Hey!
DISCLAIMER
I have read and followed a lot of Journeys here, but mine is going to be different, I am going to write a lot. I've had that in me since my childhood. I wanna dump my inner feelings as I go through my first journey, I'll treat this as a journal. So, if you're not a fan of reading stories, stop here.
Where I come from.
I have been a lurker for a while on the forums, by a while I mean 5 or 6 years. I was always interested in everything related to computers and the internet since my father bought a pc in the 90s and installed Linux. I used to read all his notebooks on partitioning and commands on unpacking tar.gz packages, as a child.
My father as you might have guessed by now makes a big chunk of who I am, he was a natural science high school teacher and also a Gnu/Linux developer on the side, with lots of contributions to free/open software especially in linguistics (Arabic and Amazigh).
I even had my first experience as a "hacker" when I had to use a live USB to replace the root password hash with a 0 hash that I copied somewhere so I can play my favorite games while my parents slept. I had to make my own modem later when my father was hiding his, and the top of the cake was building my first pc from scratch until my father found it and destroyed it.
Sadly, my father never encouraged my passion for computers and drove me towards a government job, since it was the safest way to make a living in a third-world country. I even took a good beating in 2009 when the mailman came with my first Adsense check in my mother's name. I graduated, I did get a gov job, I wasted 5 years of my life on it. It's been a year now since my resignation.
Chasing dreams.
I know that you wouldn't advise someone to quit his job and chase after online money-making methods, it would ruin him. But I like to consider myself as a special case. I have background studies in sales and management and I know my way around computers (basic HTML/PHP/MySQL/C...etc). Furthermore (fancy word here), i made websites/Facebook pages and even wrote a book just for the sake of doing it.
I know, it might sound like I am bragging, but writing this is part of my so needed self-motivation, so don't blame me, I need that dose of self-confidence if I am going to make it in this black jungle of yours.
I quit my job and decided to start an online business because I hate having a superior with less knowledge than me, which is the norm in real-life jobs, and because I found out through some harsh experiences in life that I am ambitious.
I did try a couple of real-life projects, the first was a coffee distribution company, with some friends. One of them just went and stole our savings leading the company to a definite crash. The second was an export/import counseling agency (since I worked in a shipping port). It didn't go well, between bribes and my "up on his horse" ethical ego, I couldn't carve myself a market piece.
My last resort, in an environment I couldn't adapt to nor bend to my will, was to go to my childhood friend, my computer.
The plan
Between the countless words in the sea of guides and tutorials out there and the mystical perspective I have been acquiring lately (maybe I am just going crazy), I came out with what seems like a good plan.
There is this thing called the buying process and this second thing called SONCAS. the buying process is simply the steps a person goes through when buying ... anything! it goes like this :
1. The need awakens.
2. Seeking information
3. Evaluating options
4. Buying
5. post-sale evaluation
It's the funnel thing all the internet gurus keep shoving in everyone's face. SONCAS, on the other side, is :
S: Sécurité = Security
O: Orgueil = Pride
N: Nouveauté = Novelty
C: Confort = Comfort
A: Argent = Money
S: Sympathie = Sympathy
Excuse my french, but that's how it is engraved in my mind. These are the buying Motivations of a human being, so every sales argument I will be using in my project is going to be based on these, and many other ''philosophies". I won't go too deep into this, but if people are interested I could write more about this.
Where am I?
I started on November 17th. No specific reason, just like the day I quit my job. No planning, I just woke up that day, turned on my pc, and started doing niche research.
- selected a niche
Dealing with my coffee distribution company taught me to never stray far from one's "specialties", I had to learn everything from the beginning on an industry I had no idea about, no need to say it was a pain in the * . so I chose a niche close to my heart on which I have ample technical knowledge. An evergreen niche, lots of competition for sure, but I believe I can carve myself the prophecized piece of cake I keep dreaming of.
I did some keyword research on trial tools and found out I already know my target clients by heart.
- bought a domain and hosting
Nothing special to mention here, I got an average hosting plan for a beginner blog, the Domaine I picked is special though, I didn't think it would be still available.
- Installed WordPress
it took me a while to get used again to all those tabs, but a month later I was already up to date. Glad I had started that WordPress gaming website when I was still a kid.
- Bought a theme
This was harder than it sounds, spending that first 60$ on a theme was my fuck it, I am doing this moment. 60 bucks ain't much to you perhaps, but it's a month worth of food over here.
- Writing articles
No keyword research on these, just fillers so I can start doing some tests. long highly technical articles. I just used google and settled on topics where results only had user-generated content. I wrote them myself. It took me from 3 to 6 hours between research and finished article, but by the last ones, 1 hour 30 minutes was the average.
I have 3 types of articles, 10 of each :
1. Awakening need articles
2. Providing solutions articles
3. Comparing solutions articles
You guessed it, I am using the steps mentioned above in the buying process. I guessed that since the best traffic is the one already in the first step, I should target only commercial intent articles like these.
Each article contains subtitles/H2. each subtitle deals with one of the SONCAS I mentioned above. every need/problem will arise from one of those. I am writing articles all the time now, basically typing day and night, no surprise I am still typing in this post
- Speeding up a website loading
this took me a while to accomplish, I tried so many cache plugins, image converters, SEO tools, AMP...etc, and finally achieved a noteworthy improvement from 7.9s to 2.3s loading on the home page.
- Social media presence
I made a page on Facebook, 4 posts a day, in 2 hours I can preplan 2 weeks ahead, so a piece of cake to make it look alive. Started sharing my posts on it. Also made an Instagram page, and a Pinterest one, but I am literally illiterate on those platforms. I have no idea where to even begin.
- Started my first ad campaigns
I made two currently running campaigns, one for Facebook page likes and the other for a blog post. 1$ a day each, just so I can get a feeling of what it is like to run these campaigns.
What I am planning to do :
- Catching traffic
I can't be paying facebook each time for visitors. I need to make paid traffic turn into organic traffic, so I am going to write another 10 articles to test with email offers, subscriptions, and free books/other freebies. I am also planning on using polls and small competitions to spice things up.
- Journey updates
I am going to keep updating this journey as I go, it seems like a good way to keep a person motivated and provides some form of accountability. yeah, I lack discipline, so my updates won't be regular but plentiful when my brain lights up.
- Monetize the website
I am starting to get some organic traffic from google, but still not enough for any monetization strategy, but eventually, I am planning on starting with Amazon affiliation coupled with an ad network. Then, dropship my own products to amazon, and some other local marketplaces. My end goal is to provide my own products on a store on the website.
The website still needs some "legal" requirements, like a contact page, confidentiality, and such, which I am planning on writing this week.
- Build inner links
My whole "strategy" revolves around driving the traffic paid or organic, through the mentioned buying process, so :
"Awakening needs articles" lead to "solutions articles" which lead to "solution comparisons" which lead to product pages, either affiliates or my own store.
This is the job I have been shamelessly postponing until the website is good enough.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I hope this wasn't a total shit show, if anyone has any suggestions of things I forgot to mention here, please, I'll be happy to provide any additional information. If anyone has any advice on something I should be doing please, I really need any help going my way.
Have a nice evening.
DISCLAIMER
I have read and followed a lot of Journeys here, but mine is going to be different, I am going to write a lot. I've had that in me since my childhood. I wanna dump my inner feelings as I go through my first journey, I'll treat this as a journal. So, if you're not a fan of reading stories, stop here.
Where I come from.
I have been a lurker for a while on the forums, by a while I mean 5 or 6 years. I was always interested in everything related to computers and the internet since my father bought a pc in the 90s and installed Linux. I used to read all his notebooks on partitioning and commands on unpacking tar.gz packages, as a child.
My father as you might have guessed by now makes a big chunk of who I am, he was a natural science high school teacher and also a Gnu/Linux developer on the side, with lots of contributions to free/open software especially in linguistics (Arabic and Amazigh).
I even had my first experience as a "hacker" when I had to use a live USB to replace the root password hash with a 0 hash that I copied somewhere so I can play my favorite games while my parents slept. I had to make my own modem later when my father was hiding his, and the top of the cake was building my first pc from scratch until my father found it and destroyed it.
Sadly, my father never encouraged my passion for computers and drove me towards a government job, since it was the safest way to make a living in a third-world country. I even took a good beating in 2009 when the mailman came with my first Adsense check in my mother's name. I graduated, I did get a gov job, I wasted 5 years of my life on it. It's been a year now since my resignation.
Chasing dreams.
I know that you wouldn't advise someone to quit his job and chase after online money-making methods, it would ruin him. But I like to consider myself as a special case. I have background studies in sales and management and I know my way around computers (basic HTML/PHP/MySQL/C...etc). Furthermore (fancy word here), i made websites/Facebook pages and even wrote a book just for the sake of doing it.
I know, it might sound like I am bragging, but writing this is part of my so needed self-motivation, so don't blame me, I need that dose of self-confidence if I am going to make it in this black jungle of yours.
I quit my job and decided to start an online business because I hate having a superior with less knowledge than me, which is the norm in real-life jobs, and because I found out through some harsh experiences in life that I am ambitious.
I did try a couple of real-life projects, the first was a coffee distribution company, with some friends. One of them just went and stole our savings leading the company to a definite crash. The second was an export/import counseling agency (since I worked in a shipping port). It didn't go well, between bribes and my "up on his horse" ethical ego, I couldn't carve myself a market piece.
My last resort, in an environment I couldn't adapt to nor bend to my will, was to go to my childhood friend, my computer.
The plan
Between the countless words in the sea of guides and tutorials out there and the mystical perspective I have been acquiring lately (maybe I am just going crazy), I came out with what seems like a good plan.
There is this thing called the buying process and this second thing called SONCAS. the buying process is simply the steps a person goes through when buying ... anything! it goes like this :
1. The need awakens.
2. Seeking information
3. Evaluating options
4. Buying
5. post-sale evaluation
It's the funnel thing all the internet gurus keep shoving in everyone's face. SONCAS, on the other side, is :
S: Sécurité = Security
O: Orgueil = Pride
N: Nouveauté = Novelty
C: Confort = Comfort
A: Argent = Money
S: Sympathie = Sympathy
Excuse my french, but that's how it is engraved in my mind. These are the buying Motivations of a human being, so every sales argument I will be using in my project is going to be based on these, and many other ''philosophies". I won't go too deep into this, but if people are interested I could write more about this.
Where am I?
I started on November 17th. No specific reason, just like the day I quit my job. No planning, I just woke up that day, turned on my pc, and started doing niche research.
- selected a niche
Dealing with my coffee distribution company taught me to never stray far from one's "specialties", I had to learn everything from the beginning on an industry I had no idea about, no need to say it was a pain in the * . so I chose a niche close to my heart on which I have ample technical knowledge. An evergreen niche, lots of competition for sure, but I believe I can carve myself the prophecized piece of cake I keep dreaming of.
I did some keyword research on trial tools and found out I already know my target clients by heart.
- bought a domain and hosting
Nothing special to mention here, I got an average hosting plan for a beginner blog, the Domaine I picked is special though, I didn't think it would be still available.
- Installed WordPress
it took me a while to get used again to all those tabs, but a month later I was already up to date. Glad I had started that WordPress gaming website when I was still a kid.
- Bought a theme
This was harder than it sounds, spending that first 60$ on a theme was my fuck it, I am doing this moment. 60 bucks ain't much to you perhaps, but it's a month worth of food over here.
- Writing articles
No keyword research on these, just fillers so I can start doing some tests. long highly technical articles. I just used google and settled on topics where results only had user-generated content. I wrote them myself. It took me from 3 to 6 hours between research and finished article, but by the last ones, 1 hour 30 minutes was the average.
I have 3 types of articles, 10 of each :
1. Awakening need articles
2. Providing solutions articles
3. Comparing solutions articles
You guessed it, I am using the steps mentioned above in the buying process. I guessed that since the best traffic is the one already in the first step, I should target only commercial intent articles like these.
Each article contains subtitles/H2. each subtitle deals with one of the SONCAS I mentioned above. every need/problem will arise from one of those. I am writing articles all the time now, basically typing day and night, no surprise I am still typing in this post
- Speeding up a website loading
this took me a while to accomplish, I tried so many cache plugins, image converters, SEO tools, AMP...etc, and finally achieved a noteworthy improvement from 7.9s to 2.3s loading on the home page.
- Social media presence
I made a page on Facebook, 4 posts a day, in 2 hours I can preplan 2 weeks ahead, so a piece of cake to make it look alive. Started sharing my posts on it. Also made an Instagram page, and a Pinterest one, but I am literally illiterate on those platforms. I have no idea where to even begin.
- Started my first ad campaigns
I made two currently running campaigns, one for Facebook page likes and the other for a blog post. 1$ a day each, just so I can get a feeling of what it is like to run these campaigns.
What I am planning to do :
- Catching traffic
I can't be paying facebook each time for visitors. I need to make paid traffic turn into organic traffic, so I am going to write another 10 articles to test with email offers, subscriptions, and free books/other freebies. I am also planning on using polls and small competitions to spice things up.
- Journey updates
I am going to keep updating this journey as I go, it seems like a good way to keep a person motivated and provides some form of accountability. yeah, I lack discipline, so my updates won't be regular but plentiful when my brain lights up.
- Monetize the website
I am starting to get some organic traffic from google, but still not enough for any monetization strategy, but eventually, I am planning on starting with Amazon affiliation coupled with an ad network. Then, dropship my own products to amazon, and some other local marketplaces. My end goal is to provide my own products on a store on the website.
The website still needs some "legal" requirements, like a contact page, confidentiality, and such, which I am planning on writing this week.
- Build inner links
My whole "strategy" revolves around driving the traffic paid or organic, through the mentioned buying process, so :
"Awakening needs articles" lead to "solutions articles" which lead to "solution comparisons" which lead to product pages, either affiliates or my own store.
This is the job I have been shamelessly postponing until the website is good enough.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I hope this wasn't a total shit show, if anyone has any suggestions of things I forgot to mention here, please, I'll be happy to provide any additional information. If anyone has any advice on something I should be doing please, I really need any help going my way.
Have a nice evening.
