How long have you been trying to build your online business?
This topic contains 29 replies, has 11 voices, and was last updated by 
Leslie Leftley 6 years, 9 months ago.
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I’m curious.
How long have you been trying to build your online business?
Don’t be shy.
None of us would be here if everything was going swimmingly. 😉
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy
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Replies
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Sort of since Sept 1998 – but at first my website was simply a place to promote my members (freelance writers) by providing profiles and a way for editors/clients to submit what skills or specialties they needed. Then gradually I added a password-protected membership area in order to post job listings, the PDF edition of our monthly print newsletter, and other info. Because we sponsored an annual writing contest, I added a page listing contests (naturally, including our own and our guidelines/entry form) in order to bring interested visitors to our site. That was it until a couple years ago when I added a membership site to help make the adding of members a bit less hands-on. The idea is to take the original site back to its original intent of promoting our members – with a more robust membership site for the members. So it never stops, does it?
Need anything written or edited?
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Dana, what’s the URL of your current website?
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
https://www.writers-editors.com/ is the original one
Need anything written or edited?
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Is that the same one you’re using now?
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
Yes, it’s still going, Bruce. It’s an old HTML site, which I will be updating to WordPress and using it to promote our members and their services to editors and clients. That was its original intent, but after I added a Members area, it became a dual-purpose site so not as easy to promote. Am gradually moving features and members to the new “Members” site at http://writerseditorsnetwork.com/blog/
Need anything written or edited?
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The new site looks nice, Dana.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy
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I have had an online business since 1997 building website, but only worked one on one with clients so really more of a job I created for myself, perfect because I had 5 children to look after. As they are now grown I have a different goal for myself.
I am now looking at a new business model (started 1 month ago) and using my existing knowledge it is ecommerce so learning about retail has been interesting.
I am also looking at a second business but are trying to decided if I should do this and the setup of it? Only time will tell, maybe I will ask this group what they think 🙂All things Digital
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Tina, it sounds like you have a lot to teach us.
When Sean makes it possible to write posts for this forum, I suggest that you write one that traces all the different methods you have used to date to get visitors to your website.
Can’t wait to see what you have to say. 😉
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
I will do that. I am in the middle of a product set up but will sit down next week and put something together 🙂
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Hi Tina,
There’s now a Post Anything part of the forum.
When you get a chance, can you reread this part of the thread, and then write a post that describes your experience?
Bruce
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
What’s the URL of your IM website, Tina?
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy
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Screwing Around for a While
Hi Bruce,
I’ve been screwing around with this for a long time now.
I built my first site in the late 90’s, got a small amount of traffic coming in, and sold the site.
I’ve done that several times over the years… amazingly enough I never built much of an email list.
At one point, I did have a list from eBay buyers, a little over 3,500 of them, but I grew pretty tired of that gig.
So, I’ve been screwing around with this for a long time, but only in the last few months, have decided to really buckle down and build a real business.
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Roger, why the wanderlust?
What have you been looking for in each of these “businesses” that hasn’t been there?
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
What is the URL of your website, Roger?
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy
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Hi Bruce,
Well I made a modest income from selling physical used books on Amazon from around 2007. The economic crash along with several other adverse factors started to erod my profits around 2010. But the profits continued to be useful until around 2012. At that time I started to look for other projects to replace the lost book income and eventually replace it altogether.
But I never followed through on these other projects, and I cashed in a couple of smaller pensions to finance the purchase of scores of BSOs, and not all cheap ones I can assure you. To mention everything I looked at doing online would take forever, but I never stuck with any of them. I always managed to find an excuse as to why they would not work.Then procrastination would set in until the next BSO came along.
For the last 3 years I have become more serious in my search for online success, and the last year absolutely serious, as my book income is now negligible. I have no more pensions or savings on which to call upon, so I have to knuckle down, and build slow, due to my tight financial budget.
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Hi Les,
Here’s my suggestion.
You won’t like it.
Look for a part-time job that pays enough to keep the wolf from the door.
This will do two things.
One is that it will keep you from stressing about money.
When you worry about that sort of thing, it can interfere with your ability to concentrate.
For some, knowing that you’ll be hanged in the morning concentrates the mind wonderfully. 😉
But for others, it causes paralysis.
The second thing it will do is force you to have a schedule.
Working for yourself requires a lot of personal discipline.
If you lose that discipline, then sometimes the best thing that can happen to you is to be in a position where you have to conform to someone else’s.
I don’t know if downsizing is possible for you, but that’s another way to reduce your expenses.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
Hi Les,
What’s the URL of your IM website?
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
Bruce,
As you are well aware from other communications I have had with you, that I don’t yet have a website and/or URL.
But this will change in the not too far distant future.
I continue to look for a part time job, but getting one is extremely difficult, if nigh impossible, due to other circumstances.
I have to somehow force a way through and it’s bloody difficult.
And we can’t downsize, we (my wife and I) live in rented property for which we pay well below the market value for rent.
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Sorry to hear of your struggles, Les.
Let me know if I can help.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy1 user thanked author for this post.
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Hi Bruce,
I appreciate that. You are a kind and generous soul. But a lot of what I have to do must be initiated and followed through by me. Something I have failed to do consistently in the past.
But I do appreciate you are always there to give guidance and advice. I’m not sure PreneurPal deserves you as a member to be honest.
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I would say it’s probably been a dozen years. If I knew then what I know now. . .
I’m getting better, though, and I’m making strides. I’m in a way better place now than I was when I first started.
It’s kind of a double-edged sword. Back in the day, we didn’t have the cutting-edge resources we have today. By the same token, the competition wasn’t nearly as fierce.
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Bob,
I hear all the time about how fierce the competition is.
Sean may disagree with me, and I’d be interested in his comments, but I think that it’s a bunch of baloney.
Why?
Because more people aren’t connected to the Internet than who are.
Now you could argue that the people who aren’t connected live in third world countries, and you’d be right, but you’d be amazed at how many mobile phones, for example, people own in these countries.
If you own a smartphone, then an internet connection is possible.
And what language are these people learning?
English.
Where I do think that things are saturated is in the kinds of solutions that are available and the marketing methods that are used.
There doesn’t seem to be much innovation there.
And there’s a good reason for that, too.
It’s because everyone is copying everyone else.
You’re an English teacher, so you know what good writing looks like.
You also know that a lot of books are published every day; maybe more than ever.
If there ever was a place where the competition is fierce, then it’s in the book trade.
So why are there still bestsellers from authors that no one ever heard of?
It’s because those people produced something that all the other authors didn’t.
Good marketing has a lot to do with it; but if you market junk, it still won’t be a bestseller.
My point is that you have to focus on creating something that is better than what anyone else has done.
(Where have we heard that before?)
But better doesn’t necessarily mean bigger, or more of the same.
Rather, it means that it solves the problems that people are having better than what’s currently available.
Is this hard?
Absolutely.
If it was easy, everyone would be doing it.
And that’s the problem.
Everyone is doing what’s easy.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy2 users thanked author for this post.
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I started in the late 90’s selling Specialty Merchandise Corporation (SMC) products on eBay. That was before PayPal, we used to receive checks through the mail.
Then I started building minisites/affiliate sites, then authority sites in the get your ex back niche, and then got into product creation.
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I started Internet Marketing in 2010, when I and a lot of my other friends got introduced to a company in India that started paying $10 for every 20 min survey I took. It got pretty famous, and the government shut it down, stating that it is a bogus company.
All of my friends gave up, but it got me thinking, “if this doesn’t work, is there any other way to really make money online?”
Then, I spent a lot of money learning this, and that. In 2013, I got an offer in a university in Germany to do my Masters in Robotics, and I have to slow down all my efforts. However, I did not stop everything. Finally, in 2014, I used everything I learned in 4 years to create gigs. After 6 months, I was a level 2 seller. After 4 years working online and spending almost $2000 to learn various stuff, I made my first $1000. Even though I loved it, I was always attracted to the idea of blogging. I started to create a PLR membership site.
Then, in 2015, I had to stop everything because of my internship and thesis. I barely had any time left. I had to focus all my energy and time for doing my internship and thesis, so as to finish my master thesis. Those were difficult times… sleeping for less than 6 hours a day, working out every day, having only $25/week to spend on food (in a country like Germany, that’s awfully less).
In 2016, I found a job that pays me well, but I still have to travel and work a lot. Now that I have enough money, I am trying to finally create a blog that can someday convert into a full-time income.
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Kind of hard to imagine that if you’re being paid $30/hr to complete surveys that it’s bogus. That’s more money than a lot of people make doing so-called legitimate jobs.
And a Masters in Robotics. Wow! Clever boy.
One thing you may not realize is that because you’re making a good living, it may be harder to commit yourself to the effort that will be required to succeed as an entrepreneur, whether it’s online of off.
That’s because people who do whatever it takes believe from their core that their situation is intolerable; that they have to change because they’re sick and tired of the way things are.
So I’m not telling you to stop. I want you to succeed, as do all of us.
All I’m saying is that you will have to dig a bit deeper to find a compelling reason to take it more seriously.
Why not set yourself a target?
Someday will never arrive.
Why not decided that by this time next year, you’ll be there?
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
I had run a custom/commercial software business since 1986. So, after a college professor showed me a browser in action, it was only natural that I started looking at how to get a site up. My programming assistant put his commercial site up in 1996 or ’97 after we decided to learn HTML. I sort of put up a practice site in 1995. Then launched a real commercial site in 1999. It promoted auditing for electrical power companies. Here is the archived version from 2001:
http://web.archive.org/web/20011128190651/http://www.isauditandanalysis.com:80/
Brings back some great memories…
My money maker was launched in 2001, promoting me as a health expert:
http://web.archive.org/web/20020604142352/http://www.drmarkrhodes.com:80/
and the artistically reworked version that got 3x the traffic for some reason:
http://web.archive.org/web/20050209030001/http://www.drmarkrhodes.com:80/
Anyway, I’m doing a COMPLETE rework now, aiming toward a membership model and not one-on-one coaching except for my bigger doctor coaching.
Mark
All About Health And Healing
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Huh. Don’t ask!
2011 sounds about right. That would be the year I first typed “How can I make money online?” into the search engines.I’m kind of a slow learner (also easily distracted), so it’s taken me that long to accept that there’s no push-button solution, learn what internet marketing truly is, and stay the course to completion. (In my defense, in the process, I’ve also been parenting 3 kids, as well as working my “day job”. And social work is not exactly the type of job you can just leave your job at the door at the day’s end.)
Now, how long have I wanted to work for myself, via the computer? Forever…First, it was writing, and thinking that I could earn enough money writing to just earn a nice living solely off that. (So far, I’ve been sadly deluded. What I’ve made writing freelance novels and magazine articles, and greeting cards I made and sold online, could pay about 2 months of my house note in total.)
Then I learned about the IM world.
For better or for worse, it’s become my passion to eventually make it work.
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I’ll join the fray on this one 🙂
I started in 2006
wrote a time management ebook and had the guts to believe I could sell it and make a living!
I sold maybe 300 units at $16.95 and quickly realized I couldn’t live on it – but was hooked after my first sale!
(I actually had been hooked by selling in magazines and classified ads when I was maybe 17, but never could pull it off. Sold diet pills in college by running ads in the thrifty nickel then making home deliveries).
So for me, the internet was a natural progression . . the only difference is the “ads” were online . . and of course I found “ads” in the form of ezinearticles: Ezinearticles Sean Mize
So I figured out how to do it and . . .scaled and scaled . . .got to as many as 1000 articles a month for a few months (those were expensive months).
Now here’s a food for thought . . what is a current medium that can be exploited like ezinearticles?
Quora (look for me there, dabbling)
Client Cynthia Leighton has been pushing it over there as well.
Is it finding people with big followings on instagram and youtube and buying a shout out to their lists?
Or is it something new that is just coming online . . . where you can participate and advertise?
What is YOUR ezinearticles?
Sean
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Sean
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I’d like to think that PreneurPal is the next big platform – for all of us. 😉
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy
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