I still remember when I ventured into the online sphere in other to join the crowd who wanted to make money online at that time.
That was precisely in 2009.
But I had no idea of anything or any strategies which i could leverage that would bring in the income I so much wanted online. I stumbled upon different types of ways to make fast money online. I tried HYIPS, click to pay surveys, fake referral sites and the rest of those time-wasting websites out there. But still, I didn’t make a dime online into my pocket. Funny enough, it took me 3 years to make my first money online.
This was after I’ve gone through these mistakes I’m about to reveal here.
So in this post I’ll be focusing on those mistakes I made and how I was quite able to overturn myself around into making a substantial amount of money online later.
Below are the mistakes. . .
1. I Didn’t Treat My Business like a Business
As a business owner, you decide the time you wake up from sleep, the hours you’d end up working, the days you’d work. You can even decide on going on an unannounced holiday.
This was the reason my business tanked with procrastination.
Instead of delegating and doing stuffs which needed to be done at specific time of the day, I was busy enjoying the freedom of having a business with no boss to order you around.
It was really fun . . . I overly enjoyed it.
But what was the result of my incessant unseriousness and multiple procrastinations?
Zero blog subscribes, 0 earnings, 20 readers per month, and the list goes on.
This kept on happening until I decided to snap out of it (this was after listening to some serious advice from a problogger.)
I changed the whole steps of my business.
I woke up early to write up posts for guest post and also posts for my blog and my clients. I interacted with blog owners and tried to be friends and help out as much as possible.
I commented on blogs and wrote up outstanding posts on my blog in other to build backlinks to my site.
All these things I kept on doing till today. . .
What was the end result of my action??
Bloggers started linking back to my articles, because I first linked to theirs.
I became quite popular in the blogosphere.
Google started sending in more search traffic my way, because I was busy and tediously building links to my blog through blog commenting and submitting guest post to numerous sites.
Apart from that, my writing skill increased overly well to the extent that I could churn blog post of 600 words in 40 minutes. That is an increment on part because I remembered I’d write a single blog post for 4 days.
But let me take you back the original story here.
If I didn’t decide to start taking blog as a real business, then the results I got could have been lost in the winds.
So strive to take your blog or any business you’re currently the CEO of as a “business”.
Nobody will do it for you.
Not even the gurus you look up to. There must be a fire of seriousness in you and your business online before people will start taking you serious.
So be serious with your business and let serious money roll in on end.
2. I Didn’t Want to Learn
It was a weird fact which I clearly couldn’t understand.
I still kept on doing things that weren’t working out, hoping that they would eventually work out on the long run. But they just didn’t pan out no matter how much I kept on reiterating those strategies I found online.
For example, when I eventually into the world of blogging, I was doing what every nick and harry was doing then. I’d write up a post and pray earnestly for a top blogger online to tweet it to his huge followers.
But that which I wanted NEVER happened.
I later came across a post on SmartpassiveIncome.com.
That blog post opened my eyes to the possibility of building a site that’ll be a resource in the future.
At that profound moment I knew the importance of reading, learning and applying strategies in the blogosphere.
I came to this understanding – these gurus write up blog contents in other to help us grow a blog like their own.
Having realised what I was missing, I started reading.
I saw and read tons of SEO articles, strategies, and a lot of information which I could have used on my blog to get a better ranking.
I kept on applying those strategies until I developed deep understanding of some of those strategies. Of course people immediately started coming to me to teach them what I knew. I became the go-to guy for that particular topic.
But remember, I didn’t become the go-to guy right out of the blues.
I worked for it.
I read, scrammed, had sleepless nights, and applied the strategies on my blog that I saw were working for others.
Nevertheless, if you start reading and really start applying the strategies you find to work for others; then you’d definitely go far among the crowd of people who don’t read.
3. I Had No Mentor for Guidance
Just like what a wise once said, “For you to be a reference someday, you must have references you point people to too”. That’s the logic behind it all. Isaac Newton once said, “If I’ve gone ahead in life, it’s because I’ve been privileged to stand on the shoulders of people who have gone ahead in life.”
That was one of the vital things I was missing online when I started.
That was why I went into the wrong approaches like doing paid to read mails, paid per clicks ,referral and the rest of those stuffs which I clearly didn’t know wouldn’t work.
So later, I found a guru online who have archived internet fame and was earning big bucks online. All I could think of then was that I want to be like this guy.
I immediately started reading his blog and even subscribed to his email updates . . . And that was how I started.
So if you’re a blogger, or someone who just entered the internet sphere and want to make money. Then find and align yourself with someone who has really gone ahead on the topic you want to venture into.
If you’re aiming of been a guru in the writing field, then searching and attaching yourself to gurus like Onibalusi Bamidele, Daniel Scocco etc is a good way to start. Because these individual are gurus in that field ands each of them all have a story to tell about how they start blogging.
Read them and apply and follow the same strategies which they also applied and you’d achieve success in due time.
4. Chasing Money First Before Adding Value
This also was my one of my plight then.
I didn’t realize earlier that people online were only looking at what’s in it for them.
So because of my ignorance on that area, I did the wrong stuffs which I mentioned above.
If you own a blog; probably you just started a brand new site and you really want to go far with it, then make sure that you blog for people and try to solve their numerous problems first. Try and solve those problems first, rather than focusing more on finding ways to get money first.
From my recent study of people who make money online, I’ve come to this spectacular conclusion that those people first started finding and solving problems first, then money started rolling in later.
Just like what Darren Rowse once said,
“Don’t blog for money first, blog for your readers and the whole money you’d ever want will come knocking on your door.”
So blog for readers first and money will surely come.
If you’ve really read this post to this length, I just want to say thank you.
But it’s not just in reading, it’s in applying what is been read.
Therefore, if you’re interested and really want to make money online, then make sure you don’t repeat any of my mistakes.
Try and be unique. . . And always stay unique.
Thanks for reading . . .
