Introductions Thread

Greetings from Germany! You're definitely at the right place here.
I think you can call it a success if you manage to keep a profit with paid traffic.
Did you try to order your products in bulk to get a discount and optimize your ROI? And like you already mentioned you should focus on upsells and optimize your ads.
Did you consider to supplement your Ecom Site with a Blog to build an audience?
 
turtle said:
Greetings from Germany! You're definitely at the right place here.
I think you can call it a success if you manage to keep a profit with paid traffic.
Did you try to order your products in bulk to get a discount and optimize your ROI? And like you already mentioned you should focus on upsells and optimize your ads.
Did you consider to supplement your Ecom Site with a Blog to build an audience?
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Hi turtle,
yes I have tried to get discounts on bulk orders. Also I had to reorder inventory and where able to get a better price on the second order.

Unfortunately I think it will be very hard to build an audience for the ecommerce store. The product is mostly bought as a present for kids so most of my buyers are not the product users, also it's something that you likely don't order more than once.
However yes I want to build a blog anyway, not to build an audience but to target keywords with buyer intent which I hope to rank for.

Cheers
 
Just for what it's worth...people will spend lots on things that aren't for them (And in some cases, that the receivers can't even appreciate...) I've been pondering this lately, maybe it will inspire some ideas for your marketing if you can draw any parallels.

- Pets (Your dog doesn't care if it has a michael kors collar.)
- Funerals (I don't care what material my coffin is made out of, but my family might.)
- Weddings ('Once in a lifetime' so people go all out.)

When people spend a ton of cash on their kid's wedding, it's a gift to their kids. It's a one-time purchase. It's also an ego thing for the parents, I think.

"Your kids deserve..." is a powerful phrase.
 
Hello!

I've been around in the IM game for a few years, and started lurking BuSo a couple of months ago. I have to say BuSo is definitely one of the highest quality forums I've been to yet, and I've already gotten quite a bit out of the digital strategy and BuSo Lightning. I've been focusing mainly on SEO for the last four years, and it's about time I start working like a builder instead of an SEO.

So yeah, stepping out from the shadows. Nice to meet you all :cool:.
 
Hey mate, I'm Armidale NSW (a rural town 6 hours north of Sydney). I try to get down to Sydney as much as possible.
 
Nice to meet you, glad you decided to post with us.

What kind of stuff did you work on in the past 4 years? What's your background in SEO? Do you feel you have any strengths or weaknesses? And do you have an idea of what you want to work on in the near future?
 
Ryuzaki said:
Nice to meet you, glad you decided to post with us.

What kind of stuff did you work on in the past 4 years? What's your background in SEO? Do you feel you have any strengths or weaknesses? And do you have an idea of what you want to work on in the near future?
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I started off doing affiliate marketing with some standard BlackHatWorld methods (meatball's method to name one) to pay my way through the last two years of my engineering program.

From there, I began to reinvest my earnings to experiment with SEO strategies until I graduated in 2014. Learned a lot of blackhat stuff on the way, and I ranked for some pretty heavy terms like "Green Coffee Extract", "Anti Aging Cream", "Where to Buy Garcinia Cambogia" until Google manually cracked down on those niches. With all the changes we've seen since 2014, I've pretty much left the micro-offer game (sorry to my boys at AAO and Moreniche).

DIdn't earn as much as I could have there because I didn't want to link my traffic to scam offers with high payouts, even though diet pills are pretty much bunk in general. CCarter would probably call me out as a bleeding heart do-gooder for that one.

At some point, a couple of the players in my university entrepreneurship club heard that I did SEO, and began to offer me revsharing gigs which I did REALLY well with. I started getting referrals via word of mouth, and my extensive networking got me connected with a handful of NYC based startups which have standing $1k-$5k contracts with me.

I'm basically living off client SEO work now while building up my Filipino VA team and PBNs. I've also been buying content for a few competitive authority sites I started a year ago :wink:. Once I no longer have $30k of debts looming over my head, I plan on scaling up quite aggressively.

As for weaknesses? Most of my background is in sketchy but effective SEO short term tactics (e.g Why link prospect when I can just register the dead domain?), so I'm still learning the fundamentals of Whitehat SEO and Social. Since I've mostly done the ONLINE portion in seclusion, I have a pretty small network of contacts to actually reach out to for the sake of Guest Posting.

I'm also pretty terrible at design, so I plan on hitting up the boys at the B/S/T quite a bit in the near future.
 
jesus i'm late to the party! i was harrymouni over at wickedfire and looking for asylum here. didn't post much on WF but lurked there since 2006

so this is where everyone went! i'm into android apps now but need to buy links for a new site so asked on WF and was sent here, and it looks like the shit!

renewed my STM subscription as well and it seems pretty dead, this is where all the action is.

like my post so I can reply to marketplace link buying posts! cheers
 
Finally made the move.

Nuff said and I'm looking forward to it.

Now like this so I don't feel like such a noob.
 
Marc_L said:
Finally made the move.

Nuff said and I'm looking forward to it.

Now like this so I don't feel like such a noob.
Click to expand...

This ain't no cheap whorehouse where you get likes for nothing. Not even providing a decent intro.

Good luck here @Marc_L, but I doubt that it is going to help you.
 
Marc_L, Spam Master Plus!

What are you working on these days? Any personal projects?
 
aef50301d056b522f7d092eb9dbfcc25.jpg


After @Ryuzaki. **walks away in shame**
 
TacoCat said:
After @Ryuzaki. **walks away in shame**
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Haha, I don't know Marc_L other than having seen his name on other forums. I'm just trying to drag a real introduction out!

Marc_L, tell us a little something about yourself! Then we will bless you with the likes.
 
TacoCat said:
This ain't no cheap whorehouse where you get likes for nothing. Not even providing a decent intro.

Good luck here @Marc_L, but I doubt that it is going to help you.
Click to expand...
Haha. I guess I blew it.

Ryuzaki said:
Marc_L, Spam Master Plus!

What are you working on these days? Any personal projects?
Click to expand...
Hey Ryuzaki, I've always got something simmering in the spam lab. Testing, testing, and more testing.

I've been lurking for a while now and getting inspired for some new projects.

TacoCat said:
aef50301d056b522f7d092eb9dbfcc25.jpg


After @Ryuzaki. **walks away in shame**
Click to expand...
I assumed people would know me but since you didn't you blasted me which my low content intro deserved. Its all good.
 
Welcome to your new home.
Hoping to see a "The Subtle art of Spam" Guide from you
 
Hi All,

Like a few others I can see I've found you from Wickedfire. I've not been active for a good few years now and I could tell straight away when i returned that it is a shell of it's former self. Such a shame I owe a lot to that forum and to all of the members from there. I got my first paid jobs as a developer from people I met on WF and I credit a lot of my achievements to skills and tricks I gleaned from the many talented members on there. Anyway - where I am at...

I'm sorry if this seems very rough i'm just trying to give you a glimpse of what i've done and where I want to go next.


30/yo M living in the UK

Web developer / online marketing

Took my first paid job 10 years ago it was a static HTML website for a friend.

Fully self employed for ~5 years mainly building websites for SME's and bits of online marketing

Probably a 7/10 at coding

Built 50+ static websites for clients

Built 50+ wordpress websites for clients

Built ~20 bespoke wordpress themes from PSD subcontract for a designer

Built ecommerce sites on - Cubecart, Opencart, Wordpress E-Commerce and Woo Coomerce. Settled on Woo Commerce and launched ~15 projects for clients.

Done 6 months in house as a front end Dev - HTML, CSS, SASS, jQuery, Gulp.js, GIT etc.

Done one or two short contracts front end dev

Done one or two short contracts wordpress dev

.... Wordpress

Done some SEO but got frustrated at how fast it changes. Well versed in on site SEO. Off site not so much.

Experience with Indie fashion

Extensive experience with Social media.

ran an agency for a while (social media)

2014 - built an e-commerce store (clothing) on FB advertising spent £40k which I managed myself turned over £250k with a net profit of 30% between two of us.

2015 - market on FB saturated. Business on way down sold all assets moved on. Used money to start freelancing again but struggled to run a business on top of delivering a good product. Went in house for 6 months as a front end dev on £30k.

Left.

Work part time at a bed shop for which over the past 3 years I have built the online presence from nothing to #1 for all keywords for our city (medium / large city in the UK), 6,000+ FB followers, £500 - £1k FB ad spend, £500 - £1k adwords spend. For my 3 days I get £350 per week. This is my regular, reliable cash. I have tried and failed twice at freelancing full time it's too much stress. This is my 'bread and butter' living money and then the idea is that I spend the rest of my time on personal projects such as the e-commerce site.

Currently run 50/50 a new e-commerce website (clothing again). t/o £4-7k / mo with a net profit of 50% (between 2 of us). requires minimal effort. This is only 3/4 months in and have plans to grow.

Hopefully that gives you an insight to where I am currently at. As I mentioned I used to be very active on Wickedfire and other forums but work and life took over. At that point I was very much a n00b and I learned what I did and went off and did my own things. I've had successes and failures. Earned money, lost money, spent money..!

If i'm being honest it's taken me until now to have both the time and the money coming in to start looking at forums again. I want to build and monetize my own niche websites. Is that still a thing!? I wanted to do that before but I wasn't good enough and so I went off on the path i've outlined above. I'm back now and I'm hoping that this time around with the skills i've learned and with the modest amount of money i've got coming in now that I can make more of an impact. Not just for myself but of course hopefully to help others.

Again apologies for the rough format it's very hard and would take too long to get it all down properly.

I look forward to taking part hopefully I can be of value to some of you :tongue:
 
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Greyhat said:
I want to build and monetize my own niche websites. Is that still a thing!?
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Heck yeah it is. That's all I do. That's all a lot of us do, but of course there's building SaaS's, operating agencies, joining other people's operations, PPC, etc.

Some of our very own members have flipped their own niche sites from as low as $3,000 to $30,000 to over $1,000,000. It's still a very viable method but it's also very different than what it was too.

You have some incredible experience. I'm glad you've joined and hope you'll continue posting and sharing. Thanks for such a thorough introduction!
 
Thanks and i'm glad to be here. I've just been looking around and i'm feeling inspired already. I'll be spending a bit of time getting up to speed I think but you will hear more from me I can feel myself getting bitten by the bug :wink:
 
Great that you made the move away from WF Marc. Might not see a lot of fried spam here though :wink:
 
I'd recommend taking a run through the first 9 days of the Digital Strategy Crash Course. You're an obvious veteran who doesn't need to read how to perform certain work. But what those first 9 days are all about how to think about approaching a larger, long-term project. We point out the main things to consider to make sure you aren't shooting yourself in the foot before you start.

Beyond what you'll find there, I'd say to keep that clean slate clean. Don't get greedy with spammy links and PBN's and all of that. If you set yourself up to win in a vertical with plenty of cash flowing through it and then don't compromise the plan later with crap links, you WILL win if you persevere.
 
I've been around the scene and all the *other* forums for years, but I've never really gotten involved or shared any info since it always felt like I was stuck in a room full of teenage boys reeking of cheeto dust and axe. I'm glad that I stumbled upon BSO after deciding to get back into IM again, you guys seem like a serious group without all the immature antics.

As for the business side of things, I tend to drift in and out of building websites and SEO. By now I've gotten the process down pat when it comes to creating sites that bring in $X,XXX per month and I've also sold a couple sites in the $30K range. I'm joining BSO because I feel like I've hit a ceiling and I want to push past this limit by learning and sharing with like minded individuals.
 
Wow, I've been a member of this place for almost 2 years. The society has built itself nicely. Would love a like so I can get to posting in the rest of the forum!

Painful to admit but I've been a "spectator" in the game for 5 years. I don't have any internet properties that make me money. It's time to change that. I especially love the Digital Strategy Crash Course for that -- it's got me posting this and wanting to participate.

The first post I will make will be requesting advice on my strategy for launching a marketplace.
 
klix said:
Wow, I've been a member of this place for almost 2 years. The society has built itself nicely. Would love a like so I can get to posting in the rest of the forum!

Painful to admit but I've been a "spectator" in the game for 5 years. I don't have any internet properties that make me money. It's time to change that. I especially love the Digital Strategy Crash Course for that -- it's got me posting this and wanting to participate.

The first post I will make will be requesting advice on my strategy for launching a marketplace.
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I've been there. Before I launched my first project I was a spectator of IM for a few years as well. The best advice I can give is to start now and see where it goes.

If you've been a good spectator you have to have a good approximate understanding of what works and what doesn't.

Start TODAY! Don't overthink it, be persistent and after you take the plunge, you WILL find yourself on the winning end. Even if the WIN for you is that you understand that IM isn't for you.
 
If you've spectated that long, I suspect (and of course it's an assumption and no offense is meant!) that there might be an element of fear or possibly too much pressure due to black and white thinking. The authoritarian style of thinking says "My first go has to be the perfect attempt that make me a millionaire" and that's a lot of pressure.

Regardless if any of that is true, I'd allow myself to "play" for the first time with no pressure. I'd start a micro-niche site that is small and contained in terms of scope so it doesn't feel overwhelming and can actually end. I'd go through the whole process of building a small brand, designing a site, writing content, building links, and then selling it. All the way through to liquidation with no pressure, but serious work.

That's a good way to get a full perspective and reset the brain.

I'm glad you're posting! Looking forward to seeing what plans you have for that marketplace.
 
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