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Guess I wasted an entire year

A post of a ranting nature...

RealDreams

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So yeah, it's almost one year since I started my blog.
I know, I know, MJ repeatedly mentioned in his books: "Don't start a blog".

However, as a young kid, it seemed like a cool idea not so much to make big profits, but to get some "Fastlane" experience.
As a matter of fact, I chose a topic which is literally discussed over and over: self-improvement and seduction.

It all began because I liked to write about that topic. So, essentially, I "followed my passion".
You can already see how many mistakes I've done and how few of the Fastlane principles I have followed.

Plus, add to that, I was constantly focused on making money. I wasn't so much focused on writing FULL quality posts, but more concerned with my dreams...
Although this wasn't always true.

In fact, one day I decided to write an e-book to put on my blog. And beware, my blog had 0 (yes, 0) visits/day.
Honestly, I put my heart into that e-book.

I remember it was summer and I was on vacation with my parents. We were staying on a resort and I was literally spending the entire days writing this e-book on Evernote through my mobile phone, instead of doing what most people seemed to be doing: "relaxing".

I never understood what the word "relaxing" even meant . I always believed, and still believe, that to relax you must first work your a$$ off. I don't know how people can enjoy going to vacation by doing a 9-5 job. I mean, is it seriously rewarding? 1 week of "freedom" and then, it's all over? I guess that's the scripted mind once again.

Anyways, 2-3 weeks later the e-book was out. Clearly, with 0 visits on my blog I wasn't getting any feedback.
So in October I started writing more posts and through SEO I managed to rank 2-3 posts at the first page. I started seeing more traffic.
3 users/day for like 2-3 weeks.
After that, 20 users/day.
And one day, I woke up with 84 visits in that day, which was my peak.

I have around 20 posts in my blog. 95% of them have 1500-2000 words as an average.

Now, I don't want to sound like a quitter. And beware, I haven't quit, yet. The only thing I'm becoming aware of is an harsh realization.
Could I have spent my time and energy better? Could I have received a better return on that time and energy invested?

Until today, I've made 4 sales on my e-book for a total gross of $77,96.

In terms of marketing and copywriting, I don't think I'm that bad. In fact, also the fact that I was a professional graphic designer a few years ago, definitely helped me and saved me a load of money.

But not gonna lie. I'm feeling quite depressed right now due to the lack of positive feedback. I thought about quitting not once, but 100 times at least. But I always kept going, for almost a year.

The thought of quitting and starting something else came up in my mind. I guess these are my emotions trying to sway me away from the rational road.
Even if I wanted to start a real business, I honestly lack the capital. So I seriously have no idea what to do.

What's your advice?
Thanks a lot.
 
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Last edited:

arl

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The fact that you at least sold some copies of the book means that there is at least some demand for it.

In my opinion, you just didn't write enough content. 20 posts at around 2000 words is just 40.000 words of total content in the website. Many people write that in a monthly basis for several months before they start seeing some results.

Also, as far as I know, backlinks are a huge factor in how your content ranks. Do you have any backlinks? Have you tried to get some?
 

Charnell

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I have around 20 posts in my blog. 95% of them have 1500-2000 words as an average.
Like @arl said, you aren't seeing the results you want because that's simply not enough content. I'll have 40k words in the first month of a new website, not the first year.

Assuming you're focusing on growing your organic traffic, did you do any keyword research or find topical ideas to write about? Are you utilizing Pinterest at all? I'm assuming you're writing for men, but don't write-off Pinterest. 80 million monthly active users, 30% of the users are men, you do the math. They're underserved and looking.

If you PM me some of your topic ideas, competition, etc I can plug them into my SEO tool and give you some keywords to work towards ranking for.
 
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RealDreams

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The fact that you at least sold some copies of the book means that there is at least some demand for it.

In my opinion, you just didn't write enough content. 20 posts at around 2000 words is just 40.000 words of total content in the website. Many people write that in a monthly basis for several months before they start seeing some results.

Also, as far as I know, backlinks are a huge factor in how your content ranks. Do you have any backlinks? Have you tried to get some?
Thanks for the realization.
Until now, I ranked my posts simply by writing content with revelant keywords and doing the basic SEO stuff.

Unfortunately, I have no valuable backlinks right now. From the search console I saw I've been linked to some porn low quality websites though, lol. Probably some competitor trying to bring me down?

I've read about guest posting to get backlinks. Should I try?
Anyways, I'll try writing more posts then. Thank you.
 

RealDreams

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These are my data on analytics in the last 3-4 months, basically.
 

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Andy Daniels

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Until now, I ranked my posts simply by writing content with revelant keywords and doing the basic SEO stuff.

Now there's an eBook I'd definitely download.

SEO is something I'm still trying to get more familiar with. If you got content ranked, why don't you show guys like me how you did it?

Sometimes if an idea isn't getting much traction, a small but purposeful pivot in a new direction might unlock some amazing potential.

Quitting and starting something else is probably more common on this forum than most people care to admit, I've done it tons of times.

Think of writing articles/ebooks as planting digital seeds...

You wouldn't uproot them if they haven't grown after 3 days, right?

No, you would water them, make sure they have sunlight and give them time.

Blogging is more of a long-term play. The time it takes for things to rank, gaining following and building a real business takes time.

Who knows who may find your eBook 5 months from now that may lead to more sales. Just plant your garden, and learn along the way.


Good luck my friend,
Andy
 
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RealDreams

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Now there's an eBook I'd definitely download.

SEO is something I'm still trying to get more familiar with. If you got content ranked, why don't you show guys like me how you did it?

Sometimes if an idea isn't getting much traction, a small but purposeful pivot in a new direction might unlock some amazing potential.

Quitting and starting something else is probably more common on this forum than most people care to admit, I've done it tons of times.

Think of writing articles/ebooks as planting digital seeds...

You wouldn't uproot them if they haven't grown after 3 days, right?

No, you would water them, make sure they have sunlight and give them time.

Blogging is more of a long-term play. The time it takes for things to rank, gaining following and building a real business takes time.

Who knows who may find your eBook 5 months from now that may lead to more sales. Just plant your garden, and learn along the way.


Good luck my friend,
Andy
Thank you. I liked the seeds analogy, and I agree with it.

Honestly, to rank I focused on writing quality content and trying to fill in it not only revelant keywords, but also related ones. Also, by putting the relevant keywords on title tag and meta tag, plus some basic copywriting.

I have a post in first position but I got no idea how it got there, in all honesty. And that post alone brings me 35% of my daily traffic.
For the rest, I suck pretty much haha.
 

Vigilante

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The fact that you at least sold some copies of the book means that there is at least some demand for it.

Not really. Friends, family, acquaintances. The fact that he sold 4 books, and his largest day on his blog was 80 visits (including his Mom) means that there is literally zero traction to the effort thus far.

One of my facebook pages has 3800 "fans" and hundreds of visits weekly. Who cares. On a relative scale, that might as well be zero. That's nothing. It's more of a muse than anything of significance. But, it's 3800+ more fans than what the OP has going on. He hasn't done SHIT yet.

I met a guy this past week that showed me his 45,000,000 facebook interactions from the past 30 days.

Guess what? Facebook calls HIM now. He wasn't around this weekend though, because NASCAR wanted his logo on a NASCAR team car because they (NASCAR) knows he has 45,000,000 facebook interactions in the last 30 days.

Critical scale. The OP is not doing anything to get there. Everything thus far has amounted to nothing. Nobody cares. Can he get it there? Not by doing the same thing again but expecting different results. Writing more blog posts is absolutely, 100% sure, not the answer to this question.
 

Charnell

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Not really. Friends, family, acquaintances. The fact that he sold 4 books, and his largest day on his blog was 80 visits (including his Mom) means that there is literally zero traction to the effort thus far.
@VicFountain sent me his website via PM. His mother is definitely not reading his blog hahaha
 
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arl

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Not really. Friends, family, acquaintances. The fact that he sold 4 books, and his largest day on his blog was 80 visits (including his Mom) means that there is literally zero traction to the effort thus far.

One of my facebook pages has 3800 "fans" and hundreds of visits weekly. Who cares. On a relative scale, that might as well be zero. That's nothing. It's more of a muse than anything of significance. But, it's 3800+ more fans than what the OP has going on. He hasn't done SHIT yet.

I met a guy this past week that showed me his 45,000,000 facebook interactions from the past 30 days.

Guess what? Facebook calls HIM now. He wasn't around this weekend though, because NASCAR wanted his logo on a NASCAR team car because they (NASCAR) knows he has 45,000,000 facebook interactions in the last 30 days.

Critical scale. The OP is not doing anything to get there. Everything thus far has amounted to nothing. Nobody cares. Can he get it there? Not by doing the same thing again but expecting different results. Writing more blog posts is absolutely, 100% sure, not the answer to this question.

I'm not saying that you're wrong, but I don't see how your reply answers OP's question. He's getting discouraged because he hasn't seen the results he was expecting.

The simple answer is that is too soon to draw conclusions. He just hasn't worked enough on this to know.
 

SEBASTlAN

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Can you get feedback from the ebook users and see if there was any content missing? Can you test the prices to see if you get more sales with a lower price point?

Keep writing. If you are a writer, a blog is perfect. Don't worry about what anyone else says.
 

MJ DeMarco

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So in summary...
  1. You didn't follow any advice that I wrote in my books, in fact, you did the opposite.
  2. You skewed no value.
  3. You chased money
  4. You have no unique market position
  5. You chased passion.
  6. You mucked around in low/no barrier businesses
  7. You've entered a market that is as crowded as a Tokyo subway.
  8. And now you've wasted a year and failed, with nothing to show for it.
Gee, I have no idea why you're failing.

Moreover, why on earth should I dissect your failures when you were unwilling to follow the simple foundational principles in the first place? Why should I rehash what I spent years researching and writing about?

I'll pass.
 
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Kevin88660

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So yeah, it's almost one year since I started my blog.
I know, I know, MJ repeatedly mentioned in his books: "Don't start a blog".

However, as a young kid, it seemed like a cool idea not so much to make big profits, but to get some "Fastlane" experience.
As a matter of fact, I chose a topic which is literally discussed over and over: self-improvement and seduction.

It all began because I liked to write about that topic. So, essentially, I "followed my passion".
You can already see how many mistakes I've done and how few of the Fastlane principles I have followed.

Plus, add to that, I was constantly focused on making money. I wasn't so much focused on writing FULL quality posts, but more concerned with my dreams...
Although this wasn't always true.

In fact, one day I decided to write an e-book to put on my blog. And beware, my blog had 0 (yes, 0) visits/day.
Honestly, I put my heart into that e-book.

I remember it was summer and I was on vacation with my parents. We were staying on a resort and I was literally spending the entire days writing this e-book on Evernote through my mobile phone, instead of doing what most people seemed to be doing: "relaxing".

I never understood what the word "relaxing" even meant . I always believed, and still believe, that to relax you must first work your a$$ off. I don't know how people can enjoy going to vacation by doing a 9-5 job. I mean, is it seriously rewarding? 1 week of "freedom" and then, it's all over? I guess that's the scripted mind once again.

Anyways, 2-3 weeks later the e-book was out. Clearly, with 0 visits on my blog I wasn't getting any feedback.
So in October I started writing more posts and through SEO I managed to rank 2-3 posts at the first page. I started seeing more traffic.
3 users/day for like 2-3 weeks.
After that, 20 users/day.
And one day, I woke up with 84 visits in that day, which was my peak.

I have around 20 posts in my blog. 95% of them have 1500-2000 words as an average.

Now, I don't want to sound like a quitter. And beware, I haven't quit, yet. The only thing I'm becoming aware of is an harsh realization.
Could I have spent my time and energy better? Could I have received a better return on that time and energy invested?

Until today, I've made 4 sales on my e-book for a total gross of $77,96.

In terms of marketing and copywriting, I don't think I'm that bad. In fact, also the fact that I was a professional graphic designer a few years ago, definitely helped me and saved me a load of money.

But not gonna lie. I'm feeling quite depressed right now due to the lack of positive feedback. I thought about quitting not once, but 100 times at least. But I always kept going, for almost a year.

The thought of quitting and starting something else came up in my mind. I guess these are my emotions trying to sway me away from the rational road.
Even if I wanted to start a real business, I honestly lack the capital. So I seriously have no idea what to do.

What's your advice?
Thanks a lot.
Capital usually is not a big problem unless you really need money to feed yourself. There are ways to start something with no money and when you have proved yourself you can find investors.

But as you have found out, market demand is key. If your target interest is to serve men spending money going after women, wedding service is much a bigger market as I see with insane margin. A man will spend 30-50k on a once in a life time event.

Because the margin is so insane it is very easy for an newcomer to pick up some skills quickly and undercut on price. Start attend classes on photo taking and invest on a good camera. A few months later you can start charging 3k for 2-3 afternoons of photo shots as your competitors are charging 5k.
 

mauamolat

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So yeah, it's almost one year since I started my blog.
I know, I know, MJ repeatedly mentioned in his books: "Don't start a blog".

However, as a young kid, it seemed like a cool idea not so much to make big profits, but to get some "Fastlane" experience.
As a matter of fact, I chose a topic which is literally discussed over and over: self-improvement and seduction.

It all began because I liked to write about that topic. So, essentially, I "followed my passion".
You can already see how many mistakes I've done and how few of the Fastlane principles I have followed.

Plus, add to that, I was constantly focused on making money. I wasn't so much focused on writing FULL quality posts, but more concerned with my dreams...
Although this wasn't always true.

In fact, one day I decided to write an e-book to put on my blog. And beware, my blog had 0 (yes, 0) visits/day.
Honestly, I put my heart into that e-book.

I remember it was summer and I was on vacation with my parents. We were staying on a resort and I was literally spending the entire days writing this e-book on Evernote through my mobile phone, instead of doing what most people seemed to be doing: "relaxing".

I never understood what the word "relaxing" even meant . I always believed, and still believe, that to relax you must first work your a$$ off. I don't know how people can enjoy going to vacation by doing a 9-5 job. I mean, is it seriously rewarding? 1 week of "freedom" and then, it's all over? I guess that's the scripted mind once again.

Anyways, 2-3 weeks later the e-book was out. Clearly, with 0 visits on my blog I wasn't getting any feedback.
So in October I started writing more posts and through SEO I managed to rank 2-3 posts at the first page. I started seeing more traffic.
3 users/day for like 2-3 weeks.
After that, 20 users/day.
And one day, I woke up with 84 visits in that day, which was my peak.

I have around 20 posts in my blog. 95% of them have 1500-2000 words as an average.

Now, I don't want to sound like a quitter. And beware, I haven't quit, yet. The only thing I'm becoming aware of is an harsh realization.
Could I have spent my time and energy better? Could I have received a better return on that time and energy invested?

Until today, I've made 4 sales on my e-book for a total gross of $77,96.

In terms of marketing and copywriting, I don't think I'm that bad. In fact, also the fact that I was a professional graphic designer a few years ago, definitely helped me and saved me a load of money.

But not gonna lie. I'm feeling quite depressed right now due to the lack of positive feedback. I thought about quitting not once, but 100 times at least. But I always kept going, for almost a year.

The thought of quitting and starting something else came up in my mind. I guess these are my emotions trying to sway me away from the rational road.
Even if I wanted to start a real business, I honestly lack the capital. So I seriously have no idea what to do.

What's your advice?
Thanks a lot.
Having $77 after a year sounds great when doing a blog. My advice is do not quit. Blogs that are good with an individual effort usually get traction after 3 years and literary paid off within that time but ideally you had been paid within 1 year by doing it all alone so that's really awesome. The idea of earning on blogs, they don't quickly kick off but after a year or so, it rapidly grows but you need to be able to do the right method of doing so. And most importantly, don't focus on the result. Focus in giving value. Getting success takes time and it's literary normal because you only do everything yourself, assuming.

So here's the deal. If you want to improve your earning, do as I say. You need to make your blog a business - so literary, how do you make it one?

1. Hire people to help you Fast track your success (Specifically Freelancer Writers and 1 or two Assistants that knows how to publish your blogs and the other can be your admin assistant recording and reporting and as well as hire more people in the long run for you). Never hire fulltime until you are able to afford smart and awesome people. Also learn how to manage people or treat them right as you go. I recommend reading "How to Win Friends & Influence People" by Dale C.

2. Build systems to automate all workload for yourself and for your people. Especially make everything simple for your team. As much as you can automate, do so as you go. I recommend the book "The E-Myth" by Michael G.

3. Build An email list (Literary offer a free stuff that is valuable for you in exchange of people to hand over their emails to you and agree that you can sell them some stuff someday).

4. I also recommend a Community Forum like here that is specific to your niche, it will build your audience further and kindly only let yourself get contacted from there so they have no option to be an active member to get your help or presence.

5. Launch your blog's Social Network and automate.

6. Learn or execute the cold email outreach strategy of blogging. I recommend you to follow this Kid in regards to your blogging https://cloudliving.com

6. Then lastly, launched a Youtube Channel. Youtube is a great marketing tool. Same thing, hire people to make the videos. Just make it sure you put good contents and redirect people to your website.

7. and maybe launch a course on Udemy as well. That's also a good marketing strategy

P.S. Apart from growing my own profitable Web Design & Hosting business, I also own a blog and I manage a few for my clients:

kindtechgroup net
thesousvideway com
VinylVirgins com
HungryPlant com
TinyPropshop com

Let me know when you get stuck throughout your way to success. Good luck!
 
Last edited:

RealDreams

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So in summary...
  1. You didn't follow any advice that I wrote in my books, in fact, you did the opposite.
  2. You skewed no value.
  3. You chased money
  4. You have no unique market position
  5. You chased passion.
  6. You mucked around in low/no barrier businesses
  7. You've entered a market that is as crowded as a Tokyo subway.
  8. And now you've wasted a year and failed, with nothing to show for it.
Gee, I have no idea why you're failing.

Moreover, why on earth should I dissect your failures when you were unwilling to follow the simple foundational principles in the first place? Why should I rehash what I spent years researching and writing about?

I'll pass.
Thanks a lot. I actually appreciate the wake up call.
I'll re-read the books.
 
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Kraelog

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Well failure is the breeding ground of success so in that sense you're moving in the right direction :D
 

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