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How Much Did You Lose Before You Finally Made It With SEO?

by heavysm
15 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Though I have just now mastered my own SEO formula I am really curious the amount of effort others have put into their sites.

With my first site (basically a micro niche site) that actually gave me residual profit i lost about $500 in sunken methods trying to promote it. It now gives me about $150-$200 monthly.

From start to finish i think i lost (or rather invested ) about $1000 or so just learning SEO overall. This comes from about six or so failed sites that either never properly ranked or that i could never get high enough. One site even ranked top 10 but keyword had zero commercial value.

So how much did you spend before your first site ranked highly and made you consistent profit?
#finally #lose #made #seo
  • Profile picture of the author John Williamson
    When I started out I did everything manually myself, so I only spent a little bit, maybe a hundred bucks or so max, and I was using free Blogger blogs.
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  • Profile picture of the author OKFarmgirl
    My only expense thus far has been for my hosting and domain name registration. Granted, I'm not making anything yet, but my site is steadily climbing and I'm confident it will get there. I don't think it's necessary to spend a fortune to put together a good site - it just takes time and effort.
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    Originally Posted by heavysm View Post

    So how much did you spend before your first site ranked highly and made you consistent profit?
    I lost exactly $0.00 [USD]

    I still do everything (seo) myself, 4+ years later.
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    • Profile picture of the author alco
      Originally Posted by yukon View Post

      I lost exactly $0.00 [USD]

      I still do everything (seo) myself, 4+ years later.
      You mean its possible to do SEO without buying your own domains / hosting to create your own network, tools to submit articles to private networks, or spinning software, etc? Without all these things, is it possible to do things quickly?
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      • Profile picture of the author yukon
        Banned
        Originally Posted by alco View Post

        You mean its possible to do SEO without buying your own domains / hosting to create your own network, tools to submit articles to private networks, or spinning software, etc? Without all these things, is it possible to do things quickly?
        Exactly!

        I started out with blogspot sites that still pay the bills 4+ years later.

        SEO has nothing to do with self hosting or buying a TLD.

        I've never wrote a single article, I did however buy a single article, but articles are not for me (I hate articles in every way, that's just me ).

        I'm a download/file guy, I don't mess with articles.

        If you think trying to seo an article is hard, try seoing hundreds of pages with a zip file & a single image on each page (you'll start getting very creative).

        I also get a good amount of niche forum traffic, which is all I ever cared about for my first year at IM. I still get that same forum traffic with literally zero work today.
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    • Profile picture of the author heavysm
      This is what i dont get. I am a full time student while i do this. Doing the backlinks myself for my first site was initially doable but now progressing toward multiple sites i dont get how people have the time to build the back links themselves.
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      • Profile picture of the author jacked
        Originally Posted by heavysm View Post

        This is what i dont get. I am a full time student while i do this. Doing the backlinks myself for my first site was initially doable but now progressing toward multiple sites i dont get how people have the time to build the back links themselves.
        Ya same here, I am a full time med student. I work on my sites when I get time during breaks and between exam weeks. I used to build links myself, but after I made some initial money, I started using it to buy links.

        Also, I was probably down $100-200 before I started to make some decent money.
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        • Profile picture of the author heavysm
          Without outsourcing i dont see how it can be done. Especially those of us who have full time work or school. How does anyone manage several sites without ever outsourcing any of their work? That, truth be told, sounds like a myth to me.
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          • Profile picture of the author DOWORKSON
            Originally Posted by heavysm View Post

            Without outsourcing i dont see how it can be done. Especially those of us who have full time work or school. How does anyone manage several sites without ever outsourcing any of their work? That, truth be told, sounds like a myth to me.
            8 hours a day at my job, 10 hours a day working on my soon to be job..
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          • Profile picture of the author yukon
            Banned
            Originally Posted by heavysm View Post

            Without outsourcing i dont see how it can be done. Especially those of us who have full time work or school. How does anyone manage several sites without ever outsourcing any of their work? That, truth be told, sounds like a myth to me.
            It's not a myth, lol.

            Most IMers don't build a bunch of sites at the exact same time.

            The more you work at it, IM task get easier. Example, If I have a list of awsome authority backlinks from my first site, I can turn around & use those same backlink sources on my 2nd site & so on...

            Also, a lot of folks on this forum don't work a 9-5 job (me), when you have the time to do your own work, you don't need to outsource anything. Besides outsourcing isn't just pay someone else & the job gets done, you still (most time) have to train or baby sit the person you hire to do the job for you. That takes time, that you could have spent just doing things yourself.
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            • Profile picture of the author heavysm
              It wasn't $1000 just to learn, but rather that much in personal experimentation and trial and error. Going for too competitive keywords, ranking for keywords with zero profitability...theres been a bit of time and money spent in places it could have been better invested. Live and learn

              It really wasn't that people have time to do things when they dont have other engagements that i was talking about. I was specifically speaking of those who work and/or have school (me) who also find the time to manage their site(s) without outsourcing.

              It makes sense that a full time IM'er has the time to do all of their site management themselves. What else would they be doing unless they were supremely lazy?
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  • Profile picture of the author cynthea
    I appreciate everyone's honesty here. Good question OP and looking forward to more discussion. Please don't flame me here, but is there a good program for auto-generating backlinks?
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    • Profile picture of the author heavysm
      I must say the motivation of relative financial freedom has always helped me during the hardest of times.

      At my busiest I worked 8-12 hours/daily at my first job, went to school for about 90-180 minutes after, then spend the last few hours or so before bed learning IM. I called this my suicide schedule, but I think those of us that have been hard pressed have faced similar in one form or another.
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  • Profile picture of the author learnquick
    Originally Posted by heavysm View Post

    Though I have just now mastered my own SEO formula I am really curious the amount of effort others have put into their sites.

    With my first site (basically a micro niche site) that actually gave me residual profit i lost about $500 in sunken methods trying to promote it. It now gives me about $150-$200 monthly.

    From start to finish i think i lost (or rather invested ) about $1000 or so just learning SEO overall. This comes from about six or so failed sites that either never properly ranked or that i could never get high enough. One site even ranked top 10 but keyword had zero commercial value.

    So how much did you spend before your first site ranked highly and made you consistent profit?
    $1000 just for learning SEO, that's too expensive price
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  • Profile picture of the author TokiTover
    For me it was just practicing and learning as I went. I joined up with a program btf, that was the only course that allowed me to really "get it" with seo. Now I have my own little system for building sites... I now am working on amazon sites. Same seo concepts just a different numbers game.
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