Should I Leave WA or Just Change My Approach?
Okay, so I may not actually leave WA (but I might), but I wanted to write a title that would get you interested. I am definitely at a crossroads now. I've got some thinking to do, as I need to consider which way to go next.
Some background...
You may or may not remember a month ago I wrote How Are My Sites Doing? What Should I Focus On?, in which I said that my niche sites had not earned me much money so I was going to focus on my Earn Money with Marcus website. But now I'm not so sure.
You may also remember how I had decided to really try to get into social media. But I've quickly lost enthusiasm for that. I don't think this is the fault of social media itself, but much more to do with me being unsure about continuing to work in the Make Money Online niche.
I go on social media and I've really got no interest in the whole money making and website niches. Bored with it, really bored with it now. A lot of people are either pushing scams (yawn), saying how great WA is (yawn yawn), or giving WordPress tips (yawn my head right off my shoulders).
I recently wrote an in-depth analysis of the SBI review of Wealthy Affiliate. My intention after doing that was to actually try out SBI for myself and write an honest review of that. I thought there was a 30 day free trial of SBI for WP, but they seem to have recently changed that. Now there is a 90-day money back guarrantee, but I'm just feeling unsure about really diving into it.
The problem...
I've got to a point recently where I currently don't feel any enthusiasm for working on my Earn Money with Marcus website. I don't want to write reviews of other products without trying them (because I've come to understand it's a lame way of doing it), but trying them out and writing full reviews potentially takes up a lot of time, and may cost some money.
I've grown tired of running a website that has the aim of showing other people how to make money online, when I haven't even yet earned enough money online myself. It seems rather fraudulent really, to be trying to show other people how to earn money online if I've not yet properly succeeded at it myself.
This is the one big flaw with the Bootcamp course. People are trying to make money telling other people how to make money before they have even made any money themselves. It's a bit like someone without a driving license trying to teach people how to drive, an overwight person giving diet advice, or a naked person trying to sell clothes.
The solution...?
So I'm left at a crossroads, wondering which way to go. Here some possible ideas for how I could proceed:
- Turn my failed Top Laptops Under 900 website into an authority website about laptops (there's probably money in this but it doesn't really interest me much).
- Start a new niche site about something I'm genuinely interested in
- Meditation, mindfulness, etc.
- Autistic spectrum, personality types, the mind, etc.
- Take a break from affiliate marketing for a while to do one of the following:
- Write articles for Textbroker
- Sell my skills on Fiverr
- Photoshop skills
- Music making skills
It's worth pointing out that I do have other part time work. I work 10 hours per week managing websites for a company, so that brings in some money and takes up some of each work day. That's actually my #1 priority because I like the people I work with and it pays reasonably well per hour, so anything else has to fit around that and not jeopardise that in any way.
So many possibilities...
It's actually liberating to have a total rethink of all of this, to consider all my options beyond any confines. I don't necessarily need to stay at WA, or stick with affiliate marketing. There are many different possible options open to me.
There is also the possiblity of a combination of approaches. For example, if I did manage to get some success doing Photshop gigs on Fiverr, I could also have a website about it which promotes my Fiverr gigs.
But it would actually be nice to be NOT doing stuff with websites. If I'm totally honest, I've never been particularly interested in websites in themselves. They've always just been a means to an end. I first started playing around with websites about 9 or 10 years ago, when I first started trying to make money online.
That's how I got into websites, as a possible way to make money online. It wasn't like I was interested in websites and then I tried to find out how to make money from them.
In fact, I'm not even necessarily that interested in technology really. Although I studied IT at college in the mid-to-late 90s, that was only because I couldn't think what else to do. I actually found most of it boring. I mean computers, they are like trains or planes. They are not really interesting in themselves. It's the places they can take you that are the fun part.
I suppose this is what makes WordPress so great. It makes it so easy to manage a website that most of the time you don't need to worry about anything too technical.
So I actually like the idea of doing something different when I'm not managing the websites for that company. Variety is the spice of life, after all...
Recent Comments
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Hey Marcus, The great thing is that you have so many different much needed and monetizable skills. You have some great options. Just try one or two at a time and see what you like more. I really like the comment that Rbobejr1960 made about maybe writing an ebook about teaching the basics of Photoshop (i don't know anything about using it) and selling that on a fresh new site. Just take some time and make the best decision for you. Wishing you good fortune!
Meditate more, you will find out what you want from life now, later you will see. Good luck:)
Great post, Marcus. It gives you a chance to re-evaluate your state of affairs. I hope you are able to make the best decision for YOU. Putting it on 'paper' helps - something about seeing it before your eyes.
Much success.
M
Hard decisions make for an easy life Marcus....Asking these now and getting some answers (they are inside you) can make things a lot nicer for you overall life...
So the thing to figure out I guess is what are the questions, and then, being completely honest, as it appears you are above, coming up with the answers.
That is the easy part...Now the hard part comes in. What decisions do you need to make to realize the outcomes that you are looking for. Real change is hard for most people...
If you DO make the decisions and have the tenacity to see them through, with all the discomfort they may being about (actually the whole process is a bit discomforting IMO) it can make a tremendous change for the better in all areas of your life, not just online efforts...
Best of luck, you are at a good age to do this. It can be done anytime (even me at this old man stage of lfe), but earlier is better, again IMO...
Cheers!
Dave : )
If I were in your situation, (and no I am not,) I would be looking at getting some expert advice. Not advice on how to make money, advice on what I really wanted to do and to be in life.
You have expressed interests in Music and Mindfulness and so I feel you are a creative, expressive person.
I am not a life coach or anything. I had some terrific help from a friend who works in that field some 15 years ago and it really made and makes a difference now.
I sincerely hope you find your direction and find that "job-satisfaction" again.
Marcus,
If you aren't passionate about your chosen niche, your time is being wasted. It becomes just any old job. This I have learned the hard way. Good luck.
Tracy
I myself because I am considering this. like the idea of selling your freelance skills on a website you own and have built. For several months, for example, I have been taking courses at Udemy gaining freelance skills in web development, logo design using Illustrator etc. Maybe develop a course in photoshop teaching folks the basics and writing an ebook and selling that on your site, Feature your designs, and Art produced with Photoshop on your site things like that sell yourself, not others products.
Look at W.A. this way the hosting services and the freedom to build up to 25 sites on domains you own plus 25 free sites you can experiment with. The cost per month is worth the price because of the freedom you have. Then add on top of it the guidance and knowledge you can gain and leverage. A cheap site at Bluehost which is an excellent hosting service but a site you can monetize is going to cost 180 plus a year so if you have two sites you have spent what W.A. costs for a years membership.
I see part of your answer in this part of what you've said
"Start a new niche site about something I'm genuinely interested in
Meditation, mindfulness, etc.
Autistic spectrum, personality types, the mind, etc.
[Computers] They are not really interesting in themselves. It's the places they can take you that are the fun part."
But it depends on how much passion you have, unless doing research into something that interests you can also earn you money. If you look at the other websites on these areas out there do you still want to go ahead, you know it takes a lot of work to keep posting content 3-5 times a week, and you nailed it on the head with the being interested part.
Looks like your skills give you good money for 10 hours, your current make money websites seem to bring in enough to cover your hosting fees and some extra expenses, personally I wonder at the amount of work fiverr takes to earn decent money - but only one way to find out. Sounds like none of the options available to you will trap you, there is a lot of freedom to try this or that and see if you enjoy it?
Good points, Mary. Thank you.
It's interesting you ask the question about the possible amount of work Fiverr takes to earn decent money. I suppose the same could be said for an affiliate niche site, at least in the first year or two until it becomes residual.
You could be right that the best approach may be to try a few different things and see how I get on. Maybe I should try setting up a few Fiverr gigs and writing a few articles for Textbroker and just see how that all works out.
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Sometimes in life what works for others doesn't work for us and vice versa. In a short space of time during my newbie first year online, I have realized that what makes my earlier life and career that when I am falling down I always be able to shoot up straight is the change of my approach that sometime in the eyes of certain people is like I am a "desperado". Too quick to make any change.
But when I fall back to my own learning about myself and world creation Owner, one or two things I have learned is truly a life reality check. No point blaming others as we are totally responsible for what we are. That is my kind of approach.
Yes, in my younger days I am blaming others more than blaming myself. I am too hot headed more than my too cool features. Then I learned to balance the action and many things in my life. It is sometimes not in the straight word of what "balance" meaning. In moments of good, bad, and ugly there is a certain beauty in every part of that attitude. It is how you apply those to the right direction in situation, moment, and the atmosphere you are currently at.
Since I started to learn and walk the online frontier, 3-5 times if I am not mistaken I deleted the whole website or tweak my media social approach that I thought everything already fine just 2 months ago. We can only plan and work the best but must always expect the unexpected about any unplanned outcome in bad or good.
I must be mad and angry when something that already accomplished is enduring this abandonment but the abandonment is like the saying of "Performance is temporary, the class is permanent". Since another opportunity just knocking my door, I take them with me for the sabbatical moment, work behind closed doors tinkering finding how to make every opportunity I have right now in one compact permanent class.
When I first started online, I told myself to give 2 years at the most find the right balance between the thin lines. Remember, my friend that imperfection flaw or loophole is the attribute of me and the rest of the world. It is all about finding the fine line of closing the gap and minimize those. Like any flaw in the system, during my banking career, I found myself the flaw and loophole, never I use the knowledge for the wrong reason but only for the right reason for the good things to help limitation on the system, operation, and working plan etc. It is for our survival sake too.
I am happy to be at WA and use the system that I know too well how Kyle and Carson work their socks off minimizing and closing the imperfection gap and to provide best and become top second to none (none the highest places that don't belong us).
Like me, not in the straight word of change this and that but have the flexibility and adaptability, my friend.
I respect whatever decision you take and wish only the best in any future venture you have decided. You did great online I can say.