A journey in ongoing experiments...

It is somehow funny that you only earned $2.20 in 2 weeks of fulltime work, I would really wish you to succeed but you should rethink what you are doing there.I could point you to a method where you would have earned at least $30 with your $41 investment within 2 weeks if you want.

Am I missing something here? You made $0.07 in 7 days?! There is so many other things you could be doing to earn so much more.. god, these journey threads are getting ridiculous, you guys sell yourselves way too short around here.

Guys appreciate the comments :) I hear what you guys are saying and you both raise very valid points. It is something that has bothered me the past few days. I have spent 40+ hrs and the rewards have been minimal. It does feel like I am shooting in the dark and hoping that one of the experiments flies, but alas this hasn't happened.

What advice would you give me?
 
Good luck with your journey op. However I just want to tell you now to forget about doing PTC , by the time it comes for you to be able to cash out , the site will have already gone bust or turned scam . Almost 100% of ptc sites don't last, only the few big ones that have been established for 5+ years already.

I started with PTC sites when I first wanted to start earning online too, and honesty i completely wasted 3 hours of my day every day for a month .

TLDR; PTC sites are BS stop using them right this instance and do something productive and beneficial instead.
 
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Not only that, but last I checked Propeller Ads had a minimum of $100 for payout. At the rate you're going, you'll be dead before you even reach the minimum withdraw threshold. You could literally rate music on STP (which is also a very low, and amateur way to make money online), and still make what you made in 7 days in 2 minutes. You could literally be doing anything else, and it would be worth more of your time. A niche site, kindle ebooks, ebay...
 
Not only that, but last I checked Propeller Ads had a minimum of $100 for payout. At the rate you're going, you'll be dead before you even reach the minimum withdraw threshold. You could literally rate music on STP (which is also a very low, and amateur way to make money online), and still make what you made in 7 days in 2 minutes. You could literally be doing anything else, and it would be worth more of your time. A niche site, kindle ebooks, ebay...

Appreciate for the comment. LOL - I will be dead. I logged into my propeller account and its sitting at $0.04. I'm wasting my time with it. At moment, I think all the initial methods I am experimenting with it, does seem very amateur. I realise I am only 2 weeks in though. May you recommend a guide or series of posts that I may get inspiration from to start using my time more wisely and therefore result in a bigger ROI?


Good luck with your journey op. However I just want to tell you now to forget about doing PTC , by the time it comes for you to be able to cash out , the site will have already gone bust or turned scam . Almost 100% of ptc sites don't last, only the few big ones that have been established for 5+ years already.

I started with PTC sites when I first wanted to start earning online too, and honesty i completely wasted 3 hours of my day every day for a month .

TLDR; PTC sites are BS stop using them right this instance and do something productive and beneficial instead.

Thanks dude - I did stop with BTC Clicks. Seemed like a lot effort for zero to minimal pay.

Todays Update

Very minimal progress today as I was too focused on doing actual real work in a real job that pays more than $2.2 for two weeks of efforts - LOL :P You have to laugh at yourself sometimes :)
  1. Focused on growing IG account with quality content and engagement with users.
  2. Twitter account still temp banned.
  3. Received a payment from Hashocean.
Total investment: $41
IG account: 535 -> 580
Twitter account: 97 -> 94
Total earnings since 10 June 2016: $2.2 -> $5.64 ($3.44 from hashocean)
 
May you recommend a guide or series of posts that I may get inspiration from to start using my time more wisely and therefore result in a bigger ROI?
you could look into facebook group methods, they seem to bring results... there are a few active ones in the journey board im following myself.
 
Hey

I have read your initial post as well as all of your journey updates and I can definitely give you some advice. I see you are quite new in this business but I think you've gone to a wrong direction. PTC sites sucks for start. Get rid of that, and focus on some real stuff.

This is what I have noticed so far:

-You have amazing writing skills, it seems to me that you are a native English speaker who can easily make $10-$20 an hour writing articles/eBooks for clients you can easily find. You have probably spent over 50 hours working on these things, am I right? If you have spent that time writing articles, you could have already made over $500. Freelancing career may not be for everyone, and I am not saying you should be exploring it especially if you do not like it, but needless to say freelancing can create you a good income that you can invest in other ventures.

-You can create videos, you are a quick learner, you seem to be able to explore the social media marketing powers as well. Why don't you choose a niche you like (be it a fitness, making money online, business, finance etc) and start a real website promoting real products from Amazon or Clickbank? This, as well, has a learning curve but it is much more reliable and profitable than doing stuff you are exploring right now. I am sure you can find countless threads where you can see that people are not making enough money doing things you are doing right now. On the other side, you can find a lot of posts (especially here on BHW) about the possibilities of promoting Amazon or Clickbank products. You can even find in-depth guides on how to start with them, do keyword research, learn some basic SEO and make money out of it.

All you need for start is hosting and a domain in the niche of your choice. That is a minimum investment and it will pay off.

I could probably go on for days on how you should plan these things out, what to do and where to go but I won't go deeply in this topic for now. If you wanna connect, you can send me your Skype and I can give you some practical advice, some tips and point you in the right direction as I have read that you are looking for someone to mentor you.
 
Hey

I have read your initial post as well as all of your journey updates and I can definitely give you some advice. I see you are quite new in this business but I think you've gone to a wrong direction. PTC sites sucks for start. Get rid of that, and focus on some real stuff.

Yes agreed. Stop doing this.

This is what I have noticed so far:

-You have amazing writing skills, it seems to me that you are a native English speaker who can easily make $10-$20 an hour writing articles/eBooks for clients you can easily find. You have probably spent over 50 hours working on these things, am I right? If you have spent that time writing articles, you could have already made over $500. Freelancing career may not be for everyone, and I am not saying you should be exploring it especially if you do not like it, but needless to say freelancing can create you a good income that you can invest in other ventures.

I have worked +- 45 - 50 hrs the past two weeks on this journey. I am a native English speaker, but do find writing articles hard.

-You can create videos, you are a quick learner, you seem to be able to explore the social media marketing powers as well. Why don't you choose a niche you like (be it a fitness, making money online, business, finance etc) and start a real website promoting real products from Amazon or Clickbank? This, as well, has a learning curve but it is much more reliable and profitable than doing stuff you are exploring right now. I am sure you can find countless threads where you can see that people are not making enough money doing things you are doing right now. On the other side, you can find a lot of posts (especially here on BHW) about the possibilities of promoting Amazon or Clickbank products. You can even find in-depth guides on how to start with them, do keyword research, learn some basic SEO and make money out of it.

All you need for start is hosting and a domain in the niche of your choice. That is a minimum investment and it will pay off.

I hear you mate. I think the problem I find is that there is so many methods, that I have been overwhelmed with the abundance of information and went for the low hanging fruit items which I have found out don't provide any return.

I could probably go on for days on how you should plan these things out, what to do and where to go but I won't go deeply in this topic for now. If you wanna connect, you can send me your Skype and I can give you some practical advice, some tips and point you in the right direction as I have read that you are looking for someone to mentor you.

I would really appreciate that. I think I am going to sign up for skype and then PM you.

Todays Update

  1. Worked on setting up niche website theme and configuring look and feel.
  2. Began writing two draft articles.
  3. Scraped and scheduled 2-3 weeks of IG posts on hootsuite.
Total investment: $41
IG account: 580 -> 583
Twitter account: 94 -> 90
Total earnings since 10 June 2016: $5.64
 
Todays Update

Today was a productive day:
  1. Published first post in blog. 800 word article.
  2. Created facebook page, Pinterest and g+ accounts.
  3. Setup auto posting of Wordpress blogs and IG photos via Jetpack and IFTTT.
  4. Updated all social media accounts with link to my website.
  5. Hashocean has gone down - it was too good to be true :P
  6. Twitter account still temp banned.
Orange - no movement/change, Green - increase, Red - decrease
Total investment: $41
IG account: 583 -> 609
Twitter account: 90 -> 85
Total earnings since 10 June 2016: $5.64
 
Todays Update

Slow progress today:
  1. Researched SEO, read a few posts on the forum, got really confused. Can anyone point me in the direction of a simple SEO guide for a niche website?
  2. Got twitter back.
  3. Lost time in reading other people's IM journies and resulted in me losing a bit of motivation today. Great seeing alot of success for community members and hopefully I can replicate similar success.
Total investment: $41
IG account: 609 -> 614
Twitter account: 85 -> 102
Total earnings since 10 June 2016: $5.64
 
Todays Update

  1. Continued with SEO research and setting up SEO plugins on website. Currently reading Pat Flynn niche site duel articles. I know they old, but easy for a noob to understand.
    1. http://www.nichesiteduel.com/frontpage/updates
  2. Drafted a list of questions for potential articles on my niche that i'm targettting. Still need to do keyword research. I realised while reading SEO articles, that I approached this niche site the wrong way round. I hope the niche I'm targeting isn't hard for a noob to get into.
  3. Continued following/unfollowing/engaging with users on twitter and IG.

Total investment: $41
IG account: 614 -> 624
Twitter account: 102 -> 137
Total earnings since 10 June 2016: $5.64
 
Todays Update

  1. Continue tweaking SEO using the tools provided by Cpanel.
  2. Publish an article - 350 words.
  3. Twitter and IG growth.
Total investment: $41
IG account: 624 -> 630
Twitter account: 137 -> 164
Total earnings since 10 June 2016: $5.64
 
Been a few days since I last posted. Will try to post weekly updates instead of daily updates. What has happened since my last post:
  • Published a new article - 500 words.
  • Figured out the keywords for my niche website:
    • 270 search volume per month
    • $3.7 CPC
    • Competition between 38-42% to rank on page 1 of google.
    • From what i have researched this is very low and I should be targeting a keyword with min of 3000 searches.
    • Anyone with experience in ranking and making money from keyword with that kind of volume?
  • Researched SEO topics (e.g. long tail, backlinking, content strategy etc.)
Total investment: $41
IG account: 630 -> 654
Twitter account: 164 -> 234
Total earnings since 10 June 2016: $5.64 -> $5.71 ($0.07 from a-ads)
 
My 2c on the monthly keyword searches:

You want something you can rank for. If KW 1 has 3000 monthly searches and KW 2 only has 1000 but with way less competition, it's a no brainer.

That being said, I've always liked ranking my sites for a "pillar" KW like KW 1, and targeted additional long tails usually with 1000 monthly searches or less. See what's out there for your competition, put something up better than they have (longer content, more pictures, more backlinks) and you'll kill the long tails.

Sounds like you're on the right track.
 
Been a week since I last posted an update and it's been exactly a month since I started this journey. What a month it has been - lots of humble pie eaten and expectations having to be managed.

For the purpose of this update, I am going to break it up into three sections - STOP, CONTINUE, START.

STOP - Things I should stop doing going forward
  1. Stop doing so many experiments. I have spread myself very thin because I am trying to do too much.
  2. PTC, a-ads and all the initial amateur experiments I started within the first week - the returns speak for itself, less than $1.
  3. Investing into bitcoin cloud mining or other HYIP get rich quick schemes. They all scams.
  4. Trying to chase the money - fixated on making money instead of focusing on what value can I offer.
  5. Stop wasting time with reading ebooks/youtube videos promising overnight success.
CONTINUE - Things I should continue doing
  1. Focus on building out 1st niche website. I am going to focus on this for the next 2-3 months and see how things go before I decide to call it.
  2. Learn basics of SEO and apply it to niche website.
  3. Updating my journey learnings and lessons on BHW.
  4. Promoting content via all social accounts I have setup.
START - Things I should start doing
  1. FOCUS. FOCUS. FOCUS.
  2. Write more articles for niche website - I got rejected by Adsense due to not having enough content on a website (4 articles).
    1. At least 1-2 2000 word articles.
    2. At least 10 500 word articles.
  3. Learn and build web 2.0 backlinks for the 1st niche website.
  4. Automate IG and Twitter via the use of bots. Looking at Gramdominator or Mass Planner.
  5. Determine how to monetize niche website. Will only look at this once I have the content in place.
My immediate action item is to write 1 x 2000 word article focusing on the keyword(s) I am targeting over the 1-2 weeks.

My stats after 1 month (10th June 2016 - 10th July 2016) on this journey.

Total investment: $41
Niche IG account: 899 followers
Niche Twitter account: 361 followers
Total earnings: $5.78
 
Week Update

Another week has gone by. I had limited time this week in between work and family.
  1. Published a new blog post on niche site.
  2. Started using Gramdominator bot for following/liking on IG.
  3. Started using Blue Bot for unfollowing/following on Twitter.
  4. Drafting my main keyword article (2000+). Still a long way to go on it. Have got the intro and overview of the main article done.
  5. Reading and consuming blog posts and forum posts about basics of SEO. Theres a lot of "gurus" selling systems out there. I firmly believe in trying to copy someone successful, but theres so many - gets confusing of what to believe.
  6. Implemented Amazon and Infolinks ads on niche site.
  7. Got a new logo for niche site and social platforms.
  8. Managed to save and acquire $50 to invest in this journey. Haven't spent it yet.
Total investment: $41 (no change)
Niche IG account: 899 -> 1059 (+160)
Niche Twitter account: 361 -> 418 (+102)
Total earnings: $5.78 (no change)
 
Nice update. Even though this thread is over three years old, I think it could prove useful to you as it has some good suggestions for SEO on a budget:

http://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/method-simple-seo.519041/
(The only thing I kind of disagree with in it is using spun content for your tier 1 links, unless you're really good at spinning unique, readable articles)
http://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/method-simple-seo.519041/
Depending on your budget you'll probably want to build a PBN in the future as part of your ranking strategy if the above isn't enough.
 
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