My first 10 days - fear, excitement, success and failure.
So, the first 10 days have gone by and here are some quick notes about them... I'll be documenting my progress here at WA to be able to look back at my though process as I'm building, and also maybe it can also help some new starters.
Things which happened over the first 10 days:
1. Decision to just focus on Wealthy Affiliate
I'm an Information Junkie, I get excited on consuming information and on wanting to know all that's happening around me... the bad side of this? I get to lose focus quite easily. So as a first step on Joining WA I unsubscribed from most of the emails/blogs which were coming into my email and made the decision to get all (most) of my business building/marketing info through WA. This meant letting go some very good blogs with valuable info... however they were just a distraction.
Decision 1: FOCUS
2. Going premium
As a followup to point 1, once I saw that the info on WA is very good and in depth I decided to go Premium. This is a commitment to use the info and the courses on here. I'm paying so I need to make use of this info otherwise it would just be a waste of money. It's amazing how once you pay for something you give it so much more value. Since going premium it has been easier to daily spend some time reading through WA. It wasn't always productive, sometimes it was just randomly going from post to post, but at least I have set my home.
Decision 2: Go premium and commit yourself.. Go for it! :)
3. Setting my goals
As part of one of the Lessons in Course 1 we had to set our goals... 10 day goal, 30 day goal, 3 month goal, 6 month goal and 1 year goal (could be I added a few of these myself - I don't really recall). It was extremely difficult to write these down. Had (and still don't really have) no idea what to expect and what's realistic. However writing it down helped me to set some benchmark. Once I wrote them down I saved them into Evernote so that I can refer to them from time to time and measure progress.
Decision 3: Set goals (even if they are not realistic)
4. First 10 day goals
My first 10 day goals were quite simple, however I still managed to miss them by 2 days. I knew that the first few days would be just discovering and learning my way through here so I simply committed myself that in the first 10 days I would: (1) Focus on WA (2) Choose a niche (3) Build first website.
I managed to successfully Focus mostly on resources on WA - SUCCESS... however I failed on the second goal... and it's funny as I had my niche in mine since probably day 3 however all the "What if" questions kept me back from going ahead. On day 12 I committed to my niche (2 days late) and built my first website. This fear of choosing the wrong niche was quite strong, and somehow it is still there, however I am now at ease with the fact that yes, this might not be the right niche and in that case this will be an opportunity to learn and experiment and then be ready for the next project to be a success.
Decision 4: Don't think too much a bout it
5. Next steps
So now that I've selected my niche and built my website I'm ready to go back to the lessons on focus on moving ahead, hopefully at a faster pace.
Is your experience as a WA starter similar?
Would love to hear your views on this.
Looking forward to continue building, to turn this into a business and... to my first sale! :)
see you
Matt
Recent Comments
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My first 10+ days was somewhat similar. I joined because it was very clearly written and didn't make any promises except this: If you work hard, do the lessons and ask for help anytime you need it success can be yours. That statement is not verbatim but this is what I got from the intro. I have been trying to figure out the best title of my domain name cause I know my niche and it is in the Health area. I want to combine Herbs and Spices with health issues. I personally have issues with feet pain and have found a certain herb to help give some comfort to them during the day as I walk alot. I tried to find the best keywords for this but not having a great deal of success. Can you give me any advise on this? Nice meeting you Matt and welcome to WA community.
The training is great if followed bit by bit.
About your niche I think it might be a good idea to get clearer on what problem you're trying to solve and for what audience. Some questions you might want to ask yourself:
- is it a generic topic about how herbs and spices can by used as a health remedy? --> might be too broad of an area to start off with
- Should you focus on 1 particular herb and all it's uses? --> not sure if it's too narrow
- focus on just foot pain and the different herbs and treatment you can use? --> might be good
I'm obviously no expert in your area and definitely don't fall within your target audience :)
Some other things to keep in mind:
- can you come up quickly with 10-20 article titles? you'll probably need to write 2 blogs per week for the next 6 months and so the chosen niche has to have good potential for variety
- are you happy spending a certain amount of time per week on the chosen topic?
- put yourself in the shoes of your target audience... what do they want to look for? What do you look for when wanting more info on the topic?
That can give you some ideas on topics to write about and niche to focus on!
Good luck on this adventure! and feel free to get back to me if you need more help or just to let me know how's it going :)
good week
Matt
Thanks for the help Matt. I started looking into Post Partum Depression. When I had my first child and two pregnancies after, I had sadness most of the time until I sought help from a natural health practitioner. The need to use info along these lines I wanted to help other mothers who might have had the same problem. I know it isn't specific yet, I am trying to narrow it down. I hope to add pages like feet pain and its natural cures in the next weeks or so also. I did word search and phrases but not too clear what the numbers mean. I thank you for the help with focusing on and narrowing down to specifics. I will keep trying.
I think that's a very good niche... in there you have
(a) a specific target audience... new mums and pregnant women
(b) a wide enough topic to write a lot while at the same time being specific
So probably your niche would be something like "how to deal with Post Partum depression using natural remedies" or "how to treat postpartum depression naturally" or maybe removing the "depression" part and deal with "Post pregnancy" in general and natural remedies to get back to "normal" life after pregnancy.
You have a number of options there :)
Keep pushing