Giving IM another go~ long read

Blueshoes said:

So my IM journey has been a mish mash of many methods and angles at trying to make money online. I've been trying to make money online since 2011. Its 2018 and I have only made $12.

That took quite a bit of courage to say out loud. I'm sharing it here because i feel like for me, dwelling on this somewhat embarrassing fact is what is keeping me from success.

For many years, i was seriously caught up in the shiny object syndrome and sometimes even now I don't know if I've fully snapped out of it.

I've spent thousands, in the tens of thousands on products and courses that i could never follow through for various reasons. Some say I've been scammed but i know that it isn't the case. I only lacked the motivation and sometimes capital to follow through with the method.

Its funny I remember when i first started out in IM I read a post that went just like this and I swore to myself I would never be so dumb as to spend tens of thousands on products and courses without having some sort of a ROI first.

But what do you know, here we are, and how time flies.

Without going into too much, I think when I first started I was relatively young and was excited to explore what's going on in IM and in the then-burgeoning digital world. I was not practical minded in the least bit and was also sort of undecided and drifting around, not really knowing what to do with my life. Hence the drifting in IM too.

But growing older has sort of mellowed me out and I now also have a singular purpose of really wanting and needing this to work so I can quit my job. I work as a courier now and being on the road for 11 hours a day, 5 days a week is exhausting and can get dangerous. Getting into a minor accident last week has put things into perspective for me [I'm doing okay now ]. I can't do this job for the long term.

Also I really have to do better for myself. It's a pretty good job, pays the bills proper but there is no career progression and it's just too dangerous being on the road 55 hours a week. You're completely open to the elements- the weather, the road, the other vehicles and human beings, wide open for them to take you on their good and bad days. It takes a thick skin and hardened exterior to really survive and thrive in those conditions, my hats off to them. Some people just aren't built for it.

Anyway i will talk a little about my little wins and losses in IM over the last eight years. I'm here again to make this work this time round. So posting here will help me in some accountability.

2011-2012:
Courses purchased- Bringthefresh monthly membership, SEOacademy, App development course that i won't name

Made my very first amazon review site based around one product on a exact match domain. About ten months in, made two sales in the same week and got about $12 in commission. Was never able to cash out the $12 though because I didn't meet the minimum cashing out amount. So I guess I haven't made any money at all from 2011-2018.

Didn't make anymore sales despite ranking the same position. Thought the product review route was too hit and miss and wasn't worth my efforts. Gave up.

Bought a mobile app development course a few months later for $6000. I was spurred on by the promotional message that the founder made millions of dollars with his first app and routinely discovers ideas for apps that would make millions of dollars too.

I was 21 and thought being a millionaire sounded great. Plus almost all the "gurus" i followed at the time were promoting this course. Strange given they were mostly SEO people with little mobile app experience. They were likely only concerned with their commission on a $6000 product.

Anyway, it was 4am, I was high on caffeine at Starbucks and i dropped the $6000 on the course. Worst decision ever.

I have zero knowledge in ios/android coding and zero interest in making games, which was really the bulk of the suggested app ideas- game development and getting users to buy stuff within the games. (this was not mentioned in the presales Q&A)

To be fair, they did have students making loads of money from developing games using their methods. Just didn't click with me.

2013:
Courses purchased- eWealth blueprint- a lead gen course, Source infinitum monthly membership, OMG machines Lite version

Started reading source wave SEO blog by Alex Becker and joined Source infinitum. Got lucky with my very first pbn site, which had genuine .edu links and a CBS news link going to it. With just five links coming from this one site plus some links from unique article wizard (wonder if they are still around), i ranked among top three for many keywords for a lead gen site for interior design services.

3000 visitors a month, about 5 leads coming in each week. I sold the first few leads to a very eager owner and we agreed he would pay me around $50 for each lead. I must have given him seven leads in that month because i still remember i was waiting for $350 to help pay my rent.

The money never came in and the owner said it's because the prospect went with another company. I explained that I was offering him leads, and regardless of whether he closed the sale or not he should pay for the leads. I don't know what happened to the other leads I gave him because i never spoke to him again.

I felt cheated of my time and efforts and gave up on the site for a few months (I know, overly sensitive much?). By the time i was ready to get back in it again, i couldn't afford to renew my hosting plan.
I didn't think to migrate it to some cheap or free host so i lost the pbn domain and then my rankings for good.

2014: A Amazon FBA course i wont name. Affilorama membership. Affilojetpack.

Dropped $6000 on Amazon FBA course. Found a potentially successful product but halfway in, realised I lacked the capital again to complete the process from production to promotion. Also lacked motivation due to events in my personal life and i gave up.

2015: Tried my hand ranking youtube videos to sell digital products from placing affiliate link in description box. Video ranked in among top three in Youtube search results. Got upwards of ten thousand views in couple of months but again i couldn't monetise it. Had hundreds of people per month clicking over to the sales page, but zero sales!

This was a product that was supposed to convert well as it routinely has the highest gravity in clickbank stats for its category. I got frustrated and gave up again.

2016: Break from IM

2017: Got interested in SEO again and bought a course. Looking to implement what I have learnt soon.

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It has taken me quite a while to muster the courage to attempt this again. I thought I was done with IM for good in 2016 after I couldn't monetise traffic yet again. But I'll give this another shot.

Only after writing this have I realised that a huge internal obstacle for me not taking action is not being able to monetise my content after ranking my properties. This has been a common theme in my journey, not being able to monetise content or websites that were getting thousands of visitors and hundreds of clicks.

If someone knows of a good resource on strategies to convert visitors into sales from seo copy, web copywriting or web design, can you point me to it? Is there some wordpress theme or design layout or some way of building content around it that will help with conversions?

For the two times I did Amazon associate's and Clickbank, I targeted buyer keywords like " [product name] review". Why do you think I didn't get any sales? Any advice on how to convert my traffic in the best way possible?

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Thanks for reading. I needed to get all this out so that I can look at my failures concretely and move on from them.

Hope it doesn't look like some form of emotional word vomit to you reading. It probably does, but I have to say it feels quite cathartic.

Maybe someone new to IM can read this and in some way learn to be more discerning and cautious of people trying to sell you stuff, especially when you're going through the inevitable shiny object syndrome. Do full and extensive research on what you're getting before spending a single cent in it.

If all goes as planned, I'll post an update in the journey section over the next few weeks about what my plans are coming back into IM again.

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BlogPro said:

We've all been there. Over a decade ago, I was buying courses too. In your case, you went a bit too high on the spending - but you're not to blame entirely. The funnels of these high ticket marketers are designed to suck to you in.

Since you have 20 hours a week for your project, I am assuming you're employed full time - which is a great thing.

The first thing you (and everyone else reading this) have to learn is the art of holding yourself accountable. It makes all the difference in your IM endeavours.

IM requires a ton of discipline and a fuck ton of patience. And this comes only when you hold yourself accountable.

Create a new bank account for your IM earnings. Put whatever you're setting aside from your day job for IM in that account as seed cash. And from there-on, make it your number one goal to make that number bigger. Add that account as the recipient account everywhere you sign up. (Amazon, Adsense, Affiliate Networks)

This will also segregate your personal spendings and your IM spending.

For Amazon affiliate, when I started out, I bought readymade sites - got fucked on the deal - lost a few hundreds and then decided to build my own until I hit a https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/started-from-the-bottom-now-we-here.1038931/ with amazon affiliate 2 years later. (I also have an AMA thread, but it's in the Jr. VIP section)

So I am in this thread to tell you that IT CAN happen. Don't expect sales to start rolling in. Don't spend too much time on anything. Don't spend too much money on anything, if you can do it yourself.

Don't have the cash to order content? Write it yourself. A good trick is to write 250 words everyday. That's it. 250 words. If you do your research well, it shouldn't take you more than 20 minutes. And you'll have a shiny 1800-2000 word guide in a week.

Don't know how to do a certain thing? Ask away. This forum is filled with amazing members doling out awesome advice on a daily basis.

At the same time, delegate what you can, when you can.

Don't sign up for too many rank trackers or SEO tools. They're all the same at the end of the day. And they'll only muddle the data for you.

Don't get upset when the site doesn't make sales despite of incoming traffic. Tweak a little of this, adjust a little of that.

When you're done - build another site. If you're unable to scale vertically, scale horizontally. In other terms, when you're unable to push your site above a certain limit, build another site.

I'll be following along your journey closely. And I WILL hold you accountable. Unless of course, you choose to disappear.

Break a leg.

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