Building a Legitimate Business

GILGAME$H

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What's good, everyone.

I'm building a legitimate long-term web-business and I'm going to use this post to keep myself on track,
and to note down my thoughts along the way; I fully realize how ironic it is to post this on BHW of all
places -- where the motto is "Get rich... quick and dirty." But, after lurking for a while and observing everyone, I'm going to take a different path: a legitimate long-term business.

Because let's be real, none of the techniques that sprout from the blackhat world have any longevity. You'll make a quick -- and big -- buck running those types of schemes, but then one day very soon it'll stop working. And then what? You're going to wake up and your revenue stream is all dried up. You have to start from square 1 all over again. You'll need to adapt or perish.

I'm not about that. I value my time. I value long-term success over short-term gains. And I know that by building a legitimate, long-term business, I'll have a stable cash flow asset that brings me freedom, and allows me to live life by my values.

I'm in the privileged position that all of my living expenses are being paid for by my parents. I also have a 2 year "grace period," where I can basically do whatever I want with my time, because of college. Once the two years are up, I'll need to buckle down and start doing "real" 9-5 work. I value my time and freedom, so I'm not going to let it ever come to that. For the next two years, I'll be building an authority site from scratch, while keeping in-mind that the end goal is to make an assload of money.

Unlike the rest of these kinds of posts, I'm going to be transparent about my niche: it's nutra.

Why would I divulge that information? Because my competition is trash. Pure, absolute garbage. I've done my market research and I'm certain I can do 100 times better than any other major player out there right now. On the surface, it's blatantly arrogant, but I have a few qualities that give me a major leg-up over everyone else:

1. I'm a published, independent-researcher in the sphere of biology

This gives me a unique well of experience and information to draw form, that no one else has. Everything on the web right now is re-hashed from either Wikipedia or other affiliate sites. There are very few players publishing original and unique information. And of those that are, none of them know how to market or write copy; I do.

2. I'm an acclaimed writer, with years of formal experience

I know I'm an amazing writer. I've been told I'm an amazing writer. And I've been paid for my amazing writing. Combined with the previous academic experience, I can publish *multiple* high quality 500-1000 word posts in a single day.

3. I only need 5 hours of sleep

Compared to my competition, I have an extra 3 hours *per day* to utilize for building this business. That makes 21 hours per week. And that makes 1071 hours per year. Imagine how much more you could achieve in your life if you had an extra 1071 hours. Imagine all the things you could do.

4. I have no responsibilities

No mouths to feed. No job to work. No mortgage to pay. I am completely free to do whatever I want for 2 years, and I'm going to utilize that time so that I'll never have to worry about any of those things ever again.

Combine all of those qualities together and what do you have? A recipe for success. That is, if I properly take advantage of the gifts I've been given, and make the most out of my time. I'm only human, though, and as imperfect as the rest. The greatest battle won't be building the actual business -- that's the simple part. The real challenge is the fight against myself: my mind, my faults, and all of the obstacles they create.

So with all of that in mind, here's to a successful 2 years. Let them be used as efficiently as possible, and without waste. For time is the only thing we'll never get back -- and time rules over us all.

Now, now that's all out of my system, the following is just going to be a few of my random thoughts:

- gTLD Domain Name
I snagged a would-be premium gTLD domain for a decent price. I decided not to go with .com/.net/.org, because those extensions are overlly saturated. It's impossible to get a brandable domain name, that doesn't have a toxic history, all for a reasonable price. ICANN is non-stop rolling out more and more gTLDs as the months go by. It's an untapped and overlooked treasure trove just begging to be plundered. Clean, never-before issued domains. Brandable. Cheap. Why is no one taking advantage of this? Because they're sheep. They're afraid. They're parroting ".com is king" without putting any thought into it.

Google says it's TLD-neutral, i.e it doesn't differentiate between .com or .bz. If we take that as true, then what other concerns are there?

"Consumers don't trust anything besides .com/.edu/.org." You vastly overestimate how tech-savy the majority of the population is. The amount of people that read a link fully, let alone care, is small. As long as your TLD isn't some stupid shit associated with spam, e.g ".bz," very few people care. Google is even A/B testing whether or not they should show the URL. It could become irrelevant in the SEO space.

That brings me to my next point:

- Diverse Traffic Sources
The game is business. I see too many people get caught up on SEO and PBNs, and all that other shit, and completely neglect every other source of traffic. Cloaked PPC, guest posts, posts on forums and other websites, videos, advertising, word of mouth; the list goes on and on. You're building a business -- a brand. If you focus on purely SEO, you won't only be putting all of your eggs in one basket, you'll also be irrationally neutering your brand awareness.

Social media? How many people really take the time to optimize for social media.

Viral marketing? Guerrilla marketing? The internet is so vast. There are so many ways to generate traffic, but everyone is focusing on fucking SEO. Idiots, all of them.

This is a business, so treat it like one. Your brand won't become a household name like Wikipedia or Reddit or YouTube if you only do SEO.

- Web design, copy, the experience

The only thing that matters is how a consumer feels. If they don't feel like your brand is reputable, they'll click off. If they don't feel like your copy is convincing, they won't buy. If they feel like your web design is basic bitch Wordpress themes, it'll impact their actions subconsciously.

The experience matters. Do it right in the beginning; set everything up properly and it will pay dividends down the road. I took 8 hours to completely redesign my site, because I realized that, while yes it was functional, it didn't "feel" right. Now, it's set and forget. The custom templates will always be there for me to reuse.

Logo matters too. Don't be a hostgator or godaddy. I made a high quality, modern logo in Inkscape within an hour of fucking around with clip art and vector tools.

The good news? It doesn't take too much effort. The modern web is trending towards Google's minimalist "Materialism" design standards, which take simple designed, but spruce them up with attention to the tiny details here and there. For example, a very small shadow under the nav bar. It doesn't take much, just an intelligent use of CSS.

Well, that's it for now. I have a shitload of work to get back to.
 
How will your business make money - affiliate, ads, selling supplements? I don't see a business plan in your notes.

RE: TLDs - in my SEO experience, some niches just do better with .com/cTLD due to consumer trust helping SERP CTR (health being one of those niches). New TLDs like .health are more commonly used by physically located businesses (like clinics) that can drive traffic in other ways. That said, you seem to be interested in pursuing non-SEO traffic and I'm happy to be proved wrong on this so good luck! :cool:
 
How will your business make money - affiliate, ads, selling supplements? I don't see a business plan in your notes.

RE: TLDs - in my SEO experience, some niches just do better with .com/cTLD due to consumer trust helping SERP CTR (health being one of those niches). New TLDs like .health are more commonly used by physically located businesses (like clinics) that can drive traffic in other ways. That said, you seem to be interested in pursuing non-SEO traffic and I'm happy to be proved wrong on this so good luck! :cool:

Yeah, it's a gamble, but I'm betting on the proliferation of gTLDs and subsequent increase in trust from consumers. We'll see if that pays off :D

Business plan is high-quality affiliate marketing. Once that has taken off, I'm going into manufacturing and selling my own product. Supplements is a first choice -- I already have way too much experience in this case (formulation, FDA GMP, etc.). But beauty products are on the table as well. Both spheres are high-margin, but high saturation, so being able to differentiate is a must. Maybe the gTLD will come in handy? ;);)

You are starting ecom store for protein bars? you went on some rambling here, what is your business exactly? Ecom?
:D:D:D:D

Amphetamines will do that. Affiliate marketing, then a pivot towards e-com. Perhaps I'll sell homeopathy? The margins are absolutely bonkers.

I never read that motto. There are a lot of people here building long term businesses.

Good Luck
Unofficial motto. I see only a few members really digging down and doing something long-term. And by long-term I don't mean 6 months to a year. I'm talking stable multi-year assets that you don't have to consistently reinvent to keep profitable, i.e no streaming sites or SEO-only affiliate sites -- way too shakey foundations.
 
So *everyone* on BHW are running illegitimate businesses using techniques of which *none* work long term. Yet a large part of those techniques involve affilate marketing. But you're SOOO smart that you are going to use that same technique as a business plan, except when you do it it's *high quality* and it magically becomes legitimate. Good luck buddy.
 
Quick Update (#1):

  • Website Structure: I've decided upon 25% Best X/75% Product review in the beginning. This keeps the site more focused on generating money in the beginning, and then I can do individual reviews on products featured in the Best X/Top X posts, to get more internal links going. Once I start running out of products to review, I'll be writing informercial posts, that link back to already reviewed products. It's efficient, and I only really need to write one post (on a product) before I can spin it into a Top 10 or informercial post. Saves time and keeps money generation high.
  • Non-SEO traffic generation: I've acquired a ton of books I'm going to skim through to get a better idea of what my options are and how to go about it. SEO is important, and I'll constantly be working on it, but I need a quicker traffic source in the beginning, so I'm looking into further options.
  • Affiliate Links: Not going to bother with these until I get atleast 1,000 domain visitors per month. Amazon et al. like to cull accounts that don't make have X sales by Y days, so I'll hold off on it until I've validated there's demand for my site.
  • Time Scheduling: Context switching, i.e constantly switching on what part of my life I'm working on (e.g school, business, exercise, etc.) kills my productivity. I've made a weekly schedule plan to properly block out time for each "part." Most days business has a solid 12 hours of blocked time, but when I've got other shit, 3 hour blocks work fine too. 1 hour or less blocks are completely inefficient, so I'm not bothering with them.
That's it so far. I'm focusing 70% of my time on content generation, and 30% on site optimization right now. Once I get a few more articles in and the site is in a "passable" state, I'll switch over to 60% content generation and 40% traffic generation.
 
So *everyone* on BHW are running illegitimate businesses using techniques of which *none* work long term. Yet a large part of those techniques involve affilate marketing. But you're SOOO smart that you are going to use that same technique as a business plan, except when you do it it's *high quality* and it magically becomes legitimate. Good luck buddy.
Thanks, brother.

A large part of the techniques involved are soley based on that technique. For example, affiliate marketing. You spin up some content, drop in some affiliate links, then start the SEO grind. Maybe hire a few ESL writers, start buying SEO packages, and look at that you have traffic.

Cool shit. Now what? They click through your money links, buy some shit, and then you get cash in your account. Alright, but now what? You gonna rest on your laurels? You gonna treat a few $K/month income as just fun money and blow it on blow or other personal expenses? Or you gonna reinvest it into growing your traffic sources, optimizng your funnel, and expanding?

If you don't keep on moving forward it dies. Plain and simple.

You're nitpicking hard, brother. If you don't like what I'm saying, you can block me and move on with your life, because I'm still gonna be here doin what I do until I get where I want to be.

I consider churn-and-burn or service-based (e.g marketing agencies) operations ineffecient in my goals, so I've mentally crossed them out as not being businesses. I'm sure many people disagree with that, but I don't care. I'm doing me. You do you.
 
There are so many ways to generate traffic, but everyone is focusing on fucking SEO. Idiots, all of them.

Non-SEO traffic generation: I've acquired a ton of books I'm going to skim through to get a better idea of what my options are and how to go about it. SEO is important, and I'll constantly be working on it, but I need a quicker traffic source in the beginning, so I'm looking into further options.

These two quotes from you don't really make much sense to me...
 
These two quotes from you don't really make much sense to me...
I need a refresher to prime my mind. I haven't done anything like that in a long time, so I need to force my mind to recollect all of that previous experience.

It's like ice-skating. Once you learn how to do it, you can do it no matter what. But if you haven't done it in a while, you're gonna have to get your bearings first, and start slow.


Or programming. You can't just jump right back in after no coding for a few months. You need to read code and sometimes books to get yourself in the "headspace" to be able to program again.


Also fuck me lol, my opening post is pure speed-fueled garbage. I'm gonna organize some shit, do some more work, and repost with something more readable
 
You sound so confident, I like your style. I'll check back in 2 years :D.
You sound so confident, I like your style. I'll check back in 2 years :D.
Dunning Krugar's a bitch.

Too many retards shitting their pants are confident; too many intelligent and capable nerds doubting themselves and afraid to risk anything. What happens in the end? The downies get further in life, by putting more on the line, and by constantly falling and getting the shit beat out of em by life. They learn more from all those failures and put themselves in positions where luck can work in their favor.

Once you're aware of it, you can make a choice on which you want to be. Confidence in the intelligent and capable is much more dangerous than anywhere else. I know which I chose.
 
Good luck.
But don't think that all blackhat monetizations are short term. I've been earning from saturated bh method for 2 years and it is still working great.
 
Good luck.
But don't think that all blackhat monetizations are short term. I've been earning from saturated bh method for 2 years and it is still working great.
Is this a side-income or has it grown into something more?
 
Quick Update:
- SEO takes around 2-3 months to start ranking well, this is too long. [more ideas]
- As soon as revenue starts rolling in, I need to hire a good writer ASAP. Content takes too much time to write, when I could be focusing on more activities to drive traffic, and converting them
- Once the systems are in-place for creating content, and there's extra profit sitting on the table, I'm going to have to start venturing into PPC/paid advertising. Need to learn up on how to create campaigns, then start the grind of testing and refining them
- Already setup an info funnel to give me ideas on what content to write. I never liked doing keyword research, because that shit seems too much like voodoo, so this is a step-up. A plus is that this funnel also raises my dopamine release for a short while, and I can use it every hour to keep myself motivated a la Paretto principe (45 minutes work, 15 minutes "play")
- Finishing up the gameplan for non-SEO marketing, will post something more concrete tomorrow. In the mean-time, need to get some web 2.0 backlinks. After a there's more content, I'll start reaching out for guest posts. No PBNs atm
 
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