Nearly a Year Has Past...
Nearly a year has past since the last time I wrote here. Actually, in four days it will be eight years since I started this journey. Eight years...
Out of those eight years, there have been some highs and a ton of lows. However, in all of that time I would have to say that 2012 was the hardest. By nearly all factors, it should have been the best. My girlfriend and I were finally reunited after two years apart; she and I got engaged; I had FINALLY stopped working at the job that I hated; and I was FINALLY working full time for myself. Everything seemed like it should be great but for the business, it wasn't.
Despite all of the lessons of the previous years, I still fell into the trap of relying on a certain traffic source that starts with G. I had finally (or so I thought) figured out the SEO game and was getting top rankings on both my main craft site and my relationship site. Things were especially good for the relationship site where $200 days were pretty common and conversions were as high as 5 or 6%. However, that's when Panda or polar bear or whatever the name of the algorithm update was hit. Literally overnight the business dropped to $0 income.
Nevermind that I was following "all of the rules". Nevermind that the sites were built on unique content. None of that mattered because I broke the most important rule of all...
"Never rely on G for sh*t!"
Every single time my business has hit a rough spot, it was because I forgot that rule.
This time it cost me dearly. After we moved back to Austin, I had to start working again. Beyond that, I had to essentially layoff two of my workers. That was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. While I'm thankful for the job, the sense of failure and disappointment was overwhelming. So much so that I essentially stopped working on the business. I would do a little work here and there but not enough to really see results. The new job is way across town (something I said I would never do) so I have a 30 minute commute in the morning and a 45-90 minute commute in the afternoon. After doing the work I was doing, dealing with the stress the job, and fighting the Austin traffic mob that seems determined to keep me from getting home, I rarely have the energy to come home and work on the business.
Then a couple months ago, something happened. There was an incident at work that absolutely infuriated me to the point that I started looking for another job. But something about that fury sparked what seemed like long dormant ambitions. It wasn't long before I realized that the desire to get back into the game was building. Slowly but surely, I started to work my way back.
I started doing broadcasts regularly for my craft site again.
I started planning expenses to determine exactly how much profit I would need to get back into working the Business full time again.
And I started plotting my exit strategy!
But to do that, I would need traffic. I started going to the Internet Marketing Party here in Austin and met a few people who were good at traffic generation. However, nothing really panned out. I dabbled here and there with different traffic sources without much success. One thing that I did come to realize is that media buying is going to be my specialty. It has all of the qualities necessary for success.
After doing a little searching, I found a strategy that is viable for making this work. On Friday, I made a campaign based on the strategy and I'm waiting for the network to approve it. For now, I will focus on just that one campaign - killing it if it doesn't produce or optimizing it to profit if it shows potential. I will do this again and again until I can quit the job and go fulltime again.
If relying on G has been the biggest mistake with my business, the second biggest mistake has been a lack of focus. Ironically, stepping away for as long as I have has helped to get that under control. Yes, I have projects I would like to pursue but succeeding with media buying is everything right now and will continue to be until I hit my goal.
Goal: $4,100 Profit/Month
To help with the inspiration, one of the members of the forum followed the strategy that the OP gave and reached a gross of over $4k in about a month=)
To success in 2013!
Out of those eight years, there have been some highs and a ton of lows. However, in all of that time I would have to say that 2012 was the hardest. By nearly all factors, it should have been the best. My girlfriend and I were finally reunited after two years apart; she and I got engaged; I had FINALLY stopped working at the job that I hated; and I was FINALLY working full time for myself. Everything seemed like it should be great but for the business, it wasn't.
Despite all of the lessons of the previous years, I still fell into the trap of relying on a certain traffic source that starts with G. I had finally (or so I thought) figured out the SEO game and was getting top rankings on both my main craft site and my relationship site. Things were especially good for the relationship site where $200 days were pretty common and conversions were as high as 5 or 6%. However, that's when Panda or polar bear or whatever the name of the algorithm update was hit. Literally overnight the business dropped to $0 income.
Nevermind that I was following "all of the rules". Nevermind that the sites were built on unique content. None of that mattered because I broke the most important rule of all...
"Never rely on G for sh*t!"
Every single time my business has hit a rough spot, it was because I forgot that rule.
This time it cost me dearly. After we moved back to Austin, I had to start working again. Beyond that, I had to essentially layoff two of my workers. That was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. While I'm thankful for the job, the sense of failure and disappointment was overwhelming. So much so that I essentially stopped working on the business. I would do a little work here and there but not enough to really see results. The new job is way across town (something I said I would never do) so I have a 30 minute commute in the morning and a 45-90 minute commute in the afternoon. After doing the work I was doing, dealing with the stress the job, and fighting the Austin traffic mob that seems determined to keep me from getting home, I rarely have the energy to come home and work on the business.
Then a couple months ago, something happened. There was an incident at work that absolutely infuriated me to the point that I started looking for another job. But something about that fury sparked what seemed like long dormant ambitions. It wasn't long before I realized that the desire to get back into the game was building. Slowly but surely, I started to work my way back.
I started doing broadcasts regularly for my craft site again.
I started planning expenses to determine exactly how much profit I would need to get back into working the Business full time again.
And I started plotting my exit strategy!
But to do that, I would need traffic. I started going to the Internet Marketing Party here in Austin and met a few people who were good at traffic generation. However, nothing really panned out. I dabbled here and there with different traffic sources without much success. One thing that I did come to realize is that media buying is going to be my specialty. It has all of the qualities necessary for success.
- It's not G.
- It's not search.
- It's extremely scalable.
- It's paid so results happen fast.
- There are millions of sites (literally) available to get traffic from.
After doing a little searching, I found a strategy that is viable for making this work. On Friday, I made a campaign based on the strategy and I'm waiting for the network to approve it. For now, I will focus on just that one campaign - killing it if it doesn't produce or optimizing it to profit if it shows potential. I will do this again and again until I can quit the job and go fulltime again.
If relying on G has been the biggest mistake with my business, the second biggest mistake has been a lack of focus. Ironically, stepping away for as long as I have has helped to get that under control. Yes, I have projects I would like to pursue but succeeding with media buying is everything right now and will continue to be until I hit my goal.
Goal: $4,100 Profit/Month
To help with the inspiration, one of the members of the forum followed the strategy that the OP gave and reached a gross of over $4k in about a month=)
To success in 2013!
posted by JonnyQ888 at
10:11 PM
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