The Road So Far
After I graduated in May, moved back to my hometown of Seattle. I didn’t want an office job again, but I thought having some income would help get me started. I assumed that since I had a few contacts in Seattle, that it would be easier for me to find a job. It seems that in this economy, that is not the case.
My girlfriend is having a great time exploring Seattle. She finds it much more interesting and exciting than Phoenix. She has a job, but it doesn’t bring in a whole lot of money. I find myself burning through the last remnants of my savings that managed to survive grad school tuition payments.
I’ve learned so much about the internet in the past few months. I participated in the 30 Day Challenge in August, but I did not succeed. Even still, I learned a lot about the internet. From the conclusion of that, I began setting up informative sites that had affiliate links to Clickbank products. It is proving to be a lot of work. Then again, I am doing everything myself because I can’t afford to outsource at this time.
So far, I’m beginning to get a good understanding of article writing, article spinning, Web 2.0 and getting backlinks, and so much more.
I recently discovered what people call the Google Sandbox Effect. Essentially it is Google’s way of cutting back on scam sites by making new websites go through an initiation period of about three months before the give them the rankings that these sites deserve. There is nothing certain about the sandbox, in fact it’s all speculative because Google has never confirmed or denied the existence of the so-called sandbox filter.
My strategy is to basically just build website after website, letting them fall prey to the sandbox. I only hope that sometime around November or so, I start seeing some of my sites come out the other end and start ranking well.
July 22nd, 2010 at 2:38 am
I just watched Mark’s video on 5 steps to making $10,000. I commented on the post in hopes that I win the course as I can’t afford it. do you have the course? And if so what do you think of it? Do you know of any other websites/free information that you could recommend for a newbie?
July 22nd, 2010 at 3:41 pm
@Ty, I’ve seen bits and pieces of AffiloJetpack. There are lots of good niches included like: Weight loss, muscle building, dog training, make money online, green power, self improvement, men’s dating tips, relationship advice, learn to sing, and one or two more that I can’t remember right now. It should be a good product.
As far as free training, there really is a lot of good free info out there. The best advice I can really give though is to just find something that resonates with you (affiliate marketing, PPC, product creation, whatever) and stick with it. There are a lot of great blogs out there like Make Money on the Internet and Viper Chill that give out tons of free advice.