asia birdCan I Have A Do Over?
I just finished importing all of the blog posts I have written from my other failed blogging attempts into this blog. Why….you ask? Well, I want to start over. Nothing I have done online has been successful. Not a one. Either I just didn’t love the topics, or the content, or I just didn’t care that much about them anyway, or I got so fed up with messing with the stupid wordpress theme that I eventually gave up all together….Whatever the case, they’ve all gone the way of the dodo bird.
This is The Part Where We Look Back and Remember
Asia-Bird
Ah, my first blog. The memories….I started this blog because, I don’t know, everyone was starting blogs and it seemed like the thing to do. I think I had a blog before I had facebook. I put pictures up for my mom to see, and then she became motivated to start her won blog. I spent hours and hours learning html, php, and css so that I could make my theme look juuuuust right. When Zach died, it became my podium for which to address the sad masses. I think the sad masses watched the blog to make sure I didn’t post a suicide note. After that I stopped posting for a while, and then my mom made me promise to post more vacation pictures. It’s kind of a sad place to me now, but I can’t bring myself to take the site down.
At this point I was so into blogs that I built blogs for my brother, my sister, and my friend. I don’t think any of them logged into their brand, spanking new blogs more than once or twice. It was good practice, but at this point I was feeling a little burned out on building blogs, while at the same time, realized I could use them to make money. But how do I get a blog to make money, when the last think I want to do is build another blog? The solution, buy one on Flippa that somebody else already built!
MyBagPoint, KindlePop, and EasyGreenLivingGuide, were all sites that I purchased off of Flippa. They seemed like they were going to be the next best thing to sliced bread. Each site, had a pretty theme, content, products, affiliates and seo. It was a complete package. So, I might as well have taken out a match and burned all those pretty green bills on fire because I didn’t do a single thing with any of them.
I don’t care about the Kindle. I don’t own a Kindle. All those Google alerts that I set up just got deleted the minute they landed in my inbox, I didn’t even care to read them, let alone write about them. Besides, I was secretly waiting for the iPad (admit it, you were too) so I don’t even think my site had any relevance.
The Green niche, overwhelmed me completely. Do I write about Green paper towels, green cars, green food, green eggs and ham? So I didn’t write anything. At least it came with an ebook for me to sell (an ebook which I never even read), which I thought was great, until I realized that every other Green Something website was selling the exact same one.
As for MyBagPoint, well, I’m about the most un-girliest girl of all the girls. I don’t think I even own more than one bag, let alone a purse! I don’t know what I was thinking when I bought that site, did I really think I was going to spend hours searching for ANYTHING relevant to bags? Really? [insert forehead slap]
AbbieWarnock – another site I built for a friend. Ironically, this is the most successful website that I’ve ever built, except I don’t own it. Hmmm…maybe Abbie would let me put some Adsense on there! After all, I did build it for her for free.
I took a little break from blogs at this point, and I have to admit, I did not miss them. There was no love in my heart for blogging. But then I realized that I really needed to get something going with this online business idea or else, I’d have to get a …..dare I say it…..gasp…job!
I started learning more about keyword research, and micro niches, and bought a flurry of random domains.
WholeWheatHappiness and WholeGrainFoodSources- Never even put a site up, I bought the domain before my keyword research was conclusive. Smart, I know.
ArtDecoTableLamps – Another site that I bought. I thought $70 for a complete site was pretty good. Unfortunately, I think it was a scam, because I never actually received the site. Thanks WarriorForum people. I didn’t feel too bad about it though, because well, I don’t even think anybody wants an art deco table lamp. I wish I could say that I only bought that site because I was heavily sedated, or in the process of being unfrozen. But none of those things are true. I was just stupid.
Okay, well, at least I’ve learned a lesson here. I just just buy a money making machine of a website. There has to be some hands-on-ness to it.
TheSpanishFarm – This site was going to be it, the one that was both profitable and a passion of mine. I have been learning how to speak Spanish for a long time, and I can’t get enough of it. I love talking to people about learning spanish and I love speaking Spanish. I love all things Spanish. Spanish, Spanish Spanish. So because it was going to be the super, most awesome, best site ever. I had to get the theme just right. So I wrote a few articles and got some affiliate links up, and then I spent days and days and days…weeks even, messing around with the stupid wordpress theme that I was in love with. I eventually became disgusted at the sight of that website and moved on. Lesson learned here. The prettiness does’t have to be perfect. Good thing I bought up a backup domain for that website (SpanishMoo.com) – uugh.
KittyTravels – A few months later, I decided to follow along with with Caroline Middlebrook teaches, build a blog for adsense. I took my cat with me on a trip to Costa Rica, I learned a lot about flying with a cat on an airplane and taking a cat through customs, but as soon as I started article writing (which I again, hired a copywriter for) I immediately knew that I hated this project too. I didn’t care about telling people how to fly with their cat to another country. I’m not passionate about that, I can’t teach somebody that. All they have to do is type into Google: Fly with my cat to Costa Rica, and there is the answer. So, I’ve pretty much sworn off domains. I was frustrated and desperate and then my boyfriend told me about Eban Pagan.
Winglady
This has been my latest, and greatest project. After getting sucked into Eban Pagan’s Guru Blueprint Program, like a planet into a black hole, I took what I had learned and started to put it to practice. Don’t get me wrong here, I have a lotta love for Eban, I think he is brilliant, the material he teaches is good, but the bigger lesson has been watching him teach, and market his own products to me….which I buy, because I can’t help it. So from the nuggets I learned from Eban:
1. Pick a niche in the top 3 mega niches – check: relationships and dating
2. Refine niche – check: relationships and dating for guys
3. Refine niche further- check: dating and relationship training for guys to understand a woman from a woman’s perspective.
4. Okay, now what? WordPress or SwellCMS? Do I write blogs or do video blogs? Squeeze page or long form landing page? Ebook or training videos? Pen name or my own name – after all, I wouldn’t want my grandpa (who uses facebook daily? to read my advice for dating guys….awkward! Do I write my own content or outsource it?
So I try a little of both, find out, I don’t really want to write about all this stuff, I just know what I want it written about. Well, let’s try the copywriters….pay three for samples, pay one for a complete waste of time, aaaaand I’m back to square one, with holes in my pockets. I tell myself I can stick it out and just write one article day, but then instead spend all day researching and reading about relationships, and communication, and sociology of gender simply because I’m fascinated with it. I keep putting off writing my one blog a day, because I really do better when answering a direct question, so I clean the bathroom instead and then watch reruns of 24. This is going to take forever to get off the ground. Oh, by the way, did I mention that I paid $500 for that domain? Yeah. I know, I’m an idiot.
Saying Goodbye
And that’s where I am today. I’m not buying any more domains for a long time. If I start another website project, I’ll have to be with on of my existing domains. Probably this domain. I’ve now put all of the blog posts that I wrote myself on this site, and I’m publicly announcing the death of those other sites and starting over. I’m letting my old domains expire, except for maybe asia-bird.com and winglady.com. I’m done spending hours upon hours of theme fidgeting, and I’m done having copy written by somebody else that writes drivel. Instead I’ll write blog posts like these that really have no point, other than to get me to get in the habit of righting again. I’ll be writing the drivel thank you very much!
Goodbye failed blogs, I don’t think I’ll miss you much.
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