Overwhelmed beginner blogger, too much to handle?

by EmanLx
31 replies
Hey guys, let me start by saying I'm glad I've found you!

My name is Emanuel and I'm a 28 years old dreamer, I joined this community in hope of getting some guidance.

I have a primary source of income that is not related to online services and generates a good income (at least it did before the pandemic).

I've always had the "make money online" itch, even made around 70$ from Youtube a few years ago but for some reason dropped the idea of continuing.

I'm in no way expecting to become rich overnight, was educated on that subject after seeing several friends and family members fall victim to pyramid schemes with this exact promise.

So, let me get straight to the point, since I've been having some free time ever since the pandemic blew up, I started reading a few blogs around March and stumbled upon the idea of creating my own, before doing some search, I thought blogging was a heavy coding task only meant to be enjoyed by a selected few bright minds.

Fast forward to May, by this time "armed" with a little knowledge of a thing or two about WordPress and Elementor, I decided to hop in and created my own blog, ever since I took this step I've been feeling overwhelmed by everything blogging involves.

I'm somewhat a perfectionist, starting with the website design, took me an insane amount of time to reach an "OKish to my eyes" design, I've been working alone on this project and so far I have 3 articles published, It was a pain to find images that I could use on those as well.

I started with the idea of targeting the gaming niche but later changed my mind to personal finance niche.

Now, I've been searching for some SEO tips and opted to try Ahrefs for 7 days yesterday, I quickly noticed another major mistake I made, the 3 articles present on my blog are targeting impossible keywords to rank for and they're about what every other blogger has written so far, I'll try to target a narrower audience in the next ones.

The idea is to get an outside point of view on what I've been doing, right now I'm lost and I'm finding it impossible to focus on one thing at a time.

I need some of your experience to slap me in the face, don't want to find out that I don't have any organic search traffic because of bad SEO practice after publishing 40 articles.

My first goal is to grow website visitors which at the moment are 0, I couldn't care less about affiliate marketing or any other income streams in this early stage, I'll tackle those once I have the wheel spinning and a grasp of what I'm doing.

Should I stop worrying about everything else and just focus on creating content, is this "wait and see if it works" the only way to go?

Are the keywords on Ahrefs a reliable source to create content around?

What was your priority when you first started, what did you do to get first visitors and grow those to a massive audience?

I'll be grateful for any piece of advice coming from you, thanks in advance!
#beginner #blogger #handle #overwhelmed
  • Profile picture of the author spartan14
    Well i sugest you to not depend only on seo because it takes time .Maybe combine with tourube videos in your niche because it rank faster and toutube its very good for conversion .In meantime your blog will gain more authority and it will rank better giving you income
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    • Profile picture of the author vikramjk
      You are right, SEO takes time.
      Youtube is good, but it takes time to create good video
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  • Profile picture of the author jimjonk276
    We use ahrefs at work for checking backlink domains and site DAs, but we find that SEMrush is much better when it comes to looking up keywords. Their 'keyword magic' tool is super useful for finding questions on a topic you can split your article into.

    I did a bit of freelancing for these guys a while back and got one of the writers to start using SEMrush. This article on migraines was built around questions listen on SEMrush. It helps your articles become keyword-rich and relevant to the sorts of things people want to know on a topic.

    That isn't all you should be doing, though. Take the migraine example again. Once a person who gets migraines has read everything they need to know about migraines, they're not going to be interested in reading basic info about migraines anymore, are they? So you need to develop your content on that topic.

    Instead of just explaining migraines, it'd be useful to explore what the latest developments in migraine treatments are happening in the medical field. Look at how certain foods can cause migraines. Branch out the content so that there's a hook relevant to current events, as well. That means you're more likely to get on the news aggregators.

    Hope that's helped. Let me know if you have any questions.
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    • Profile picture of the author EmanLx
      Wonderful, I'll give SEMrush a try after Ahrefs, what are your thoughts on Ubersuggest, have you tried it?

      The price tag is much more appealing, does it have any quality of service?

      I know It's not nearly as powerful as SEMrush or Ahrefs but for a beginner, a 99$ monthly cost is hardly justifiable, perhaps until I see some results from my work I'll stay away from those two, or do you suggest otherwise?
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  • Profile picture of the author EdBankz
    I first want to thank the OP for expressing everything I'm also feeling as a newbie. And thanks to all the helpful responses as well. I just joined a few days ago and now know I made the right decision.
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  • Profile picture of the author TobiMDD
    Hey I guess I can give you some advices I learned over the last few months from one of my mentors who teaches blogging.


    When you are a newbie and when you are just starting out with everything, simply don't overcomplicate it.
    There is no need for you to have the best looking themes, the best looking website and the most professional text written down.


    We always try to make everything perfect that we forget about those things that are way more important which is simply traffic and visitors to your page, right?


    You write for people, you want to deliver value to their life , so you need to focus that they have a chance to see your content - be yourself , don't write content for SEO , write for people if you want to be successful.


    They get to know, like and trust you more likely when they see that you are also just a human who is not perfect sometimes.



    Therefore yes, decide which niche you like the most and where you can deliver great content for a long time and then just start writing and most importantly start sharing your content on social media etc.


    A great way to get targeted visitors to your blog is also by connecting and leaving valuable comments on other peoples blog who are in a similar niche. Reach out to them, share their content, grow your audience, be consistent with it and you will see results, comments on your blog, more visitors etc.


    Don't fall into the content trap of writing posts after posts without getting visitors first to it.
    (I made lots of those mistakes when I started too..)


    Hope that helps.
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    • Profile picture of the author EmanLx
      I've been able to enter some Facebook groups but the experience has not been the greatest, by the time I can promote any of my posts, people just hop in, leave a comment but never return to my blog, I'll keep trying anything I can, thanks for your advice.
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  • Profile picture of the author SiteNameSales
    Wonderful, I'll give SEMrush a try after Ahrefs, what are your thoughts on Ubersuggest, have you tried it?

    The price tag is much more appealing, does it have any quality of service?

    I know It's not nearly as powerful as SEMrush or Ahrefs but for a beginner, a 99$ monthly cost is hardly justifiable, perhaps until I see some results from my work I'll stay away from those two, or do you suggest otherwise?


    You might find Brian Dean's 25 Best Keyword Tools 2020 Review to be helpful.
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  • Profile picture of the author Peter42
    Hi Emanuel, if I were you I wouldn't focus too much of your time on keyword research; instead, I'd suggest that you concentrate on getting content on your blog and then return to keyword research. Can I ask if you use any SEO plugins on your blog? If you have, then great but if not then here's two that I'll point out:
    • Yoast
    • All in One SEO

    Both are great plugins for SEO, though from experience AIOSEO is a lot more user friendly.
    Keep in mind as well to diversify your traffic, such as YouTube and of course; forums. I hope this helps you out.
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    • Profile picture of the author EmanLx
      I use Yoast since the very beginning. Thanks for the reply
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  • Profile picture of the author Contentistic
    I really want to respond to this post with a ton of information from my experience.

    But the OP hasn't logged onto the forums in about 2 months.
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    • Profile picture of the author EmanLx
      I sincerely apologize, been focusing on writing content, ever since this post was made I was able to add another 10 articles to my blog but the traffic is not there yet, I won't give up though!
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  • Profile picture of the author Slayer One
    Dear Warrior, I'm not even up and running yet but I'm writing a blog just like you and I have a strong idea of online marketing due to past expirience so I'm going to give you a strategy to try and hopefully you'll start seeing results.


    Assuming you already have a blog with some content... the first step is really to optimise the site so that it converts well.


    This means clear offers with clear calls to action - it means getting your ad placement right - it means the tone and language of the page should be persuasive and steering the reader to your solution.


    That's half your battle. The other half is driving traffic.


    I fear way too many people select free traffic sources for a host of different reasons.



    Nothing is wrong with free traffic but IMHO paid traffic gets results and it gets them quickly, besides by paying for your advertising and having your product or service being promoted in the authenic ads or sponsored posts of platform will give your company a sense of credibility that you just can not get without it.


    Set yourself a small budget, do some reading on text ad copy writing and then start a campaign on Google or Facebook or Snapchat or Tiktok and see how you do with them.


    Don't be afraid to jump in the deep end just be sensible with your budget, try new things, take risks and test how it pays off for yourself: you will learn faster from active practice than by any other method I promise ya.


    Heck, start a journey thread here on the forum and keep the warriors up to date with what you are doing, what results you are getting, what your thoughts and plans are, what you tweaked and when and why.


    The forum will benefit immensely from a thread like this and warriors will be able to actively engage with you to offer their support, feedback and new ideas.


    Crack on and keep us posted,
    all the best, peace,
    Slayer 1
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    • Profile picture of the author EmanLx
      Hell yeah, this is exactly what I need to read!

      I've tried promoting my posts through both Google ads and Facebook ads before.

      For some reason Google ads worked for just one day, then there was something wrong with it and I never managed to get the campaign back up again, Facebook ads brought more traffic while the campaign was active but not a single soul kept visiting afterward, I'm at the same spot where I began.

      I guess I need to have a good chunk of content before another attempt at anything else other than writing, I currently have 13 posts in total, I've been focusing on quantity but one person (me) can only churn out a couple of articles per week, I wanted to try outsourcing content to accelerate the process so the first place that I looked at was Facebook groups.

      I ended up disappointed at the quality of SEO and backlink services provided by some members in such groups, most of them generate backlinks by spamming posts on random websites and I quickly realized before committing to these services that Google would penalize my blog for using them.

      For now, I'll keep throwing out more content (solo) until it picks up a little traffic, it's a long road ahead, every day is a new challenge and I keep learning more, I'm excited to see what the future brings to the table.
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  • Profile picture of the author Kay King
    I'm somewhat a perfectionist,
    Get over it! What you think of as 'perfection' probably has nothing to do with reality at this point. Nothing is ever perfect - do the best you can within a reasonable period of time and move on to the next task.

    My advice - at this point don't BUY any software or join any programs....focus all your attention on learning to run your blog.

    Fast forward to May, by this time "armed" with a little knowledge of a thing or two about WordPress and Elementor, I decided to hop in and created my own blog, ever since I took this step I've been feeling overwhelmed by everything blogging involves.
    I think you may be overwhelmed because you didn't do enough prep work before jumping in. Why 'gaming' - why 'personal finance'? Both high competition general topics - not really 'niches'.

    Read this thread:
    https://www.warriorforum.com/warrior...m-nothing.html

    Two things clearly missing that you need to catch up on...

    1. HOW to choose a niche - what is a niche - what is a subniche....

    2. HOW to evaluate/find keywords for your chosen niche...without paying for tools to do it for you. If you spend some time on how to choose niches and keywords it will pay off time after time.

    Some thoughts on the topic: When you go shopping, watch what other shoppers are looking at - what displays catch their attention - what products seem to be selling well. Look at what people have in their carts at big box stores or department stores. Look at what people carry - wear - buy with an eye to 'would that sell'? As you go through a day - at work, shopping, at home....notice the 'things' around you...and keep a list of potential niches and sub-niches.

    Several times a week - use google to search those niche ideas. How many results (pages) use those words...etc etc.. You will eliminate 99% of what you wrote down - but likely find a few good ideas along the way.

    What I'm say is simple : IMMERSE yourself in the production of a blog. Decide on a topic/niche - identify subniches - create keywords by doing hours of research on them. Then start creating content.....building links, etc. The common phrase we see here is "I know it takes time, but"...drop the 'but' - it does take time but can pay off very well if you do it right.

    so far I have 3 articles published, It was a pain to find images that I could use on those as well.
    I'm sure other members here may have better recommendations - but start with pixabay.com and a google search for 'free images', etc. Finding an image should not slow down building your blog. Three articles is barely a start....and if you started months ago you need to pick up the pace.

    You are getting some good advice above - but you need a solid platform to build on - a niche you either know something about or have an interest in learning....a niche that is a 'niche' and not general topic - and you need to have a big list of 'searched for' keywords and keyword phrases and long tail keywords to pull up so you can write up an article quickly an put it on your blog. If images are a big deal - skip them for now and add some later.

    Being a perfectionist will hold you back - online and in life. Learn to accept 'best I can do' and 'good enough'. Some here will say this would be easier if you bought this software or joined 'this and this and that'...and you can do that later. I'm a firm believer in understanding what you are doing and having a plan in place. It will add weight to everything you do on your blog.

    start a journey thread here on the forum and keep the warriors up to date with what you are doing, what results you are getting, what your thoughts and plans are, what you tweaked and when and why.

    EDIT: The suggestion above is a good one.....it refers to a 'warrior path' thread...read the sticky post instructions in that section...might be something to try later...but right now get the basics in place.
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    • Profile picture of the author EmanLx
      First of all, I want to thank you for the time you've spent reading about my journey, most people would fly by with a quick answer but you came up with a uniquely detailed and eye-opening reply, I'm astonished.

      As I wrote above, I'm currently sitting at 13 sweaty posts, it would be very disheartening to start over from a completely new perspective, on top of it, I do enjoy the financial world, writing about it and its related topics such as cryptocurrencies, investments and so on.

      My posts "strategy" so far has been to do keyword research, finding random low difficulty keywords tied to finance with some search volume, and most of the time write a 1000+ word article on the topic.

      Due to your reply, I can now see this is not the best approach, but I'll stick with it until at least one of the articles picks up some traffic and I can come up with a better plan starting from that point.

      Of course, if I still see no results after quite a while, I'll drop the idea and move on to a better project.

      I'm not currently in a rush as I just started to write more frequently by the time I joined the warriors and I know SEO results are painfully slow to kick in, it's been around 2-3 months since I've put this "strategy" in place, I'm still looking for the little traffic that will dictate what works and what doesn't for my specific case.

      Nevertheless, I'll make sure to come back to this thread more often because I'm blown away by the support over here, it's very rewarding to be part of a community that actually cares, unlike some Facebook groups where every single person just stares at their own reflection.
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  • Profile picture of the author WF- Enzo
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    I also run a blog myself. I don't worry much about the visitors - the point of a blog is having good, readable content. So just keep on writing good content, and worry about the visitors later.
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    • Profile picture of the author EmanLx
      May I ask how long have you've been doing it?

      Have you seen positive results?
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  • Profile picture of the author DABK
    Yet you'd do so much better if you focused on what type of content you write, how you present it on the screen, what headlines you use, etc.


    There are so many blogs with good, readable content that nobody reads!


    Originally Posted by WF- Enzo View Post

    I also run a blog myself. I don't worry much about the visitors - the point of a blog is having good, readable content. So just keep on writing good content, and worry about the visitors later.
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  • Profile picture of the author onlyaman
    Hey Emmanuel, I was entirely the same as you for a long, long time. Jumping from one thing to another looking for quick results. I would say you can make most things work if you stick to it and keep trying.

    Find a mentor too that you are accountable to, he will keep you on track!

    Good Luck

    Greg
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  • Profile picture of the author Alex Capra
    Hi Emmanuel, It's good that you've got your design finished. My advice focus on creating content. The best thing you can do seo wise is produce regular content. Keywords are important but they work better when you have a decent amount of content. My advice for images try canva, pexels and pixabay. Also google and bing you can search for free to use images. Also, try and educate yourself about tools that will help make things easier for you and instead of AHREFS look for something more beginner friendly. Look up Jaaxy and use this rule above 100 traffic below 100 qsr there are other metrics as well but this easiest to remember for me. Lastly, when you start feeling frustrated I would take this time to watch videos that will teach you new methods and tips etc. This always makes me want to carry on. Hope this helps.
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    • Profile picture of the author EmanLx
      I don't think new bloggers realize how important those tips are.

      You've pretty much summarized everything I've been doing, I'm finally seeing some positive results starting to roll out.

      Thank you for sharing your tips!
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  • Profile picture of the author freda12387
    I think I have the same troubles as you.
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  • Profile picture of the author brettb
    Youtube is still good. I regularly watch a channel that was started in 2019 and now has a million subs. They curate content (it's not cats or people falling over or gaming related). Basically they just read out Wikipedia articles and show a few related video clips.


    Just don't over think and stick to hobbies and interests. Trains and planes for example get insane numbers of views.
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  • Profile picture of the author Alex Babenkoff
    Getting traffic to your website is the number one most important thing if you want to be successful. You can spend hours editing your landing page, creating new content, changing your banners and making your website look the way you think is best, but if no customers come, the work was nothing but a waste of time.

    Utilize things such as social media accounts, youtube video channel, PPC and other forms of advertising online.
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  • Profile picture of the author EmanLx
    Sharing a brief update with you...

    I've been focused on creating more content ever since this thread was made but found out the tool I've been using for keyword research is VERY inaccurate (Ubersuggest paid subscription).

    Came to this conclusion by seeing results from other tools I've tried...

    As I've mentioned before, I had a 7-day run on Ahrefs but didn't really know how to craft a well-made article to put the keywords to good use, so I didn't see any benefits from it at the time.

    This changed by also giving Semrush a run later on. I've published 2 articles under the trial period (exclusively using Semrush for keyword research) that are now going up in rank while the others I've used Ubersuggest in have been collecting dust in the search engine, I will try to revert the situation by updating them later on.

    I've also recently addressed a couple SEO issues (improperly shown pages in Google, readjusted meta descriptions, optimized a few articles and took care of a few more shenanigans).

    Redefined my approach when it comes to articles, I petty the fact that I just recently realized the importance of long tail keywords for new blogs/websites. As a beginner, it's impossible not trying to target "make money" keywords, everyone feels their content is worth a million bucks and assume it will automatically dethrone any authority website overnight (except not).

    Although it's debatable, I personally believe there's no need to niche down to a super specific branch of audience but rather find specific long tail keywords that fit your niche well and write articles that match search intent around them.

    Tried to boost a couple posts on Facebook too and the results led me to believe it's mostly bot traffic, with a basically non-existent average session duration (less than 5 seconds, what's up with that!?).

    I didn't hit any home run yet but If you ask me, I'm feeling better prepared with a new layer of depth in blogging knowledge but still with much, much more to learn. Every time I feel like quitting, I take my time to find inspiration in order to keep my head up, giving up is not an option.

    Thank you all for your support, I'll be keeping you updated!
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  • Profile picture of the author AlexKS
    Getting Google to notice your website can be slow. My advice is to go super narrow on your niche. This can get you perceived as an authority faster.

    You can get the Moz Chrome extension and make use of the DA and PA metrics. Compare the Domain Authority and Page Authority of the first page result websites with your own.

    That way you can find out if you have a chance of getting ranked for your chosen keywords. Focus on long tail keywords with less competition, if you can. Keep feeding the machine by adding content regularly. Google rewards consistency.
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  • Profile picture of the author crendon2854
    Like the last Alex said, go super narrow on your target niche. However, I would consider building a newsletter for your blog. This way at least you'll own the traffic and will be instant whenever you have a new article to share. This alone should warm up your audience to you and will eventually make the sales process easier. Hopefully you'll use a sales funnel.
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  • Profile picture of the author brettb
    I love making videos but yesterday it took a whole afternoon to make a 4 minute video.


    I used to blog a lot but it's got pretty saturated these days. The best thing I ever did was buy a couple of coding books. Now I focus on building tools to answer all those keyword queries as they rank well without having dozens of backlinks.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mary Annabelle
    Originally Posted by EmanLx View Post

    Hey guys, let me start by saying I'm glad I've found you!

    My name is Emanuel and I'm a 28 years old dreamer, I joined this community in hope of getting some guidance.

    I have a primary source of income that is not related to online services and generates a good income (at least it did before the pandemic).

    I've always had the "make money online" itch, even made around 70$ from Youtube a few years ago but for some reason dropped the idea of continuing.

    I'm in no way expecting to become rich overnight, was educated on that subject after seeing several friends and family members fall victim to pyramid schemes with this exact promise.

    So, let me get straight to the point, since I've been having some free time ever since the pandemic blew up, I started reading a few blogs around March and stumbled upon the idea of creating my own, before doing some search, I thought blogging was a heavy coding task only meant to be enjoyed by a selected few bright minds.

    Fast forward to May, by this time "armed" with a little knowledge of a thing or two about WordPress and Elementor, I decided to hop in and created my own blog, ever since I took this step I've been feeling overwhelmed by everything blogging involves.

    I'm somewhat a perfectionist, starting with the website design, took me an insane amount of time to reach an "OKish to my eyes" design, I've been working alone on this project and so far I have 3 articles published, It was a pain to find images that I could use on those as well.

    I started with the idea of targeting the gaming niche but later changed my mind to personal finance niche.

    Now, I've been searching for some SEO tips and opted to try Ahrefs for 7 days yesterday, I quickly noticed another major mistake I made, the 3 articles present on my blog are targeting impossible keywords to rank for and they're about what every other blogger has written so far, I'll try to target a narrower audience in the next ones.

    The idea is to get an outside point of view on what I've been doing, right now I'm lost and I'm finding it impossible to focus on one thing at a time.

    I need some of your experience to slap me in the face, don't want to find out that I don't have any organic search traffic because of bad SEO practice after publishing 40 articles.

    My first goal is to grow website visitors which at the moment are 0, I couldn't care less about affiliate marketing or any other income streams in this early stage, I'll tackle those once I have the wheel spinning and a grasp of what I'm doing.

    Should I stop worrying about everything else and just focus on creating content, is this "wait and see if it works" the only way to go?

    Are the keywords on Ahrefs a reliable source to create content around?

    What was your priority when you first started, what did you do to get first visitors and grow those to a massive audience?

    I'll be grateful for any piece of advice coming from you, thanks in advance!
    I think you shouldn't stick to Ahrefs alone, though the keywords there are actually reliable. There are other platforms you could use like SEMrush, MOZ. Have you tried Neil Patel. For your content writing, you could try out Sertyaricles or Fiverr. That's my advise to you
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  • Profile picture of the author talfighel
    Start writing good content on your website.

    Don't forget to add some affiliate links that are related to your niche as a hyper link. The reason why I say this is because once you start getting some traffic, you want to be able to have some income hopefully coming in from your affiliate link.

    Stay consistent for at least 1 year.
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