Running a Real Holiday: Journaling 135 Days of Joyful Vacation

Let's all take a moment of silence to say RIP to $100 and that Twitter Account:

Staccs said:
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.
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When will you be providing proof of your donation and Twitter cancelation?

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Future State said:
Let's all take a moment of silence to say RIP to $100 and that Twitter Account:



When will you be providing proof of your donation and Twitter cancelation?
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Congrats on outshining all of OP's failures in this thread with this post. At least he can figure out how to read a calendar.
 
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I'm pretty frustrated.

It's becoming very apparent that I've learned nothing about traffic generation from my past projects. Each time I rolled the dice on a handful of BST packages and it always got the ball rolling.

I am confident in my ability to build a high quality website that readers can take serious value from, and that is where I am now. I built the foundations of a high quality website but I have no traffic, and I don't know what to do next.

Not having confidence that my daily efforts towards this site will actually benefit it is a paralyzing feeling. Constantly second guessing what my 'most important' tasks are each day, or if any of the tasks I write out the night before in pen on paper serve any importance at all, tortures me.

I created this thread, in the newbie forum, for two reasons:

1. Get myself back to working, and thinking about working, on a daily basis
2. Get tips from others who have already gone through this before

I do think I made a mistake with the initial thread title. This sub-forum (newbie questions) has been a place where posters aren't subjected to the expectations of competency present in other sub-forums on Wickedfire. It seems my initial title over-promised and under-delivered on its bold claims and some people are taking exception to that.

That's fine. I take full responsibility for that. The initial headline was made during a 3am epiphany where I was seeing only the potential positive consequences of creating this thread and the benefits I could reap from it, ignorant of the work it would require to follow through with building a business and maintain a daily journal. I wasn't just marketing to marketers, I was marketing to myself in an effort to generate some extra motivation.

It's been a humbling experience to show that I don't yet have the knowledge or the work ethic to string together 135 consecutive productive days of linear improvement towards my website.

This isn't an admission of defeat. I will continue to follow the rules I created for this challenge and try to continue to refine my skills. I did feel the need express these thoughts to try and dispel idea that the original post could have planted in the minds of readers; that I know exactly how to go from 0 to 100 and reach my end goal.

I am good at some things, bad at other things, and clueless about the rest.
Now back to your regularly scheduled programming:

December 12th 2014 - Day 58

Completed the interview of Person 1 today. Free, unique, informative content. I'll get it all moved from email into Wordpress and mold it into an actual post tomorrow. I'm fairly certain the second guy who agreed to talking with me is gone. That's fine. That makes my community reachouts are converting at ~12% so far.

Forums and blog comments made up the rest of the work today. Mostly stuff I don't get an immediate link for. Reputation building for my accounts. Did some social media outreach too. Nothing lead focused, just standard Gary Vaynerchuk-esque stuff.

I did do some more searching for potential link opportunities and did find a laser targeted forum. Also realized that Instagram is perfect for finding more interview targets.

I am still thirsty for any link building ideas anybody may have. I started trying to find people who regularly share high quality content in this industry but didn't come up with much. I have a new footprint to try out for next time that searches with a broader scope.

I have been doing CCarter style traffic leaking for a while now. Forum posting, Reddit, Yahoo Answers, etc. Also, my "community outreach" stuff is essentially reverse guest blogging.

The only pure link building I've been doing at all has been the social properties, which I haven't added links back to my site yet.

77 days left
 
I am just amazed that you can continue to make these posts with so little substance. How the fuck do you expect to learn anything if you don't ask questions? How the fuck are you going to know what questions to ask without first trying and failing? You probably spend more time writing updates for WF than actually working on your website. Give us some analytics or something.

Content is the easy part, marketing that content is what separates sperglords from men.
 
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December 13th 2014 - Day 59

F5'ing forums all day today to answer questions as they're posted. Writing up interview #1 into Wordpress now and scheduling a publish date.

Also creating a short list of end goals for participating on these accounts. Getting a link in the sidebar of a relevant subreddit, getting a thread stickied on a high traffic forum, etc.

I won't be working tomorrow or Monday. Filler posts until Tuesday.

76 days left
 
ShadowPanther said:
I am just amazed that you can continue to make these posts with so little substance. How the fuck do you expect to learn anything if you don't ask questions? How the fuck are you going to know what questions to ask without first trying and failing? You probably spend more time writing updates for WF than actually working on your website. Give us some analytics or something.

Content is the easy part, marketing that content is what separates sperglords from men.
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not 3 hours before you wrote this piece of garbage, the dude posted a lengthy bit on his struggles, about where he's tried and failed... and that's what this entire section is about. did you somehow miss that in your feeble attempt to join the cool kids table?
 
December 16th 2014 - Day 62

I mentioned before that I had put together a list of "best case scenarios" of links I would benefit from getting. A sticky thread on a big forum, link in a subreddit's sidebar, etc. Today I tried to see what it's going to take to get those links. This is where all the posting on forums and other communities is hopefully going to pay off.

I PM'd a mod (who I've already interacted with before) to ask him, in his opinion, what the most perfect sidebar link would look like. I then told him a little about my site (just a line or two) and why I felt it could benefit his subscribers.

For the other major forum I read each of the current stickies, the last couples pages of replies, and also took a look at the most popular thread in that particular sub-forum. I found the most relevant thread to my site and have an idea how I can update/elaborate/improve on that thread in an effort to get it stickied. I'll first need to up the participation on that particular forum over the next month or so. It was specifically mentioned that they are trying to reduce the amount of stickies in a post that was ~1.5 years old, so I'm going to need to make all the stars align on this thread.

Wrote a post that will be scheduled for publication in a couple days. I'm actually finishing it up right now so I can't give much detail on how I feel about it yet other than I think it's a great angle on tackling a theme of questions I often see asked on these forums I am participating on.

I'd like to send out more interview requests but I haven't seen any worthy posters since my last successful reach out on the same site.

Noticed that my comments are getting picked up in ahrefs now. Did a few more.

Any tips on finding same niche blogs? Before this site all my past projects were in 1 (different) niche that was very news based, so I could just search the name of a new product to find active blogs. This niche is more evergreen and I'm finding it harder to come up with relevant blogs who I can connect with.

73 days left
 
December 16th 2014 - Day 63

A record high of 47 visitors to the site today. Better than the usual handful. This was a result of the interview I put up the other day. The person I interviewed shared it across all of their social networks. The same person actually emailed me today and asked if he could write for the site. We'll see.

I ended up deleting a lot of what I wrote last night. Preferred to take a different angle with it. Re-wrote some of that today. Did the usual interaction across a couple forums. Just a few posts. Didn't get a response from the moderator yet.

I've been distracted most of my day with my current money situation. I'm running pretty close to empty. I'm trying to figure out how I can get back to a comfortable situation again without getting a part time job. I know I have the skills, I just need to find somebody who can recognize I can be an asset to them. If I don't find a solution in the next couple days I will probably start writing again. I need to figure this out soon.

72 days left
 
December 17th 2014 - Day 64

Wrote and published a new post, reloaded Buffer with social posts, spent time posting on forums, laid out the post I'm going to write up tomorrow.

Still waiting on a response from that mod. The post I'm writing tomorrow is in response to a question that gets asked 2-3 times per day at that particular community, so if I have it up by the time he checks out my site I think there's a pretty good chance I get that link and all the traffic it would bring.

I'm trying to come up with more ways to directly cater my content to these communities to increase the chance of success when I do reach out like this, as well as raise the probability that readers will share my content. Eventually I'm going to run out of ideas for these particular communities and will need to find other relevant sites to study.

I replied to the person who asked if they could write for the site and told them I'd love to have them guest post an article. They don't have a website, so they're not in it for a link. I told them to spend some time and come up with a topic they have experience in and can talk about in-depth. Could be good, or could be a mess that I have to spend a long time editing.

71 days left
 
Wow, now I don't feel so bad about the days where I slack off a little.

CCarter said:
I remember days where I'd sat there coding and designing for 18+ hours at a time, and only going to bed cause I was physically unable to move anymore​
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Nevermind, I feel bad about it again. Back to work.
 
A record high of 47 visitors to the site today. Better than the usual handful. This was a result of the interview I put up the other day. The person I interviewed shared it across all of their social networks. The same person actually emailed me today and asked if he could write for the site. We'll see.
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We will see? jesus man let him do it.

Leverage his user base. Have him link to you from his site, social accts, email list, etc.

You can always clean up his provided content.
 
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scyruck said:
You can always clean up his provided content.
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He doesn't have a website, but you are right that he has some leverage I don't have. I did end up saying I'd love to have his expertise yesterday.


December 18th 2014 - Day 65

I think I've got some gigs lined up to help keep me afloat. I know better than to count my chickens before they've hatched, though. I've got a couple people interested in getting a website done. I'm giving them a good deal, cheaper than they'd get elsewhere. It's mutually beneficial. I may still decide to write after Christmas because these aren't guaranteed yet, and it wouldn't hurt. This is what I was up to today - replying to classifieds, posting some of my own, replying to emails, and making quotes.

This 'challenge' is just about to reach the 50% mark. I think my biggest challenge going forward is having confidence in my next step. If I'm able to eliminate the hours spent second guessing myself I feel I will be able to use that energy towards actually doing things.

Here is the daily workday routine I am thinking of following for the remainder of this thread:
  • 1 new post written and published everyday (without dropping current quality standards)
  • Tomorrow's post planned out and researched
  • 3 new interview requests being sent out everyday
  • Spend 15 minutes on each relevant community

I think getting these things done on a daily basis would continue to make the site much better, and also get the brand more exposure through community participation + traffic that comes via interviewee shares, but it feels like a very flat path to growth.

I'm not sure I can take the brand to the next level with just these things, but I'm not sure what's missing either. I will be actively looking for new communities to leak traffic from, which I guess is the solution. Actively coming up with fresh linkbait and testing to see if it works.

I think I answered my own question? Maybe?

70 days left
 
December 20th 2014 - Day 66

Day was scattered around today with various appointments and calls. I've got 3 leads to create websites for a couple local businesses. Nothing guaranteed until I receive payment.

Did all the routine stuff I post everyday. I'm getting tired of having to post in this thread every day.

69 days left
 
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
 
Staccs said:
Here is the daily workday routine I am thinking of following for the remainder of this thread:
  • 1 new post written and published everyday (without dropping current quality standards)
  • Tomorrow's post planned out and researched
  • 3 new interview requests being sent out everyday
  • Spend 15 minutes on each relevant community

I think getting these things done on a daily basis would continue to make the site much better, and also get the brand more exposure through community participation + traffic that comes via interviewee shares, but it feels like a very flat path to growth.

I'm not sure I can take the brand to the next level with just these things, but I'm not sure what's missing either. I will be actively looking for new communities to leak traffic from, which I guess is the solution. Actively coming up with fresh linkbait and testing to see if it works.

70 days left
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Bro, I think interview requests are great (for authority, credibility, trickles of traffic, easy content), but there's like a million additional things you could be doing to drive traffic.

->What about amassing a social following on FB that you can leak out to your site?

->What about creating Image Quotes? - that is, giant images featuring stylized inspirational quotes that are relevant to your niche. Put your logo on the image, and once a day, post them in the comments section of super-active FB fan page posts in your niche (you could even target a competitor's FB page that is super active).

->What about uploading those same images to IMGUR and other popular image sharing sites?

->What about creating specific "how-to" infographics, throwing it up on IMGUR (optimize for click-bait titles, link in the description, etc), and then post a link to the image on a relevant, busy SubReddit?

->What about taking your content and converting it into 2-3 minute videos? Just somehow make a professional intro for each video (with your logo), throw up some nice images + bullet points, and provide a voice over that briefly goes over your article's main topics. Add a CTA at the end of the video to the full article. Upload to YouTube. Use extra cash to drive cheap clicks to your videos via AdWords (super inexpensive and'll get the ball rolling).

Imagine if you did this for every good piece of content you threw up. The traffic potential is real.

->Why not buy cheap Tumbler traffic to throw at your site? You never know what might take off.

->Create Slideshare presentations out of your content and optimize them for keywords.

There are so many other strategies and ideas out there, it's mind-blogging. Recycle content and use on as many viable platforms as possible.

Just a few threads under this one is Vary's Case Study in which he took his site from 0-600 (uniques) in a matter of months using Pinterest as one of his primary traffic sources. Check it out here. He did for free, also.

You've got hella free time, so I'm thinking your daily schedule should look a bit busier lol

Good luck man, I'll keep sending you resources as I find them.
 
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I know you create useful content, so repurposing it for other platforms should be your #1 goal.
 
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