Starting from scratch again.. would really appreciate some advice

by xrcv
14 replies
Hi everyone, I'll try to keep this as short as possible and would really appreciate any helpful advice or a fresh point of view anyone can give me

Some background info - I've been a member here for a long time, but this is the first time I'm posting. About three years ago I got started in IM (clickbank only), mainly with article marketing. I really got into it and a few months later I had quite a good passive income. Long story short, I proceeded to sit on my ass and basically do nothing for the following year and a half, while relying on my clickbank income(now doesn't seem as smart as it did then), which was mainly coming in from my top several articles on articlesbase. With the money, I managed to leave home for the first time (24 now) and live quite comfortably while doing nothing(stupid I know). I also felt awesome because I was seeing all the ****ty jobs my friends were working and I thought I was the sh#t, especially after taking a 3-month overseas vacation last summer.

Well, needles to say I got DESTROYED by google, all the articles that were once ranking are now gone(panda), and my clickbank 'income' is now about $150 on a good month.

I've basically spend the last two months trying to rebuild my 'system' and start completely from scratch. I spent quite some money (and TIME) on backlinking services, domains and whatnot. The results? I had one site that was sitting on page 2 and I was convinced it would soon hit page 1 and I'll be all good. Didn't happen and it completely fell of the SERPs. The same thing happened to another one and another one and now I'm left with one site on the second page for some good keywords, but I'm unable to make it move. I'm also no longer able to spend any money on new domains and link building, having money for food seems like a better option at the moment.

I feel discouraged to say the least - I put so much effort into these sites and none of them are ranking. About a week ago I got my first sale from one of the sites and that was it. I'm also writing for some clients in order to have some money. Getting a job is not an option, I'll never go down that road again because it is what got me motivated to start IM in the first place.

So, any advice anybody can give me would be much appreciated. What would you focus on in order to build a good level of income again? (even 400$ a month would be awesome at this point) Thanks so much!
#advice #scratch #starting
  • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
    Even though you said getting a job was not an option, you may want to consider registering with one or more temp agencies. The jobs you get sent on might suck, but they aren't a lifetime commitment and the cash they generate might be the difference between ramen noodles by candlelight and a semi-normal life.

    After sitting on your ass for a year and a half, it might seem traumatic, but you'll get over it - especially at your age.

    As for your pages, well, that ship might just be burned to the waterline. Especially if the backlinking services you hired used tactics that got you on Google's **** list.

    Starting over, you do have some skills that will serve you well. You just have to learn to apply them differently.

    One way a lot of people wean themselves from the Google teat is by building lists of people with whom they can build a rapport, and making your recommendations to them. Social media like Facebook and Twitter are gaining momentum as far as building commercially viable relationships; I'm not the one to teach you how, so I won't even try here.

    The bottom line is that you need to rebuild your traffic sources, both by learning to work with the search engines rather than trying to trick them and by learning to bring targeted traffic to your offers without relying on search (or any other single method).

    Times are tough now, but 'this too shall pass.'
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    • Profile picture of the author xrcv
      Thanks so much for the answer!

      Even though you said getting a job was not an option, you may want to consider registering with one or more temp agencies. The jobs you get sent on might suck, but they aren't a lifetime commitment and the cash they generate might be the difference between ramen noodles by candlelight and a semi-normal life.
      That's the thing, I don't want a semi-normal life because I know I will get stuck there and it would be hard to find the motivation to start on IM again, besides for me this would be like 'giving up' - not an option I would take the ramen noodles for a few months, followed by having the ability to live and travel again ANY DAY, rather than an okay and 'semi-normal' life for a lifetime.

      The bottom line is that you need to rebuild your traffic sources, both by learning to work with the search engines rather than trying to trick them and by learning to bring targeted traffic to your offers without relying on search (or any other single method).
      Completely agree, one of the main reasons I started this treat is to get ideas on how to get traffic without having to rank in search engines. Unfortunately, I am completely CLUELESS on how to do it - sure I've tried posting in relevant forums and all of those things, but they didn't produce enough traffic at all. Nor did youtube videos or yahoo answers. My issue is only the traffic, all of my articles/sites convert quite well.
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      • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
        Originally Posted by xrcv View Post

        Thanks so much for the answer!
        Glad to be of service...

        Originally Posted by xrcv View Post

        That's the thing, I don't want a semi-normal life because I know I will get stuck there and it would be hard to find the motivation to start on IM again, besides for me this would be like 'giving up' - not an option I would take the ramen noodles for a few months, followed by having the ability to live and travel again ANY DAY, rather than an okay and 'semi-normal' life for a lifetime.
        As long as you are making that choice with eyes wide open, and you are the only one who has to live with the results of that choice, no problem from me.

        Originally Posted by xrcv View Post

        Completely agree, one of the main reasons I started this treat is to get ideas on how to get traffic without having to rank in search engines. Unfortunately, I am completely CLUELESS on how to do it - sure I've tried posting in relevant forums and all of those things, but they didn't produce enough traffic at all. Nor did youtube videos or yahoo answers. My issue is only the traffic, all of my articles/sites convert quite well.
        The big thing to remember is that, at the end of the day, "traffic" is people. It's not Google results, or backlinks, or any other mechanical thing.

        The main ways to get targeted traffic - people who may be interested in what you have to offer - outside of search are to borrow other peoples' traffic and to buy it. Right now, it sounds like buying it is out of the question for you. Which leaves borrowing it.

        Many of us do quite well with content syndication. There are many long, detailed threads right here that will give you the skinny on that.

        Another way is to barter for it. For example, you might work out a trade with someone who is good at building lists but not so good on the conversions. You help them improve conversions, and in return, they endorse you to their relevant lists.

        You sound like a smart person, so with these seeds you should be able to grow some added ideas.
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  • Profile picture of the author mgreener
    "wean themselves from the Google teat"... LOL! Thanks for that. XRCV, you should have been weaning yourself long ago. Start now.

    For recovering rankings, the very first thing that I would do is setup webmaster tools for the site in question and see what errors if any are being shown. Fix the errors.

    #2 - Thoroughly review your site to be sure that you have complete quality content as outlined by Google and that you are not breaking any of their rules. Fix where necessary.

    #3 - Review all backlinking that was done to be sure that none was spammy/"bad" or generally considered black hat. Fix where necessary.

    #4 - Submit a reinclusion request via google webmaster tools detailing any changes made, such as if you had purchased a link say "I purchased a link here, but have removed and learned that I can't do that so won't be doing again... promise to follow the rules, etc., etc."

    Be careful what you do in the future, don't do black hat SEO, continue to add quality, unique content.
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  • Profile picture of the author Kecia
    At the moment, I would increase the services you are offering. You mentioned that you are writing for a few clients...scale that up so that you have money to re-invest into your online business. You can make much more than $400 per month with writing. This will get you back on your feet so that you can start over with your sites.
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  • Profile picture of the author TopKat22
    I have a couple of long standing business philosophies, one is don't put all your eggs in one basket and another is don't make the same mistake twice. Learn from it and move.

    First of all, I have to congratulate you on becoming an entrepreneur at such a young age. I did, too and even through the ups and downs, I am so glad I did it and never took another job.

    Since you most certainly to not want a job, you probably have some skills in IM that other newbies might not have that you could sell on Fiverr.com or odesk.com or some other freelance site for some immediate cash.

    So that you do not fall into the same problem again, create some sites where you develop a list before you promote clickbank or any other product to them. It is a little more work but the list is yours.

    There is lots of free information on this forum about making money on Fiverr.com and other sites in this forum and in the War Room (which is a one time fee.) That would be the only place I would spend any money if I were you.

    Get the free ebooks in the making money forum here on those type things.

    Search this forum for those particular things and after reading a bit more, post any specific questions you have.

    You usually get a better response if you ask one question per thread and make the title of the post relevant to the question and post it in the appropriate forum.

    I believe with your drive, you will do fine.

    :-)
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  • Profile picture of the author RHert
    Sounds like you're more than motivated. There are so many ways in which to get traffic to your site. Sounds like you can write well. In all the time did you manage to build any kind of list. If not start now. You can do this rather easily by building a facebook fan page and offering two free items. One they'll pick up just for liking your site (which gives you their email address) another for sharing and having one friend like your page. There's apps for this sort of thing.
    Keep at it. You'll figure it out.
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    Copywriting at it's Best! - Tips and tricks to connect with your reader.
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  • Profile picture of the author Jayson Masters
    I'm pretty sure you have acquired several skills about Marketing and making money online based on your previous experience

    I was once screwed by google too so I know how it feels mate

    What I do recommend is re-apply the skills and experience you had on selling and invest a small amount of money on traffic

    Use it to build your list!!!!

    You NEED TO and HAVE TO build your list so that no one else have total control over your business and customers

    I don't recommend working for anyone else because it will eat up your time and focus to rebuild your business

    Hope it helped!

    Cheers
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  • Profile picture of the author DallasK
    Video ranks and converts.

    Just see how many Google first page ranked sites have a video displayed.

    And in this continuing age of declining readership, video converts, especially with the younger generation who were raised on moving images.

    Get some video added to your sites and see if it can boost you back onto the first page of Google. And since Google owns YouTube, Google search seems to prefer YouTube linked videos.
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    • Profile picture of the author xrcv
      Didn't expect so many replies so quickly, thank you all! :p

      Will definitely think about how I can implement the list thing, but as I said traffic is the issue, not conversions and I feel list building is a long-term process, which I'll start(among with many others) as soon as I have a bit of comfortable income to support myself and no longer have panic attacks when one of my sites drops from 15 to 16

      Also, I was absolutely convinced that I will rank my website quickly, so I really put some work into them - they DO have videos, they do have images and they do have social media buttons, also each site has more than 10 1000+ word articles, all carefully written by me.

      Many people said to check the backlinks and make sure they are not crappy - nope. The backlinks come from articleranks/youtube/other video sites/web 2.0's (a lot of them, all manually created) and one site even has a homepage pr6 link. I have also build profile and comment links, but all of them are replicas of the competition that ranks #1 for my KW. The websites are not deindexed, they just disappeared from the top 100 or so. Here are a few examples, for those who are interested:

      1st site: had about 20 articles, all on the second and third page(health niche), decided it is time to make some money and put clickbank links on each article(nofollowed them). The next morning I check the ranks with Traffic Travis - 0 0 0 0 0 0 ... Nothing helped to recover those and about two months have already passed.
      2nd site: Again reached top 20, already had affiliate links, but no sales. Decided to try adding adsense, since I was approved a long time ago, but never used it. Put the adsense code on the main page, The next morning again: 0 0 0 0 0 . This was a couple of days ago, so we'll see but this definitely made me hate google a lot(the site again is high quality, all written by me content)
      3rd site: Currently on second page for about 10 keywords, about 10,000 exact match in total. The site is one month old and I'm sure if all the keywords get in the top 5 I'll be okay financially. Still, haven't been able to get above #12, no matter what I do. This site made one sale of $15. Really felt things are taking off when I made the sale, but unfortunately that was a week or two ago and since then - nothing.
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  • Profile picture of the author NicoleBeckett
    Take your writing skills, and write some guest posts for any of the sites you think are worth salvaging. Like John said, some of your pages may be too far gone, but if any of them are showing a glimmer of hope, it may be well worth your time to crank out a few guest posts to drive traffic. That way, you don't have to wait to be higher in the search engine rankings to get exposure.

    In the meantime, take an honest look at all of your sites, and see if you can figure out why they've been hit so hard by Google. John's right - your backlinking services could have been up to no good - but there could also be an entirely different reason for the plunge. Then, come up with new ideas for sites (even if it's just a new spin on a niche you used before that got destroyed the rankings), and start over, doing things the right way.

    You definitely don't have to pay for links (and you certainly have the time to do the work yourself, so you don't have to spend money outsourcing). Instead, build links the right way (by publishing things that people WANT to link to). Yes, it will take longer than buying or blasting, but it will also significantly lower your chances of getting hammered by Google.

    And, while we're talking about Google, do some searching here and take a look at how people are using other ways to drive traffic and make sales aside from Google. Yes, Google should be one weapon in your arsenal, but they shouldn't be your end-all-be-all.
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  • Profile picture of the author vivi62
    So sorry to hear about your troubles but you seem to have other talents especially writing,why not write for free for magazines in your niche and get them printed this will give you an untapped audience for your services or product or try one of these



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    Regards vivi62
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    • Profile picture of the author Nicola Lane
      Originally Posted by vivi62 View Post

      Like Writing?
      Get paid to write articles for AssociatedContent.com

      Get paid for writing how-to articles on eHow.com


      Regards vivi62
      It is nice that this list is considered so useful that people are reapeating it (this is its third post today.

      It is unfortunate that none of the "reposters" have the manners to credit the original source.
      Signature

      I like to keep an open mind, but not so open that my brains fall out

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  • Profile picture of the author Takuan
    From what I've read, you already have some skills. They're just as valid today as they were 2 years ago, so I would suggest getting back into the game. Just start over and keep working hard.

    As for getting a job, there is nothing wrong with that! If you need money to start up again, getting a nice seasonal job could be the way to go. Working a couple months at a mall or retail store will give you more than enough to throw up some sites and get some articles outsourced.
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