What is this?
I created this thread to document my next 135 days of building a new online brand, and maybe more importantly, to hold myself accountable while learning how to work harder + smarter.
I will make daily posts every 24 hours in this thread. If I miss a single post, I will donate $100 to the Canadian Cancer Society and delete my ever-so-precious Twitter account. No minimum/maximum length per update, I plan to detail what I accomplished each day.
What I've Done Internet Marketing: A Short Backstory
I joined Wickedfire halfway through 2010 shortly after I discovered that there are real ways to make money online. I have since bounced around a variety of projects and learned a lot without bettering my bank account.
In 2011 I made $100/day by blasting 1k xRumer links with DFB direct to a hyphenated EMD. The site, which consisted only of pages showing a handful of product images plus three bullet points of information and an affiliate link, was deindexed 3 days later. I used this money + earnings from writing content to attend college and study Advertising. I dropped out after the first semester finished/I realized everybody was being trained to work a 9-5.
In 2012 I built another site, same niche, content laser focused on buying keywords. I don't think anybody read a single post from beginning to end. I was writing for search engines instead of visitors, but I didn't have the link profile to compensate. This site was equally thin, just with more words on each page... but I thought word count was equal to quality. I dipped into PPC from July to December trying to run toolbar installs on Bing AdCenter. I ended up losing about $50 overall.
In 2013 I wasn't feeling very confident. 2 years of work and I wasn't making more than my friends working part time jobs at grocery stores. I took a break from "working" until June, when I saw tavin's guide to flipping a website. I spent 5 months building a site to the guide's specifications. I contacted tavin and it passed his eyeball test. I was gearing up for a $xx,xxx flip. I re-invested all profits into SEO, with the goal of reaching 25% more revenue to increase the potential valuation. I was going to make a final push over the winter, then sell it in February. It tanked in early January, losing 75% of its traffic over the next 60 days. My "final push" pushed it off the edge.
In 2014 I spent 6 months desperately trying to resuscitate it. I was thankful to receive a lot of help from ANOMOANON and greenleaves, but I couldn't bring my site back to life.
Today
October 16th, 2014, 3:38AM: Now I am going to build my first high quality long term focused brand. Go. Bed time. I'll let you know a little bit more about the project and how I'm staying organized over the next few days. See you in the next 24 hours.
I created this thread to document my next 135 days of building a new online brand, and maybe more importantly, to hold myself accountable while learning how to work harder + smarter.
I will make daily posts every 24 hours in this thread. If I miss a single post, I will donate $100 to the Canadian Cancer Society and delete my ever-so-precious Twitter account. No minimum/maximum length per update, I plan to detail what I accomplished each day.
What I've Done Internet Marketing: A Short Backstory
I joined Wickedfire halfway through 2010 shortly after I discovered that there are real ways to make money online. I have since bounced around a variety of projects and learned a lot without bettering my bank account.
In 2011 I made $100/day by blasting 1k xRumer links with DFB direct to a hyphenated EMD. The site, which consisted only of pages showing a handful of product images plus three bullet points of information and an affiliate link, was deindexed 3 days later. I used this money + earnings from writing content to attend college and study Advertising. I dropped out after the first semester finished/I realized everybody was being trained to work a 9-5.
In 2012 I built another site, same niche, content laser focused on buying keywords. I don't think anybody read a single post from beginning to end. I was writing for search engines instead of visitors, but I didn't have the link profile to compensate. This site was equally thin, just with more words on each page... but I thought word count was equal to quality. I dipped into PPC from July to December trying to run toolbar installs on Bing AdCenter. I ended up losing about $50 overall.
In 2013 I wasn't feeling very confident. 2 years of work and I wasn't making more than my friends working part time jobs at grocery stores. I took a break from "working" until June, when I saw tavin's guide to flipping a website. I spent 5 months building a site to the guide's specifications. I contacted tavin and it passed his eyeball test. I was gearing up for a $xx,xxx flip. I re-invested all profits into SEO, with the goal of reaching 25% more revenue to increase the potential valuation. I was going to make a final push over the winter, then sell it in February. It tanked in early January, losing 75% of its traffic over the next 60 days. My "final push" pushed it off the edge.
In 2014 I spent 6 months desperately trying to resuscitate it. I was thankful to receive a lot of help from ANOMOANON and greenleaves, but I couldn't bring my site back to life.
Today
October 16th, 2014, 3:38AM: Now I am going to build my first high quality long term focused brand. Go. Bed time. I'll let you know a little bit more about the project and how I'm staying organized over the next few days. See you in the next 24 hours.
