Introductions Thread

[JasonSc]

I am rapidly approaching the 1 year mark since I joined Buso and realized I never formally introduced myself.

In all honest I joined Buso to get the free theme, it fit into what I was working on at the time, more on that in a minute.

My background before IM, was in the printing world. I have a degree in Graphic Arts Management, I sold commercial printing for 12 years. So if you ever have a question about printing hit me up.

I fell into IM by chance. I started on Warrior Forum, then end up on BHW and progressed from there. I was looking for the 4 hour work week, but never found it. I was like most people I suffered from shinny object syndrome. I think I have spent more money on IM products then I have made.

I spent a year smashing out Spam to rank. I had multiple instance of SER and ScrapeBx running. There is a good chance I spammed or attempted to spam your site. (sorry) Tip, get a dedicated server and split into different instances. You can create multiple VPS cheaper (typically)

2015 I was getting shinny syndrome fatigue, I settled in on mass page creation (MPC). I had a couple of early success and decided to strictly focus on MPC. I spent about 9 months building out MPC. Eventual, I got tired of having Google de-index my sites. After having over 400 sites de indexed, I pulled the plug and joined the work force again.

This was a really good experience for me, I learned how to cloak websites, got a better understanding about page speed (hence Buso Theme),learned about site scraping on scale and automation.

Currently, I am doing SEO for a company, which specializes in local search. I have been here for 7 months and have learned a lot. The most important thing I have learned is that I am trading hours for dollars and making someone else rich.

I am happy to be here at Buso. The people here have helped me realize that creating an authority is a much better long term play. While it might not get me to the 4 hour work week, hopefully, I can stop trading dollars for hours and making someone else rich.

 

[Astro]

I am just grabbing life by the balls right now! My life is all messed up: Running out of money, Job Changed, moved without my girlfriend, need a change, feel alone - you know, all the typical stuff. I'm really glad I found this site. Now, I'm not so alone. You guys (and girls) are my friends now.
Day 1 of the CRASH COURSE (I can't post links yet) was really well done. I look forward to more, and to getting to know the Active people here.
The comments are great too. I'd especially like to call out @RomesFall for posting the YouTube Links that inspire him. I had to get up and MAKE THINGS HAPPEN after watching.

(I can't post links yet):
>> Go see Comments in the Crash Course.

Anyone want to keep up with me, and hold me accountable?

 

[darkzerothree]

Hi there

My name is Philipp, from the middle of Europe.

Been around the AM/IM/SEO block a few times, but burnt out badly a few years ago (around the time of the black and white mass exodus).

Got a family and a steady job, but the itch never left.

Been rethinking my approach and ready to attack.

Working through the start of a huge project (bigger than what I attempted before) and looking / working through the 30 day guide.

WIll probly open a journal, too.

Good to be here, hope to be of some help where I can.

 

[Ryuzaki]

Welcome, Philipp of Middle Europe. Behold all of these successes, for they too shall be yours.

(around the time of the black and white mass exodus).

That time... has made this game so easy. There very little competition, and most of that gives up before making any real money. There's no better time to get into Internet Marketing than right now.

 

[tufSosa]

Hi guys, I'd like to introduce myself. I'm a 22 year old college student who is a 100% complete newbie when it comes to making websites, monetizing them, pretty much everything.
I have a decent amount of time on my hands and am highly motivated to learn. The digital strategy crash course is unbelievable. The fact that it's given away for free blows my mind, but it's much appreciated.

Anyway, I'm in the choosing a niche/ keyword research process.

Thanks for reading!

 

[darkzerothree]

Thanks for the welcome.

Yeah, for me, it wasn't really the monochrome animals that did it ... more like the perfect storm of things tanking left and right, a good job offer, and another kid on the way.

 

[Ryuzaki]

Let us know once you decide what path you're going to go down. Consider starting a journal / case study in the Laboratory for support. Welcome to the winning team!

 

[propipper]

Congrats for starting your path in IM.

The one thing to keep in the back of your head is that learning is good (and there is a lot of good information on this forum) but don't get bogged down with theory, taking the shotgun approach to making money (where you're so excited to get started you half ass a bunch of different methods) rather than really digging in, seeing your method through, learning from it, adjusting as necessary and scaling up (or out if it didn't work).

Good luck mate. Keep us posted.

 

[Blackthorne]

Hey Tuf,
I was once where you are now. And that was less than 3 years ago.
I now make more money than I ever thought possible, and I'm still learning.
My tips to you:

• Hang onto the student mindset.
• Stay hungry.
• Take action.

And you will be successful.

-----

Hey builders,

I've been hanging around in the Proper PBN group for 2 years.

With the help of the people there, my income has grown from almost nothing, to around $15k a month on average.

It's a nice sum, but I'd like to scale it up more. Should be doable, considering I consider myself to be an intermediate SEO. So plenty of room for my skills to grow.

My site was recently hit in the february update. I got good advice from an SEO big boy, who shall remain unnamed. He told me to build some brand/url anchor backlinks, to even out my backlinke profile.

My site is now recovering. Despite the fact that it is doing less traffic than it used to, it is still sending just as much traffic to Amazon as it used to. Looks like Google has cut some crap traffic and given me well converting traffic instead. I'm very happy with the way I responded to my hit so far. It has led to a swift recovery.

But I only have a single main money maker site. It's not safe. I want more sites. And I want to flip a bunch, too. Cashing out is a good way of making sure you'll hang onto your profits. I'd like to be able to take new sites to doing $10k a month as fast as possible. And then flip'em for $250k a pop.

I'm dead serious about this business. I want to hang out with fellow SEOs who are also dead serious. I want to help newbies to gain success. Because others have helped me as well when I was a newbie. I want to do good with the money I make. Bought my mom a new kitchen last year. I want to send her on a vacation to Vienna as well.

I believe in paying it forward. Do you guys, too?

Sincerely,
Blackthorne

-----

@James664

I'm sure you mean september 2016 (you wrote 2017).

But if it's only been a few months, then how much time is each bin on your histogram? A week?

If you're doing 12,500 uniques per week in a few months, then I'm impressed. I'll be following you.

 

[tufSosa]

Hey Tuf,
I was once where you are now. And that was less than 3 years ago.
I now make more money than I ever thought possible, and I'm still learning.
My tips to you:

• Hang onto the student mindset.
• Stay hungry.
• Take action.

And you will be successful.

Thanks Blackthorne. I decided I want to do this right. So although I said I was on keyword research above, it was just me playing around. I plan on choosing my niche and vertical today.

 

[rich]

Welcome @Blackthorne!

Thanks for sharing your story - awesome to hear

I agree with paying it forward is crucial. It helped me get to where I am, without those people it would have taken me infinitely longer. From a more selfish point of view, I love sharing my knowledge, resources and money to help people!

He told me to build some brand/url anchor backlinks, to even out my backlinke profile.

Out of interest, what type of links did you build here?

Cheers

 

[Blackthorne]

There are PBN links. I kinda had to take action right there and then. Although I'd prefer to switch to more whitehat, since my cashcow is yielding significant revenue and I want to protect it.

I will start new sites. I've got outreach down now. And the new sites will gain more real links from outreach/guestposting, etc.

-----

A small amount of work each day, can have huge results in the long run. I've witnessed this firsthand.

Just keep going at it. You won't regret it.

 

[tufSosa]

I just finished niche research. It's harder than I thought. Launch date for my first ever site is still scheduled for the 24rth though. I'm up for the challenge haha.

 

[Ryuzaki]

I'm dead serious about this business. I want to hang out with fellow SEOs who are also dead serious.

You have found the right place! Welcome to the team.

Bought my mom a new kitchen last year. I want to send her on a vacation to Vienna as well.

Hell yeah. This is a huge part of my "Why" I do this. Congrats on your success and being able to share it.

Although I'd prefer to switch to more whitehat, since my cashcow is yielding significant revenue and I want to protect it.

I would recommend funneling some of your cash flow into a project that is completely white hat. No PBN is safe. Make tons of cash while you're able but definitely position yourself so that if everything falls apart there's still a white hat site that's earning and has a huge foundation that you can grow with.

Eventually, like me, you'll get sick of starting over. The entire purpose of Black Hat link-building methods should be considered a stepping stone to doing it right. It takes 10 seconds to drop some PBN links and 1 microsecond for Google to ruin you for it, meanwhile you spent months and years building up the site itself. It's a lot of wasted effort over taking short cuts.

Good luck. Catch you around the forum!

 

[Blackthorne]

We are in agreement.

I am planning a new project that is a lot more whitehat than my current one. I like to start it up with some strong pbn links. But less than I have now. It will be much lower risk.

But I will definitely focus more and more on outreach. With humongous cashflow, you can do super white hat projects. I need to crack that $25k a month.

 

[Calamari]

Hey @Blackthorne welcome to the forum. I love the fact that you bought your Mom a new kitchen and want to continue to pay it forward.

 

[nigeb]

Hey @Blackthorne, thanks for sharing your story.

A couple of my blogs got a slap in the recent update too. I didn't think the links were that risky, so just goes to show you never know what the Big G is gonna do.

Good luck getting to your monthly goal in 2017

 

[GrindingTo10K]

Hey @Blackthorne nice to meet you and it looks like you have very similar goals to me (except I am earning $0 per month from my new authority site at the moment). I will be watching your posts in future.

Good luck reaching your goal in 2017.

 

[James664]

@James664

I'm sure you mean september 2016 (you wrote 2017).

But if it's only been a few months, then how much time is each bin on your histogram? A week?

If you're doing 12,500 uniques per week in a few months, then I'm impressed. I'll be following you.

Hey Blackthorne!

Yep, each bar represents a week!

I've just started doing some link-building and have bagged quite a few high DA links already! Exciting times ahead. I'm still sitting around 13k uniques a week although my revenues has increased from $1500 a month to over $3500 a month.

 

[Blackthorne]

Those results aren't bad for a single site, man. I would love to see you write down the rank plan for that particular site.

I want to emulate it.

-----

Thanks for all the kind words, all.

Keep in mind: nobody is ever where they want to be.

It doesn't matter where you are. Nose to the grindstone and keep pushing forward.

 

[rich]

Hey folks!

Here's my intro

I ran marketing for a startup based out of London (UK). We sold for 8 figures in 2015.

I'm now back, starting again. I founded my current company last April and we're currently at ~£20k/m, growing at about 20% each month.

My background is predominantly in AdWords, social (paid/organic) and offline channels. Looking forward to sharing with others and learning. My biggest challenge at the moment is getting back to grips with SEO. I haven't done it since like 2012 and things have changed massively.

It's exciting to get back to the nitty-gritty of things.

 

[Ryuzaki]

That's an amazing level of repeat success, and awesome growth. If you're ROI is as high as I think it is, then You Da Man!

Welcome aboard. I really need need to get my paid social game together. I'll syphon some of that knowledge off of you in exchange for some SEO info. Things have definitely changed a ton since 2012, let alone 2015 even.

Catch you around the forum.

 

[rich]

Thanks @Ryuzaki! Very humble compared to some of the guys in here, I'm sure.

Happy to help where I can

Thanks for the warm welcome. I haven't been on a forum since I got roasted on a skateboarding forum when I was like 12... Scarred for life.

 

[Dan Barron]

Just found this forum and already gaining a lot of insight. Hello to all. I have a small agency that does Local SEO, Lead Gen, and some affiliate stuff as well.

Always looking for any other places with great info (FB groups and the like) if anyone has any recommendations. As well as any link opportunities (for buying), networking, etc.

Looking forward to finding more info and hopefully contributing where I can.

Dan

 

[JasonM]

Hey guys and gals,

A long time lurker and recent signup here, just wanted to make a thread to introduce myself.

I've been involved with internet marketing since about 2011 on and off, and have been working for myself full time since October 2013.

Back in 2011/12 I was focused on Amazon associates stuff. I started out building product review sites for myself, and eventually started offering a service on WF to build starter sites of this type for people.

That was in summer of 2012 I believe, and I made enough money to buy my first car! ('08 Opel Corsa, yeah baby).

After that summer I started year 3 of my 4 year business degree. At the start of this year, a career guidance person told me I had to choose between the degree and my online business because there was a demanding internship/work place program I had to do that year.

I (foolishly) listened to her, and dropped internet marketing for almost a year while studying and doing an internship.

The internship was pretty miserable. I worked for a certain car rental company that had a well established internship program. It really gave me a taste of what corporate life would be like.. seeing how the corporate structure operated, with me at the bottom, then my assistant manager, then brand manager, then area manager, and so on.

I worked 10 hours per day Mon-Fri + 9-12 every second Saturday. My manager and assistant manager were pretty cool, it was just us in the branch. But overall the hours were long and the corporate nature of the business in general really bugged me.

They had this "intern of the year" competition. They made a big deal of it, and said that the winner would be offered a one year contract (after one more year of college to get the degree) to work at a branch in Southern California.

I'm from Ireland where it's always windy and cloudy. Socal seemed like a great experience, so I wanted it real bad.

I won "intern of the year". They had points for different things.. running a charity event on behalf of the company, maintaining a blog for their website, and silly things like that which weren't directly related to the job responsibilities.

So I was focusing on that stuff (as well as my 10 hour days.. did I mention I often only got like 10 mins for lunch?), while also trying to focus on the main priority they assigned: making additional sales when customers arrived to collect their car.

So I won the competition.. and then, they said, "sorry, your sales figures weren't good enough, so we can't offer you the socal contract".

So they designed the contest points to focus around certain things which I did.. and then said my sales weren't good enough.. which I could have focused on improving if I had known it was more important.

That left a BAD taste in my mouth.

I know not all corporate life is bad. But I was on the road to a general business management degree, and knew there was as good a chance that I get stuck in an awful company as a great one.

On the day that work placement ended I went to Switzerland to stay in hostels, hike, hang glide, meet people, and generally enjoy myself.

That trip was an amazing week. It made me realise two things..

1) I want to be able to go on a trip like this whenever I feel like it.
2) Screw my degree.

After I got home, I deferred my final year of college (never went back, and no longer of the opportunity to), and threw myself back into the internet marketing game head first.

I had about $2k to see me through. I started affiliate marketing with paid traffic (anyone else who does this knows that $2k is no where near enough to get started) and I learned a lot very quickly. Had some small successful campaigns, but ultimately ended up blowing my $2k.

So now I was living at home, dropped out of college, and totally broke while trying to launch a business that requires constant investment. Sheeeeeed.

I made a post on a private affiliate marketing forum talking about my experience and asked if anyone had some work for me to help out with.. I got really lucky here, someone did have work.

And that person was an extremely successful affiliate marketer, running TONS of Facebook traffic.

I started working on simple tasks for him in Jan 2014, and was slowly given more responsibility.

This sparked a wild ride through until about August 2014, where I went from very basic tasks to eventually being a FB media buyer with a commission deal for 50% of any profits I generated.

Summer of 2014 was nuts. For most of it, I was making $500-$2k/day, and I wasn't working that much. It was thanks to my 50% commission + the staggering amounts of traffic FB can send.

Late 2014 and into 2015 I was focused on just bits and pieces. I had made a lot of money, and was just experimenting with different areas.

Click arbitrage with buying traffic from native ad networks and monetizing a site with display ads caught my attention... It was a trending business model in 2015, and it was also similar to my FB experience.. buy traffic for a quick arbitrage profit, and move on.

Started on that in summer 2015. Took a lot of testing but we eventually figured it out and got profitable... then we scaled.

This is what I LOVE about paid traffic, the scale.

We were using Yahoo Gemini... which is a really ify network most of the time and very turbulent for us, but we did well with it. At the peak we were spending about $10k per day, with a 50-100% roi.

That was awesome, but it became difficult for us to be profitable in early 2016, and so we dropped the model.

After that I decided I had enough with arbitrage. It's so much fun when times are good..but you're not building an asset so when you stop working you stop making money. Plus, the wheels tend to fall off the whole operation for one of 1000 reasons frequently, so it's back to square one.

That's when I shifted my focus to long term assets.. authority sites.

Since then, that's what I've been focusing on.

Going back to my SEO roots. I had some catching up to do.. but I got there.

I also had made a lot of money which was available for investment to quicken things up for my new business model.

I focused on building systems. Niche/keyword research systems, content production systems, and guest post outreach systems.

I figured them out, and built them, and then started outsourcing and scaling them.

Now they run all by themselves with a small team I've assembled.

I have a few sites growing nicely with my systems.

My two focuses for 2017 (aside from managing my organic traffic growth systems):
1) I just launched a guest posting service (which I won't mention right now). I realised I had a perfect system for this for myself already.. so it was a good opportunity to offer it to others also. I hope to make a promotional thread in the marketplace here soon.

2) Get back into FB. Previously, I was doing all affiliate marketing.. but now, I want to do the type of advertising that leads to a longer term relationship with readers. Think digitialmarketer.com style. I'll do this under the brands of my authority sites, and hopefully eventually get to the stage where I can create infoproducts under these brands. Same as my SEO.. figure it out, systemise it, and outsource, then I'll move onto the next thing.

So that's my story! I typed a lot more than I had intended to when I started out...

But, there you have it!

Good to be here, thanks for reading.

Jason