I think I messed up and wasted a year!

You definitely did not waste a year. As everyone else has said, as long as you are taking action that is a massive step further than a lot of people out there.
And even if you dont think you have succeeded in that year you have been working, testing, learning and growing so that in itself means you have not wasted your time.

You just really need to keep working hard all the time, never even think about giving up and always think realistically about where your time is best spent - not the things you love doing the most neccesarily, but the things that are showing most signs of working - just plow all of your efforts and resources into those things and remove all of your effort from anything that is realistically not showing any sign of success. That way you are always funneling all of your resouces and time into the right place.

davids355 said:

You definitely did not waste a year. As everyone else has said, as long as you are taking action that is a massive step further than a lot of people out there.
And even if you dont think you have succeeded in that year you have been working, testing, learning and growing so that in itself means you have not wasted your time.

You just really need to keep working hard all the time, never even think about giving up and always think realistically about where your time is best spent - not the things you love doing the most neccesarily, but the things that are showing most signs of working - just plow all of your efforts and resources into those things and remove all of your effort from anything that is realistically not showing any sign of success. That way you are always funneling all of your resouces and time into the right place.

Click to expand...

Yes, thanks davids, that's exactly what I am doing.

yikes reaching out makes you want to puke. This will be a rough job

For quality content, I suggest you look on SEOClerks. They have some amazing writers on there!

Just going to point out that a hardened criminal, drugs, prison, etc, turned IM millionaire makes for a great story. Why not make a blog about that? Make real posts about real experiences, and what you've learned from them? Would be a perfect BS to riches story.

@pronstar As many have said, don't get disheartened. I've been in this game for a long time, and 80% of my ideas and projects fail. That's how we learn and move on.

A game changer for me, was after selecting a possible niche, to not run off and check keywords, SEO competition and possible ways to monetize. But instead check if there is a hungry audience in that niche.

Carefully check how the niche leaders are marketing their sites.

De construct their social media, are they getting a high engagement, what type of content is receiving this engagement and how easy would this be to replicate.

Dive deep in to their sites, and check the size and construction, how often do they add new content, how much traffic do they receive and from where, and again how easy would it be to replicate.

Then look in to how they are monetizing, how much they possible make, how often they market to their audience and could you do the same.

Understanding how a niche operates and makes people money should be step one, and not the after thought.

No one would plan a bank robbery, by running in to the bank with a banana?

If you get the internal green light after doing "serious" research, and believe the possible money is worth the effort, then and only then make a detailed plan of how your going to achieve it. Set targets (6 months, 12 months...) and work hard to meet them.

I often find that by doing this kind of research, a sub niche will pop out, one where the audience is most engaged and is not being optimized by the market leaders.

Good luck with it mate!

Omirag said:

yikes reaching out makes you want to puke. This will be a rough job

Click to expand...

Haha, yeah it is my weakness I'm afraid. I like you down to earth people on here so I don't have a problem interacting but for some reason I hate cold contacting people I don't know, I don't understand it myself. In my experience 90% of the general public tend to be assholes or idiots, or both ;-)

LoftPower said:

For quality content, I suggest you look on SEOClerks. They have some amazing writers on there!

Click to expand...

Thanks, I did check it out once but wasn't sure how legit it was. I'll look again. thanks Loft..

tripartist1 said:

Just going to point out that a hardened criminal, drugs, prison, etc, turned IM millionaire makes for a great story. Why not make a blog about that? Make real posts about real experiences, and what you've learned from them? Would be a perfect BS to riches story.

Click to expand...

Yes trip I already wrote my memoirs, it's on kindle, zero sales of course lol. I did initially give it all away free on a blog but nobody interested, except familyand friends (both of them) of course. To be fair though the site had no authority and my posts weren't ranking. Maybe when the time is right I will re-launch it now I am learning so much about IM. cheers.

pronstar said:

Haha, yeah it is my weakness I'm afraid. I like you down to earth people on here so I don't have a problem interacting but for some reason I hate cold contacting people I don't know, I don't understand it myself. In my experience 90% of the general public tend to be assholes or idiots, or both ;-)

Click to expand...

So, since everyone has the sappy side covered I will give you the neurotic side that has worked for me.

I have invented a second personality of sorts that deals with my clients. When I talk to them I switch into this person to allow me to give better customer service. I actually think a lot of people that have worked in a job that has to deal with people have this ability. If you have read some of those scam guru books out there, they call it a "attractive person", I call it a way to survive all the idiots.

I do not have multiple personalities, but thinking of it this way has always worked for me and made it easier to do some of the things you fear, like cold calling. Plus an added bonus is that you can always now blame your personality for failing instead of yourself. Oh how crazy I sound. MUAHAHAHAHAHA!

Hi Dandan, that's some seriously good advice mate, thanks. I'm not sure I am skilled enough yet to carry out all those tests but I will try it on my next niche attempt.

I have already started a new niche and banging away hard writing articles, my fingertips are actually sore from typing.
I've knocked up 3 good lengthy articles and stolen one from my old blog (it was the most popular post on the blog which gave me the idea to follow that niche, just like you mention in your post!)

cheers Dan

dandan594594 said:

@pronstar As many have said, don't get disheartened. I've been in this game for a long time, and 80% of my ideas and projects fail. That's how we learn and move on.

A game changer for me, was after selecting a possible niche, to not run off and check keywords, SEO competition and possible ways to monetize. But instead check if there is a hungry audience in that niche.

Carefully check how the niche leaders are marketing their sites.

De construct their social media, are they getting a high engagement, what type of content is receiving this engagement and how easy would this be to replicate.

Dive deep in to their sites, and check the size and construction, how often do they add new content, how much traffic do they receive and from where, and again how easy would it be to replicate.

Then look in to how they are monetizing, how much they possible make, how often they market to their audience and could you do the same.

Understanding how a niche operates and makes people money should be step one, and not the after thought.

No one would plan a bank robbery, by running in to the bank with a banana?

If you get the internal green light after doing "serious" research, and believe the possible money is worth the effort, then and only then make a detailed plan of how your going to achieve it. Set targets (6 months, 12 months...) and work hard to meet them.

I often find that by doing this kind of research, a sub niche will pop out, one where the audience is most engaged and is not being optimized by the market leaders.

Good luck with it mate!

Click to expand...

Omirag said:

So, since everyone has the sappy side covered I will give you the neurotic side that has worked for me.

I have invented a second personality of sorts that deals with my clients. When I talk to them I switch into this person to allow me to give better customer service. I actually think a lot of people that have worked in a job that has to deal with people have this ability. If you have read some of those scam guru books out there, they call it a "attractive person", I call it a way to survive all the idiots.

I do not have multiple personalities, but thinking of it this way has always worked for me and made it easier to do some of the things you fear, like cold calling. Plus an added bonus is that you can always now blame your personality for failing instead of yourself. Oh how crazy I sound. MUAHAHAHAHAHA!

Click to expand...

Not at all crazy man, I have so many facebook names that I try to keep going and each seems to have developed his own personality, good idea, maybe it could work for me, if you knew the niche I was in now you'd laugh at what you just said!!!!

cheers
steve

I Apologise if I have missed replying to anyone. this thread is getting quite big, I will go through it and make sure I have replied to every cool person that has offered advice I appreciate you all.

yuk that sounded sentimental, but I mean it, now where's that sick bag?

pronstar said:

Hi guys. I've been on BHW for ages trying to learn, but I think I must be a bit thick, I'm 56years old, that may have something to do with it I guess.

Anyway. Last March I wanted to get into domaining and made a right mess of that, reckon I wasted £800 doing everything wrong, so eventually I moved into blogging.

After trying to keep 6 blogs running on my own and getting nowhere fast I realised I'd have to concentrate on just one blog, at least until I learnt the basics.

Unfortunately I still can't seem to get anything right. I do all on the on-page SEO, write what I believe is quality content, write long tail keywords with low competition. The only stuff I can rank for are useless keywords it seems.

I've had adsense on my site for nearly a year and have made £3.64 ;-) in total.

I've recently added Amazon affiliate and not getting many clicks and zero sales.

my site has some backlinks I made but I really struggle interacting with people, just the thought of "reaching out" makes me want to puke lol

The site has some minimal metrics DA 18 PA 20.
I have a small social presence FB\Twitter\Pintrest\G+ but I don't get many shares or likes (only from my family if I beg)

Possibly the biggest mistake I have made is not being in a small enough niche, I can't even tell you what my niche is it's that broad, art\education\entertainment\fun, I purposely made it broad so I could write about virtually anything I wanted to, seemed like a good idea at the time.

I just think I should be doing a lot better than I am, but I can't for the life of me work it out and I was hoping for some pointers from you experienced guys, if you would be so kind.

I am aware that I shouldn't post my blog address on here as it looks like promotion so if anyone wants to have a look at my site please PM me.

I am willing to throw small-ish amounts of money on advertising to get the site going but I am wary after the money I lost being too brave as a domainer and learnt my lesson, any advice if facebook adverts would work or other advice to get genuine targeted traffic in?

I have tried several Fiverr gigs and all have been terrible for backlinks and seo and advice, you get what you pay for I guess. I contracted 10 articles to one person and first 3 they sent me my 1o year old grandson could of done better. Where can I get quality for a reasonable price anyone?

You can see why I don't post often, I'm a windbag.

Regards
Steve.

Click to expand...

Focus on your plan. We're basically the same. I've been running multiple blogs for years and I realized the same thing - focus on one. Do not start another one until you succeed with what you're working with now.

I also bought SEO stuffs on Fiverr (EVEN TRAFFIC) and never bought again. Their marketing seem legit you actually believe you'd be ranking the next day, but lesson learned. NEVER BUY SEO, PR RANKING and TRAFFIC from Fiverr.

Now, I have 2 different sites : A blog and an e-commerce and I still struggle to juggle those 2. But I'm determined to work harder this time.

From what I understood, you have a lot of experience with blogging and Internet marketing, you just lose focus. I suggest to pick one strategy that was already proven and stick to it. As for me, I am focusing on Pinterest marketing and will stick to it.

terinah14 said:

Focus on your plan. We're basically the same. I've been running multiple blogs for years and I realized the same thing - focus on one. Do not start another one until you succeed with what you're working with now.

I also bought SEO stuffs on Fiverr (EVEN TRAFFIC) and never bought again. Their marketing seem legit you actually believe you'd be ranking the next day, but lesson learned. NEVER BUY SEO, PR RANKING and TRAFFIC from Fiverr.

Now, I have 2 different sites : A blog and an e-commerce and I still struggle to juggle those 2. But I'm determined to work harder this time.

From what I understood, you have a lot of experience with blogging and Internet marketing, you just lose focus. I suggest to pick one strategy that was already proven and stick to it. As for me, I am focusing on Pinterest marketing and will stick to it.

Click to expand...

terinah14 good luck with your blogs and pintrest, all we can do is keep learning and keep plugging away as you say.

My journey: Update:

My new blog and new niche I started last week has its first sale (2nd sale really as I got my sister to buy something lol but that doesn't count.) It was only a small sale that made me just 11p , but it is a real sale.

I made a monumental f*** up on Reddit, I posted what I thought was a photo with link, but there was no link, it got 99 upvotes and zero traffic to my site, I only checked on it today and read the comments, "where's the link" etc and fixed it, well sick.

I have spent the week writing and researching mostly. I have 6 pretty damn good articles (I believe anyway)

I have setup a Facebook account for the site and joined niche related groups and posted links in there, reasonable amount of interest in likes and visits, more than my old blogs ever had so I really think I'm on the right track in this niche at last.

On Twitter, I have followed about 600 people that are following leaders in my niche and have been a little disappointed in the results. I have read on BHW somewhere that some niches go well on certain social networks and some don't, but it's very early days.

I've pinned every image on my site to Pinterest, not done anything else there yet, not even its own board, that is a to do.

Same as twitter, not done a new account for the site yet. to do

Ditto G+, no traction there at all anyway, only got 4 followers, yet on twitter I have 1000+

I haven't even looked at forums and other sites in my niche yet, for backlinks, comments, outreach yet, give me a chance I'm only 1 old guy!

Writing content is what takes all my time up, it takes me up to 20 hours of solid work to do a decent article, I usually write between 700-2000 words, I don't worry about article length (as long as over 500 words) I just write what is needed to make a decent coherent, readable article, I do a lot of research as in this niche facts are important and you will get pulled up on it, people are a bit fanatical in this niche.

On page SEO is fine I believe.

Keyword research may be another of my weaknesses I'm not actually sure if I am good enough at it to be honest, I need someone to take one of my articles and do the keyword research so I can compare it with what I came up with, then I will know,

the problem is, anyone can claim they are expert at it. I would pay a small fee for this one-off service if I could trust the person knew what they were doing.

Oh yes I have also been upgrading my abilities in Photoshop, I have learnt a few little design tricks and my graphics look a lot better, though still a long way from perfect.

Apart from that I just managed to eat some toast and have a few hours sleep.

PS. I just checked my blog and in the last few hours had 47 visits from Reddit, cool.
lets hope it converts into a sale!

last 24 hours I had 700 hits, about half each on my 2 latest posts, nearly ll from Reddit, couple from Facebook. Today I finished and published another article and interest is not as high as yesterday but trickling in steadily. No more sales yet.

Reddit is a harsh place if you don't like criticism lol
When I was younger I rused to get upset when someone slagged me or my work off, whether it was justified or not.

Nowadays I try to reply politely, with a humorous turnaround if I can. Example:
"this guy writes like a 4th grader"
I replied:
Hey thanks guy, I am in the 3rd grade, never realised I was that good. (or something similar)

He is correct, I had almost no education (after primary school) as a kid and almost everything I know I taught myself,
I doubt the would appreciate that as he is probably a uni student with degrees etc and couldn't even imagine what it's
like to have almost no education.
I also have a learning disability but so what, I do what I can. thank god for spell and grammar checkers!

guys, thank you for sharing this post.

One year is nothing. I wasted a half year time and got scammed for 20k by one of my best friends.

Chase your dreams and never trust anyone. Maybe your parents and family but that's about it.

I don't think you wasted one year. It will add to your life expeirences and you can start strong