This journey was harder than I thought

[Bazooka]

Freedom was something I always loved but I didn't know the price to pay was a heavy one.

I have seen digital marketing as a path to freedom. The creation of the internet was one of the best thing to happen to all of us. Because you can sit somewhere and make thousand to millions of dollars in your computer.

I got into digital marketing early 2019 after I had spent months looking for a job with no success. After a few months, I quickly found success and was earning middle 5 figures a month with an SEO blog (this is a lot in my country).

I also learnt a lot of other skills and used that to run an online shopify store and that earned me quite a bit of money. But this world likes to olay cruel jokes and place obstacles in your path.

First came the 2020 Google core update which decimated my website's income and traffic. All this while I hadn't reinvested the money into starting another website or business. That's was a newbie mistake on my part.

That's when I realized my SEO skills were still lacking something and that in this internet business anything can happen. Things can go wrong quicky. The second mistake was recovering the site and not selling it as soon as possible.

I tried to scale but I didn't know how properly. Then a few months later it got hit by Google core May update. Now I'm back to square one. Going through this opened my eyes on how the internet landscape changes quickly.

And that you must be prepared and keep some or most of the profits in case sometime like that happen. Although, I'm back to square one and almost out of cash. I'm not going to give up.

Now I know how to scale properly, hire writers and got a whole lot of other skills in pocket (FB ads, Google ads, graphic design, etc.). In other words, I'm character with fairly good skills starting at square one.

I know I won't be broke for long. This journey to freedom and financial independence isn't an easy one. But nothing worthwhile comes easy.

 

[wikibum]

I know I won't be broke for long. This journey to freedom and financial independence isn't an easy one. But nothing worthwhile comes easy.

I can feel the fire within you! Keep that flame lit and you will never lose. You obviously have the drive and ambition to succeed - you just gotta keep going after it.

I think a lot of digital marketers don't read enough. Many people I met know their stuff but they are not evolving. They are comfortable with their knowledge and just keep doing the same things (as long as they work). When things go south - they panic and start learning and looking at things again.

Why not be proactive? Setup a feedly account, add all high quality blogs to it and keep reading. Keep learning! There is always something new and knowledge is power. If you read enough and grow your skills - you will eventually become a leader and not just a follower. It won't be easy for you fail because you can kind of foresee what will happen (or at least you can plan an exit strategy). It's easier said than done.

Keeping that flame lit is hard if you keep doing the same things over and over again. Reading keeps me on my toes and gives me new ideas - even motivates me to try new things that I never even thought about.

 

[SmokeTree]

You have the right attitude to be doing this kind of work. You'll find that people here are very receptive and helpful to those that show they are serious. The best advice I can give to anyone wanting to learn and/or get better at anything is, start making mistakes early on and make as many as you can as early as possible. The deepest learning comes from mistakes and being able to deeply introspect and correct them. This leads to complete understanding and is exactly what separates those that have 10 years experience and those that have 1 years experience 10 years in a row. Best of luck to you!

 

[Bazooka]

I think a lot of digital marketers don't read enough. Many people I met know their stuff but they are not evolving. They are comfortable with their knowledge and just keep doing the same things (as long as they work). When things go south - they panic and start learning and looking at things again.

Agreed. This is a trap that's hard not to fall into. Although some principles are the same there landscape keeps on changing.

You have the right attitude to be doing this kind of work. You'll find that people here are very receptive and helpful to those that show they are serious. The best advice I can give to anyone wanting to learn and/or get better at anything is, start making mistakes early on and make as many as you can as early as possible. The deepest learning comes from mistakes and being able to deeply introspect and correct them. This leads to complete understanding and is exactly what separates those that have 10 years experience and those that have 1 years experience 10 years in a row. Best of luck to you!

Thank you. I learnt a lot from the my mistakes and how to handle the mental aspect of when things go south.

 

[Ryuzaki]

And that you must be prepared and keep some or most of the profits in case sometime like that happen. Although, I'm back to square one and almost out of cash. I'm not going to give up.

It's definitely a balancing act. If you extract all profit, you won't be reinvesting and expanding. If you don't extract any profit, you may end up with nothing to show for your work. And nobody can tell you which is right for you, though lots of people will tell you. I think the only incorrect answers are "all or nothing". You need some of both happening.

First came the 2020 Google core update which decimated my website's income and traffic. [...] later it got hit by Google core May update.

This is pretty typical, I think, for a newer SEO. I don't know anyone who wasn't getting hit by updates at the start. That was me early on 10 and 15 years ago, it's you a few years ago, and it's newcomers today.

The problem is that newbies don't know what they don't know, and they don't know which little clever exploits have already been dealt with, they don't know what's over-doing it or under-doing it, etc. They either have to know to ask those questions and seek the answers (studying a history of Google SEO and not just how to do SEO), or they have to stumble face first into getting de-ranked for them. It's just how it goes.

We also tend to equate our hopes, dreams, efforts, desires, wishes, (magical thinking) with quality. It's ours, so it must be high quality! We worked hard on it and want it so bad! Meanwhile back in reality our websites and articles are shit. I see it very often, and the more delusional a person is, the worse the site design and content becomes while they tackle harder and harder keywords. Of course we fail early on, you know, until we get our heads on straight.

I know I won't be broke for long. This journey to freedom and financial independence isn't an easy one. But nothing worthwhile comes easy.

You won't be. I went to complete zero twice, and both times were fairly traumatic (I'm not being hyperbolic). The first time it happened I had just quit my job, gone full time, and moved to a new city. It's never a good time for everything to crash. I ended up cashing out my 401k from my day jobs to invest into the next venture, which lasted a few years before it tanked. Both times I was doing things I shouldn't have been doing (spam).

I see this game as being very simple now. Do it right, don't cheat or bend rules too far, keep the quality high enough but not so high you bog down in perfectionism, keep design and coding simple and minimalist, remove all friction from the workflow, close all loops possible so you don't have to think about them, and scale the best you can at what remains, whether that's content, links, PPC campaigns, etc.

 

[Bazooka]

This is pretty typical, I think, for a newer SEO. I don't know anyone who wasn't getting hit by updates at the start. That was me early on 10 and 15 years ago, it's you a few years ago, and it's newcomers today.

Getting hit was pretty de-motivating for me and opened my eyes to what the landscape is like.

I definitely agree with the balancing act of handling the profits. It's more of an art and scaling at a reasonable rate.

You won't be. I went to complete zero twice, and both times were fairly traumatic (I'm not being hyperbolic).

Going broke and the income going to zero caused me a lot of distress.

 

[makoloko]

Failure is the best teacher. Try, fail, learn. Repeat forever.

I haven't been financially broke, but I've faced other major problems that took years to fight through. This helped me develop a system, a philosophy.

Problems never stop. Use them as fuel for growth.

I'm currently being smashed by Google Updates. This has prompted me to learn about SEO and improve. I'll bounce back stronger.

Redundancy is key to survival. Multiple income sources + a big pile of cash to weather storms (like right now).