A new blog, a new challenge

After being far from the online business world for approximately one year, I’m back with new plans and higher goals.

If you don’t know my story, I’ve started to look into various ways of making money online a few years ago.

At first, it was nothing serious, and I was only looking for ways to earn some additional pocket money.

One of my first ways of making money online was through Google Adsense, during the high-school period.

I made some money with this platform, but eventually, Google Adsense has changed a few terms and the niche of my site I had back then, was banned from the Adsense accepted sites.

I have abandoned that website and started to search deeper for ways of making money from home.

After a few failed attempts and a few wasted years trying to find my call, I’ve discovered affiliate marketing.

Even though I’ve heard about affiliate marketing for some time before, I did not give it a try until in 2015.

After more than a year of struggles, I started a blog and finally had some success by promoting a few programs and services as an affiliate.

I made some money, and I also lost money by buying different courses, “investing” in high-risk business models, creating websites and not doing anything with them, I spent money on paid traffic that didn’t get me any results, and things like that.

I was not consistent, I didn’t have a well-made plan, I didn’t build an email list, and I fell prey to the “shiny object syndrome,” jumping from one thing to another.

In short, I did almost everything wrong.

Now, after about one year of pause and after an extended period of analyzing my past mistakes, I’ve decided to start my internet marketing journey again.

I’m pretty confident that I now have enough knowledge to make this work.

The difference between then and now is that now I know exactly what I want to achieve and how to get there.

Now that I’ve “tried” many ways of earning money online (a nicer way to say that “I failed in many ways”), I’ve finally decided the path I want to follow.

I’m now determined to stop jumping from one thing to another, and I plan to make a long-term commitment to (drum rolls) … BLOGGING.

But what? Isn’t blogging dead?

Even if we are in 2017, blogging is more popular than ever. People will always need information and where can they find this information for free if not on blogs, youtube, and forums?

There are different categories of people who like to consume the content in various shapes. Some individuals like reading, while others prefer watching a video.

Even nowadays, blogs are one of the most looked-for sources of free information.

Honestly, I think blogging will never die.

Therefore, blogging is going to become my primary focus and affiliate marketing will be the primary way to monetize my blog’s traffic.

I know, easier said than done.

I’m going to document my entire journey in an ongoing case study that will be updated once a week.

In this case study, I will reveal everything I do: struggles, strategies, obstacles, and happy moments.

Before starting, let me motivate my choice and get a few things straight.

Why Blogging?

After analyzing my options, I’ve decided that the best choice in my case would be blogging in a niche that I already know something about: “blogging and affiliate marketing”.

I had successfully promoted products and services as an affiliate before and I think this would be my best niche to work with.

Since I also have experience in working as a web designer and programmer, I also know to write about WordPress, website creation, SEO, blogging, optimizing website speed, etc. So, I’ll have many subjects to write about.

Another reason is because blogging is almost free.

Besides the price of a domain name and a web hosting package, for starting a blog, you don’t have to spend a fortune on anything else.

There are also many other benefits of having a blog.

Will I start from scratch?

Yes, I will start my blog entirely from scratch and document everything along the way in a long case study.

I will also share with you the tools and what services I use, explaining exactly why I use them and the purpose of everything.

I don’t have an email list, YouTube subscribers, followers on the social media and so on. I will start everything from scratch.

Am I a copywriter or a good writer?

Absolutely not. I’m far from being a good writer or someone with copywriting experience.

In fact, English is not even my primary language.

I was born in Romania and I still live there. Therefore, the Romanian language is my first language, but I will write everything in English.

It’s not going to be easy, but hopefully, my English will become better through practice.

We are in 2017, isn’t hard to get free traffic using SEO and the search engines?

Indeed, it’s harder than in the past to get traffic from search engines.

The search engines have changed their algorithms a lot, and it’s not that easy anymore to get your website in the first search results, especially when you are in a high-competitive niche.

In fact, I know for sure that it’s going to be extremely hard to drive organic traffic to my blog from the search engines in the chosen niche.

Hopefully, my past SEO experience will help me and give me an advantage.

Why did I choose the “blogging and affiliate marketing” as my primary topic?

Even though I know, it’s a fierce competition in this niche, that’s something I already know to write about.

I wouldn’t recommend you to start in this niche or one of the other niches with a massive competition.

If you are good at something, you have a hobby, a job in a field that you are good at and you enjoy writing about it, go for that.

You can make money with almost any niche out there.

Do I have any guarantees that I’ll be able to make this blog successfully?

Short answer, NO!

I don’t expect to make money with this blog at any time soon.

A blog is a long time commitment. It takes a lot of dedication and time to write the content. It also takes time to optimize the content for the search engines, to build backlinks, to do keyword research for your posts, and so on.

When do you estimate you’ll start making money?

I have no idea.

In fact, I have absolutely no guarantees that I will ever make, so this might as well be a “how to fail at making a successful blog” case study.

As I already mentioned above, a blog isn’t something that will make you rich overnight.

If you are looking for a fast way to make money online, do not put your hopes in a blog.

It might take months, or it might take years to make money with a blog.

What I know is that I will put all my efforts into this making this blog successful.

Why should I follow your case study?

Well, nobody can force you to follow my progress.

However, since I will share for free the strategies that work for me, I see no reasons why not to follow me.

I’m not a marketing guru or anywhere close to that, but I had some good results in the past using blogging and SEO.

I’m not entirely new to marketing, SEO, and ranking websites in search engines.

If you are a person who is just starting out, you might find some valuable tips in my posts and my case study.

There’s no reason to follow me if you are already a millionaire, so …

What’s next?

In the next series of posts, I will try to cover everything about starting a blog.

I’m going to explain what has determined me to start a blog and why I think blogging is one of the best ways for someone to begin an online business.

I will also try to cover every aspect of blogging. From choosing a domain name, to how to create a blog, how to optimize your blog for search engines, and the best ways to promote your blog.

At the same time, I’m going to keep you updated on my blogging challenge and the progress with my blog, in an ongoing case study.

So let’s get started!