[Journey] <> I make an advertising website where consumers and entrepreneurs can post for Free!

Hellou,
Welcome to the journey for success or to absolute hell...

I started doing this business thing on January 5, 2026. I've been thinking about this idea for half a year, but now I've decided to start doing it.
Because the employment situation looks really weak. I believe in the potential of this thing.
It won't be a gold mine, but I would think that it can produce a regular income. But this will probably need quite a lot of maintenance. I THINK...

The business idea is this: I make an advertising website where consumers and entrepreneurs can post for Free!
They can post ads for cars, construction equipment, services, tractors, etc. for sale. There are many sites like this, but not with the same idea and perspective that I have in mind.

I now have the idea of doing this transparently, i.e. everything I do. That way, the users of the service know what the site is all about.
At the same time, this is a branding tool for me too, so to speak. Which can then lead to work-related things...

The target group will be Finland, and this service will only be for Finns. Of course, Swedes, Norwegians, and maybe Estonians can also use this service maybe in the future..
But at the moment, I have blocked everyone else from using this service except Finnish. Everybody can, of course, visit the site and see Ads, posts, and everything.
But they can´t register if they don't have a Finnish IP.

The investment costs are: Domain 10€ + Theme 70€ = 80€
I don't know the hosting costs yet, because I might have to increase the hard drive space a lot. I currently have 3 websites under the same hosting service.

So, I have already started to do this, and my eyes hurt....

• I bought a domain from Porkbun.
• I bought the theme: https://themeforest.net/item/adforest-classified-wordpress-theme/19481695
• Hosting is from Interkul: https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/w...-domains-directadmin-free-ssl-paypal.1037214/
• Site is Live, and it´s up and running.
• Already tested Google search and I am in the first place already... There is no competition with this domain name. The keywords are a different matter, because I haven't started defining them.
• I haven´t yet installed any SEO plugins, because right now it´s not the time for that.
• Social media sites, Facebook, Instagram, X, and Reddit accounts are made. Branding started.
• I just created social media accounts, wrote descriptions, but nothing has been published.
• I've done a very difficult theme edits. I don't really understand all the functions, so it's taken me a while to understand and edit the page's functions.
• The original language of the website, English, had to be edited with great difficulty into Finnish. With a program called: https://wordpress.org/plugins/loco-translate/
• The website header needed to be redesigned. With a program called: https://wordpress.org/plugins/header-footer-elementor/
• Emails created for the domain. No-reply@ and info@ as names. Edited so that emails are forwarded to Gmail for viewing.
• Published 9 of our own ads on the website as a test.
• Installed the Smush image optimization program on the site. https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-smushit/
• Installed Wordfence Security on the website to prevent assholes. Created an authentication key so that no one but me can register on the WordPress site.
• Tested various functions of the page and modified them to better suit what I want.
• At the moment, some fucking shit bot sellers have already found my page. I've already received about 10 emails to the domain email. where they sell and offer better seo visibility for me. Going straight to the trash

So how am I going to make money on this website?
At first, AdSense will be added to the page, and the ads will appear in certain banner positions.
Then I will start selling ad banner positions to companies, at a certain price. Which I don't know. I probably have to give it cheaply. That the page will start running.
Then the companies or other persons can buy highlighted visibility for its own publications.

I've never used Woocommerce stuff and how that payment works. I might forget about WooCommerce altogether. It may be that there should be a separate payment channel where advertisers can contact and then through that, the payment and discussion will take place. But let see...

______

But yeah, this is where this journey starts. I plan to do something with this business every day.
I write this journey because I get to work my brain and gain focus this way. Because writing brings new thoughts and ideas.

DAY.1 <> DONE

• Money made: 0€
• Visitors: 0 "No plugin enabled yet"

Thanks for reading from Finland!

Okay so basically this will be a classified website ,
Can you tell me what is your unique point , how it is different from other classified website ?

mrfaraz said:

Okay so basically this will be a classified website ,
Can you tell me what is your unique point , how it is different from other classified website ?

Click to expand...

I know what you mean and trying to hint me.. but I provide this at first:

• Free postings for Companies.
• The leading website in Finland no longer offers certain categories that I have, and trading there has become more difficult.
• On other sites, those who have businesses have to pay 5-40€ for their publications. However, paying this fee does not guarantee the sale of the product. So the businesses lose money.
• Publishing on other sites is also difficult and illogically structured. I mean in an old-fashioned way.

Day 2 - 3

It's the weekend, and I promised my wife I'd watch movies, so I didn't do much. "Predator movie, Keeper Movie, Fallout S.2 Episode 4 and Percy Jackson. Watched some YouTube videos too with my wife."

• I adjusted the WordPress header because I noticed that Elementor wasn't always changing the "last link in the menu to a button".
• I made images using meta.ai and grok. I ended up with a really good image that I will use on the Contact page of the website.
• I tried to edit the theme, but nothing came of it. Because the theme builder did it a little differently, it can't be edited. I was trying to make my own "search" plugin widget.
• I was messing around with Canva, but it sucks. When you need to get the images out of the canvas transparently. But the free version doesn't allow this. Canva would be a good site otherwise; this should be a free feature.
• I need to get free vcc somewhere because I don't want to put in my own credit card to get 30 days free.
• Installed Google SiteKit on the site and configured that.
• Checked the AdSense thing, and I need to verify my website before I get AdSense. Before that, I need to add more content to the site.
• The Media&Advertising page was left unfinished because it needed one image, which I can't get out of the canvas now. I set the prices and created the text. I still need to create some contract documents that I can then send to the clients to read and sign. In PDF format or something.
• I made category images with AI and used up my 30 free credits, so I'll have to continue tomorrow when I get the new 30 credits. https://www.recraft.ai/
• I had to do some small translator stuff on the page.
• Deleted photos from WordPress media library.
• I spied on similar pages to get some ideas.
• Website Gmail account has an animated company logo that I made with Grok. Looks cool.

Money made: 0€
Visitors: 0 "No plugin enabled yet"

Thanks for reading!

Day 4.

• I created 12 articles on the theme of guides for using the service, security stuff, tips, and tricks. I think they are of good quality. Used ChatGPT to do that. I did my own personal edits to them. You can definitely tell that they are made with artificial intelligence, but they are still high-quality writings.
• Made images with Canva for the articles.
• Made an info page, where the articles are located with Elementor.
• There are problems when the article goes to .com/blog/article name. Have to Google search tomorrow how to get this default "blog" deleted or replace it to something else..
• Verified the AdSense, waiting for the response from Google.
• Made a Media&Advertising page, where the prices for banner and highlighted post are found. Have to do some .pdf or own separate article with examples of banner locations on a page where companies or other parties can buy space for their advertising.
• Downloaded and Installed ClickWhale program to track clicks. I don´t know how many links I can track with the free feature, because I need to track only banners for ad buyers. https://clickwhale.pro/
• Configured Google Tag Manager, not yet installed. I don't really see that I necessarily need Google Tag Manager. But it´s ready if needed.
• Today, I still need to create category images with AI.
• Every day I get bot emails selling their SEO services. Really poor quality emails.
  

Money made: 0€
Visitors: 0 "No plugin enabled yet"


Thanks for reading!

Day 5.

• I wrote and created Contract of Sale documents. I created versions that users could use and print. Then I created a printable receipt that service users could also use when they are selling or buying something.
• I wrote cooperation and advertising agreements documents and all kinds of other technical requirements documents for advertisements that I can send to the buyer of the advertising service. Quite a job, ChatGPT helped a lot with this. But the visual appearance is ugly.
• Installed the SEO program on the website and configured that.
• I did to all articles SEO work. Tomorrow I will continue that doing those Page SEO:s.
• Wrote a small tutorial on how to make a post. Looks great and updated the page with Elementor.
• Made category images with AI
• Installed UpdraftPlus on WordPress and configured that. (If I remember, I had problems with that software for one other domain) https://wordpress.org/plugins/updraftplus/
• Installed When Last Login WordPress plugin, because I have know the IP-address of the User who uses the site. I must provide this information to the local police if necessary. https://wordpress.org/plugins/when-last-login/
• I made some minor translator fixes to the page. I fixed one big translator issue, which was pretty easy to do.
• Installed the Disable Comments WordPress plugin and configured that: https://wordpress.org/plugins/disable-comments/
• There were problems with Google Maps, the theme uses and needs an API from them. Which is not possible for some reason, I don't know what the reason was. I need to investigate the matter. I need to disable the map function on the entire page. That would have been a good addition to the page.

Google Sitekit says that I have visitors in the page totally 6. But I think they are some spam shit or my own clicks using a different browser...
Waiting the AdSense approval, so I can insert ads to the site.
I searched one product on Google. The link was on the first page for that keyword, ranking 6. Pretty good in my opinion, even though I haven't done any SEO stuff.
I noticed that now that I have an SEO program loaded in WordPress. That way I can optimize the items I sell. I probably won't be able to automate this, but I'll have to go through each post individually.


Money made: 0€
Visitors: 0 "Plugin enabled, but spam or own clicks 6"

Thanks for reading!

This sound good but since you want to do this in finland the regulation around UE may kick your a$$ . I know because now the major sites want to regulate everything, ask for id and so on for those marketplaces so sooner or later may have these issues

All the best for the journey.

hailmaryrecordings said:

This sound good but since you want to do this in finland the regulation around UE may kick your a$$ . I know because now the major sites want to regulate everything, ask for id and so on for those marketplaces so sooner or later may have these issues

Click to expand...

You are right. Let's see what happens. Of course, the specific problem will be transferred to the theme builder, which may then seem to stop updating this theme. Because then you would have to build some kind of paid identification API program for it. Which you can't get easy At least not in Finland. hehehehe

Day 6

• This day was a crappy day. I didn't really get anything done because of all the things I did. Everything was a bit of a shit show. Watched so many tutorial videos on Elementor.
• I edited the header, which by no means looks perfect. I added effects and such to the header. The problem is this eternal, infernal mobile view. Nothing ever works on mobile. The menu icons somehow don't work on the homepage. But they work on other pages.
• The theme developers have made this editing so difficult. You can't edit as easily as you can in Elementor. I even suggested a development idea to the theme builder about the "search" feature.
• I edited the info page to make it better, as the previous one looked ugly. Now it looks better. However, somehow the layout of the page is ugly. I need to think of some kind of background photo - color for the background. But that's its own adjustment someday.
• I probably downloaded some 6 Elementor addons, just to be able to easily add some elements to the page. There are a few interesting elements there that I will use.
  
  Tomorrow I have a business meeting with a few guys about another project. Let's see how long that takes; it will take time away from this project. But tomorrow have to continue testing the fucking mobile view. The Menu Box doesn´t open in mobile view.

Money made: 0€
Visitors: 0

Thanks for reading!

Awesome with the many updates!
Good luck with the project, will follow along

Wouldn't it be difficult for you to do this with both WordPress and Elementor? There are software programs that perfectly meet your needs. I think you should try them. The software I sent as an example is exactly what you want. It's been developed for this purpose for years. It also has ready-made SEO settings. I don't know the company that produced the software. This is definitely not an advertisement. I just wanted to help you.
https://www.limontasarim.com/profesyonel-php-ilan-scripti

just focus on getting real traffic first.

It sounds like you're facing some frustrating challenges with the mobile view and theme editing. I can understand why you'd want to suggest a development idea to the theme builder, especially with regards to the search feature. Have you considered reaching out to other users who may be experiencing similar issues, or looking into alternative themes that might be more mobile-friendly? Additionally, how do you think the regulatory requirements in Finland will impact your project in the long run, and are you preparing for any potential hurdles with ID verification or other compliance issues?

Day 7 - 8

• As Jukimano said in the comment above.. I've had big problems. The theme I bought was a complete flop. I couldn't customize it the way I wanted. The theme blocked the use of my own header, or didn't block it in a way. But the header just wouldn't start working, no matter how much time I spent. I got help, but they couldn't get it to work either. Well, the theme went for an exchange. Hopefully, I'll get my money back. I didn't even use the theme for a week. So I guess I'm entitled to my money back. A buggy theme....
• Now I have a new theme purchased, and before buying, I went to examine the demo with a closer eye and this theme is the kind of thing that can be customized to your own taste. https://themeforest.net/item/classiads-classified-ads-wordpress-theme/8625840
• Yesterday, Thursday, the day was cut short, as there was a meeting about another business idea. But on Thursday, I bought a new theme and then started customizing it to suit my taste. This theme customization was badly left unfinished because night was coming and I had to go to sleep.
• Friday, I had agreed to go to another city for another business idea. It was a whole-day trip. A shopping trip. I drove about 260km. I went to pick up the auction prize. I got some stuff for a good of a price, where I see potential to resell it dropshipping-style. Well, we'll see what happens.. I told my cousins that I could be very stupid or very smart. Well, we'll see...
  
  Over the weekend, we'll continue editing the new theme and removing unnecessary stuff, etc. I have to wake up early to make it because I'm way behind schedule.
  I should start spending time on those other business ideas too. But I need to get this one done first.
  
  Thanks for Arbuzik, I checked that site. Looks great, but there comes the problem. I have only made a sites using WordPress and It´s easier to update. If I started making some kind of landing page with artificial intelligence. I would definitely learn how everything works. But now I'm somehow stuck in the WordPress world. However, what you posted seems quite from the coding world.
  

Money made: 0€
Visitors: 0 ( I havent logged in 2 days to check) I hope it´s zero, because the I left the theme looking terrible.

Thanks for reading!

Day 9 - 10

• Time has passed in optimizing the theme over the weekend. I had to change from English to Finnish with the translator program. It's an annoying job, especially when you have to translate the full Profilepress plugin. There are thousands of words in that program.
• New problems always appear. Like now, problems appeared in permalinks. Profilepress is doing something strange, and I had to send a message to the theme builder. When the theme came with certain things by default. Which I couldn't remove myself from. Probably something is blocking it, so I had to ask the theme developer what this is. Well, he's on vacation for the weekend, so there's no answer to that problem... It took many hours to figure out the problem.
• I installed the Omnisend email client on the site. I also optimized the register, contact form, forgotten password, and all other necessary automated messages that come to new users and also to me. https://www.omnisend.com/ Made a PopUp email subscribe thing using the omnisend, looks pretty good and easy to edit.
• Now, problems appear in that the theme builder has built some own kind of email thing into that theme. So at the moment I can't pick up emails from one form. I probably have to change this form to something else so that I can collect people's emails for myself in this omnisend program. It seems to be a pretty good program. I use the free version. I can send 250 messages per month, if I remember correctly. I think that's quite sufficient, at least for now.
• Recaptcha had to be optimized for these forms so that bot spammers can't easily send crap in the forms. Apparently, Google had changed the reCAPTCHA system. The old site was this: google.com/recaptcha/about But now the correct page is this: google.com/recaptcha/admin/create. I had to ask ChatGPT what the hell this was. So ChatGpt said that there had been some change to the system and that the whole thing would be revamped this year.

I've gotten some real visitors to my page, as far as I know. 10 views. These probably came from Reddit, where I went to ask for help with the header. The page logo was visible in the image, so someone must have googled the page and then spied on... That Reddit post has been watched about 900 times. Reddit stats are definitely lying. But there were comments there. I'll have to write them a message telling thanks for their help one day. That'll get some karma. heh heh
Google Console has sent me some error problems, I have something missing and robots.txt are missing or something. Have to check those when I optimize those website pages. I haven't created any sitemaps yet, because it's not time for that yet.

Money made: 0€
Visitors: 10

But, so that it doesn't get so boring, here's some music that I probably listened to 10 times on loop.

Thanks for Reading!

Great project, I wish you all the best with your journey.

Day 11 - 12 - 13

• A lot has been done now. The theme has been optimized. There are still problems; I'm waiting for the theme builder to contact me. He will probably have to log into WordPress with admin credentials. I made him new credentials for this.
• Most problems have arisen in configuring automatic email stuff. Since this email stuff is new to me, I had to test all kinds of programs. Omnisend looks good, and it´s easy to set up.
• I haven't gotten around to doing this automatic verification thing yet. Because there's no simple free program for this. They're all paid for in general. But let's see if I can do this one day. I asked ChatGPT about this, and he said I should make my own login verification token thing for the page, and ChatGPT will make this plugin for me. Yeah, I need to think about this. Because it's a data protection thing, after all.
• I have optimized a gategory photos with the TinyPNG program. Very good style the page is and I hope this site is free always https://tinypng.com/
• I have continued to optimize the Finnish language on the page and it looks like all the necessary pages will soon be translated from English to Finnish.
• Every page is now SEO optimized with the AIOSEO plugin. I haven't started optimizing the images yet. Because I'll do them all at once. https://aioseo.com/
• I haven't activated Google AdSense yet. Google will send me a letter with a code to my mailbox. I'll probably be able to set up Google AdSense after this. I can then place other banners on the page, too.
• I made a separate mobile homepage. However, I noticed that sometimes the homepage might freeze when using a mobile. But I'll look into this when I get the Google ads. Because then you have to add advertising space to the front page. So it's good to do many things at the same time.
• Payment is not yet possible on the page. I have configured Stripe in the WooCommerce service, but this product for sale is not yet visible or does not work. I will have to wait for the theme builder to find out what is wrong with this. Is there something that has not been done? I hope he gets in touch soon. Because this optimization is really terrible. It's easier to make some blogs, landing pages, not a trading - selling - publishing platform like this.
• I calculated that if I had given this project to an outside party, the price tag would easily be €3,000 - €5,000 per month. Of course, they would have used and added additional paid services to the page. When my main desire is to get this page up and running with minimal costs....
  

Money made: 0€
Visitors: 30
But here's a little beat for you all

Thanks for Reading!

Day 14

• This day has been spent optimizing email stuff. I can say that it's a hell of a job. ChatGPT has been a great help here. I had to do SPF optimization for the Domain in Porkbun's dns settings. Then I had to do SMTP optimization with Google as well. Then I had to add a DMARC TXT record to Porkbun.
• I didn't do DKIM optimization because it would have required a paid Google Workspace thing. I read a bit that I might not need this at all. Because I only send a few hundred emails.
• I then managed to fix one directory location in the MyPHPAdmin hosting mysql databases. That way, I got the categories to work properly. I had to wait for a response from this theme builder, but apparently, they don't do their maintenance job very well. Have to wait many days to get a reply, and that reply is mostly: "Yes, you can do it." Not very good customer service. They sell, but then they don't do maintenance work. They should make their instructions clear and add these things. That way they don't have to answer to customers.
• I still haven't gotten the verification thing to work. ChatGPT made a plugin, but it doesn't work yet. I had to ask the theme creators about this too, where the hell does the theme's own DirectoryPress program store these user verification tokens. Because I can't find them anywhere. Let's see if I can replace all of this with the plugin created by ChatGPT. I did send a message to the Festinger Vault guy, asking what verification thing he uses on the site. Let's see if he answers, maybe not...
  
  
  I got a call on the day asking if we should buy an old house and renovate it as a business idea.. Otherwise a good idea, but the location is so crappy. That there might not be much profit because it's so far away. A house about 30 kilometers away. Built in the 90s. A complete surface renovation should be done. Trees are to be cut down, and the ground is leveled with an excavator. It would be a good idea, but so far from services and in the wrong direction from the city.
  Well, have to think about it. If the owner sells it for €30-40,000, and if you put another €30,000 into renovations, it would become a €150,000 house.
  

Money made: 0€
Visitors: 35

But here's a little beat for you all


Thanks for Reading!

Day 15

• ChatGPT couldn't do a working user verification thing. It's annoying when these AI:s start modifying old working code and then supposedly fix it. But then they delete the old working code. I couldn't continue fixing it when ChatGPT's daily free trial ended pretty quickly.
• I created a Google Business Profile account and set it up with a logo, description, and cover photo. Category, etc. Let's wait for it to update, and then I'll add more images. There was really only 1 category I could add the page to. https://business.google.com/en-all/business-profile/
• I did the Bing webmaster tools seo optimization. So Bing downloaded the sitemaps and then started reading them. Let's see if this will give any boost in the future. https://www.bing.com/webmasters
• I created a page for businesses where they can read information about my service and other opportunities. And if they want to invest in marketing or do some other collaboration, they can contact.
• I found more English text on the page that needed to be translated.
• I added help texts to the page so that users understand what they are doing.
• I got the last category images done with AI. More categories will be added to the page. But now I have made all the category images what is needed for the start. https://www.recraft.ai/
• The theme builder still hasn't responded. So I can't fix errors in the theme and continue building the page... fuck..
• I also optimized the page menus....

I need to start thinking about and planning these social media account things right now. The accounts are ready, but I haven't uploaded anything to them yet. I need to come up with some pictures and videos for Instagram. I need to use AI Programs for this. I need to go through the AI programs to see what would be free and good.
It's annoying that Google's Pomelli hasn't opened in Finland yet. So I can't use the service yet. I'll see if I need to change my IP, but it's a terrible adjustment for everything. https://labs.google.com/pomelli/about/
I also thought about making my own mascot for the page for marketing purposes. I don't know what animal it would be yet, I wasn't thinking of a robot mascot, but a real animal. I need to ask my wife for an idea.
I'm probably planning to write 2-3 guest posts tomorrow on another personal page about this service. But I'll schedule them to appear 1-2 weeks later, so this main page can rise steadily. Because I don't want visitors to a page that isn't ready yet.

Tomorrow is a new day to continue...


Money Made: 0
Visitors: 35


Thanks for Reading!