I give up, I retired from internet marketing

Find something that you're passionate about, then monetize it. And that's what it looks like you're doing.

People start websites with no passion, and that's why they don't work hard to drive traffic and build it up...and that's why they fail.

Good luck with your new blog!

Nothing wrong with IM, where folks get confused is they think legit sites are too much work or legit sites can't be monetized.

Example, a legit DIY homeowner site could easily be monetized with homeowners insurance ads.

Actually they are lying. Google for all that I have read preaches the thesis that if you build it they will come. It IS pretty much a lie. Sure they use some examples of tech sites mostly that have garnered links and results but its not something that any business can rely on. Going viral is hit and miss.

I know what you are saying bro but Your site will get nowhere without marketing. When google stops selling the top three spots in the organic column they will have a more compelling case but right now that practice pretty much screams Money talks not great content.

just keeping it real. Everything else you said is on the money though.

Please remember that you don't succeed if you give up now. Quitting is not an option. Try to find something that you are passionate about, or some topic or niche that was mostly getting attention that people are talking more about it. For example, if XBox 720 was been talked about mostly by people, you should try that niche and take action.

Take care Ernest. You're one of the good guys. I'm back in school working on a masters so my few sites are on autopilot. I never gamed the system so things are stable. They are not big earners, but they do earn.

I think for some here it's a cops an robbers mindset with google being the cops. Folks take pride in being the bad guy. They do stuff that couldn't possibly work in a real business and expect results.

I know all the sites I've built on the third wednesday of the month under a full moon in leap year have consistenty been by best earners. Check out my WSO. I'll be right back with some fake screen shots to prove it!

It seems like a good way for you to go.

Best of luck with the blog and I hope it works out for you.

Be careful not to move too far to the other end of the spectrum. A lot of people spout that "not about the money" crap but let's be honest, most of us want the money. Nothing wrong with that.

p.s. Man I swear I've lost track of how many times you've quit IM and left the WF for good lol. Hell a few more times and you might even get yourself a retirement check. :p

I don't get the whole one or the other thing, it's not like a site can't be promoted to different types of traffic sources at the same time.

You'll be promoting your site somewhere, otherwise there's not going to be any traffic.

The If you build they'll come idea only works in the movies.

Dennis I responded to your post but than deleted it cuz what's the point. Some people will get value out of reading about my experience some won't, end of story.

Yukon, I never said if you build it they will come. I said I quit being a internet marketer, meaning worrying about link building schemes and software, only worrying about me making money and not my visitors, creating crappy affiliate sites etc.

I only meant that I feel more like a blogger than a marketer, bloggers do it for passion and that passion just so happens to make them money, marketers do it for money, they don't care about their sites or the people who visit, just numbers, what analytic's tell's them, how much they made from Adsense/Amazon or Clickbank etc.


Oh and one last last tip, for those of you who are stuck on the dream of making money online the best thing you can do is get a job, that's right, don't sit there waiting for somebody to click on a ad, get a job so that you can invest heavily into your online business. I sat here for while refusing to work for somebody else and all it did was hold me back, now my offline job allows me to invest anywhere from 500-1,000 monthly on my site, and no not all of the money goes into the site itself, you may find yourself needing supplies on or offline like me, I needed a camera and a good one at that so bam there goes 650 right there etc.

Believe me a job will advance your online career much faster than just building sites and waiting for them to make money.

You are correct if you want to blog, then blog.
Some here confuse Internet Marketing and making money with a passion.

A passion is what you do, not for personal gain but for personal satisfaction and
money will usually come from that.

You are stereotyping though. Not everyone here buys all the gimmicks and fast lane approaches.

Oh I do buy here but it is usually a report that helps me shortcut something or a tool that makes my life easier.

You know not everyone links there webpages to a thousand websites, some of us are actually smart and only link to quality sites with like content with one way links.

Some of us have been hit by Google but WE LEARNED not to do the same thing again.

We will also get hit by Google again with the next changes and then we will adapt again and start rebuilding.

If you listen to the smart ones here you will see that you need a large diverse portfolio to keep your money coming in. This way if Google does hit you it doesn't effect your whole business income.

The ones that make money here do try things, they see they don't work they move on and try something else and they see it work and they work on it.

If you are one that follow's the herd and doesn't make money then that is the best decision you could of made and more power to you.

For me its not about gimmicks but true and tried hard work that shows me benefits.

P.S. If you notice I'm not here to make money, I'm here to soak up knowledge. My links are usually freebies with solid things that help. I very rarely have a sig to profit here. I don't even do reviews any longer even though I'm asked daily.

I see thanks in your post, why I have no idea, you want to sterotype everybody here and people thank you for it. Nah,, I say go and while your gone I will make the money that you never could of figured out how to make.

I hope that this post is not a wrong way post but I felt clarification on the part of the marketer that actually loves Im and works it as a passion should follow up.

I agree with the "job" thing, nest. I never quit my job. I still love my job. I also enjoy making sites that pay my bills and the job money is actually easy money to me - top-up, disposable income.

I said it here once and maybe it was a bit tongue-in-cheek, but I said that "rocket science" was easier than IM. (In response to the old cliche of "it's not rocket science"). I still maintain that stance. I understand rocket science pretty well. It's not subject to the fickle change and whims of some third-party company. The mathematics is pretty straight-up, constant, and doesn't depend on some algorithm that is constantly being messed with.

I'm not here to brag but doing the IM thing doubles my income and my life is pretty good, right now. To put a different slant on the "whole one thing or other thing" that Yukon mentioned, it's not just IM or bust. There's a very good life out there to be had, fulfilling in more ways than just money, by doing a bit of both. You don't have to JUST be an internet marketer, there's no shame in having a "job" as well.

Indeed, that's the one thing that's kept me sane, safe and pleasantly unfazed by what Google may throw at us next.

Yeah, I get that Yukon. I was just applying that phrase to some folk's mindset that says you have to be IM or nothing. Or that having a job is somehow a crime, when it obviously isn't.

(So I obviously took your phrase right out of context and it didn't really work )

I understand you so much, making a legit website is not for all people. And when I started to make one, wrote down the plan and did see how much it would cost, I had my doubts. But still I did it.

Now I have my own social network in a way that I can be proud, very proud.

Do I make money, not enough, but it is growing and growing fast. But most of all, I do that what I like, I love my subject and I love that people use it, post on it, sell and buy stuff etc etc. It feels right!

Was it easy? NOW WAY... But still if you have the chance, just do it!

You are fine, I just wanted my opinion in there and the opinions of what I think my friends have.

I wish you the best of luck and this business is not for everyone.

I have a hard time with the notion of 'find something you're passionate about and then monetize it' mantra.

Because it doesn't have another aspect that is incredibly important.

You need to 'Be passionate about something that you can contribute to the world'.

I can be passionate about reading dung beetle current events, but that is hardly something that could be monetized.

Finding long tail keywords and creating micro blogs for traffic is, frankly, not an affiliate path that is incredibly profitable.

Why not take what you can CONTRIBUTE to the world - what you can teach - what you're REALLY good at, that people would be willing to trade their treasure for your knowledge and skill?

For instance, I am awesome at eBay - so what did I do? Created an eBay site where I get around 100 active subscribers at a time.

Also, I also have a great grasp of Internet Marketing. I had an Internet Marketing company with over 1k subscribers that has been sold- made a ton with that one.

I am also really good with aviation - so I created a course on that - monetized it - sold it too.

I am toying with creating a product teaching rocketry building. HOW COOL WOULD THAT BE?! I'm sure there would be a great market for that - from boy scouts to super competitive dads and Go Pro camera owners wanting to take pictures of their entire state from 2 miles high.


Take what you're passionate about, and what you can contribute to the world, and monetize that. Because then it makes marketing easy and intuitive - not laborious and hard.

Nest you hit the nail on the head with "get a job".

I'm certain that most newbies that attempt to make money online are doing so because they NEED money...like NOW. Yes, some do it because they "don't want to work to make someone else rich"', but I think its more desperation.

(I believe one of the longest threads on this forum has 'Desparate' in the title, no?)

If one has money in the bank and know their bills are covered for the next 6 months to a year regardless, I think they would be more inclined to build slooooowly.

I say this and it will probably be the end of it. I've made money from sites that had nothing to do with my own personal interests (medical niche) and it was cool, I made money and really didn't care how I did it so long as it got done.


The whole stick to your interest/love/passion seem like a bunch of bull at that time. But I'm older and on a personal note I felt hollow inside, like I wanted to do more with my life, so for me it has more to do with fulfilling a need to do something of meaning with my life than it has to do with making money.

Can you make money from a niche you careless about?of course. I just prefer not to. Some will understand most won't.

I love SEO, so I guess I'm passionate about it, however I didn't start to sell SEO with that kind of thinking in the back ground, I did it to make money and cause I thought I was good at it (back then purely results driven though, back then I sucked at it I realize now).

The passion came later, when it turned out not to be that easy with Google and everything, and although it hurt sites and clients it was definitely a big challenge that I needed in life and I still enjoy it every day.

Google is lying the bar much higher each time so we just have to jump higher and think harder. We're still dealing with a formula, not some super intelligence type of thing, and often there are only small adjustments needed (read as extra investments) to make it work again / make money again.

Most affiliate/adsense sites tanked in May already, the solution: don't have affiliate links on every page and reduce the amount of affiliate links per page. It couldn't have been easier to figure that out. (obvious: assuming that the rest is done right).

Anyway, good luck with blogging, I definitely think there is money in it, I just couldn't fill page after page each time and still keep the readers interested and that is pretty essential to be successful with that, not an easy skill and not suitable for many.

Many think it's only about forcing yourself to write every day. No no, there are too many blogs out there that I used to visit, and almost every single time it became very boring after x months as it was just repeating the same each couple of months, just in different words.

I actually enjoyed reading this post. It was somewhat refreshing to hear follow your passion and do what you enjoy without all of the focus on internet marketing and Google.

I was enchanted for a min or so thinking how fun it would be to set up websites that I purely enjoyed but the big big issue is, I have done this in the past without SEO and without marketing. and guess what came for 2 years of working on a blog. Spam comments from India that say you need SEO lol

Don't give up. Try to do IM in your free time whie you focus on other things. Just work on other strategies.

I think a lot of people focus too much on making money out of the users, and pick niches they don't like at all just to make money out of. If you hate the niche you are in and are constantly thinking about making money out of the user before thinking about providing value, then you've already failed.

Smart choice. Whenever you wake up with and think that you don't want to do a job you have to do, you must change something. You changed, it is the most important to be happy. Well done, go for it.

I don't get it at all guys, OP has clearly stated that he's going to quit every black hat easy to make money sort of thing. He has never said that he's going to quit online money making.

OP is saying nothing new, after every Google major algo update WF experiences a lot of threads like this one.

No offense OP, I think you're following the right path. Do something passionately and money will start flowing along the way. He has never said that he'll stop driving traffic, all he is saying that he'll only use the legit ways of driving traffic by sharing worthy content.

That's just it. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Good Luck, nest28. I wish I had some passion! Oh! wait, I do have one but that's a secret yet to reveal.

It's possible to be both - many Warriors are doing this already!

Glad you saw the 'light'!

But don't take all of what "Google says" to heart - they tell you what they want you to know - not necessarily what is "best" for you or your site.

I do agree with the rest of your post though - I am constantly telling my students to pick a niche that they can see themselves doing "long term". Unless you plan to flip a site - you should be prepared to dedicate 2+ years to get it going.

Some sites have gone a year or more before they started gaining exposure - ViperChill.com is a great example.

Good luck moving forward and thanks for trying to add value to the net.

Cheers,
Coby

P.S. You can still provide value as an affiliate also - if a product (even a power tool from Amazon) helps your target audience save time, money, or frustration then you OWE it to them to tell them about it. This is just my opinion though.

LOL.................................wow

Why don't you try online lead generation and PPC? You have lots of experience in Internet Marketing and I think you will have huge success. Payments are really high and markets are very big... Someone like you will be making decent profits from Week 2...

nest28,
At the risk of offending, it sounds to me like you're still an "internet marketer". If you're still linking to affiliate products, or products of your own on your blog, you're still in the IM business. Just one who is doing so by following a calling by traveling where your true passion lies. Truth be told, I'm envious. It's taken me a while to nail down what I'd be passionate enough about to maintain a site about it day after day, LOL. I would think with that level of investment in the topic, your site is sure to be a success, and in the end, whether you make serious money or not, you win either way.

as long as you are happy, congratulations. many of us do not understand that life is not about making $. but it is true.

What I really love about your post is you now have all the SEO services guys running around trying to put out the fire you started. LMFAO.

Nest...........take a break for a month. Clear your head and go down the blogger path after you get your head on straight.. Monetize the blog with affiliate offers and other goodies. Sometimes all we need to do is step back and breath a little. Reach out if you need help!

This time....NO DABBLING!!!

Stick to one thing and get it to provide you with what you're after.

I failed at IM back a long time ago.

I live on tinned spaggeti

I broke off relationships

I had to cut off parts of my family members who did not encorage or tell me to go for it

I was broke, and a bit lonely.... however

I use to keep dreaming of waking up and doing what I want and living the life of my dreams.

7 years later, I earn 10 times more a day than in my crappy 9-5er

I am now financially secure, have a beautiful wife that is very supportive of what I do.

I can now wake up and know what I should be doing to make money online.

Is it EASY! CHIT NO!

But it is my passion, I would not trade it for any other thing I do.

Learn to fail fast so you can get on with it and make less and less mistakes. That is the best way I can explain it.

Yes, I have not had it easy, but the journey has been wild, crazy and one heck of a ride. But I think god intended it for things to hit rock bottom so i would enjoy the success the other side.

Hope this helps.

Work hard, and learn from people are already at a point where you want to be one day. Half my friends do not make under $500,000 a year, we push eachother and are like brothers in a way, cause we learn, we can laugh, cry, have fun, and make money together. That is what this IM stuff is all about I think.

There is a kid here in IM who is about 16 ...yes so young! Went to seminar and saw people asking questions at the end. IT was soooo funny!

He makes a crap load of money, and everyone I see goes up to him and asks him why he is a legend, and how he makes it online! (this was after seminar at lunch)

I stood behind some older gentlemen, who asks this kid at a seminar, why he was doing so well!

The pimply kid says quietly! and this is funny! - "I just build lists every day, and work hard to try to give them stuff I would want!"

I sat back and smiled and said to myself, this kid is never going to have to worry about money again.

Work hard, and build lists. It is key, no matter how many threads say "oh dimwits, list building does not work" or "Is listbuilding dead " Threads. It has been working in the 1700's and will be working when you are long gone!

I use to be one of the idiots who came to this forum, and heard people talking about building a list, and thought......damn it!, surely that cannot work. But when I tried it, and did it properly, got 400 or so members on my list, wow did things really change for me. IN A BIG WAY!

Now my lists are bigger than 400 people. LOL. But its not the size of your list, its how you engage them.

Its funny you do not even need a bussiness with a list, you can just build a list, and offer other peoples products to them. Affiliate products, or CPA stuff. I know a guy in the CAT / RAGDOLL niche who is retired and does very well with this, yes he does not have a cat site, just a list he has built and offers good content and then plugs products. He does not even own a cat blog or site.

I kinda feel the same way as the OP...I took a couple of years off from my main niche to try my hand at some other ones. I learned a lot, made a little (LOL), but the most valuable lesson that I learned is that if you're not passionate about what you're doing, then you will ultimately fail at it.

Right now, I'm an automotive journalist (and a webmaster for a major hotel company during the day), but I'm winding that down over the next month or so to focus on my main niche. Like you, I'll have one main site that I'll contribute to, and a few membership sites that I'll use to fill the ad spaces with.

Best of luck to you, and keep pursuing your passion.

I just read the first post here and it influence me to share my views here, I would like to suggest OP to please be positive in your thinking yes its seems to me that you more experience then me, but I also have such feelings when non of my sites are getting anywhere in google, then I decided to leave everything and just concentrate only on content, I created all the content of my site on my own and make good number of posts on regular basis now my site has over 1000 posts and you know what I don't bother about having backlinks etc, I leave everything on the mercy of google, and you know what about 60 keywords making appearance in google's first page,
What I did nothing Just leave all to google let and decide where to place my site, once my site making enough UV's I start placing adsense and it is making decent money $10-12 per day..and now I add content only 4-6 every month.

on the other had I did't huge link-building and all sorts of seo methods but site not ranking, I think if you have good content then google surely will love it. instead of fighting with google we should follow it..

Its purely my own views some may or may not agree

KoreanCowboy, like you, I have a niche I'm passionate about, but which does not look to be entirely profitable. And, have taken a break to learn, explore other niches, etc.

However, OP really has gotten me to thinking. In fact, the past day or two I've been getting excited again about my original niche and thinking maybe I should take the tools, products, etc that I've been learning since taking a break from it, and really try to get my little "empire" (LOL) in this niche going. God knows Ive purchased enough "stuff" (as part of working on it previously, as well as during subsequent endeavors) that I could get it going if I wished. Just add focused and determined effort.

Like I mentioned to OP, I'm a bit envious of his contentedness. I'm thinking if I pursue the same route, it may be more successful in the end, if only because I have a topic I'm passionate about.

I'm still thinking it over. But thinking of just resuming my efforts to make a site (er, project with several sites involved) in this niche full-force, since every time I try to veer off in some other areas, my best ideas all come back to me for this particular niche. Hmmm...

The 'internet marketing' niche is not really for everyone. However, if you are online and marketing anything, then you are in that market, even if it's a simple blog about your passion for gardening (monetized with Adsense). There's really no reason you can't earn from a blog or site you are passionate about. You don't have to sell your soul to be a success online. Define what you want to talk about and who you want to talk with and then write about those things that mean most to you. You can always sell actual ad space on your blog, rather than trying to market affiliate products. So long as your traffic and ranking is good, you should have no problem earning well with that solution.

Yes, doing something that gets you juiced up is a good thing, but passion won't bring you money. Most successful business people focus purely on conversions i.e the line of thinking you deem negative, that being "will this site make money"

I don't think you need to stick to one way to earn money for whole your life. You don't feel like doing IM..move on. Try to build a offline business. It's actually better than online business. Or write a blog if you feel like.

Best of luck!

No point marketing things you hate. Either find something you love or outsource it!

No other way!

In all honesty, I'd rather be a filmmaker than an internet marketer, but internet marketing at least helped me free up the time I need to make my filmmaking dream come true.

I've already reached the point where I barely need to maintain my IM efforts and I've been focusing far more on filmmaking. However, alot of the techniques I've learned from internet marketing have helped me in my filmmaking efforts (especially on the marketing side).

Best of luck with your blog and don't forget the things you've learned from IM!

I appreciate the feedback since my last post -- even the advice that wasn't necessarily directed toward me has been helpful. I love WF!

There's one word for that and it's "Capitulation". Those that get tired of trying to evolve at the 'SEO' game will eventually capitulate. It's a lot of work and it's 'churn and burn' in the majority of cases. What Google says it wants and what it will reward you for are often contrary to what the reality of that actually is. And there's the rub - don't kid yourself that if you do what "G" says it wants webmasters to do, that you will be rewarded. Doing what you love is fine if it's what you love and there's a viable market for what you are passionate about. If you love underwater basket weaving, you have an uphill struggle ahead. Also, Google is not your friend (any listed company exists to satisfy shareholders and the people on the board) - building up assets you have control and leverage over is the name of the game and you need contingency plans in place.

Good luck.

Fellow blogger here too and it is so much simpler. I wake up raring to go, only promote one main niche and tools that are needed for it and love every moment of it. Knowing I'm making a tiny difference in people's lives is truly humbling and more to follow. All the best to you and your blogging adventure.

Hi,

Sorry you feel that way about IM. I believe I read one of your posts not too long ago about wanting to quit. That just means that you were doing something you didn't enjoy and it was too much like a J-O-B!
Good luck with your new blog. I hope you do very well.
Geri Richmond

It's not about the money

Jessie J - Price Tag ft. B.o.B. - YouTube

You can still blog and do IM at the same time. Might as well monetize your blog.

Nowadays, I don't like to define "Internet Marketing," in such finite terms. To me, and I hope others as well, IM doesn't just stand for selling other people's products with affiliate marketing or "Amazon affiliate selling power tools." Think about the DOT COM bubble. People were so caught up with the new technology of the internet. They forgot large pieces of the puzzle that make businesses actually function. Many of them forgot to create value.

CDBaby is an example of a DOT COM era company that succeeded. I liked it when you said, "Once you stop asking yourself "will this site make money" your on the right path." That is true. I talked with Derek Sivers once, and he told me that he didn't want to create a business - it was an accident! It was his humility (and of course, intelligent decision making) that made him successful. Derek finally woke up and realized that he had a business: the world's first online record store, and he treated it as such.

As far as blogging goes...there is a reason that BlogWorld has changed its name to the New Media Marketing Expo! Blogging has started a new wave of provide value on the web. All of a sudden, anybody has instant, free access to experts in whatever topic they wish; and they can interact with those experts. The New Media Marketing Expo name change helps remind us that the simple word, "blog," now implicates a much larger movement of Internet Marketers who are building substantial businesses. They provide real value, and are in-turn compensated for that value. If your focus is completely on your customers, then you are on the right track. It is fulfilling emotionally as well as financially.

Are the guys at AppSumo not amazing Internet Marketers? They didn't try to "beat the system." They built a freaking awesome business for entrepreneurs. They found a need and they met that need. Then they used "internet marketing" as a way of delivering that value to A LOT of customers.

Internet Marketing is just a means to an end. It is only a way of getting people to stop, educate them about your product, and why it is beneficial to them. The product that you're selling is what makes the difference. If you don't have a substantial product, such as selling other people's products, link building etc., then it's possible that you will feel empty in the end; you aren't trying to spread your own message. What you are finding, Nest28, is that you want people to value YOU. So, you are now creating your own blog so that people can find value in YOU. Congratulations.

I believe you are still an internet marketer. All you are doing now is creating your own product and providing your own value instead of piggy-backing on the value others have created. Best of luck to you.

Cheers!

Paul

Reading this post is something. I made two websites and its been hard for me to find traffic. I will be happy to know how people do it before quitting. Like your post though.

I personally think it's about what you share, and the content you put up. A good amazon review will help people buy and ensure that they're happy with the purchase, if you know what I mean.

Thanks,
Seb.

Yes, I agree with you.
Do what you like and it will long lasting.

Good luck with your new venture. Share with us your blogs.