to “capture” the reader.

Investment: €0 for the moment. I already had the domain name and hosting. As for the theme, I made a child theme from Color Mag because it's simple.

I won't be advertising on X (formerly Twitter) because the social network's bad reputation will cost me more than it's worth.

On the other hand, I'm going to invest again in Facebook. In another thread, I explained how I'd bought an FB group and developed it from scratch.

As for backlinks, I'll put them aside and see later.

I'm going to do the same for other sites, including this one about cinema.

For the material, especially new films, it's not a problem: I had contacts in the agencies in charge of film production and distribution, and when I asked, they sent me advance copies of films.

I'm aware that I'm entering an ultra-saturated niche, but I'm not too worried. I've seen both very commercial films and fairly unknown films, which will be easy enough to rank in the top ten results.

So it's back to basics, and we're going to make it profitable.

 

[Dopious]

Great, do what you love and it does not feel like work. Good luck on your new journey now.

 

[Alpha1404]

Great, do what you love and it does not feel like work. Good luck on your new journey now.

Thanks sweety

 

[davids355]

Sometimes it’s good to clear out the “dead wood” and build from there. After all, if they fired you then you weren’t appreciated.

Similar thing happened to me recently where I lost one of my biggest clients but I’m thinking the same way; clear out the relationships that are not optimal and start working to build new clients where both parties are on the same page.

Onwards and upwards for 2025 and good luck with your journey.

 

[Nut-Nights]

Best of luck, and dont forget to add your site to Google news once its old enough.

 

[Spicy Chromosomes]

Good luck with your journey, I will be following it

 

[Ben17484]

I look forward to following along. I’m starting a couple of new sites with the intention of monetising with Adsense, so it’ll be good to see how you get along as well.

 

[Alpha1404]

Sometimes it’s good to clear out the “dead wood” and build from there. After all, if they fired you then you weren’t appreciated.

Similar thing happened to me recently where I lost one of my biggest clients but I’m thinking the same way; clear out the relationships that are not optimal and start working to build new clients where both parties are on the same page.

Onwards and upwards for 2025 and good luck with your journey.

The funny thing is that my latest papers worked out really well.

From what my former boss told me, management tried to move into digital marketing in 2024, and it didn't work out so well. So, with the logic that characterizes them, they're persisting for 2025 and getting rid of me, who doesn't write on this subject.

In fact, I know in advance what's going to happen: they're going to fire all the journalists and replace them with artificial intelligence.

I'm not going to cry over them, especially as I'm the only woman to be fired.

Best of luck, and dont forget to add your site to Google news once its old enough.

I can try, but I'm not sure if it will work.
My main site is linked to Google News but, traffic-wise, it's no picnic.

Good luck with your journey, I will be following it

Thanks

I look forward to following along. I’m starting a couple of new sites with the intention of monetising with Adsense, so it’ll be good to see how you get along as well.

It's going to take some time. I'm lucky enough to already have a readership (like one of my other sites, where I literally had a captive readership). Be really patient.


Some news
Today, I had to do my financial statement for the year 2024 — freelancers, you know — and I truly spent 12 hours on it!

So I couldn't make any progress today. I had to do the balance sheet because I had to liquidate a loan, so I could do a mortgage simulation. And to liquidate this loan, I had to see if I had the funds, and to find out if I had the funds, I had to go back over all the figures for 2024.

But last night, I added a “thrillers” section to the site and wrote the first article in this category.

I'm also going to add a “romantic comedy” section, as I have friends who like that genre. As for me, once in a while, I don't say no.

There will be a telenovela section — no, I'm not even ashamed —, disaster movies — my pet peeve with horror movies, and I'm going to have a catch-all section for stuff classified as drama.

Eventually, I'll do one or two reviews a week, not necessarily more, but I've already got so much material in my head that, frankly, it writes itself.

I've also planned some quizzes, as they work well for reader retention. I know certain films or series by heart, so it'll almost write itself.

I've refined the graphic charter, which is very sober, and added the mandatory pages (legal notice, personal data).

The last thing I really need to sort out is spam. Seriously, if I get one more e-mail from Eric from I don't know which company wants to sell me SEO again, I'm going to perform a voodoo ceremony so that he swallows his tongue in his sleep.

More in the next episode!

 

[GenesisOne]

Looking forward to your success.

 

[Alpha1404]

Looking forward to your success.

For the moment, it's still very modest, despite the number of followers I have on my various social networks.

Some news!

I'm on my thirteenth article, so basically I've been writing one a day since Monday, even though I'd already written some before launching the site.

At least 600 words, always following more or less the same pattern: the scenario, what I felt, the scary scenes and at the end, where people can legally find the film.

I always illustrate with the movie poster and share every morning. I also add the newly created article to the Google Search Console.

Precisely, in terms of ranking, the data are not consistent but, as the sitemap was only submitted on Monday, we shouldn't be surprised. Basically, it tells me that I'm number one for film titles, which is impossible because I've got too many big competitors in front of me: Wikipedia, movie websites and, when they're available for streaming, Netflix et al.

I'm not too worried about that, though, because when there's a good volume of articles, Google will start to get restless. And it's not with a dozen articles that you get 1,000 views a day.
I'm also waiting until I've got a certain volume of articles (50? 100? I don't know yet) to create a Facebook page with a group, and I'll develop them with advertising. This will bring me traffic and when I've got a bit of traffic, I'll apply for AdSense.

I read here in another thread that you still need a bit of traffic to be monetized with AdSense, and four clicks a day isn't going to do it.

On the substance of the articles: I concentrate on what I've already seen and reviewed. These are films I've already “digested” and I like to give myself time to reflect on what I've seen before writing, to take a little time.

But, as I said, I'm a very big consumer, especially of horror films, so the raw material is there.

And I solved the spam issue by closing the form altogether. I left an e-mail, but it was written in such a way as to discourage people.

On the other hand, I haven't yet found a free quiz plugin.

More on that next episode.

 

[Alpha1404]

A little feedback!

Yesterday, I motivated myself to create my first quiz on the site.

I used the free version of Quiz Cat, which is more than sufficient for my needs.

There was a spike in activity. As a result, I've made three more, a little more targeted of course, and this will enable me to share the site's content twice a day: in the morning, a review, and in the evening, the quiz, to relax after work.

I've got some interesting info in Site Kit, and we can see that people stay longer on the quizzes. The first, which is the easiest: 36 seconds. The second, with 15 questions: 1m3 seconds and the third: 3 minutes and 51 seconds.

I'm going to do some that are really thematic to a film or franchise, so that at the end of the quiz, I can refer the reader to the review.

I'm up to 22 articles at the moment (including the quiz). I've been writing one a night, except for Friday night when I wrote three in a row and Saturday when I wrote two, because they went together.
I've inaugurated the gangster section.

I try to alternate older content with more recent films or series or those available on streaming platforms.

I don't really write with SEO in mind. I write the way I used to write in my old office, but in a freer, more inspired way. The only thing I always include is the synopsis and where people can find the film or series.

In terms of ranking, there's some inconsistent stuff in the Google Search Console, but the keywords are starting to come through nicely.

I'll wait a day or two to get some finer stats in Google Analytics.

Finally, I've discovered that there are copyrights on movie and series posters... so I've contacted a platform that offers licenses to try to negotiate free use. Netflix is very strict about press-kits, reserving them for professional journalists. Which I am, but not at all in entertainment.

I'll wait until I've got about fifty articles before setting up a page and a Facebook group. This allows me to have content to post every day, with a bit of content in reserve.

As I'm a pretty fast writer (30 minutes per 600-1000 word article), I've got quite a bit of leeway, especially as I know some films almost by heart. At the same time, it's easy to write fast and well when you've mastered your subject.

So much for this first week.

 

[TrinityS]

Good Luck Mate

 

[Alpha1404]

Just over two weeks after the launch, a few news items.

I've launched the quizzes, and they're working pretty well. People are quite receptive, and I'm linking the quizzes to the articles.

The articles aren't working as well, but that's to be expected.

Traffic-wise, it's not a party: around forty visits a day, despite sharing on three social networks (X/Bluesky/Mastodon).

Clarification about X and Bluesky: everyone says “yes, you have to leave the Nazi social network (X) to go to Bluesky”. I'm on it, and since it opened, I can promise you that my readership figures are way down.

I get much more traffic from X than from Bluesky, on all my sites.

I passed the thirty-article mark this evening.

This may not seem like much to you, but don't forget that I write all my texts myself, without artificial intelligence or outside copywriters, and that I don't just tell the movie. I give points of view and, in some cases, new elements.

I always manage to do at least 600 words, although I tend to flirt with 900 words without getting tired.

For the quizzes, I do fifteen questions in MCQ format, mostly on series or film franchises. One film isn't necessarily enough to make a whole quiz.
SEO-wise, it's a bit sluggish: my average position is 31.3, with 887 impressions and four clicks. That's really where I need to be patient.

On the other hand, Search Console is split in two: search results and Discover. I don't know why I ended up in Discover, but it doesn't really matter.

To tell you the truth, I have no idea when traffic and SEO will take off. I just hope it pays off, and on the other hand, I tell myself that another 100% authentic site of mine is still doing well, so I just have to be patient.

Of course, I'm not going to build up a big bankroll with this, but a penny's a penny, and I'm not afraid of an extra banknote.

I've put a stop to other monetized sites or sites that are destined to be monetized for the time being. The first one, which is monetized, runs on its own, or almost, thanks to my Facebook groups strategy.
As for the other, it's asleep but has only 43 articles, which isn't very many, but the referencing is progressing on its own. I just need to get back to it.

I have to admit that today was a really stupid day, with everyone getting on my nerves, and I spent the whole day chasing up people on the phone who can't answer an email. And a guy who was supposed to validate an interview for me totally blew me off, so the paper has to go in the garbage can.

In short, keeping up these blogs is good for my morale.

 

[Alpha1404]

A few news items.

Yesterday, I was too exhausted to write. I ran out of gas, but it was a boring day.

On the other hand, I've been working on another project: my SEO, or more precisely, my keyword tracking.

I'm using Ubersuggest but, as you know, the more projects you have, the more you pay, and right now, the mood is more one of reducing my operating costs.

I had read on this forum that someone had set up his own keyword tracking tool.

So I figured that if he could do it, there was no reason why I couldn't. So I made my own little PPC scripts.

I made my little Python scripts, connected the whole thing to Search Console and hey presto!

The other good news: I've got a Wikipedia backlink. I was looking at my referrers when I saw Wikipedia. I didn't even know it was there. Furthermore, I didn't buy it or ask for it, and that's something.

I'm now up to 33 articles.

On another of my sites — the one that's making money on its own — I looked at how many articles I'd produced: almost 300. So I need to get up to roughly the same volume.

I've been tackling movie franchises: you know, movies with five, six, or even ten parts. And since I'm talking about things that aren't elsewhere, it's going to pay off.

And once I've done a complete tour of a franchise, I'll do a summary article, which will include all the other articles in embedded content. This allows me to saturate the keywords a bit.

Apart from today, when I didn't post because I hadn't written anything the day before, I'm taking to share my articles on X/Mastodon/Bluesky twice a day, on weekdays. I use Fedica, which is free, to schedule my posts or to cross-post.

At some point, I'll give you the tech stack of what I've been using.

That's all for now.

 

[jd.the.man]

Good luck G, screw them is correct

 

[Alpha1404]

Today, I passed the 40-article mark, which is pretty good for a site that's not even a month old (well, technically, the site is old, but the new version has only been online since January 26).
Here's what the search console looks like.



There's actually very little traffic coming from Google, and even via social networks, it's fairly modest: around thirty visits a day.

As for Facebook advertising, I'll wait a little longer: I've got expenses to cut first.

I do one or two articles a day — given that I have a professional activity on the side that's a bit time-consuming. But the 50-article mark, entirely “hand-made”, will soon be passed.

For keywords: of the 298 indexed in the search console, only three are related to the old version of the site. The other 295 are all related to the new version.

As far as expenses are concerned, we're still at €0, which is a good investment

 

[Seo Captain]

All the best for the journey.

 

[Alpha1404]

All the best for the journey.

Thank you

 

[MR.Spuf]

You're very consistent, I love it, keep going and good luck.

 

[Alpha1404]

You're very consistent, I love it, keep going and good luck.

I try anyway. I didn't write anything today. I spent the day on a report and when I got home, I had a telephone appointment with a real estate agent. So my head is totally empty.

But it's finally the vacations for me, so I'll have more time.

To answer your question more precisely, it's easy to be persistent and consistent when you have a very clear objective in mind.

In my case, this site was born (or rather reborn) because my editor fired me. Not only do I want to show him that I don't need him, but I want to replace the freelance work I used to do for him.

OK, so it'll take a while, but so what? By next week, I'll have passed the 50-article mark. For him, I'd done 366 to be precise, over less than eight years.

I took a look at the Search Console this evening: the Google clicks are starting to come in. One or two max per day. At this rate, in a month it'll be ten and growing.

And finally: writing here regularly about where I am in this project also motivates me to keep going. It's good for my ago to tell you all about it, even if it's not necessarily useful or relevant in the mass of journeys there are on the forum.