Mistakes I’ve Made
So a bunch of you wanted to know what sorts of mistakes I’ve made in the past six months with internet marketing. I’m sure I’ve probably made a bunch of mistakes I’m not even aware of yet, but here’s what I do know about so far:
I built too many websites too fast. This is sort of a good thing and a bad thing. It’s good because my first 3 sites aren’t really doing so well. If I just stuck to one site and worked on it until it made money, I probably would have gotten frustrated and given up. It wasn’t until I built my fourth site (the get your boyfriend back site) that I started to see regular sales. But now I have 7 domain names that I’m trying to turn into money-making sites and I sometimes feel overwhelmed with all the work I need to do for them all! I’d suggest starting with 2 or 3 sites so that you don’t put all your eggs in one basket, but you’re also not spread too thin.
I hated spinning articles too much. I already mentioned this, but when I first started, I thought I could get by with only spinning 1/3 of the article on my sites. It turns out this just isn’t enough to get the backlinks rolling in and keep you competitive with sites on the first page of Google. You need to spin every last article on your site. This is taking up most of my time these days.
I was not aggressive enough. For some reason, when I started I had the idea that Ezine Articles and AMA was all I needed. Not true. I now submit to 15 or 20 article directories, do AMA, and build web 2.0 sites like Squidoo, Hubpages, Blogspot, etc. For a long time I shied away from web 2.0 stuff because some part of me thought it was a form of spamming. It’s not spamming though, if you provide good content that can actually help people.
I never really got too distracted by other “make money online” programs. Mostly because I’m too poor to afford them even if I did want them. I tried social bookmarking for awhile, but I gave up on that pretty quickly. After all, I’m doing all this so that I can eventually spend my life chilling out on some beach in Thailand or buying gelato in Rome, not so I can spend hours and hours on end bookmarking every little ditial brain fart that relates to my niches.
Anyway, I really think these are the big mistakes I’ve made. I am probably about 2 or 3 months behind where I should be because of these mistakes. I’m paying the price for it now, but I really think I can catch up pretty quickly (fingers crossed).
I’d love to write more, but I have more thrilling article spinning to do!
March 2nd, 2010 at 8:44 pm
Hey Man!
Thanks for adding your mistakes for us. I really appreciate it. I agree that sticking with a few sites and milking them for all they are worth before moving into more. Right now I have 3 sites going that need lots of TLC, but to one degree or another are bringing in traffic and some sales. Yet, the dry spells are killer.
March 3rd, 2010 at 12:38 am
Well, I was distracted quite a bit throughout the time with another “next best gadget”. i learned my lesson too…..
Very soon I’ll start spinning articles and will tell u how much I hate it too……LOL!!
Huddson
March 3rd, 2010 at 4:54 am
Yup, you’re absolutely right about the spinning and the aggressiveness. I underestimated the amount of link building needing to be done, especially in a competitive niche like learn guitar.
I’ve kind of done the opposite to building too many websites too fast. I’ve concentrated on one site whereas I should have started with 3 in different niches. I am trying to build a top quality site though so it’s going to last a long time and will hopefully reap rewards. I like to think I’m the tortoise against the hare.
I have recently started my second site in a much much less competitive niche.
March 3rd, 2010 at 2:07 pm
@Carl, Yeah those dry spells really suck. I can’t figure out a logical reason behind them. Why would you get like no sales for a week and then get 3 within a matter of hours? This is definitely a strange business…
@Huddson, Seriously, man, try to get some kind of software to help you with spinning. It makes it so much easier and faster. I like The Best Spinner and I think there’s also something else out there called Jet Spinner.
@Keith, LOL! If you think learn guitar is a competitive niche, try weight loss! I definitely got myself in over my head there. I just had one page make it to the front page of Google after almost six months and 50 backlinks just to that page. I’m definitely doing less competitive niches from here on out.