I started in the whole online thing back in 2008. Inspired by a thread over on warrior forum, I began building websites with the goal of making some good money on the side off of adsense. Eventually I branched off into amazon affiliate sales as well, and by the end of the year, I was averaging about $2000/month between the two. Things kept going up at that rate, until I reached a high of nearly $4000/month a year or so later (give or take).
Things were fairly easy back then, or at least seemed to be. I had no specific secret method beyond quickly choosing a keyword (about 1-5k exact matches) using MicroNicheFinder, registering a domain, adding 20-30 articles to begin with, and then building backlinks manually using Angela's Packets. The bulk of my revenue at the time came from about 10-15 sites. My approach was always to build "mini-authority" sites. It worked well, extremely well actually.
Unfortunately, around 2009/2010 due to a variety of circumstances, I put the online business aside to focus on other things. I had a couple of real-life businesses that consumed a lot of my time, and my career had me working long hours (I'm a software engineer). In short, I left the sites to die, although I still enjoyed the not-insignificant revenue they continued to collect. Over time, the revenue has dwindled, and now sits around $1000/month.
I'm back and I have plenty of time to focus on the sites again. Obviously, the first thing I did a few months back was to consult my extensive list of "Angela-style" backlinks and start building again. This failed. Old habits die hard.
My hope is that I can re-learn SEO, as it seems the game has changed a lot since I played.
I have nothing to sell, as my goal was always completely passive income. My focus is still Adsense and Amazon for the time being. I will be documenting everything I do, and everything I try (with the obvious exception of my keywords and websites).
My hope is that by posting here, others will contribute advice, services and strategies to try, etc... that will lead to accelerating my education on the topic. I invite you all to follow, discuss, and share in my progress.
Things were fairly easy back then, or at least seemed to be. I had no specific secret method beyond quickly choosing a keyword (about 1-5k exact matches) using MicroNicheFinder, registering a domain, adding 20-30 articles to begin with, and then building backlinks manually using Angela's Packets. The bulk of my revenue at the time came from about 10-15 sites. My approach was always to build "mini-authority" sites. It worked well, extremely well actually.
Unfortunately, around 2009/2010 due to a variety of circumstances, I put the online business aside to focus on other things. I had a couple of real-life businesses that consumed a lot of my time, and my career had me working long hours (I'm a software engineer). In short, I left the sites to die, although I still enjoyed the not-insignificant revenue they continued to collect. Over time, the revenue has dwindled, and now sits around $1000/month.
I'm back and I have plenty of time to focus on the sites again. Obviously, the first thing I did a few months back was to consult my extensive list of "Angela-style" backlinks and start building again. This failed. Old habits die hard.
My hope is that I can re-learn SEO, as it seems the game has changed a lot since I played.
I have nothing to sell, as my goal was always completely passive income. My focus is still Adsense and Amazon for the time being. I will be documenting everything I do, and everything I try (with the obvious exception of my keywords and websites).
My hope is that by posting here, others will contribute advice, services and strategies to try, etc... that will lead to accelerating my education on the topic. I invite you all to follow, discuss, and share in my progress.
