Back To Building (And thanks for the support)
A quick follow-up after my last check-in.
First off, thanks to everyone who reached out, commented, messaged, or simply read and understood. That post wasn’t easy to write, but it did what I needed it to do: helped me mark the moment, make sense of it, and move through it.
Now I’m moving forward—with intention.
I’m taking the weekend to reset. Clean the desk. Clear out some clutter. Maybe even get a new plant.
More importantly, I’ve recommitted to the work.
Not in a hustle-until-I-drop kind of way, but in that calm, focused way solo builders understand—the kind where you double down not out of urgency, but from a place of clarity.
Life threw a few things my way recently, but the core is still solid. The projects are still here. The plans are still in motion. And my energy is back where it needs to be.
So I’m checking back in to say: I’m good. I’m building. And I appreciate this space and the people in it more than I can say.
Onward.
P.S. For those who know about my niche site—it hasn’t been updated in a wee while, but traffic’s still steadily growing, just from SEO. 170 clicks over the past 28 days. No sales yet.
I’ve also got another project in the works: I’m building digital products that’ll eventually be listed on Etsy. It’s a faster-moving income stream I’m developing to help replace some of the freelance work that dried up during the downturn.
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Recent Comments
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Good to see you back with new energy and a clear plan. Life does tend to be a bit of a rollercoaster ride. Give your doggies a hug from me.
I can sure relate to this. I thought about giving up for a day or two to relax after what I went through today. I spent an hour and a half tweaking one of my posts with a more catchy First line and with my affiliate link at the bottom of the page. I tried to take my affiliate link from my profile and it just would not work after I pasted it. FINALLY, I copied my affiliate link from my wealthy affiliates section, pasted it AND IT WORKED. Now I am happy and ready to continue on tomorrow. MAC.
Congrats on sticking with it, MAC. Hyperlinks can be such a pain, and writing intros? Way harder than most people expect.
The first line’s always the toughest for me too. I usually write it last - or at least leave editing it till the end—because it’s second only to the headline in grabbing attention. Next time you hit that wall, try pasting this into GPT or whatever AI tool you use:
“Create a journalistic-style standfirst for this blog post…”
Then paste in your content.
If it’s a longer post, break it into sections so it knows what’s what.
Here’s a quick example using your "Culture in Latin America, Digital Nomads and Bloggers" post:
"I was just another digital nomad looking for Wi-Fi and good coffee — until I got stuck on a
beach, invited into a stranger’s home, and didn’t leave for a month...”
Then just flow into what you already wrote.
As for affiliate links—yeah, maddening when they won’t behave. I’ve started keeping a swipe file with pre-built HTML snippets so I can just copy, paste, and move on.
Here’s one I was using on my last run of 10 informational blog posts that were to funnel traffic to the money post promoting water bowls for dogs.
< a href="link" id="water-bowls-click" class="highlight" target="_blank >
The ID is for Google Tag Manager so I can track clicks, and the class adds a button-style hover effect that I set up with CSS. The `target="_blank"` just opens it in a new tab.
When you're working with multipe links, tracking tags and style classes, it's definitely easier to have them ready to copy and paste.
Glad you got it sorted, but definitely, don't forget to step back and take a breather here and there.
👍 When it goes too long for an intro or doesn't quite nail it the first-time around, a follow up is to introduce copywriting...
"I would like it to be short and punchy - a quick scan read that sparks enough curiousity in the reader to feel they need to read this.
Take the approach of a professional copywriter turning the content into an editor to be proofed before publication. What would the standfirst be?"
I've seen me having to get it to kinda study the content. Like, from the content I'll paste below, tell me what the most important parts are for readers to takeaway. Then follow that up with, create an intro now based on the earlier instructions (journalistic and copywriter style blended) working in the most important parts.
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Good to hear that Robert, I can relate with you because life is hitting me hard a bit these few months but, the only thing we can do is just keep moving forward even if it is a little blurry. Anyway, I wish you all the best Robert.
wen
Thanks Wen, and that's it.... Chin up and keep going.